Forum Rearanging - A Proposal

TommyWillB

TommyWillB

Registered
In his post Da_iMac_Daddy brought up the issues of having difficulty figuring out where to post stuff.

I agree with him, so I thought I'd throw out my 2¢ on how I think the arrangement of the forums could be improved. I'm a Web guy, so I admit this may be skewed towards that, but I tried not to.

Here is what I am thinking: (Green=new, Blue=Shift of Focus)
  • Welcome
    - Announcements
    - Site Discussion
  • Mac Community
    - Mac News & Rumors Discussion
    - macosx.cafe - Open 24/7
    - Opinion: Reviews & Open Letters
    - For Sale: Classifieds
  • Using Your Macintosh
    - Mac OS X: HOWTO & FAQs
    - Mac OS X System [COLOR=666666](All things specific to the OS/Finder)[/COLOR]
    - Mac Classic System & Applications [COLOR=666666](All questions about OS 9 and OS X Classic)[/COLOR]
    - Apple Applications [COLOR=666666](All questions about applicatons including all iApps and digital hub stuff... Not the OS)[/COLOR]
    - Non-Apple Applications [COLOR=666666](A dicusion place all other programs)[/COLOR]
    - Mac Hardware
    - Cross-Platform Connection
  • Putting You Mac To Work
    - System Administration [COLOR=666666](OS X Server, File Servers, QuickTime Streaming, Networking, Security, etc...)[/COLOR]
    - Unix Side of Mac OS X
    - Programming - PHP, Perl, Carbon, Cocoa, Other [COLOR=663333][This could easily be split into multiple sections][/COLOR]
    - Web Configuraton [COLOR=666666](Setting up and running Apache/PHP/MySQL/etc...)[/COLOR]
    - Web Design [COLOR=666666](This would be all things about the UI look and feel of sites and graphics... i.e. the "creative" types.)[/COLOR]
    - Web Development [COLOR=666666](This is the place for HTML/JavaScrit stuff... i.e. the "coder" types..)[/COLOR]

    - ... I'm sure there are other things that should go under this "work" area to include all of the different creative an technical types of work that folks can do on their Mac...

    - ???
    - Professional Artists & graphic Design
    - ???
    - Multimedia, Video, Audio & Music Makers
    - ???
    - Office Tools [COLOR=666666](Palms, PIM's, etc...) [/COLOR]
    - ???



These can go away...
  • Nothing But 'Net
  • Web Works
  • The Digital Canvas
 
Good suggestions, but...
Professional artists & Graphic design is Digital Canvas.
Office Tools can be in Hardware because that's what it is.
Your three Web sugestions is Web Works.
Nothin' but web (IMHO) is discussion of other web sites. Maybe it just needs a new title.

You give some good food for thought. ;)
 
tommy, some of your categories overlap. we actually considered the iapp forum, but really, they're all covered elsewhere.
as cheryl points out, we already have what you want, just different names. if you think these forums are slow now, imagine how much slower each would be when divided out. forums have to grow large enough on their own to warrant subdividing. and busier forums tend to attract more activity.

that being said, the idea of a bit more reorganization was raised in the moderators' discussions recently. We are not closed off to the idea and will look more into it during the coming weeks. yours and others feedback such as this is appreciated and will be considered in the process. we certainly want this to be the best site we can make it.

the one thing that i notice about your orginization and titles is that you seem to assume most of us are using macs prfessionally. this leaves out a major part of our membership - the average user - many of whom may not know enough about what their problem is to properly file it. also, dividing pros and users might rob users of the attention of pro knowledge.
 
>>System Administration (OS X Server, File Servers, QuickTime Streaming, Networking, Security, etc...)

This should be a link to www.afp548.com
that is the place to be for os x server
 
Cheryl
...Office Tools can be in Hardware because that's what it is...
Click to expand...
In this case I was not limiting myself to just hardware... Instead I was trying to suggest a places to discuss all of the generic work things (time planning, communicating, using MS Office type software, PDC/Cell phone/pager type hardware, etc.)... seperate and distinct from the specifc type of work you do.

Originally posted by edX
...if you think these forums are slow now, imagine how much slower each would be when divided out. forums have to grow large enough on their own to warrant subdividing...
Click to expand...
The counterpoint to this is unless there is a good place for particular types of discussions, those discussions will never happen in any orginized way.

We are not closed off to the idea and will look more into it during the coming weeks. yours and others feedback such as this is appreciated and will be considered in the process.
Click to expand...
Yep... That's all I was looking for. I'm not suggesting mine are amazingly better, but they do make more sense to ME. :p

...you seem to assume most of us are using macs prfessionally.
Click to expand...
I think the site currently has the right types of areas to discuss non=professional uses of Macs. But I also think it would be nice to have more places that are explicitly for work related stuff.

Truthfully I come here for BOTH. I think it would be worse if this site did NOT include all types of folks.



Again, thanks for considering my ideas!
 
As I see it when the Forum was split up into more specific topics I tended to frequent more of the topics, which I believe is more helpful because you would be getting a more specific answer. Less traffic to the topics isn't a problem. It should be about the quality of the posts in the topic that matters. Overall I think the number of posts would remain the same. But this is only one person's opinion the administrators are the ones who make the final decision. :p
 
I like the upper level differentiation:
this site
apple community
maintaining mac os and applications
using the macos and applications

for the lower levels, I think this is too many division
 
Originally posted by chevy
I like the upper level differentiation:
this site
apple community
maintaining mac os and applications
using the macos and applications

for the lower levels, I think this is too many division
Click to expand...
LOL

:D

You should see me when I make directory structures... I very often over engineer them ending up with a bunch of deeply nested folders with just a few things in them.
 
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