E-Mail and Spam Board

[#1]

Seconded - an excellent idea! Hopefully, it would be a section that I can safely ignore - since I took up the domain name offer I have been (fingers crossed) in a state of grace!

[#2]

Email and spam tend to be inexorably linked at the moment so having individual boards for these could confuse.
Whilst spam is presently a hot topic, once Postini is in full operation and direct access to the mail servers blocked (the spammers' back-door route) I would expect this problem to subside. Hopefully full operation is not far away, so I suggest there is no case for a separate spam board.
However an Email board to cover all aspects of that service (including spam) is worth considering.

[#3]

Which reminds me, on a similar note, I need to get a speed query sticky written.
I'm not overly adverse to the idea of a sub forum for speed & spam queries under community support, but that's the call of the moderators.

[#4]

There seems to be an aversion to child boards - hence VoIP Trial getting it's own board instead of being a board of where the subject was originally discussed.
Now that phpBB3 which has child boards without needing mods, perhaps people will get more used to seeing them and they will become more accepted. The one thing I would suggest if they are to be used on here is that font used for the display of the child boards on the main index is increased.

[#5]

Personally speaking, I read various forums that put child boards to good use. I reckon they are a good way to categorise and separate discussion topics while keeping things slick.
I think this is a discussion and decision for the whole community though, and certainly as habits and preferences do change this is something we should review quite regularly. I'm wondering if, instead of tweaks to the existing forum, it's time for us to review the entire board structure and topics to see if we can't streamline things and make it simpler for people to follow areas of interest and know where to make new posts (that especially applies to new forum visitors).
Personally, I would love to see most of the changes suggested in this board over the last few months, lose a couple of the low traffic forums and create a new and prominent welcome / newbie forum where new community members could start gently.
If we did run such an exercise, we should probably wait until the new moderators are elected and we should ensure the discussion and ideas encompass input from as many people as possible throughout the community (Including PUG).
Ian