Just been having a chat with Jizzo on MSN. Mostly concentrating on how many forums we have here, mostly in the S60 section but there seem to be bloody hundreds of them, many only getting a few posts a week. After discussions and reading articles on the use of forums to do with forums I've set up and help run for an online gaming clan I am a member of it was seen that too many forums and clutter help put people off from posting, similarly dead/quiet forums do the same.
People are more likely to post if they thing the forum is being used, they are also more likely only going to read the forum about the device they use, now in the case of the ngage there's plenty of posts so more people are drawn in to post, for people with older devices they may find that a forum with one post a day isn't likely to help them even if their query is something more generic than they realise.
To be frank I'm suggesting some fat needs cutting, there are forums that get hardly any use, wheras having a page of new posts every day or two would make these areas seem more active than they currently are. Essentially combine forums for older devices, keep individual forums for the current popular devices and then include them in the older forum as the posts die down. Similarly have an emerging devices forum where the new tech can be discussed until there is sufficient interest to justify a sepperate forum. TBH in Series 80 I'd just combine the 9500/9210 forums and have series 80 devices and series 80 media forums. Uiq I've not investigated but I'm seeing it in a fairly similar boat to the S60 devices.
Outside of there the waffle forums are dead (for now) so I'd recombine the two. And it also seems the Announcements forum is rather dead (possibly worth losing alltogether as announcements can be put on the front page via news forums?), in a similar state is the Reviews forum albeit for select viewing. I'd consider treating the development forum in a similar manner to the series forums with just a development subforum listed under "Symbian Devices" and then the various language forums are it's children. Saving a fair amount of vertical scrolling on the main page.
Obviously there's more scope for preening but that's my suggestion. I've noted people like to read and not comment of late so I've included a poll, simply put "Good idea I agree.", or "lame idea, put it down". A reply would be nice if you can spare the time to explain your point of view.
making one S60 forum again would be a good idea ...
As discussed in PM, I think this is a good idea!, there are forums that you visit and because of the "View Post from last 30 Days" is set to default there are no posts in that forum, the Samsung D-700/710 springs to mind, that fourm could indeed get busy if Samsung ever decide to release that phone but at the moment it's dead.
I think the older/newer split is especially a good idea, reviews forum can stay/go for me as it's only viewable by us lot, but only if it's going to be used.
I've also thought over the past few months that we should look at Guest posting again, I mean we don't seem to get problems with guest posts, but IMO making people register to use/read forums encourages people to post, if you make them register in the first place before reading the content then they already have an account to start posting with...if they can just sit in the background and read they are less likely to comment on something if they have to go though the registration process. Well it makes sense to me, not sure what everyone else thinks, and it's down to Rafe/Ewan to decide I guess.
Jordan
Re: Forums, yes an amalgamation of "new" and "old" leaving "current" phones sounds sensible.
Re: Guest posting, even logged in people can sit back and not reply. I'd be against a 'register to read/post" policy to be honest as it looks like we've got the moderation under control.
J2theIZZO wrote:we don't seem to get problems with guest posts
Oh yes we do. Just a few minutes ago I had to delete about 10 spam posts. It doesn't happen that frequently, but every once in a while we get alot of spam and other cr@p from guest posts. IMO guest posting should've been disabled many moons ago.
Agreed on the need for some forum pruning. :icon14:
Right now it's a mess. It's annoying having to plow through gazillion forum sections.
My view on guest posting hasn't really changed from before, but I'm not too bothered by that, i think a more important issue is some pruning and to try to co-erce some activity from the people browsing and not posting at the moment.
I sort of agree with the sentiments about the number of forums. However I think there's a lot to be said for device specific forums (for example it is possible to search by forum and therefore get stuff only of interest to your device). I also think forums get to the point where there are too many posts a day (and I think that would happen on a pure Series 60 / UIQ / etc. only forum divide). That was one of my reasonings for originally have the lay out we now do.
However I am willing to listen to the majority opinion if it is generally felt we would do better to prune the number of forums.
I would suggest that the more recent devices remain in forums on their own. I would also suggest devices from a particular manufacturer or in a unique segment (like the N-Gage) stay in their own forums. The reason being is their tend to be more unique discussions (see themes in Sendo X forum as an example of this). So perhaps have a Sendo Series 60 forum etc etc.
I can see the point in merging the older Series 60 devices (perhaps all the 1.0 - 7650, 3650), and then merging Series 2.0 devices in due course. I would say as the Series 60 version changes so should the grouping.
Personally I would be against combining the 9210 and 9500 forums. The 9210 would remain as an archive forum effectively. Really again on the basis on Series 80 version 1 and 2.
I'm also on the record as wanting to avoid registration as mandatory. I think forums should always be readable at the very least but I am willing to see that registration for those wanting to post might be a good idea. However I personally think its a good thing that anyone can post. It tends to encourage people I think.
Its also worth noting that having seperate forums is much better for search engine listings, but that probably shouldn't be a influencing factor.
With the review forums we need to find a better way or an alternative to communicating what people would like to review and whats available.
We can get almost anything for review (well within reason). Perhaps we should juts use the admin forum for this or is there a case for admin email discussion list.
Please keep the ideas coming in this topic.
I'm personally advocating just grouping the older forums that see very few posts. As too many quiet forums can make the place seem stale, whereas grouping them and getting maybe doubleing the amount of posts one forum section would see in a day would make it seem more lively. Obviously putting all the S60 devices in one forum would be too much. As for the idea of OS versions for grouping seems an idea, maybe move the 9210 multimedia in with the main 9210 one and just dub it the 92x0 archive forum, then we split off a 9500 multimedia forum for discussing vid encoding skinning etc once it starts to become popular in the wake of the whingers and their "My 9500 is too slow" "Mine makes a bad cup of tea" "mine doesn't fetch the paper"....
If some conclusion is reached I don't mind doing all the forum moving (Unless there are any objections?), i'll post a structure of the current layout and I need opinons on what goes where, as Rafe said it's mainly the older devices that are merging within their UI/OS group (7650/3650)
Where would you stand with P800/P900/910, I really think there there is such little difference between all three SE models that most of the questions remain relevant (To search queries too). Or you could group devices by UI again (So including Motorola Devices with the P800 for instance - Although i'm not keen on that).
With UIQ I'd probably lean towards grouping the SE P series devices because of the large similarity.
Yeah I agree with SwitchBlade on UIQ - in this case I'd divide my manufacturer. A1000, A920 can live together. Things aren't so bad under UIQ in anycase.
I think the first divide is manufacturer and then (and this only applies to Nokia S60 and S80) by platform version. The reason being here is there are significant differences - just as there are between manufactuers... It then gets to the point whether you have any seperate device forums... I think though Switchblade is right in the grouping should happen to older forums almost like an archive type thing.
I like the idea of an archive 9210 forum with the 9210 and 9210 multimedia in it. Makes sense.
I think (need to check) I can merge forums together as an admin function. Should be a very quick process, but well worth sorting out the structure first.
I also think the development thing makes sense on the front page. (i.e. not giving development its own section)
Yeah Development seems too big for the amount of posts, and pushes vital forums down the page such as waffle... 😉
No this wasn't a ploy to get waffle further up the screen, surely not.
Good idea SwitchBlade,I've suggested something similar a while back but is you can see,it didn't work out :redface:.I'm for pruning!
Guest posting is a problem,maybe we can restrict guests to browsing,searching,reading the forums only and make posting a privilege to registered users only?Jordan said that he deleted 10 spam posts today,my numbers were similar,if not higher.
Maybe we should not only devide S60 in V1.0 and 2.0, but also a seperate N-gage and "Other brands" section (sx-1, d710, and the X). Agreed it would not limit the number of forums THAT much, but it still helps
I agree on deviding UIQ in SE section and a "Motorola and other brands" section.
S80 can be devided in 92x0 and 9300/9500
This suggestions might all have been mentioned above already, but this is just what I think about it.
About guest posting: no problem, enough mods and admins around IMO
Personally I feel it's common courtesy to registser with a forum and introduce yourself before posting anyway. All forums I use except this one do not allow guest posting, guests are limited to reading the forum, but are unable to post or see attatchments, polls and inline images etc. On the one hand yes it encourages people to register, but on the other they aren't really encouraged to post anymore than if they didn't. So you just get inactive members.
The way it looks to me is that we have hundreds of guests and a handful of members, and the ones doing most of the posting are the members. I'll be honest here and say I don't trust new people to a forum to use the search engine as far as I can throw them and as such would expect many many repeat questions that had been answered before, "where can I get warez for my s60 phone?" etc.
I'll be honest and say that the place seems like a ghost town, I've looked in as a guest during my absence a few times and it's dead. I nearly didn't come back when I did, but I'd got nowhere else to go and I kinda missed you guys. We did have a good community here, and it seems that community needs waking up as most of the people that made it good are still floating about, even if quietly, the strong point for AAS in my view has always been the vibrant forum so seems we need to bring some of the vibrance back.
IMO this is hardly a ghost town. If possible I check in several times a day here, and there always are a bunch of new posts/replies. If I "miss" one day it takes me about an hour too read up again (and I don't even read everything). I don't know what you're comparing it too, maybe Howardforums or something, but most other forums I know are not as busy as this one.
Hardly a ghost town....
That's an interesting perspective. I would be interested to hear others opinions on this. We actually have more posts now per day than we ever use to, but I guess they are spread out over more forums. This will hopefully be fixed by what we discussed above.
That is a good point Rafe! Some sections are a little "ghosty" (and so the entire forum might look like that), but re-arranging the sections will solve this.
Switchblade, are you sure you're not just talking about the Waffle? The Waffle is rather dead, but most other parts are more alive then ever!
GhostDog wrote:Jordan said that he deleted 10 spam posts today
That was me. :tongue:
Delta737 wrote:About guest posting: no problem, enough mods and admins around IMO
It's not just about spam though. More seriously it's about warez. I don't even want to make an estimate on just how many warez posts from guests I've deleted or edited. And sometimes I just luckily stumble across these warez links, because they have been buried in long topics you'd never think of checking. You can't really expect moderators to carefully check every single topic. It may not seem like a problem to those of you that don't browse the forums that frequently, but I think GhostDog at least knows what I'm talking about here.
SwitchBlade wrote:Personally I feel it's common courtesy to registser with a forum and introduce yourself before posting anyway
I agree, but not many people seem bothered by common courtesy these days. Sorry to be off topic, but does anyone else find people treating online forums like private chat channels rude and annoying? It seems like they don't understand that what they write is available for the whole world to see. Not using capital letters at the start of new sentences, no punctuation and incomprehensible SMS/Chat abbreviations should be punished by death! :tongue: Seriously though, I just wish people would just not post at all if they don't have anything sensible to say on the topic at hand (Waffle forum excluded 😉 ), or at least take a couple of seconds to look through their post before hitting that Submit button. Maybe I'm just being an old geezer... 🙄 [/rant].
Raven wrote:That was me.
Sorry,my vision was compromised because of chocolate overdose :redface:
Raven wrote:It's not just about spam though. More seriously it's about warez. I don't even want to make an estimate on just how many warez posts from guests I've deleted or edited. And sometimes I just luckily stumble across these warez links, because they have been buried in long topics you'd never think of checking. You can't really expect moderators to carefully check every single topic. It may not seem like a problem to those of you that don't browse the forums that frequently, but I think GhostDog at least knows what I'm talking about here.
I definitely do.
Raven wrote:I agree, but not many people seem bothered by common courtesy these days. Sorry to be off topic, but does anyone else find people treating online forums like private chat channels rude and annoying? It seems like they don't understand that what they write is available for the whole world to see. Not using capital letters at the start of new sentences, no punctuation and incomprehensible SMS/Chat abbreviations should be punished by death! Seriously though, I just wish people would just not post at all if they don't have anything sensible to say on the topic at hand (Waffle forum excluded ), or at least take a couple of seconds to look through their post before hitting that Submit button. Maybe I'm just being an old geezer... [/rant].
Spot on my friend.Lately,I've been really put off reading or even posting in the forums.There is no etiquette whatsoever,we are starting to look like Esato.Have you ever wondered why there are so many developers actively posting at My-Symbian?
I dunno what the stats are but it feels like a ghost place to me, 2 days without viewing and I've caught up in about 10-20 minutes. I've gotta wander over to Talk Audio later and I know I'll be wading through that place for an hour or two. Also every time you hit the refresh button theres a sizable amount of new posts to read from when you last did, and that place is far more specialist than this. Dunno this howard forum, but Jizzo was telling me about it the other day and it just sounds too busy.
The thing I feel is that in 2k2 I could visit and waste a fair amount of time through the posts here, now I can't there aren't the posts that there were, I don't refresh and find another page of Jizzo vs Muffy added, nor do I find much in the way of interesting debate or conversation in posts.
"You can join #9210 on IRCNET untill Rafe fond another solution to chat." <-- whatever happened to a chat anyway? I gotta stop looking through the archives of posts.
There's a chat link at the top of the forum.
BTW will try and get some of the above implemented after Christmas...
Talking of which - a very merry christmas to everyone!
Happy Holidays! :shakehand :santaclau
Merry Christmas and happy holidays everyone! :santaclau :eating: :santaclau
Sreken bozik i srekna nova godina! - In Macedonian. 😃
I deleted ten warez posts today,probably ten more for Jyrik.This is getting really frustrating,something should be done about guest posts ASAP.
What should be done then? Just adding an account means they'll register, check one email and post anyway. My Symbian has exactly the same problem, and they have guest posting disallowed. I don;t think switching off guest posting will make one bit of difference.
They do not have the same problem.I haven't seen a warez post on my Symbian in ages.
-Edit-
Just after i post this there were 10-15 brand new posts of the same type,so thats arround 40 today,if not more.There were 0 such posts on My-Symbian,i wonder why warez posters don't like My-Symbian as much as AAS? 🙄