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[Knezzen]

You might have noticed some changes in the forum board structure.
First, let me inform you that no posts have been deleted.

The changes:

• "Welcome to our community" is now called "Off Topic" since it's mostly off topic stuff in there.
• Two new boards have been created in the "General" category, one for news and site/forum related information and feedback and one for saying hi as a new member to the forum.
• All the Music and DAW boards have been moved to it's own category.
• The "Basic World Help" board is no more. The topics that where in the "general" world board have been moved to "HELP and all the empty boards have been deleted. The boards with some posts have been moved as child boards to the "HELP" board.

Just to make myself clear, no posts have been deleted!
The changes have been made to make it easier to find what you need and make it easier for everyone to know what to post where.

I'm moving topics to the correct category as I stumble upon them.

I'm thinking that it would be a good idea to merge most of the software boards. Looking at them, most have barely one page of posts in 10 years time. Keep it simple

Any thoughts about the changes?

[ssp3]

Just don't make vault visible by mistake

[Knezzen]

Just don't make vault visible by mistake

I don't see the reason why those boards should exist at all to be honest

[Jubadub]

First, let me inform you that no posts have been deleted.

[...]

Just to make myself clear, no posts have been deleted!

Huzzah!

IMO these are good changes so far. I have no qualms over them. Anyone else?

[Knezzen]

More changes have been made.

Once again, I want to make it clear that no posts have been deleted!

More or less all software boards have been merged into the new board called "Software". Why, you may ask? Well, if you took a peak in the boards, most users didn't know what to post where, and there where many boards for no apparent reason (20-30 topics in the last 10 years) makes it hard to moderate the content.

What haven't been merged is:
"Emulation" (previously Virtual Machines & Emulation) since there's a general need to have questions regarding how to get Mac OS 9 up and running on QEMU or SheepShaver separate, for newcomers to quickly get up and running.

"Development & Programming" since it's about making software, not using it.

"Hacking the system" is now "Mac OS 9, Hacks, Upgrades & General Discussion" since there was no apparent board for general Mac OS discussions. Running Mac OS 9 on unsupported hardware is a child board to this main board now, to keep the two topics separate.

All specific Hardware boards have been moved into the old Hardware General board as child boards to keep everything more on topic and in place.

Once again, nothing has been deleted!

I think keeping it simple is key to keep the current user base and attract some new people here.

What are your thoughts on the new structure?

[Jubadub]

IMO, these latest changes also look good and serve us well.

At first, I was a bit reluctant about putting "Running Mac OS 9 on unsupported hardware" as a child board instead of it being a main board, but when I browsed the main forum page, it did work very nicely, because we see a link in there anyway that mentions it, and even takes us straight to that board if necessary. Plus, it makes sense for it to belong to that main board you moved it to.

Now, I do have a suggestion...

I think the board name "Mac OS 9, Hacks, Upgrades & General Discussion" can probably be improved. I think the merge itself is fine. Just the name can probably be better. How about simply "System and Hacks"? It is as clear as "Hacking the System" was, if not even clearer, and also makes it clear that it is a board to discuss the System itself, meaning Mac OS 9, without us having to spell out "Mac OS 9" outright, which otherwise feels a bit repetitive, since the whole forum is already about Mac OS 9, so "System" keeps it short, sweet and to the point.

"System AND Hacks" implies we will always be talking about the System, be it in a general way, or with regards to hacking it to get it to do things beyond it originally could.

The name also makes it clear, in as brief a manner as possible, that, by saying "System", we are talking of the OS itself, rather than any other software, so it contrasts nicely with the "Software" board, which is meant to address every other software being run under Mac OS 9.

And, again, if the board name uses the term "Mac OS 9" instead of "System", it is not as instantaneously clear what it may mean, because each board of that section is already addressing something of Mac OS 9. By calling it just "System [and Hacks]", there's immediately no doubt what it is about.

One more thing, the name of the "group" of those boards is currently set as "Classic Mac OS Discussions". I think it should be "Mac OS 9 Discussions". I don't see why we should use the term "Classic" there, and even if we want to address OS versions that predate 9 in a given topic/thread, that should be fine, since everything here is OS-9-centric anyway: when discussing older systems, it normally will be by comparing it to 9, such as when we talk briefly about OS 8.6 and whatnot, or when we discuss the nanokernel of Mac OS 9, which is also used in 8.6, and so on. People also have both System 7 Today and the Macintosh Garden if they really want to insist, they can very well participate in multiple forums, while we keep the focus on what matters to us here.

The term "Classic" applies best to the emulator of same name used to run Mac OS 9 and earlier. While the expression is colloquially used "out there", it is nonetheless confusing, and I think it is detrimental when we adopt it when we simply want to refer to an OS that has a proper name, that being "Mac OS 9", no more, no less.

And that's it! Hopefully I could convey my thoughts clearly and reasonably?

[Knezzen]

I hear ya, but I'm not that sure that "System" equals "Mac OS 9" for everyone and I think because of the possibility to interpret it wrong it's better to be perhaps on the extremely obvious side of things. The idea is to talk about Mac OS 9 as a operating system in general as well and not just "hacks". I see that many posts that should go to a "Mac OS 9" or "Operating System" board just gets posted in the general help board.

I agree about the Classic thing, more or less at least. I will change the description

On the topic of the help board, btw. In the not so distant future I see the general help board topics being locked up so no new posts can be made there and the topics being moved to their "correct" place instead. Right now I feel like the Help board is just a dumping ground for more or less anything. Any thoughts?

[Jubadub]

On the topic of the help board, btw. In the not so distant future I see the general help board topics being locked up so no new posts can be made there and the topics being moved to their "correct" place instead. Right now I feel like the Help board is just a dumping ground for more or less anything. Any thoughts?

I agree, because every board category here is most often about "help" with something already. For example: "Software" for software help. Help with unsupported OS 9 hardware will also go precisely to that category. Help with DAWs too. In the end, it is a redundant board, now that I think about it.

I guess one point of it was to provide also non-English topics / support, which clearly wasn't very much used at all. But IMO people can make their own threads in whatever language they want in any of the appropriate boards, although English is our lingua franca and thus preferred for more seamless communication, but I don't see any issues with having exceptions. Language-specific boards IMO only make sense if, say, suddenly we start getting 27 Thai topics a day, case in which we should consider making a "Thai Topics" board or so.

[DieHard]

Looking good Knez

It's always a good idea to re-structure.  The only issue I see (which has always been a problem) is when I allowed posts under a topic that also included child boards... like
http://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php?board=129.0

This leads to 15 pages of "lost" stuff under the main board and this info will literally never be looked at unless a member is specifically searching for something, so my only suggestion would be to include a "catch all" child board (like you did for "off topic") for all main boards that have child boards; in other words do NOT allow any posts under a main board that has child boards.

You can then decide as things are posted into the "catch-all off topic" board whether to make a new child board and move it or just leave it there.  Just a suggestion

[smilesdavis]

#tags?