Who thinks Yes? Who thinks No? I think it's sufficiently distinct from either the Equipment and Techniques forums to warrant it's own forum.
YES As someone looking to buy a stringing machine after Christmas, there is not a lot of information here on machines and the subjet in general. We need more resources on this topic.
Q: do we have enough traffic to justify such a forum? and: Q: what would be scope of the forum? will it be stringing techniques only (ie. mainly for stringers to discuss stringing) ? or will it also include things like tension, or others? (where non-stringers can discuss stringing related issues) i ask the second question as we need to have a clean division between the proposed forum and the current Equipment forum.
I don't think we need a stringing forum but a stringing section on the left hand side would be nice, things like stringing techniques, stringing machine reviews, ect....
dunno, It feels as though we are getting more threads/posts about machines and how to string. Or maybe I only notice them more because I have a machine and do my own stringing now...
The stringing forum would be for discussion of stringing machines stringing techniques stringing tools where to buy machines/tools stringing patterns for different racquets tension, if it relates to how to string NOT for how tension affects playing badminton maybe not for how different stringing patterns affect racquet/string performance currently, these could be spread across the Equipment, Techniques and Marketplace forums Some stringing things I would leave in Marketplace e.g. Stringing Machine for Sale Where can I find a good stringer I see the Equipment forum as for anything on court/used at courtside during a game i.e. racquet,strings,shuttles,shoes,clothes,grip,sweat absorbing powder,etc how different strings perform would stay in the equipment forum
Although it might not have a lot of posts since there are relatively more players than stringers in the forum it would have a high view count because people want information on this topic. I can't string but I spend more money per year on string than anything else, I would love to know how to string a racket and more on machines and what affects tensions etc. I believe it would also have many more question based threads because folk like me would want to know things and would get the answers (hopefully) by asking the stringers questions.
My humble opinion is that: not many really interested in these "stringing" things. I believe to do a justice, we test the water by first do a "sticky": 1 If the participation is really high, we can always pull all those "sticky" to combine into an unified sinlge "Forum". The workload, forum space occupied, resources used and disruption will not be that much if small pariticipation in sticky doesn't work out. 2 If small participation in even "sticky", than we just cancel the sticky's status. No disruption at all to the whole Forum outlay. But if we set up a single Forum with low paritcipation,....
one strategy we can use is to create a forum for it, if we see little interests in it, we can move all the thread back into the equipment forum. however, i still have some reservation for creating a new forum like this. if there is indeed interests in a focus topic forum like stringing, a much better way to kick it off is for a small focus group to assemble a set of basic knowledge for the forum. the basic knowledge set should be used as the organized knowledge base for future discussions.
I believe the demand for stringing information isn't as strong as that for tournament video sharing, which clearly most members are interested in. I think the demand here is for a good solid collection of stringing knowledge that encompasses the basics. e.g. How do I start? What are the things to look out for? Tips from the pros? etc. Having our local stringing experts put something like this together would satisfy the call for stringing information just fine. (I'll volunteer to edit the pieces together into a coherent feature if that's needed ) Bottomline, I believe the test forum will likely have a low traffic rate/participation.
As I said earlier I would think the information input would be limited, what about a sticky or stickies with some articles about stringing with the rest of the information/discussion in the equipment forum? The problem is the amount of stringers and also most people would be using it to gain info so they could not really contribute much.
There are stringing forums out there already, and the ones I've seen seem to have a lot of membership, and active participation. Most are tennis stringers though but many of them do string badminton racquets as well if their clients provide them. I think it could be handy to have access to all the questions regarding stringing, tensions, and other relevant information all in one place. It might not be the most active forum but it sure would be used over and over again by the constant waves of new members and readers that come through here looking for answers to the same age old questions.
a forum would certainly make things alot more organized especially for newbies to this forum. im guessing stringing, tensioning, and its machinery take up to (at least) 10% of the equipment forum. it would be nice to have them all lumped up together. perhaps a sub-forum within the equipment forum itself... like how the coaching forum is. but im sure u can agree as to date we have loads more materials and threads that should be in the 'stringing forum' as compared to the coaching forum. just my opinion. thanks
i am not too sold on the sticky idea. as you may see, we have quite a few stickies in the equipment forum already. with a few more, we will see more stickies than threads in the equipment forum page...
Im looking at getting a machine after xmas and will need all the help i can get. Seems Dill and I are in the same boat.
I think it's time for a POLL!!! BTW, when the idea of a stringing forum comes to mind, I always thought of it as being a forum UNDER/WITHIN the BF/BC discussion forum. Not a separate website/entity. So some people call it a sub-forum, and others just another forum. In any case, I too think it would be a good idea to have it listed with all the other forums/sub-forums in the left hand table of links, probably under "Equipment".