How many non-mmo recruitment threads are there? Are you saying there are like 10+? 30+? 100+? Because honestly a small handful of 2 or 3 doesn't warrant a whole sub-section.
Sounds like the current team recruitment isn't as effective as hoped? I read a comment that it was pretty much dead, so we don't want to multiply that.
Maybe the team recruitment section needs to be moved to merchant zone. I mean, paid or not paid, its still "hiring" which fits merchant zone probably more than anywhere else. Then its not under MMO. Then you could just use thread tags, paid/unpaid, and what the recruting is for, mmo game or otherwise...
my thoughts anyway.
Nicely put. You're mirroring my concerns here - while there should be a better place to put non-MMO related recruitment threads, I'm unconvinced there's enough of a need to warrant a new section. It would likely end up reasonably dead on arrival.
I like the notion of updating a preexisting section to better fit these types of recruitment threads - would ideally solve the problem while avoiding unnecessarily creating an entire new section (i.e. forum; sub-forum may still be a reasonable option). I think this should be thought over carefully though.
Many of the recruitment threads I've encountered in Coders' paradise, while reasonably low in quantity, have had the right idea of targeting the Coders' Paradise audience. The threads make sense in that regard. If a brand new section were to be created, it would ideally gather attention from users that may be interested in joining a team.
The Merchant Zone poses a potential problem here, though. It's not as intuitive a place to look for a team as is the MMO team recruitment section, or the coders' paradise section. In those two sections, you can make a "project recruitment" thread, and you're likely
targeting the general audience you want to target, even if your thread doesn't quite fit in with all the guidelines.
If we opened up the Merchant Zone for broader team recruitment threads, I'd be worried that these threads would be very much ignored, or to put it differently, they just plain wouldn't reach the majority of their target audience.
"Why should I look at the Merchant Zone if I want to be recruited by or join a team?" is the hurdle that would need to be overcome, or else there's not even any point in opening up team recruitment in the Merchant Zone to begin with.
Coders' Paradise, MMO Team Recruitment, and even The Portfolio to some extent all seem like places where team recruitment makes some sense, outside of the fact that they don't quite fit into those sections right now.
Is there a way we can solve this to the benefit of teams looking to recruit, users interested in joining teams, and RZ not looking to create a dead-on-arrival forum section?