An idea that exceeded it's shelf life for a useful conversation.

I concur whole-heartedly. Maybe one for each service branch, plus one for law enforcement.

The problem that I would see with this is evident in another well-known armor forum site. It's so "specialized" into genres and sub-genres that it winds up drastically cutting the traffic to any one given subject. I think you're better off having larger, more inclusive forum because you never know who might click on a link out of sheer curiosity.

What I would do is to tell your shipbuilding buddies to use tags to "mark" their posts. That way you can bring them up in the search engine easier. :)

I'd agree.  A tag would be a nice way to find things.  If the auto forum was divided into American, Japanese, German, Etc....  sadly no one would ever get their models seen by anyone.  Very little at least.  I imagine the same thing would happen here.  Maybe a Civilian ship & Military Ship forum.  Likje the way the aircraft are arranged. Idk.

It also might be an Idea to label "Navy" of "IJN" as the first word of a ship's title in the forums.  That would be an easy way to see what's what.  It would be tough to get that out to everyone one so they remember though.

Thanks for the counter opinions. Since FSM hasn't made a move to try this, I suppose it's a safe call.

I wouldnt call it a total counter opinion.  You make valid point.   If they had two forums, one for civilian and one for military, I think that would be a good compromise.  

I have to agree .

 There are all kinds of military categories .There is no specific category for civilian stuff in all genres .

There are separate forums for military and civil aircraft, however.  The amount of civil ship traffic in the ships forum is so small I think a civil ship forum would not have much traffic.

I think the amount of traffic in the ship forum is so small in general that this is unnecessary. It would just create another sub-forum ghost town.

Maybe a sub-forums should be created within the threads. ie : Aircraft - break it down to several like WW1,  WW2 Allies, Lufftwaffe, Japan, Korea, Vietnam, Cold War, etc... well, you get the picture.

Well, this has taken on a life of it's own. My original question, to FSM, was whether they'd consider a US Navy forum. Something like 10 of the 50 most currently active threads in "ships" are US Navy, and I'm deliberately not counting 3 about the USS Constitution.

The more sub forums, the fewer posts, and less reason to even come back regularly to see what's going on. Or stay for 30 seconds and disappear after reading the one new post. It's nice to want to things, but I think this belongs in the dustbin along with 'Nautical Nook' for the magazine. FSM is a general interest modeling magazine, not one that tries to cater to every possible interest every issue. And the forums reflect that, too.

There are at least 2 major websites that exclusively cover plastic ship modeling. And they both have forums. What's wrong with going there when you feel the need to discuss something so specialized?

Because I don't care to, if you really want to know. I'm sure I'm a member of both by the way.

What a ridiculous comment.

If I have to dig back three pages past all of the non-topic stuff to find something that's a major topic, oh like World war II American aircraft carriers, it suggests that there could be improvement.

The very same thing happened about 5 years ago for civil aircraft.

Hardly ridiculous. Sorry FSM isn't your one stop modeling site. That's life.

Come now gents...  Suggestions are always welcome and should be treated with respect to those who bring them up and by other members who offer their input too.

Looks like it will probably stay the way it is.  I think Don's explanation is probably the best I have seen so far.  

Who knows, maybe if more traffic arrives on FSM the idea may have enough support to work.