Forum Sections?

[Wally]

Does anyone agree with me that the forum is becoming a little bloated and foresee in the future that everything will no longer be simplistic? At the moment its quite a mess.


Here's how I see the current setup


Pandora Section


Official Pandora News - This should stay but should also be the home for a newsticker on the openpandora.org website. So when someone posts something here, it goes to the front page. Maybe all the SuperZaxxon Updates should be announced here as they are official?


General Talk - Good idea to have a general discussion area this should stay as is.


Linux OS - Isn't this General Talk? Why is it right in our face? Maybe this could be called Official OS Discussion?


Android - Isn't android a linux OS? Why not merge the Linux OS discussion / Android Discussion and move it out of our face? It seems unintuitive where it is placed


Software News - Should be moved up under Official News as it is news and its something people will check as soon as they sign on.


Support - Great idea but people are posting problems with software as well as hardware, this could be branched out into Hardware Support / Software Support


Development Section - Seems too generalised and split up. Make it all one big section, it'd be easier to navigate and would be easier for everyone including moderators.


Beta testing - Excellent idea but the description says "Try your apps in here before uploading to Pandora apps." Shouldn't it say "put" instead of "try"?


Rebirth Competition - Since this is over shouldn't it be merged into Software News?


Pandora 2 Spam - I'd be renaming it to Pandora 2 ideas as it looks more professional?


1GHZ Units - Another pointless forum which should be thrown into general discussion Sure there's a "specific club of people" using the 1GHZ units but its still General Talk and should be placed back into the main section.


iControlPad Stuff - I don't want to bother with this as I don't feel it fits into the Pandora section (Not even compatible as it stands)


Off Topic General Talk - should stay


Questions - Merge with Off Topic. Its silly to have a board on its own.


Other Consoles - Keep it.


Trading - There's no disclaimer stating that the OpenPandora is not responsible for any loss of goods. This would protect you more.


Ask Craig / EvilDragon Questions - Should stay same


Spellbound games - Stays.


This is how I see the forums right now, its quite a mess. Any others feel this way?

 

[huniper]

If we can have subforums then:


I would say make the 1GHZ Units into a subforum in beta testing


Set up Linux, Android and the rebirth into subforums in the software section.

 

[quartercast]

I'm with ya Wally. From what I remember there'll be a Pandora relaunch with 1GHz units relabelled to something else.

 

[pmprog]

The problem I find with the "Official News" threads, is there's not many "new posts", and all the threads get derailed.


ED made a post in the middle of one of the threads saying he was now concentrating on sorting the TV cables. I never saw it (hidden amongst the flood of posts), and I have no idea if there were any follow up comments.


Maybe Linux and Android should become sub-boards of General Talk?

 

[elwing]

please, put more useless sections

 

[Nintendo]

I want a SONY forum section.

 

[Prometheus]

No more! NO MORE!!

 

[elwing]

hum, why not a sectrion about rabbits? all the kind of rabbits, even cars...

 

[EvilDragon]

Does anyone agree with me that the forum is becoming a little bloated and foresee in the future that everything will no longer be simplistic? At the moment its quite a mess.

Well, the idea of sorting these things is to unclutter it, but we can discuss about things here.

Official Pandora News - This should stay but should also be the home for a newsticker on the openpandora.org website. So when someone posts something here, it goes to the front page. Maybe all the SuperZaxxon Updates should be announced here as they are official?

Probably a good idea once old preorders, etc. have been finished. Then we could use it for OS updates, etc.

General Talk - Good idea to have a general discussion area this should stay as is.


Linux OS - Isn't this General Talk? Why is it right in our face? Maybe this could be called Official OS Discussion?

Linux OS is not General Talk.


If someone has questions regarding the Pandora (should I get one? Where to buy? Will this USB Stick work? Can I do, etc.), then this doesn't necessarily have anything to do with either Android or Linux.


For example "Which websites should we advertise on", "gonna-buying mine, my personal questions before doing it", "Cute new Pandora user", "Yet another Pandora review").


These have nothing to do with either the official Linux OS nor Android.


Calling it "Official OS distribution" would need another section: Other OS (ArchLinuxARM, PanDebian, Slackware, etc.)


As these other OSes don't have that many threads, I think they could stay in the Linux OS section.

Android - Isn't android a linux OS? Why not merge the Linux OS discussion / Android Discussion and move it out of our face? It seems unintuitive where it is placed

It's based on Linux, but totally different.


Imagine there are users who don't care about Android, they are only interested in "normal" Linux distros with XFCE, Gnome, etc.


If we merge these two together, it would be hard to read for those guys.


Don't forget now that production is working properly, I'll be visiting GamesCom soon and we'll start to advertise, there'll be all kinds of new users here.

Software News - Should be moved up under Official News as it is news and its something people will check as soon as they sign on.

Not sure what software news is about though - couldn't we merge it with Beta Testing?


If someone releases a new game / app, he could post it into Software news and either flag it as Beta or RC.

Support - Great idea but people are posting problems with software as well as hardware, this could be branched out into Hardware Support / Software Support

That would bloat it even more


We had Hardware and Software support sections, but joined them later as there weren't too many posts.

Development Section - Seems too generalised and split up. Make it all one big section, it'd be easier to navigate and would be easier for everyone including moderators.

Are you a dev?


This section has been setup like that on the wishes of several developers to keep it uncluttered.


Are you sure it would be easier to navigate if EVERYTHING is just unsorted in one single forum?

Rebirth Competition - Since this is over shouldn't it be merged into Software News?

Not only software news, but moved to the corresponding board section, yes.

 

[WizardStan]

Yeah, a section where we can discuss all our best rabbit recipes!

 

[elwing]

Yeah, a section where we can discuss all our best rabbit recipes!

that too


Can I haz rabbits section?

 

[Nintendo]

Lop-eared bunnies only though

 

[elwing]

ho, noes!

 

[Nintendo]

I've added a poll to this topic. Wally, I hope you don't mind.

 

[_wb_]

General Talk - Good idea to have a general discussion area this should stay as is.


Linux OS - Isn't this General Talk? Why is it right in our face? Maybe this could be called Official OS Discussion?

Linux OS is not General Talk.


If someone has questions regarding the Pandora (should I get one? Where to buy? Will this USB Stick work? Can I do, etc.), then this doesn't necessarily have anything to do with either Android or Linux.


For example "Which websites should we advertise on", "gonna-buying mine, my personal questions before doing it", "Cute new Pandora user", "Yet another Pandora review").


These have nothing to do with either the official Linux OS nor Android.


Calling it "Official OS distribution" would need another section: Other OS (ArchLinuxARM, PanDebian, Slackware, etc.)


As these other OSes don't have that many threads, I think they could stay in the Linux OS section.

Android - Isn't android a linux OS? Why not merge the Linux OS discussion / Android Discussion and move it out of our face? It seems unintuitive where it is placed

It's based on Linux, but totally different.


Imagine there are users who don't care about Android, they are only interested in "normal" Linux distros with XFCE, Gnome, etc.


If we merge these two together, it would be hard to read for those guys.

Things get confusing if you use terminology like "Linux OS" - the thing that differentiates what you call "normal" Linux distros from Android is that the "normal" Linux distros are actually GNU/Linux, while Android uses Linux as a kernel but otherwise has no overlap with those other distros. In order to avoid confusion, I would call it "GNU/Linux OS" or "GNU/Linux distributions".

 

[_wb_]

We can probably get rid of both "Software News" and "Beta testing" and move those threads to the relevant platform subforum.

 

[Prometheus]

We can probably get rid of both "Software News" and "Beta testing" and move those threads to the relevant platform subforum.

I'm not sure that this is a good idea - what about users who wouldn't connect software release news, with forums ostensibly intended for discussion of particular operating systems? I must admit that I certainly wouldn't! I would just assume that this place had no section for release news, since looking for a subforum in an OS discussion area really isn't intuitive if you're looking for software.

 

[_wb_]

Yeah, but I guess there will be different releases for Android than for the GNU/Linux based distros, so it makes sense to make this distinction in the "Software News" section as well. What about this forum structure, with only 3 top-level forums (at least in the Pandora board) instead of the 10 we currently have:


- General Talk


- Pandora Hardware

• Official OpenPandora News
  
• Support (related to hardware problems)
  
• Hardware Testing (e.g. 1Ghz units)
  
• Pandora 2 ideas
  

- Pandora Software

• GNU/Linux on the Pandora
  
• Android on the Pandora
  
• New Releases and Beta testing
  
• Development Section
  
• Software ideas / port requests
  

Does that make sense?

 

[Prometheus]

^ I quite like that arrangement, aside from the placement of Support, which I really think should remain at the top level, personally, as it does a good job of clearing up the fogginess as to whether a particular question should go in the Support section or be used to bump an old software-release thread. Not to mention those odd cases where it's not a hardware issue but a software one, despite how things may appear at first, and so on - it's always nice to have a clear-cut place for those to stay.

 

[_wb_]

You're right, it is probably best to put "Support" at the top level, since it is not always clear a priori (or at least not to the one having the problem) whether it is a hardware or software issue. Plus this section could have some sticky post with FAQ about common problems, both hardware and software related. Perhaps "Troubleshooting" is a better name than "Support".