Does the SMF Forum Need A Board for Spam only Discussions/Help?

[Irisado]

I'd actually contend that putting the support boards first is illogical.

When I look at any forum, I expect to find announcement boards, and other administrative type boards first, followed by the main content in the next category.  Where I do agree is that SMF support could be placed higher up the list of categories,  It could easily come before development, for example.

[MrPhil]

That's EXACTLY what I said to do. You can put "Read Only" (to the general population) boards up at the very top, because there's no danger of the ignorant masses posting into them. The first boards that the general population are allowed to post into must come before more specialized boards such as SMF Feedback.

[Arantor]

Why do we even need an SMF Feedback board?

[Irisado]

That's EXACTLY what I said to do. You can put "Read Only" (to the general population) boards up at the very top, because there's no danger of the ignorant masses posting into them. The first boards that the general population are allowed to post into must come before more specialized boards such as SMF Feedback.

If the whole point is to allow comments, and feedback though, making them read only is counter productive.  The only way that would work, would be to split site comments and feedback into a different category, and just have announcements (team members would the only ones with posting privileges I take it?) as the first category.

Why do we even need an SMF Feedback board?

To receive positive comments, and constructive criticism, about SMF?  (That's not a rhetorical question by the way).

[MrPhil]

I presume it's intended for general comments and suggestions related to improving SMF (not specific features, and certainly not user problems). It's fine (as is Site Comments) if they are relocated way down the page, near the bottom.

[MrPhil]

Oka-a-a-a-ay. Here's the PhD thesis. I was hoping I wouldn't have to do this, but since no one is "getting" it...

SMF News (restricted posting)
  NPO News and Updates
  News and Updates
SMF Support
  SMF 1.x Support (including a spam child board)
  SMF 2.x Support (including a spam child board)
  Server Performance and Configuration
  Language-Specific Support
Getting Started with SMF
  SMF Online Manual
  Install and Upgrade Help
  Converting TO SMF
General Community
  Chit Chat
  Building Your Community and Other Forum Advice
  Hosts, Hosting, and Commercial Services
  Showcase
  Help Wanted (Not for Support)
  Test Board
SMF Documentation
  SMF Documentation Help
SMF Development
  Development (private area)
  Localization and Translation
  Feature Requests
  Bug Reports
  Big Forum Discussion
Customizing SMF
  SMF Coding Discussion
  Forks Discussion
  Portals, Bridges, and Integrations
  Modifications and Packages
     child board Mod Development (moved from Community Helpers)
  Graphics and Templates
  Tips and Tricks
  Scripting Help (not SMF related)
SMF Friends
  SMF Friends
  Questionable Content
Charter Members Only
  Charter Member News
  General Chat
  1.x Support Concerns
  2.x Support Concerns
  Coding and Mods
SMF General Discussion
  Site Comments
  SMF Feedback and Discussion
Simple Machines Blogs
  SMF Team Blog
  Developers' Blog
Archived Boards and Threads...
  Archived Boards

That's a start, anyway. There might be some further consolidation or movement between categories, but the end result should look something like that.

[Kindred]

Mr Phil.


Not necessary.   I have already done a breakdown and a re-order suggestion and the team is currently discussing the few questions I had on the purpose of some of the boards.

[Arantor]

* Arantor bangs the drum about transparency again.

You know, you could actually put out what the suggestion was and what the arguments for/against are. More voices are better than one lone voice, especially if they're all in agreement.

You make the powers that be sound like governmental types: all talk, no do.

[Kindred]

transparency, shmaparency...

We've gone over the agruments for and against the spam specific board right here in this thread... how much more transparent do you want it?

As for discussion on the order of the boards, I don't see how making that discussion public would help a damned thing. As a matter of fact, I can see that making that discussion public would basically make it useless to actually accomplish anything.

I said it's in discussion. I even noted the state of the discussion....
Like most things... it will happen when it happens.

[kat]

I see this Spam board having two problems.

If we have it, it'll soon get tedious, because it'll be "Same old-Same old" very quickly. If people used their intelligence, they'd think "I have problems with Spam. I'll read that!", which would be a positive for us having it. But, as we all know, "Common sense" is an oxymoron.

For the same reason, it'll also get ignored, coz people will still post in the support boards, anyway.

As I said, originally, I believe that it might be worth trying. Problem, there, is that if we decide it's not working, we'd have to move all the damned posts, elsewhere, when we dump it.

[xrunner]

As I'm somebody who believes a person should put their money where their mouth is, I'd volunteer to move any new posts to the Spam Advisory board (if given the ability to do so) from this point forward, and also to move older spam related posts to the new board as I can on my own time.

If the board doesn't work out, all I have to do is move all the posts to the 2.x support board. Even if the person had a 1.x forum it would be OK because spam isn't an issue specific to 1.x or 2.x. If they use search to find solutions, the answers will pop up no matter where the posts are located. But how many people use search here to find answers anyway?

So, in effect you have nothing to lose because I'll do all the work, the posts won't get lost, and nobody else will lose any support time.

Win-win all the way.

[Arantor]

We've gone over the agruments for and against the spam specific board right here in this thread... how much more transparent do you want it?

So you're telling me that your entire proposal was for the new board and even that's being debated... why?

As for discussion on the order of the boards, I don't see how making that discussion public would help a damned thing. As a matter of fact, I can see that making that discussion public would basically make it useless to actually accomplish anything.

I guess the word accountability is not in the team lexicon.

Like most things... it will happen when it happens.

And this is why this project is ultimately doomed.

This is something which requires 5 minutes of time investment to implement, nothing more. 10, if you're going to grant more people the ability to move things in/out of said board. Every person who has posted in this thread has taken more time to talk about it, than it would have taken to implement it.

There are people here who are more than willing to put the time in to managing this stuff, as evidenced. There are people who are more than willing to make a go of it. And all because someone isn't prepared to spend 5-10 minutes in the server admin panel, we have to keep shouting louder.

[Kindred]

actually no... there needs to be some discussion over the combining of boards (because it can't be undone)
and no...   the board reorg proposal is only tangentially involved with the spam board proposal.

And how does that have anything to do with "accountability"?

and the project is not doomed. I really wish you would stop spouting that crap.
Just because you don't agree with things, does not mean that those things are wrong (any more than my disagreement with you makes your way wrong) There are many ways to accomplish things.

and yes... the final movement and merging of board may take 15 mins... but before we do something which can't be undone, we need ot make sure that we're doing it right the first time.

[Arantor]

and the project is not doomed. I really wish you would stop spouting that crap.

Then give me a *REASON*. Don't just tell me it's all peaches and cream. Give me something to cling on to. Something a bit more real than 'I'm not dead yet'.

I'm just amazed that this needs 'this level of discussion'. There were already solutions proposed that required precisely zero extra effort or things that 'could not be undone'. Doubly so for a trial basis.

Just take your SMF hat off and look at things for a moment. We have a TEN PAGE discussion, almost 200 posts, discussing the creation of a single board. DID IT REALLY NEED THIS? Any rational person would say no, but I'm long convinced there's not a lot of rationale behind most of what I see around here.

[Kindred]

well, please note that at leats 5 pages of that are probably off-topic stuff...

and yes, apparently it did need it since *I* still disagree with the need for such a board. (however, as I said, *I* am not the one making decisions, I am just the one presenting the reasoning against it.)


And once again...   the creation of the cpam board (or not) is just one factor in the board reorg that we are actually discussing.

[sangham.net]

In some cases just voting is helpful (not in all!). Especial if it is the positions are near 50/50 and not issues with real heavy results for many. Just a recommendation, of cause this could be not reasonable for some who like to have their position be real. So its need a big step forward for everyone.
The developers of SMF gave so many tools for discussions and solution finding.

[xrunner]

In some cases just voting is helpful (not in all!). Especial if it is the positions are near 50/50 and not issues with real heavy results for many.

You mean we could take a poll?

Why Johann - you do have your moments. 

[Irisado]

Oka-a-a-a-ay. Here's the PhD thesis. I was hoping I wouldn't have to do this, but since no one is "getting" it...

What you've written is nothing resembling a PhD thesis.  For a start, it's comprehensible .  More seriously, I'd agree with the repositioning of the SMF support boards, as I said earlier, and I'd also go with the spam child board solution, but that proposal didn't seem to gather much support, so I doubt that it will be done like this.

Anyway, I think that we should just wait now, and see what changes are made.  Further discussion of the subject doesn't seem as though it's going to be all that useful, in my opinion.

[MrPhil]

What you've written is nothing resembling a PhD thesis.  For a start, it's comprehensible .

Why thank you, lovely lady . Actually, you might like reading my real PhD thesis: Dick and Jane, an Ontological Study in Preadolescent Gender Relationships. Just kidding!

I'm not going to hold my breath that either a spam board/child board ever appears, or that this forum will ever be rearranged to reduce mispostings. Judging from the NIH arguments against such improvements, I don't think that TPTB will ever do anything that they didn't dream up themselves.

[xrunner]

I wrote a PhD thesis -

"Spam Discussion Boards and Forum Support Communities: Effects, Implementations, and Execution"