Policy What Should We Do with the Lucasfilm Limited Forum?

Over the past week and change, MS has been engaged in an internal discussion regarding the proper approach to some of our lower traffic forums that had, over the course of staff attrition, fallen out of "proper" moderation status. Some we kept, one we merged into another forum, but a particular sticking point has been Lucasfilm Ltd. In-Depth Discussion, one of several movie boards.

The board has not been "very active" in the traditional sense for several years now, and obviously the notion of what it means to be a Lucasfilm Ltd. property is still evolving in uncertain ways now that Disney owns the production company. Consequently, when it came time to evaluate the forum, three options quickly became apparent:

1. Do Nothing - We keep the board as-is and appoint a staff member to cover the now quite long vacancy.


2. Expand - We keep the board but change the focus to encompass more topics; e.g. a dedicated Disney forum, an LFL+some other topic forum, etc.


3. Merge - We cease to distinguish between non-SW LFL properties and Amph-appropriate topics in Community, and direct all discussion of the former to the latter board.

Obviously each of these solutions has its ups and downs, so we decided we'd love to get some input from you, the users. What are your ideas for how to handle this forum? Which, if any, of the three options we came up with do you like? Is there a fourth possibility we've overlooked? We'll be taking any suggestions into consideration before we eventually go to a proper vote.

 

I vote to do nothing and keep it. LucasFilm still has quite a bit like the Indy series and as was said, they're still evolving under Disney and major news from them is likely to come sooner or later. I say keep it as is.

 

I wouldn't mind seeing it become a broader Disney forum. Amph feels pretty full as it is, so I think Lucasfilm topics would get buried over there.

 

a dedicated Disney forum,
-------

yes, yes YES!!!

after all Star Wars is Disney now.

 

I vote for option 2.

 

Burn it in the fires of a thousand Hells. Failing that, option 3.

(I just wanted to be a contrarian. )

 

#2.

 

Lumping Indiana Jones in with Snow White is probably a weird concept when you first think about it, but based on the situation, it's probably ultimately the best solution. #2 for me.

 

A broader Disney forum makes sense. I don't post in that forum but a broader Disney forum will cover LFL, The Disney Cartoons, Marvel in depth discussions etc...


Makes sense to broaden the parameters to me.

 

I vote we sell it to Disney.

 

We can always create some specific tags - Indy, Marvel, Animated - for example.

 

Indiana Jones and the Magic Kingdom?

With the announcement of Indiana Jones 5 traffic is going to be picking back up. You may not need to do anything for the next four years or so. I do however really love the idea of bringing Disney into the mix. There was already an Indy Disney relationship (Temple of the Forbidden Eye at Disneyland, Indiana Jones Stunt Spectacular at Disney World, the Indy rollercoaster at Disneyland Paris, etc) long before the LucasFilm sale so it's a natural progression to expanded the forum to encompass Disney. As other have mentioned I think broadening it to encompass Disney other interests such as Marvel would also be great.

Might I suggest for a board title:

Disney • Lucasfilm • Pixar • Marvel

It's all one big company so we might as well have one big forum for it. I think doing this would make it one of the more popular boards here in the JC, and it would be able to function without having to rely on new Indy content to boost traffic. A win win in my book.

 

I say keep it as is. If you want to add a Disney forum that works, but like Marvel, Pixar, etc. Lucasfilm is still its own company within that and I don't want to see the Lucasfilm topics bleed into the rest of the Disney stuff. A Disney section could work, with Lucasfilm being a separate subsection within (and maybe subforums for Pixar el all as well?). With Indy 5's announcement I definitely see traffic picking up in the Lucasfilm section again.

 

I think we should leave it as it is since Indy 5 is in the works. Also, many people are Lucas-philes here. If people want to talk about THX-1138, American Graffiti, etc., I think those discussions would get lost in and don't fit in the same context as discussions about Ant-man and Inside Out, which would be the case if it was expanded to all Disney.

I don't like the idea of expanding it, but if we do expand it, then I also think expanding it just to Disney is kind of arbitrary. So, we could talk about Spider-Man when he appears in Civil War, but not when he appears by himself in the next Sony Spider-man film? It's okay to talk about Marvel but not DC? Maybe it would better to simply open a film forum with subcategories -- Marvel, DC, Nolanverse, Trek, etc. Those categories have a lot more in common than Zootopia has to Ironman and Dr. Strange has to the new Disney Nature films (chimp, bear, etc).

I'd also add that as a practical matter expanding could cause problems. One of the concerns is that there's no one to staff the Lucasfilm forums as it is. Well, if it's expanded to all Disney that would require many more mods, especially Marvel films. Comic book fans argue about Marvel films almost as much as Star Wars fan argue.

 

We're actually aware of increased staffing requirements if the forum expands in some manner, so I don't think that's a point of necessary concern.

While we're still reading feedback here and taking it into consideration, we have appointed anakinfansince1983 and LAJ_FETT to act as mods since Indy 5 necessitated a quick appointment and they volunteered for the position.

 

I would like an Indy forum

 

Just a note that I added an Indy 5 prefix tag to the forum for the new film the other day. It's not in the header yet - I'll update that once we decide what's going on with the forum. I added the tag to the two Indy 5 threads already there.

 

I think expanding the forum to include all the other Disney properties with marvel and Pixar etc will be too much. If that's the preferred option then I'd like to see a separate Indy sub forum. Other than that keep it as it is.

 

I'd go for a cross between #1 & #2 - keep the LFL-specific forum much as it is, but with an obvious focus on the Indy franchise to increase traffic. The prefix tag is an excellent start - perhaps change the forum title to something like Indiana Jones / Lucasfilm Ltd, and even add an Indy banner (which it used to have way back, when Crystal Skull was current).

I don't see any reason to go beyond that and add Disney to the mix. They're the studio which now owns LFL (as opposed to just distributing it, as 20th Century Fox did), but they didn't used to, and the rest of their properties don't really relate to TFN as a whole, which is a Star Wars site. Chuck the Marvel franchise in there and it'll most likely bury any discussions about smaller LFL productions, perhaps even pushing Indy to the side.

 

Where's the option to put one in the back of its head a la the Expanded Universe?

That.

(Or merge)

 

I'd say we go for Option 2

 

Interesting question... a Disney thread could be interesting, I'm not really into there films besides Marvel though.

 

Make it Disney with tags. Move all the MCU threads there. It doesn't relive amph of superheroes entirely, but it does take a decent chunk.