Personally I find myself always in the general section and missing out on things in the other 2. We need a separate place for the VCi-100SE for support reasons but I am considering consolidating the other 2. thoughts???
Personally I find myself always in the general section and missing out on things in the other 2. We need a separate place for the VCi-100SE for support reasons but I am considering consolidating the other 2. thoughts???
Combine the General and the Digital gear.
Leave the Hardware forum.
Add one for DJ TechTools Products (VCI-100SE Support).
Why?
General and Digital tend to be news and information or beginner questions,
the Hardware forum is about designing and building new ways of control,
and the DJ TechTools Products forum supports the VCI-100SE and other related products.
Easier to read and search.
I'm personally not that fussed about consolidating. Whenever I visit I just hit the new posts button. Maybe I just visit way too much
I'd agree with this, though personally I'd still prefer to have two forums (General for all things related to digital DJ'ing and Off-Topic for anything else people would like to talk about) plus a support forum for the VCI SE.
IMO, the less forums, the better. For example, I can see why a hardware forum is justified after visiting it, but at the same time I feel having those same threads merged with the other subforums could be beneficial as everyone would participate in all conversations.
As well, don't forget that we can always sticky important threads so they don't get lost (i.e. "Show your gear" threads and the like).
For reference, the other forum that I post on is www.neogaf.com/forum. Check it out! It hasn't changed its structure in years, apart from the addition of a small online gaming forum. In addition to the way it is structured, vigilant moderation and registration processes have kept out any spammers. All-in-all an excellent forum, and no joke I spend more time in the Off-topic than the General forum there, it's just so amusing!
I like the forums more divided. It ensures that I don't have to dig through a bunch of nonsense posts in order to get the information I want to get. It provides focus to the discussions, and makes searching for info easier. It also allows people who might specialize in certain areas to help others efficiently without wading through every post made.
The new posts function is great i use that too, it puts all the posts on a single page and does not make consolidation necessary, infact when using this page it is very nice to be able to see what general genre the post is in by noting what it was posted under.
I very much agree with the fact it makes things much more organised and easier for people to find what they are looking for, as opposed to making it keep up to date(which is what the new posts link is for).
Personally i am vote for leaving it as is.
The reality is, there aren't many threads in the first place, and at the same time, threads between the different sub-forums often relate to each other. While I respect everyone's opinion, I can't help but say I feel the community would benefit in terms of growth if we were to merge the forums and would also grow to prefer such a structure.
Of course, if the community does not want that, I don't see why we should really do it in the first place unless Ean would like to make an executive decision :P I suppose the best compromise, assuming about half the active members want to merge and the other half don't, is to maybe try it out for a month and see what people would say then.
EDIT:
I just checked out the New Posts feature. I think it's great as essentially it does all the consolidating for you, though in a pseudo-fashion. Still, it's a great compromise.
Anyway, what I'm trying to get at is - design can dictate function. In the case of our forum, the structure that it takes on molds how the community navigates through it, and in turn, how each user participates in it. My intent behind proposing a new forum structure was to reinvigorate the forum, providing a new experience by re-arranging the same data, in such a way that it would promote more posting and growth in the community.
From that perspective, I feel bringing forums together will spur growth forward rather than segregating them.
...but, I think I've dwelled on that enough, and everyone gets my point by now :P
Last edited by miyuru; 05-24-2008 at 03:12 AM.
I LOVE this forum in general, as personally I always learn something new. The new post feature is great but I never would have found it. Seems that it needs to be more obvious.
Nemonic had some great points as did Fresh. Its a hard call but Miyuru's example forum is a good comparison. Its obviously successful with a massive user base and they do indeed only have 2 forums.
It seems everyone is game to blend digital dj gear into General and then perhaps re-name it to something more interesting.
If this were strictly a social forum, I might agree with you. If there was very active moderation I might agree with you. But the fact is that alot of people come here for answers and advice. And alot of information in new posts is presented in a tutorial style of writing. Throwing these posts in with the usual forum din adds to the noise one must endure when trying to find specific information. I personally would find the merged forums counter-productive.From that perspective, I feel bringing forums together will spur growth forward rather than segregating them.
I think that's a great point too, especially in comparison to the forum that I provided as an example.
To be honest, I don't think we'll ever know what would work best until we actually try it. And we'd have to try it for a good period of time, say a couple months. The problem is it'd be annoying switching and so forth after that too I'd think?
Anyway, I think it's clear where I stand on the issue. If anything, it's promising that we can debate important matters in a civil fashion here, it bodes well for our future!
EDIT: In response to Ean's last post, I think that'd be the best thing to do (if anything) rather than merging everything as many people seem opposed to that.
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