Unranked Arena (Remove or Merge)
 

Virtually no one other than absolute newcomers use the unranked arena. Virtually no one who goes looking for battles to vote on checks the unranked arena frequently. As a result, battles sometimes sit there for months. Don't believe me? Go to the unranked arena right now and you'll see there are battles still sitting open from the beginning of March. Since, as previously mentioned, it's mostly beginners who post there, that becomes their first impression of LetsBeef, a site where you might post your first battle and have to wait a month or two to get three votes and the battle closed.

I propose we should either get rid of the unranked arena, or merge it with the ranked arena. Getting rid of it would mean all battles will be ranked. Merging it means the option for unranked would still be available, but once the battle posts, it will show up in the ranked arena alongside ranked battles rather than being in a separate arena that people hardly check.

Doing this could potentially give us a boost in both battling and voting activity (about 15%) and may also help with new member retention, since they wouldn't be discouraged by the lack of votes.

Thoughts?

This came up a while ago iirc and nothing much came of it. The activity in that arena isn’t worth keeping it around.

I say remove it entirely. Yeah it’s a good way for newcomers to practice, but it gets completely ignored more often than not and they’d possibly be more discouraged if they won the battle and see it doesn’t necessarily count on their record anyway. I, personally, never used the unranked arena even as a noob and I know plenty others who never did either because outside of practice it really doesn’t serve a purpose anymore.

I don't think it's necessarily fair to force new members into ranked battles. As, this also could have the capacity to drive them off. Especially when battling people who are ranked much higher than them. I voted for merge because of this.

In my entire time on the site, I have never seen the unranked section utilized to a degree in which would merit keeping it around.

I used to see battles that have been open in there for months cause no one has looked, or cares to do an unranked battle.

Get rid, imo. It's basically clutter.

Get rid of them, I can confidently say nobody has ever taken them seriously even when I first joined the site.

The unranked arena serves well as practice grounds.

I voted for merge. Ideally the best thing would be a complete rework, but we both know certain people won’t make this happen. Due to this, I believe either a complete removal or merge is necessary. However, I did not vote for a complete deletion due to the usefulness of the feature. If we look at the usage patterns, it’s mostly people who just made their account that made it, or people that have a slow learning curve.

If this were to be taken away, hypothetically the newcomers might feel pressured to be into the ranked league. However, the biggest thing about the unranked league is it gives featherweight to middleweight a chance to practice without falling down on the leagues or battling people that just joined.

However, people that have been here for more than 5 minutes know no one actually gives a fuck about the ranks since they mean absolutely n o t h i n g.

We all said remove last time but X disagree and we kept it.

I'd say instead of removing it, turn it into something... maybe a tag team section of something. Rather than taking away from the site, add to it bu turning that section into something useful/that'll be used. Might not be tag team, but something along the lines of another battle format...
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