Forum clean-up?

[FourthWorld]

I find the taxonomy of these forums unusable, and would like to clean things up a bit. We have arguably too many sections, some of which overlap, others arguably obsolete, and all of it makes it difficult to anticipate where a given post should go.

I wouldn't remove anything, but older obsolete sections would be moved to a new "Archives" section. Others could be renamed, merged, etc.

I have my own pet list of changes I'd like to see, but before doing any of this I'd like to hear from you folks: Do you feel these forums could be made simpler and clearer? What changes to the taxonomy would you suggest?

[richmond62]

Yes, they could be made simpler and clearer.

[mrcoollion]

I personally do not have that big of a problem with the taxonomy of the forum because I use Quick links the most and second the search option. And when I post it is usually in the section 'Talking Livecode'.
However, It would be important to still be able to use the Quick Link 'Your posts'.
Maybe a newbie should comment on this because I have already become forum blind....

Regards,

Paul

[bogs]

If anyone touches my MC forum, I will cause a dark cloud to appear on the horizon and hunt them down

[FourthWorld]

If anyone touches my MC forum, I will cause a dark cloud to appear on the horizon and hunt them down

The MC IDE is the longest-running open source project in our community. I wouldn't dream of retiring it.

[bogs]

I was only kidding, but I do thank you

I also need to free up time for updates to some of the threads there <sigh>

[SparkOut]

I really don't mind what happens, but I don't see a problem with the forum as is, and certainly the taxonomy is not "unusable". I don't pay a lot of attention to the forum topic, but mostly use the "unread posts" feature. The topics as they are though, are fine by me.

[Tony]

As a new user, I always found the forum structure to be overwhelming because I was interested in lurking and learning from the full range of discussion. Narrow subject areas weren't that meaningful to me (and they still aren't), and hopping around among them was very unsatisfying. Then, following a tip from you, Richard, I started using the "Unread posts" quick link, and all that complexity fell away. My gut tells me that some streamlining in the arrangement couldn't hurt, but since I've found a way to dodge the complexity, I'm not sure my opinion on that really matters. I don't know what a better way looks like other than the way that I've already discovered.

[jacque]

I also need to free up time for updates to some of the threads there <sigh>

Time? What's that?

[SparkOut]

Is it like that "money" stuff? There's never enough of that either.

[bogs]

Time for me is kind of like snow fall, I either had WAY too much, or none at all. This is the none at all period

Unlike time, I've never had way too much money

[andrewferguson]

If there is a cleanup with topics moved to an archives section, will this cause links to such topics to break? (Both internal links in the forum, and external links from other websites).

If this is the case (links breaking), and this cannot be avoided, then I would be against the cleanup. Otherwise it's probably a good idea.

[richmond62]

Any topic that is archived should still be capable of being restarted and continued.

I have seen quite a few forums (c.f. Reddit) where threads are archived and blocked from having
further comments so new threads have to be started under the same rubric, which seems daft and breaks any continuity that might
be useful.

[FourthWorld]

If there is a cleanup with topics moved to an archives section, will this cause links to such topics to break? (Both internal links in the forum, and external links from other websites).

If this is the case (links breaking), and this cannot be avoided, then I would be against the cleanup. Otherwise it's probably a good idea.

I'm with you on that. I hate 404s.

Since the forums are ID-based I'm guessing links to them will continue to work even if moved in the apparent taxonomy. I'll double-check check, though, before any wholesale moves.

[FourthWorld]

Any topic that is archived should still be capable of being restarted and continued.

I have seen quite a few forums (c.f. Reddit) where threads are archived and blocked from having
further comments so new threads have to be started under the same rubric, which seems daft and breaks any continuity that might
be useful.

I rarely see thread necromancy that was worthwhile, though on rare occasion it does happen, so I'll leave archived sections open for new posts.