Discussion Thread for new Community Forum Structure

[#1]

We don't all use the unread posts function James, as you well know.

[#2]

There is only one answer IMO - scrap the child boards and reduce the number of sections.
Shouldn't be too troublesome - you only have to look at the figures to see which ones are 'earning their keep' so to speak.
We might start with RoundCube and Ironport which could be ditched.
Computers and Hardware could be all bundled together under one banner.
I'll shut up now and keep fingers crossed that something might be done. 

[#3]

It's on my workstack 😛
I'm looking at trying a few options out, but I'll let you see some specifics once I have something.

[#4]

Quote from: poppy

We might start with RoundCube and Ironport which could be ditched.

There is no such forum (at least for the majority of the users of these forums)! Having a dedicated hidden forum for trialists to avoid confusing everyone else seems rather a good idea to me.

[#5]

I've been thinking quite carefully about the forum structure since I became a moderator, and have put forward a theory to the rest of the team about how we might further improve upon the original ideas... only problem is, half of the moderators haven't responded. Which seems to be why we end up never getting anywhere. I'll give them all another poke.

[#6]

That's a bit harsh Thomas, especially given that at least one has been abroad.

[#7]

What? I wasn't being judgemental - I was just stating facts that half of the moderators haven't responded. And you can't exactly deny that progress when sorting these things out is rather slow - if it had been faster, the forums would have probably been redesigned before I was even made a moderator, but instead it just seemed to get perpetually forgotten about.

[#8]

Sorry - It sounded that way!
I've not forgotten about it.  Ask Barry, who gets a daily bugging.

[#9]

Why can't you leave it alone.
I can pick out the areas that interest me.

[#10]

We can leave it alone, if that's what everyone wants - but so far, from what we can tell, most users would appreciate a simplification of the current design/structure.

[#11]

I haven't posted in here so far as I don't consider myself qualified to pass constructive comment and will work within whatever format is provided either as a Moderator or a User.
However I would advocate a simpler structure with less ambiguity for post location.

[#12]

I agree it has become very confusing and needs to be simplified.  Remember KISS 

[#13]

Quote from: James_G

I just use 'unread posts' like many others do - so we don't perhaps always see how many boards there are! Of course, this begs the question; if 'unread posts' works for so many of us, showing all posts as if they were a single forum, why not just have a single forum? Of course, we'd need the 'search' facility to work so we could find older stuff too...

trouble is that doesnt find a comment that has been edited

[#14]

It was more to provoke debate than a sensible suggestion TBH, but it does serve to illustrate that there is not really an 'easy' answer that will please everybody.
Like everything, its a case of choosing one's compromise, and in the case of moderating the forums, sometimes the easiest compromise when faced with limited time etc is to simply leave things as they are.
If folks will complain whatever, then you may as well let 'em complain about it now!

[#15]

I'm reasonably content with the way things are, though I have had time to get used to it. It's probably more daunting to a newcomer than it was to me in Jul '08, and I'd be quite happy to see some simplification.