Hi again,
In addition to the changes regarding the [link tbd]Manga & Light Novels section[/link tbd], we are also happy to announce that we'll be creating a few new forums and doing some additional re-organizing, particularly involving General Chat.
Here is what the new General Topics section will look like:
General Topics
General Chat
News & Politics
Sports & Entertainment
Science & Technology
Video Games
Tech Support
Forum & Site Feedback
Forum Support
In addition, I would like to announce that we're creating a new Visual Novels & Mobage forum in the "Anime Related Topics" section. This essentially means that the current "Games" section is being split in two, in accordance to how related it is to overall anime culture. Practically speaking, we will move the current Games section to become Video Games, and then move back the related threads for Visual Novels, Eroge, Ero-SLG/RPG games, and Japanese Mobage (i.e. Kancolle, Girlfriend (Beta), LL:SIF, etc.) to the new Visual Novels & Mobage section. Non-anime-related mobile games will go in the regular Video Games section. There will be redirect threads in both sections to reduce confusion during the transition.
For the General Chat "spin-off" forums, we will move any active threads to the relevant section as appropriate. Older threads will not be automatically locked, but they also may not be moved unless they become active again for a good reason and it makes sense to move them. In addition, certain "mega threads" about a given topic, like "News Stories" and "The Science & Technology News Thread" will no longer be kept as a single thread any more, but new threads can be freely-created about the new topics in the respective sections. (Please do keep in mind our usual rules about topic creation, and don't make pointless or duplicate threads.)
Below is a general explanation of what will go in each of the new forums. We are still fussing a little bit with the forum names, and are open to a better title if one is proposed that better-conveys the contents of the section.
General Chat
Discussion about miscellaneous non-anime-related topics that are not better suited for another forum.
News & Politics
Discussion about global current events, social and economic issues, and political parties and policies. Remain objective and avoid flamebait.
Sports & Entertainment
Discussion about sports, pop culture, the arts, and all non-anime-related media (TV shows, movies, books, graphic novels, etc.)
Science & Technology
Discussion about latest trends and developments in science and technology, including all aspects of medical research.
Video Games
Discussion about non-anime-related video games, including those for PCs, consoles, smartphone/tablets, and other technologies. (Visual Novels and Japanese Mobage are excluded.)
And in the Anime Related Topics section...
Visual Novels & Mobage
Discussion about visual novels, eroge, anime-related video games, and Japanese mobile/smartphone games ("mobage"). (PG-13 discussion only.)
Finally, to expand on what was alluded to above, I would like to mention that we will have a pretty strict moderation policy in the "News & Politics" forum in particular. While we do encourage healthy debate, some topics can become extremely heated, resulting in flamebait and personal attacks that are opposed to our rule about constructive posting. While the section won't be "invite-only", we will not hesitate to "evict" people who prove themselves incapable of reasonable, rational debate. Such behaviour can also result in infractions and bans. We will also ask that all new threads created about News/Current Event stories try to keep more of a neutral tone in the opening post, and leave the debate/commentary to the comments. Flammable and cyclic topics may be locked or deleted, per our forum rule; please avoid creating duplicate threads about locked topics without consulting with the staff first.
We look forward to your feedback about these new sections and hope that this will help to encourage the growth of the forum in new directions.
P.S. If you don't like the fact that the General Chat section is being split and still want to see all the General Chat threads in one view, here's a useful trick! Bookmark/Favourite this link. This will automatically compile all threads with recent posts in the last day from all threads from all the sub-forums in the General Topics section!