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In an effort to address the common situation of ten people posting about the same problem in ten different threads after major updates etc I have been considering some possibilities.
My first idea is to find a mod that will search and show most popular threads by date. Currently the only/easiest way to search is simply by last post, not always useful.
My second idea is to find a mod that lists common recent searches. This should again alert people to the fact that other people could well have the same problem and also impress upon them the usefulness of the search function.
Another thing that could work just as easily is a simple thread in announcements that provides links to the hot issues post big upgrade/release 0 of course it would be up to the FAs to maintain that
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Those mods both seem like good idea. I don't like the idea of having a thread linking to popular topics, but you could have a mod that posts the five most popular topics on the front page, under the announcements section, so they are automatically visible.
Another really simple thing that could be tried that I have pushed for in the past is FEWER FORUMS. We have 24 public forums! We get what, 100 posts per day? That's four posts per forum!!! A little over-organized I'd say.
Examples:
Do we really need four topics on AUR?
Why is security with announcments instead of network and protection?
Can Linux Discussion be merged with something else?
Pacman and Package Upgrade could go in with Arch Discussion. Pacman is integral to Arch.
Desktop Environments and Workstation User do not need to be separate forums.
Perhaps 'Other Architectures' can be merged with 'Kernel and Hardware'
Installation could be merged with 'Arch Discussion'
...and so on
Dusty
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I agree with dusty. I think a consolodation of some of the forum sections would be a good idea.
Not sure about putting installation with Arch discussion, but the particulars of the consolodation are not that important at this time.
I do think it would be a good idea though.
"Be conservative in what you send; be liberal in what you accept." -- Postel's Law
"tacos" -- Cactus' Law
"t̥͍͎̪̪͗a̴̻̩͈͚ͨc̠o̩̙͈ͫͅs͙͎̙͊ ͔͇̫̜t͎̳̀a̜̞̗ͩc̗͍͚o̲̯̿s̖̣̤̙͌ ̖̜̈ț̰̫͓ạ̪͖̳c̲͎͕̰̯̃̈o͉ͅs̪ͪ ̜̻̖̜͕" -- -̖͚̫̙̓-̺̠͇ͤ̃ ̜̪̜ͯZ͔̗̭̞ͪA̝͈̙͖̩L͉̠̺͓G̙̞̦͖O̳̗͍
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I agree that some of these forums need to be consolidated, or at least do the UCB type thing with subforums.
I'd also like to suggest a mod that adds a "search within this forum" box to the bottom of the post listings. That speeds up searching alot.
The "hot list" of threads is a great idea though - it will prevent having 40 threads when there's an issues of some sort - like xorg7
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I'd be for doing a hierarchial system that groups similar forums together into logical parents. It'll be easier to navigate and allow you to add more subforums as needed.
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Ya know, I got the urge to make another thread about this topic, just to be snarky 8)
As for the hierarchy, something like:
Discussion >
Arch Discussion
Linux Discussion
Off Topic
Help >
Installation
Making Packages
Workstation >
General
Desktop
Networking
Multimedia
Laptop
Low Level >
Other Architectures
Kernel
Hardware
etc etc - just musing here
edit: formatting
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Well, I know some newbie friends often using the newbie section as an all-purpose place where you can post without making an effort.
A blinking 'Use the search function' banner would be a simple solution.
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Originally, there were far fewer forums. The problem then was.. things quickly ending up where they did not really fit. So.. more forums were created. It seems that we have swung the pendellum too far in the other direction.
I think it might be time to swing back the other way a bit.
"Be conservative in what you send; be liberal in what you accept." -- Postel's Law
"tacos" -- Cactus' Law
"t̥͍͎̪̪͗a̴̻̩͈͚ͨc̠o̩̙͈ͫͅs͙͎̙͊ ͔͇̫̜t͎̳̀a̜̞̗ͩc̗͍͚o̲̯̿s̖̣̤̙͌ ̖̜̈ț̰̫͓ạ̪͖̳c̲͎͕̰̯̃̈o͉ͅs̪ͪ ̜̻̖̜͕" -- -̖͚̫̙̓-̺̠͇ͤ̃ ̜̪̜ͯZ͔̗̭̞ͪA̝͈̙͖̩L͉̠̺͓G̙̞̦͖O̳̗͍
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I disagree, cactus. I think we had too many forums to begin with :-D. We've shuffled things around a lot, but never really gone to a next level up. I don't like the idea of hierarchical forums, it means more clicks. Of course, I use 'view all posts' anyway, so it doesn't affect me, so I shant complain too much.
If a forum only has one or two new posts per day or less, then it seems to me its practically redundant. That's probably a good measure of which ones can be consolidated. The ones that seem important are Newbie Corner, Arch Discussion, and User Contributions.
At a big extreme, it may be possible to merge all the 'help' forums into maybe three or four total. Most of us that want to help are willing to help everyone, and those that want help don't care where they post. There are some different topics that people won't be interested in viewing (ie: some people may not have any interest in servers, or networking, or hardware, etc), but overall, I think its pretty good.
One thing I really appreciated was when the 'laptop' forum was created, cause it got all those pesky questions I know nothing about out of my way. So this is a good argument in favour of having *some* separation between forums.... perhaps not so much though.
I get the feeling I'm rambling, I'm sorry.
Dusty
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Face facts guys - people don't read. We have a billion different forums because we had to reduce it to the lowest common denominator. If you have one forum for 6 things then you CAN'T explain what those things are in a fashion which is succinct enough to please most users and their nat like attention span for reading things that don't appear instantly helpful.
Also, four posts a day logic is flawed. That's 28 posts per forum a week (you can view 25 a page by default), might not seem like a lot but we must assume that the forums will grow and that things will become more complex, not vica versa.
Case in point:
Why is security with announcments instead of network and protection?
It's not, that's security announcements, protection is in with networking...
It looks too many to us experienced users who check the forums 3 times a day but to Joe/Jane-newbie it shows clearly defined sections in which he/she may post. You can write posting guidelines until you go blue but people will still post in the place that appears most obvious to them. Also, what about the unspoken masses? Surely they find it ok or they would complain - if it ain't broke it don't need fixing.
I'm not against consolidation of some, like the AUR section. However, for me the addition of the sub-forums module would just muddy the main page without providing much in the way of hierarchical clarity. I never saw any benefit on the UCB boards. It just seems to add more graphical border chunks
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I agree about merging some forums to reduce their numbers a bit. However, I don't like the idea about using sub-forums. When I go to UCB, I'm always lost in the forums. When I want to go back to the main forum, I always end up in the sub-forum. There are to many links to click. And, BTW, sub-forums won't solve the problem of posting redundancy: instead of having too many forums we'll have too many sub-forums.
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bah! forget you guys!
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I don't like sub-forums either. It just gets too confusing...
I think dibble is dead-on when he said that people won't read the posting guidelines, they'll just post where they think it makes sense...hell, I've read the guidelines, but never refer to them when I making a new post.
I think it would be good to consolidate some of our sections, as having too many choices doesn't really do anything but confuse people more. My guess would be that most people read the forums by "View posts since last visit" or one of those other options anyway, so it shouldn't make a huge difference what category they're filed under. As long as we had a few, blatently-obvious sections, we'd be better off...IMHO
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If some one can come up with a few solid framework for redefining the forums into more general but nonetheless specifically described sub sections then I would be interested to discuss it. A re-jig of the current ones won;t really cut it I think. Anyone want to propose a fresh approach?
Also, it has to be said, a plethora of forums doesn't seem to harm the gentoo boards! I know they are way busier than ours but we must consider our growth!
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Hmmm, you bring up a good point - but I'm not aware of any phpbb-mediawiki integration plugins... but I haven't looked through phpbb plugins in a long time.
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i think this would technical absolutely doable...
i just know of a plugin which reduces the userdb from wiki + phpbb to one, so if you're logged in the one, your automatically in the other or so...
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