Here's my endless 2am rambling~
Looking back on when the forum was particularly active, I'd say multiple threads per season would not be a problem. With the decline in activity on the forum to only a handful of posters and users now along with recent anime trends, it really should come on a case by case basis now. This judgment may seem subjective but here's the logic:
To start, if a series is only taking a break of less than one cour (one season), it should simply continue in the same thread. This would help cater to more recent shows that are following this trend, including Fate/Zero, Asura Cryin', White Album, Shugo Chara!, Slayers Revolution/Evolution-R Shikabane Hime, etc... The reason being is that the series should generally still be fresh in most people's minds and most titles like these will directly continue as "episode 14" and such rather than "season 2 episode 1". Spoiling is also likely to be kept to a minimum since these series are often courteously numbered as such to prevent further confusion.
On the other hand, if a series has at least a one cour gap like Shakugan no Shana, Bakuman, Zero no Tsukaima, To Aru Majutsu no Index, Prince of Tennis, Bakemonogatari/Nisemonogatari etc... I think it's appropriate to split them. Even if they are direct sequels, the gap may be too large for some people to remember the previous series in its entirety. Furthermore, the likelihood of someone suddenly getting spoiled will likely be higher as these series tend to often be numbered as "episode 1" and onwards. The problem then lies in how does one differentiate between prequel and sequels for those with no clear numbering, in which case it's up to the viewer to look up this information and generally speaking not ours.
In my personal opinion, however, I don't see any harm in creating more threads. As said by Ausdoerrt, there's no real limitation on space and if there are multiple threads, mods can always merge them. Searching can be a pain, especially if a thread is buried somewhere but from what I've seen based on the activity here, once a series is finished, it's unlikely that anyone ever goes back to talk about/in it anyways. For example, the long Shuffle! thread that was around in 2006 is no longer being posted in. Similarly, without the recent movies of The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya or Fate/Stay Night Unlimited Blade Works, neither The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya or Fate/Stay Night threads would have have seen the light of day. Therefore, the only "trouble" I really see is if the mods are willing to not be lazy or it being too much of a burden to merge existing threads...of course this doesn't imply and shouldn't encourage that people should just spam new threads/posts without using the search feature first.
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However, putting the forum matter aside and focusing on what's more likely to be seen on the main site, I think the "issue" doesn't lie with the forum posts or how the threads are linked/made but rather if there could be some sort of indicator for prequel, sequel, etc... similar to what a lot of database sites do. It can be assumed that most people who visit this site know little to none Japanese. Furthermore and by human nature, most people are likely too lazy to look up the information of a series and therefore may not be sure when they're waltzing into a sequel or not only to then find themselves entirely spoiled or lost, especially if they're new to a series or anime in general. In turn, they "blame" us for not properly organizing/numbering the library and refuse to come here again. For example, this season's Zero no Tsukaima F, Nisemonogatari, or Aquarion EVOL or last fall's Last Exile ~Gin'yoku no Fam~ would be potential candidates since they don't see a "2" or something that indicates it's a sequel. Of course, the work put into this feature may actually outweigh the return...especially with simulcasts now becoming more predominant and the average anime viewer swaying to legal streams over fansubs. Therefore, we may very well already be limited to those who are knowledgeable about the titles we host anyways.
Another idea would be to somehow pin the first post of the threads, which usually contains the basic info for the series.
EDIT:
QUOTE Daft; if you could kindly improve your already existing FTV bot to create "official" threads from this point forth and link such threads to the corresponding anime series available on the website, that would make things a lot smoother.
If this were to be implemented, there should also be a way to regulate this such that duplicates would not be automatically created, e.g. Persona 4, Working!! Season 2, and High School DxD. There should also be ways to regulate specials and short OVAs that come out with the BDs/DVDs in case it is somehow mistreated as a "new series."
This strays from the main point of this thread, but long term wise, I don't see much that needs to be really changed on the main site at the moment except for some presentation clean up as we seem to have capped our audience for the most part. As more content becomes available through legal digital downloads and simulcast streams, the average need for fansubs decline and as a result, sitew such as this draw less traffic. Therefore, I think to benefit the community that utilizes the main site, we should help organize things a little bit as I did notice a number of things that seem to be out of place in the cataloging recently. While the following point seems obvious and trivial, I might as well express it anyways: the key to attract new people still "lurking" for fansubs on the web is to have a more impressive/organized library.
Looking back on when the forum was particularly active, I'd say multiple threads per season would not be a problem. With the decline in activity on the forum to only a handful of posters and users now along with recent anime trends, it really should come on a case by case basis now. This judgment may seem subjective but here's the logic:
To start, if a series is only taking a break of less than one cour (one season), it should simply continue in the same thread. This would help cater to more recent shows that are following this trend, including Fate/Zero, Asura Cryin', White Album, Shugo Chara!, Slayers Revolution/Evolution-R Shikabane Hime, etc... The reason being is that the series should generally still be fresh in most people's minds and most titles like these will directly continue as "episode 14" and such rather than "season 2 episode 1". Spoiling is also likely to be kept to a minimum since these series are often courteously numbered as such to prevent further confusion.
On the other hand, if a series has at least a one cour gap like Shakugan no Shana, Bakuman, Zero no Tsukaima, To Aru Majutsu no Index, Prince of Tennis, Bakemonogatari/Nisemonogatari etc... I think it's appropriate to split them. Even if they are direct sequels, the gap may be too large for some people to remember the previous series in its entirety. Furthermore, the likelihood of someone suddenly getting spoiled will likely be higher as these series tend to often be numbered as "episode 1" and onwards. The problem then lies in how does one differentiate between prequel and sequels for those with no clear numbering, in which case it's up to the viewer to look up this information and generally speaking not ours.
In my personal opinion, however, I don't see any harm in creating more threads. As said by Ausdoerrt, there's no real limitation on space and if there are multiple threads, mods can always merge them. Searching can be a pain, especially if a thread is buried somewhere but from what I've seen based on the activity here, once a series is finished, it's unlikely that anyone ever goes back to talk about/in it anyways. For example, the long Shuffle! thread that was around in 2006 is no longer being posted in. Similarly, without the recent movies of The Disappearance of Haruhi Suzumiya or Fate/Stay Night Unlimited Blade Works, neither The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya or Fate/Stay Night threads would have have seen the light of day. Therefore, the only "trouble" I really see is if the mods are willing to not be lazy or it being too much of a burden to merge existing threads...of course this doesn't imply and shouldn't encourage that people should just spam new threads/posts without using the search feature first.
------------------------------------
However, putting the forum matter aside and focusing on what's more likely to be seen on the main site, I think the "issue" doesn't lie with the forum posts or how the threads are linked/made but rather if there could be some sort of indicator for prequel, sequel, etc... similar to what a lot of database sites do. It can be assumed that most people who visit this site know little to none Japanese. Furthermore and by human nature, most people are likely too lazy to look up the information of a series and therefore may not be sure when they're waltzing into a sequel or not only to then find themselves entirely spoiled or lost, especially if they're new to a series or anime in general. In turn, they "blame" us for not properly organizing/numbering the library and refuse to come here again. For example, this season's Zero no Tsukaima F, Nisemonogatari, or Aquarion EVOL or last fall's Last Exile ~Gin'yoku no Fam~ would be potential candidates since they don't see a "2" or something that indicates it's a sequel. Of course, the work put into this feature may actually outweigh the return...especially with simulcasts now becoming more predominant and the average anime viewer swaying to legal streams over fansubs. Therefore, we may very well already be limited to those who are knowledgeable about the titles we host anyways.
Another idea would be to somehow pin the first post of the threads, which usually contains the basic info for the series.
EDIT:
QUOTE Daft; if you could kindly improve your already existing FTV bot to create "official" threads from this point forth and link such threads to the corresponding anime series available on the website, that would make things a lot smoother.
If this were to be implemented, there should also be a way to regulate this such that duplicates would not be automatically created, e.g. Persona 4, Working!! Season 2, and High School DxD. There should also be ways to regulate specials and short OVAs that come out with the BDs/DVDs in case it is somehow mistreated as a "new series."
This strays from the main point of this thread, but long term wise, I don't see much that needs to be really changed on the main site at the moment except for some presentation clean up as we seem to have capped our audience for the most part. As more content becomes available through legal digital downloads and simulcast streams, the average need for fansubs decline and as a result, sitew such as this draw less traffic. Therefore, I think to benefit the community that utilizes the main site, we should help organize things a little bit as I did notice a number of things that seem to be out of place in the cataloging recently. While the following point seems obvious and trivial, I might as well express it anyways: the key to attract new people still "lurking" for fansubs on the web is to have a more impressive/organized library.