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Proposed Community Site Forum Structure

Not applicable

Proposed Community Site Forum Structure

G'day all,
As many of you know the forum moderators met up at PlusNet earlier in the year, amongst the things we discussed was a new layout for the forums. We've had a draft of the new structure in a text form for a while now, but haven't had the time to progress this any further (we were hoping to get it implemented on the community beta site, but due to lack of time that never happened).
Therefore, not wanting to delay things any further we have decided to post up the text structure for feedback from the community. All feedback on the new layout is welcomed, although we do ask it is kept to this thread and that this thread is kept on topic.
So - share your thoughts.
Regards,
James_H on behalf of the Community Moderators
Proposed Community Forum Layout
* General Discusssion
============================
| 1. Informal Discussion
Description: New here? Introduce yourself and get started. [Or summat -JH]
|
* Products and Services Discussions
===================================
Description: Discuss areas relating to the PlusNet product services
|- 2. Community Support
|Need help with any aspect of the service provided?
|
||-- Sub: Broadband Connection and Speed
||-- Sub: Email and Webmail
||-- Sub: Web Hosting and CGI
||-- Sub: Home Phone
||-- Sub: Broadband Phone
||-- Sub: Referrers Forum
||-- Sub: Internet Event Calendar
|
|- 3. Service Feedback
||-- Sub: Testimonials
||-- Sub: Rants and Raves
||-- Sub: Product Ideas and Suggestions [Note: Should be closely managed in line with PUGIT comments]
|
|- 4. Gamers Forum
|-- Later sub groups possible for different games / clans?
|- 5. Business Customers
|-- Sub: Partners [Note: Only available to partners + others nominated by MBK]
|- 6. Community site discussion
|-- Sub: Suggestions (Community Site & Forums)
|-- Sub: Report Bugs
|
* Usergroup Discussion (Rules and Modded by PUG Co-ordinators)
==================================================
|- 7. Community Trials
|-- Sub: <Example board for Trial> [Note: Each trial board perms managed seperately so we can grant access to each trial individually]
|-- Sub: <Example board for Trial> [Note: Each trial board perms managed seperately so we can grant access to each trial individually]
|-- More Added / Removed on Demand
| 8. Usergroup Discussions
|-- Sub forums on request - full control of PUG
| 9. PUGIT Comments
* Specialist Discussions
=======================
|- 10 Computers and Networking
|-- Sub: Microsoft Windows
|-- Sub: Apple Mac
|-- Sub: Linux and Other *nix
|-- Sub: Home Networking
|- 11 Web and Internet
* Archives
=============
| 12. Forum Archives
|-- All Archive Forums with posts since migration
|
* Trusted Users Forums [Note:Only available to users with correct permissions]
================
|- Moderators Lounge
|-- Sub: Thread Storage
|- Sub-Moderators Lounge [Note: Sub mod include PUG + any others who agree to mod subsections of the forums]
|-- Sub: Thread Storage
|- PlusNet Staff
|- PUG NDA forums as needed
28 REPLIES 28
Anotherone
Champion
Posts: 19,107
Thanks: 457
Fixes: 21
Registered: ‎31-08-2007

Re: Proposed Community Site Forum Structure

Am I correct in assuming that you are not proposing a linky at the top of each (relevant) forum for the relevant Archive Forum, not complaining, just asking?
Not applicable

Re: Proposed Community Site Forum Structure

Possibly if its relevant.
At the minute, because the structure matches the structure of the old boards, its easy to have them as child boards.
When we move to a structure with greater segregation of topics, they won't fit quite so easily.
No reason we can't sticky a link in each of the boards which has a relevant 'archive' though pointing to the sub-board within the Archive set.
For those not aware - the archives are simply posts from the old boards from the time we migrated to this site. There is no archiving policy, and the current boards will simply continue to grow as time goes on.
Oldjim
Resting Legend
Posts: 38,460
Thanks: 787
Fixes: 63
Registered: ‎15-06-2007

Re: Proposed Community Site Forum Structure

Where has General Chit Chat gone
James
Grafter
Posts: 21,036
Thanks: 5
Registered: ‎04-04-2007

Re: Proposed Community Site Forum Structure

Quote
| 1. Informal Discussion
Description: New here? Introduce yourself and get started. [Or summat -JH]
Oldjim
Resting Legend
Posts: 38,460
Thanks: 787
Fixes: 63
Registered: ‎15-06-2007

Re: Proposed Community Site Forum Structure

Right at the top  Crazy
You will be giving certain posters (usually over a certain age) ideas above their station  Grin
Seriously can I suggest that introduce yourself etc. should be kept well away from the sort of dodgy posting that one finds in General Chit Chat at present.
David_W
Rising Star
Posts: 2,305
Thanks: 33
Registered: ‎19-07-2007

Re: Proposed Community Site Forum Structure

Linux and Other *nix for some reason doesn't seem to sound right, how about Linux, and another sub forum of "Other Operating Systems".  Then depending on popularity you could later add in a sub forum of the Linux forum with say Ubuntu, Suse, Redhat etc?
I think the Linux crowd is very territorial, so having them posting in the same forum as Solaris may cause riots, and technically Apple Mac is a *nix (BSD).
James
Grafter
Posts: 21,036
Thanks: 5
Registered: ‎04-04-2007

Re: Proposed Community Site Forum Structure

We want to encourage new posters to join the forums and post Smiley
Oldjim
Resting Legend
Posts: 38,460
Thanks: 787
Fixes: 63
Registered: ‎15-06-2007

Re: Proposed Community Site Forum Structure

Computers and Networking
Can we have a sub section hardware
Jamesh - I think that might have the opposite effect and it is a serious suggestion that General Chit Chat is kept well away from Introduce yourself and similar threads welcoming newcomers
Not applicable

Re: Proposed Community Site Forum Structure

Quote from: Oldjim
Right at the top  Crazy
You will be giving certain posters (usually over a certain age) ideas above their station  Grin
Seriously can I suggest that introduce yourself etc. should be kept well away from the sort of dodgy posting that one finds in General Chit Chat at present.

We can always add a sub board below the 'introduce yourself...' board for the ramblers amongst us I suppose if that seems like the most sensible idea.
~~~
Also, WRT other subforums/divisions of stuff, the main principle we've gone for with the structure is that we should be able to find homes for more stuff, whilst making it easier for folks to ignore stuff they aren't interested in particularly.
Kinda hinted at in the gamers part, where it may become useful to categorise stuff in different ways (type of game? clan? platform?)
At the same time though, we don't want to spread stuff out too much in case we end up with parts that get very few posts and actually make things harder to navigate around.
jmd
Grafter
Posts: 2,933
Thanks: 4
Registered: ‎30-07-2007

Re: Proposed Community Site Forum Structure

We still need a general chit-chat forum as some of us like posting useless information and finding what people think about events/products/situations/etc Smiley Wink
I am  Shocked at the thought of not having my favourite forum!

and it needs to seperate from "Introduce yourself"  so that under "General Discussion you would have 2 sub forums?
please
Not applicable

Re: Proposed Community Site Forum Structure

Quote from: James_H
We can always add a sub board below the 'introduce yourself...' board for the ramblers amongst us I suppose if that seems like the most sensible idea.
Oldjim
Resting Legend
Posts: 38,460
Thanks: 787
Fixes: 63
Registered: ‎15-06-2007

Re: Proposed Community Site Forum Structure

James_H
I am not sure whether you agree to create a sub forum for hardware discussions but it shouldn't be under a specific operating system as to a large extent it is software independent (perhaps, except for Mac users).
It is possible that I am misunderstanding what the structure is. You may be having a main board with posts and then sub boards for more specialist areas. If this is what you intend then it may be that a hardware sub forum is not necessary.
zubel
Community Veteran
Posts: 3,793
Thanks: 4
Registered: ‎08-06-2007

Re: Proposed Community Site Forum Structure

Anything prefixed with a * is a 'Category' and merely breaks up the front page of the forums.
Anything prefixed with '|-' is a parent forum, and can be posted in
Anything prefixed with '||-- Sub' is a sub forum and can also be posted in Smiley
does that help?
B.
Not applicable

Re: Proposed Community Site Forum Structure

Our hope is that we might be able to persuade people to moderate the smaller areas of the boards, if there is a particular area they tend to post most frequently. (For example, there are quite a few who predominantly post in Webspace, or Gaming, or etc... at the minute.)
On this kind of a basis, the moderator for section 10 may decide to move threads from the more general top level 'Specialist Discussion' board into say, the Apple Mac board, if its a particular thing specific to Macs.
The plan is a little woolly as its not really the sort of thing that we [mods] can decide on unanimously - but its a direction that I think will reap rewards. (We've approached a number of folks in the past about being moderators, and they've often felt that the whole role is quite an undertaking - smaller chunks will hopefully make the role more appealling.)
More on the Moderating angle later on sometime.