Forum OverHaul... Please vote

[DieHard]

It's always a catch 22... a smaller main page it easier to look at, but finding things are harder... maybe it's time for an overhaul

[Protools5LEGuy]

Let it be. The ones that end sorting stuff are tired of relearn every new layout.

I see people getting the stuff they search after been aproved.

[Jubadub]

I think things are fine as is, but I also think the 3 (out of 4) voting choices that suggest a change suggest good changes, but it's kinda hard to tell without a preview of some sort. But I do think those ideas have potential, especially if you use a 4:3 monitor with humbler resolutions (which I do under OS 9, particularly CRT, for better gaming in general, and a few other reasons).

But honestly, I don't feel so strongly about any particular layout, so I say those that do and those that have been using Mac OS 9 Lives the longest should have their voices being considered the most important (that goes for the founder, too, naturally). I'm fine with anything.

[GaryN]

Two observations…

1) 8 votes is in no way a valid sample. Either nobody's been here this past week OR the question and choices are too vague to elicit responses. The fact that 5 answers (including mine) are "leave it alone" suggests that none of the proposed "solutions" are exciting anyone.

2. After some thought, it appears (to me at least), that the underlying issue is an increasing difficulty with finding specific info in an ever-expanding "pile" of discussion. That's what all of the choices seem to attempt to address.

SO… perhaps the REAL solution is an enhanced intelligent search function. The existing "advanced" search simply adds a couple of parameters relating to source (the poster) and time/date - neither of which are particularly helpful in targeting needles in our growing haystack. Maybe a couple of Boolean  AND OR NOT things? Maybe a list of the most common searches / results?

What would be great of course, is a self-refreshing index / search engine - pretty much like Spotlight - that could efficiently pull query results from the pile.
No, I'm not stupid and yes, I know we don't have a paid "resident database manager" to implement ANY of this. But just maybe someone who knows much more about this than I (and that shouldn't be hard to find) knows of some practical, off or almost off-the-shelf solutions to improve Simpleportal or whatever floats this boat…

[Jubadub]

Two observations…

1) 8 votes is in no way a valid sample. Either nobody's been here this past week OR the question and choices are too vague to elicit responses. The fact that 5 answers (including mine) are "leave it alone" suggests that none of the proposed "solutions" are exciting anyone.

2. After some thought, it appears (to me at least), that the underlying issue is an increasing difficulty with finding specific info in an ever-expanding "pile" of discussion. That's what all of the choices seem to attempt to address.

SO… perhaps the REAL solution is an enhanced intelligent search function. The existing "advanced" search simply adds a couple of parameters relating to source (the poster) and time/date - neither of which are particularly helpful in targeting needles in our growing haystack. Maybe a couple of Boolean  AND OR NOT things? Maybe a list of the most common searches / results?

What would be great of course, is a self-refreshing index / search engine - pretty much like Spotlight - that could efficiently pull query results from the pile.
No, I'm not stupid and yes, I know we don't have a paid "resident database manager" to implement ANY of this. But just maybe someone who knows much more about this than I (and that shouldn't be hard to find) knows of some practical, off or almost off-the-shelf solutions to improve Simpleportal or whatever floats this boat…

Those are interesting suggestions in their own right, but I'm under the impression what the choices attempt to address is rather aesthetics and topic/forum organization, even though organizing things also has the effect of making things easier to find, regardless of offered search engines, since it's rather about navigation. (There's also usage friendliness for lower resolutions as I had mentioned, too).

Although when I want to search for content within the forum, normally googling within the forum's domain seemed to do the trick for me...

(Also, for the record, I didn't vote, for the reasons specified in my former post.)

[dr bu]

we had a similar discussion years ago. i dont know, but i guess a forum is not a wiki.   i completely agree with Garys conclutions.

[Syntho]

I admit that I never did like how things were categorized on this site. I also wish we had a little link somewhere at the top that's a 'view my posts/threads' link to make it easier to find the threads we've posted in. Hmm...

[ovalking]

I'd like to vote for all three improvements actually.
And I'd move the stuff on the right, so you don't have to scroll in both directions.

a 'view my posts/threads' link to make it easier to find the threads we've posted in.

Yes that would be good.

[OS923]

The large number of categories on the main page doesn't bother me.

I find that there's too much clutter. For example:

Hacking the System, Mac OS 9.3, and Beyond !
Modifications and Enhancements to the 9.2.2 Operating System
Moderator: nanopico
1077 Posts
35 Topics
Last post by OS923
in Re: Latest hacks
on Today at 08:27:54 AM

I would replace that with "Hacking". Keep it simple and people will like it more.

The icons in the first column are too large and unnecessary.

I would make more use of child boards, because the list of child boards is compact.

I would remove the capital letters as much as possible. Use sentence case instead of word case. It's too difficult to read.

A number of categories starts with "DAW - ". They should be in a separate category and not start with "DAW - ".

I would remove the "new" labels.

[DieHard]

I did free up some real estate and put all the specific "DAW" applications as sub-boards in discussions; as far as the download boards... I think I will leave it alone since nobody finds them when I condense them

[Protools5LEGuy]

Let's find the overhaul also in other practical things.

What I like most on oldschool daw long page is the "latest 20-100 posts" in the end. That thing could help us see active conversations quicker.

What I like most on MacRumors is the "like" system on posts. On that way well written posts with lots of effort on them can receive some likes froms readers and developers  too. Every post from knez, nanopico, ELN, Ross or OS923 could receive dozens of likes and encourage them. This same method could make clearer what are the Mac OSS 9 Install disks preffered by the people. It also let members see other things...

[MacTron]

I think that the layout it really good as it is.
But making the top Logo and other items smaller and merging the two DAW categories :
- DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) General Discussions.
- DAW (Digital Audio Workstation) & MIDI Applications.
may provide some minor enhacemets .