General Community > Site Comments, Issues and Concerns

Change Community Layout

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K@:

--- Quote from: Arantor on June 10, 2012, 12:18:32 PM ---Fewer boards will help with things ;)

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We discussed dumping Graphics and templates and expecting anything, there, to go in the support boards. For one thing, people posting there never put the bloody version they're using. If everything went in Support, at least we'd have a fighting chance of guessing what version's being spoken about.

It'll also stop Illori posting mod reports about getting them moved. ;)

MrPhil:

--- Quote from: Kindred on June 10, 2012, 12:08:19 PM ---you really think that will solve anything?

--- End quote ---
Yes.


--- Quote ---We've been through this sort of question multiple times. We have sticky posts that answer most of these questions. We have a wiki/doc site. We have search... and STILL people post the same questions over and over and over in the wrong areas as well as the right areas.
Heck, I've seen idiots post a question when the same question was already asked and answered only two posts down the index.

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I'm often tempted to refer to many of the members of this community as "idiots", but I'll refrain for now. This is an exercise in Human Factors -- if you present plausible places to enter their problem up at the top of the page, that's where they'll do it. They won't take the time to search further down to find the optimal location -- like a dog out on a walk who needs to dump a load, they'll do it at the first available spot. That's why you steer them to the best places by placing the Support boards first (or at least, near the top, after News).

Then there's the old adage, "You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink." Even if we make it easy to search, and put up lots of stickies, and put in a nice Wiki, and list dozens of equivalent topics on the same page, guess what? Most people will simply start up a new topic. Be thankful if it's in the right board -- that's the most you can hope for with most people. And remember -- members get yelled at for not starting a new topic.

I've seen forums where you are required to conduct a search first, before starting a new thread -- maybe SMF needs that? If so, the Search definitely needs to be made easier and more intuitive to use, and should cover the stickies (presumably it does) and the Wiki. The default should always be to search the whole Community, and not narrow it down to category or board or topic unless explicitly requested. I wouldn't be surprised if many people attempt to search, but don't realize they're only looking in a small part of the forum. Search's design is defective.


--- Quote from: Arantor on June 10, 2012, 12:18:32 PM ---I do think moving the support boards further up than bug reports will help, though. Though I'd argue the news area needs to stay at the top.

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100% agreed (hey, we're agreeing an awful lot lately....  ::))


--- Quote ---Question: what purpose does 'feedback and discussion' serve? Most of the time its content is either really a support issue or a mod/feature request. Fewer boards will help with things ;)

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Yeah, well that's the whole point of my proposal... to encourage members to post in the appropriate place and not clutter up F&D with support issues and mod requests. I think F&D and Site Comments could probably be merged, unless F&D is meant for chatting about SMF and its direction in general, while SC is specifically about this simplemachines.org site? The board descriptions could probably be enhanced.

I think that a number of Child Boards for both 1.x and 2.x Support would help the situation. Some members undoubtedly find the huge mass of topics intimidating and don't know where to even start looking. I wouldn't be surprised if some deliberately choose to put their topics in the wrong boards in hope that they'll be more likely to be seen that way. Cutting the general support boards down to size by putting common support themes off on their own may help with this.

Arantor:

--- Quote ---I'm often tempted to refer to many of the members of this community as "idiots", but I'll refrain for now.
--- End quote ---

I get considered negative if I do that. Bloc even told me so.


--- Quote --- Even if we make it easy to search, and put up lots of stickies, and put in a nice Wiki, and list dozens of equivalent topics on the same page, guess what? Most people will simply start up a new topic.
--- End quote ---

Yup, though it's always obvious if people have attempted to help themselves before asking for help.


--- Quote ---I've seen forums where you are required to conduct a search first, before starting a new thread -- maybe SMF needs that?
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I doubt it. What it would mean is that people would carry out a search, not find an answer because they've used the wrong terms, and create a new topic anyway.

Remember the scope of what we're talking about. Different people have different terms for different things, the odds of them knowing the right words to search for are surprisingly slim.


--- Quote ---Yeah, well that's the whole point of my proposal... to encourage members to post in the appropriate place and not clutter up F&D with support issues and mod requests. I think F&D and Site Comments could probably be merged, unless F&D is meant for chatting about SMF and its direction in general, while SC is specifically about this simplemachines.org site? The board descriptions could probably be enhanced.
--- End quote ---

Well, I'm all for people posting in the right place. But I don't think F&D is actually useful - most of what ends up in F&D is support anyway. Very rarely there'll be something of what F&D was intended for (i.e. people expressing how happy they are with SMF) but that could just as easily go in Chit Chat - it often does anyway.


--- Quote ---I think that a number of Child Boards for both 1.x and 2.x Support would help the situation. Some members undoubtedly find the huge mass of topics intimidating and don't know where to even start looking.
--- End quote ---

I think having a lot of boards would do something similar actually. I also think that having the child boards you're proposing isn't really that useful in itself because most people won't post in them. Spam, maybe, but stuff like undefined index errors, people won't necessarily post in them, they are more likely just to go directly to the support board and be done with it.

In any case, having things like that gives a negative image about SMF that it doesn't deserve - they're mod problems, not core SMF problems. What I could see, however, is having redirection boards as child boards to the 1.x / 2.x Support boards, which point to wiki articles about these things.

Mstcool:
Arantor whos bloc?

And btw i was about to send you a pm Not a support one but a regular one and it said you blocked my pm
Did you block everyone's or just mine? and if it is mine why?

MovedGoalPosts:
As a relative newcomer to these forums and trying to find useful information so that I can customise my SMF I have to say the layout here does not aid searching for anything.  That is compounded by often not knowing the correct SMF terminology for the issue that one is searching for.

There are two distinct SMF lines v1.X.X and v2.X.X.  Yet there is only one small part of the board that separately identifies these.  Everything else gets stuff lumped together.  Often only once you read a topic do you realise it is inappropriate.

It would be a massive task to move all the stuff around, but ideally I would suggest there should be two main board categories, one for each forum version, with boards within that can deal with general support, themes, mods, bugs, installation, etc.

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