Forums: The more the merrier?

[RoyN]

Is it just me or is this clutter of forums getting a bit annoying and making things harder to find rather that easier?

I mean I agree that Road Runner should be in its own forum but should ALL frontends? FreeDrive should well have its own forum, but stuff like Dragon's plugins that havent been updated in ages? No one even goes there? I posted a question and Dragon didnt see it until I pointed it out to him...Some other stuff is just so segmented that I can never find threads I remember being there... It was much easier (albeit slightly more cluttered) when the Software area was more of a general arena

OS forum is just so segmented and has 3 subforums.....Win 9x with a WHOPPING 3 threads... and Unix Optimization with ONEEEE thread.... isnt this overdoing it?

The support forums is also a bit over the top IMHO... I never know where to look for stuff.... the frontends forum should also maybe be merged...? Like Extinct frontends to have Mediacar, etc?

I dont mean to ***** but I tend to prefer less forums as it is easier to keep up with threads.

[kirbycope]

The "search" fuction will search all those sub catagories... so no you are wrong.

[RoyN]

I never said anyone had to agree with me so YOU are wrong...**** off...

I read a lot of posts, I like to see changes and new stuff at a glance... I used to go (usually) into OT, Software, Road Runner, NMC, FD, and OS forums... Now I have a bunch more to visit because of the OS ramifications and also the Software ramifications.... oh well.... maybe I should have posted this in OT...

[alti]

personally i think it makes it easier to find relevant info. The 98 forum is a great example, If I were using windows 98, I would not have to search through thousands of treads to find 3 likely old threads buried somewhere. And the some of the software would get lost lost if it just fell down the main software development forum.

It does seem hard to keep up with it sometimes though. I think once you get used the new new forums bing there it will be easier.

[RoyN]

I tend to agree with you, say if all frontends had to share a single forum... but in OS optimizations, having sub-forums burried in sub-sub-forums and etc makes it less efficient way of finding/posting ifnormation...

Like less ppl go into each level of a website... this is proven, even in the case of forums and such... you tend to lose off visitors, so if information can be condensed into a broader (without being unmanageable, of course) subject it becomes less of an effort... There is another post on here about another user complaining about too mny forums, and that is before this recent re-expansion....

I think forums should be granted/made on a NEED basis.... If many posts on that subject exists, it means an area for that discussion is in order... it shouldnt be created and then we all just hope sometime it gets filled up... examples of this:

Cross over apps -
--Girder: ONE post
--Meedio: THREE posts
--MCE: ONE post (over 1 week ago)

--Coders Corner: ONE post (5 days ago... this is a REALLY high traffic board... I bet in Software section such a post would have got at least mora than 70 views)

-- Other "cool" frontends (what does this even mean? I dunno cause there isnt anything in there)

I can totally live with this, but I'm just voicing an opinion that forums should be need-driven and not the need be forum-drive, if you understand what I mean... Another thing that can be done IMO is to remove some of the "unused" forums from view... namely Media Car, VOICES, and whatever isnt developed any longer into an "Old/Retired" forum...

[frodobaggins]

It's still in progress RoyN.
I'm still making my mind up on some of it.
You are welcome to make suggestions.

[Bugbyte]

I just do the "new posts" link and sort through by looking out to the right at which forum it's posted to. Sorting by forum post would be nice, though.

It would also be cool if you could set the results of the new post link to 100 or 500 like you can the threads. Then you could zip through it from top to bottom.

[turbocad6]

Quote: Originally Posted by Bugbyte

I just do the "new posts" link and sort through by looking out to the right at which forum it's posted to. Sorting by forum post would be nice, though.

It would also be cool if you could set the results of the new post link to 100 or 500 like you can the threads. Then you could zip through it from top to bottom.

you can do posts from last day, or last two days... to see everything that's changed.... alot more than just new posts... which will miss alot depending on how often you check it I think.... or does new posts show everything new since you checked it last??

[frodobaggins]

Some of the forums with just a few threads will likely also see a good bit of older theads I still haven't moved, and some new ones soon.

[xBrady]

My opinion (just my opinion) is that the new setup makes it easier to find stuff. If I'm lookng for something older I can just go through the sub forums and find it. If I'm just wanting to know what is new I go to new posts.

[Enforcer]

sounds about right

[Gobby]

I do the same as xBrady - New Posts for new stuff and if I'm after something specific I search.

[frodobaggins]

I filled up some of them with threads

[Bugbyte]

Quote: Originally Posted by turbocad6

you can do posts from last day, or last two days... to see everything that's changed.... alot more than just new posts... which will miss alot depending on how often you check it I think.... or does new posts show everything new since you checked it last??

Yah, forgot to mention that I do that as well. Get them for the last day or two days if I'm behind, and check them that way.

That's how I found the replies in this one

[0l33l]

I think that the Software forum has too many subforums.