Hey you. On The Pitch readers. Yes, all ten of you… I have a question.
Recent estimates point out that 17 million kids in America play soccer. I know parents of youth soccer players who can sit and talk for HOURS about youth soccer – in a good way. But there doesn’t seem to be a whole lot of online discussion going on related to youth soccer overall, especially at the younger and recreational levels. Part of that is obviously due to parents being more interested and involved as their kids move into travel teams, etc. Many state/regional soccer forums are active, though many will focus on a certain area like select/travel teams at the higher levels. But there aren’t that many generic ‘youth soccer’ discussion forums out there. BigSoccer has one, but posts to it are infrequent.
Considering how many parent questions I answer as a league administrator each season and how many Google referrals to On The Pitch are searches in the form of a question, it strikes me that there is a need. Part of the mission of On The Pitch is to discuss interesting questions and aspects of youth soccer, but posts I write are usually just about questions I find interesting. There are bound to be many others to start off some discussion.
So my question to you is this – is it worth setting up a forum dedicated to youth soccer at On The Pitch? Would you use it? If so, what topics do you think we should have forums for? I can think of a few. League Administration, Youth Officiating, Equipment, Travel, The Sidelines (talk about being a spectator), Fitness, Coaching, etc. Can you suggest any others? it would be fun to integrate the forum discussions into more formal blog posts and I’ve always been open to guest posters at OTP – that would be fun.
Implementing the forums would be fairly easy and they would integrate into the site (see http://plugins.baptiste.us and click Forums for another site where I have a small forum integrated into the main blog site) I would do something similar here. I realize forums can get out of hand so we’d monitor it and take care of users just causing trouble. But I’m just curious if there is even a need. It feels like there is given how popular youth soccer is and how many questions new parents have. But maybe I’m just looking for an excuse to setup nifty new site features 🙂
What do you think?
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March 28th, 2007 at 11:33 am
I wouldn’t use it, probably, but I suspect you could get users. However you should be prepared to put a hefty chunk of time in moderating the forum, both to make sure discussion stays civil and on topic, and to actually spark and stimulate discussion to begin with. If it grows fast enough you can probably recruit co-moderators from the ranks of the posters. But, it will require a lot of care and feeding in the early days, like a baby plant.
March 28th, 2007 at 11:48 am
Yes, I’ve run forums before and they can be an adventure. But I think it would be worth the time and effort to provide a useful resource if there were a true need. Perhaps regional forums are the way to go, still not sure.
March 29th, 2007 at 7:38 am
I think that a youth soccer forum would be a good idea. Not much out there now – but perhaps worth looking into – if you feel adventerous.
March 29th, 2007 at 7:55 am
Well I may give it a whirl – if it doesn’t get used – can always remove it. I’ve been working on a whole new theme for the site anyway, so perfect time to work something like forums into it.
Thoughts on initial forum topics?
March 29th, 2007 at 9:53 am
Don’t get me going…lol…parent conduct on the sidelines is a good one. But really, topics on favorite soccer activities (practices), favorite tournaments in the state to attend, soccer camp suggestions, what to do with your players over the summer (should you practice)…
I think that once the conversation gets going – things will drive itself.
March 29th, 2007 at 11:15 am
Well, we’ll see how it goes. I love NC-Soccer.net, but it definitely is a certain demographic (Classic 🙂 ) so we’ll see how it goes. First I have to get the new theme finalized. Fun fun!
March 29th, 2007 at 7:46 pm
I love the idea.
March 30th, 2007 at 8:13 pm
I think it’s a good idea – and I agree with you about the demographic at NC-Soccer. I’d love to see more discussion about Challenge and younger players.