New Forums - (Ideas)

[BrandonK]

Hey all, just curious to see what forums you guys might like to see in the near future (possibly).

I was thinking:

1. Keep these forums the way they are. (General Questions, Off-Topic, etc)
2. Add an "Announcements" forum.
3. Add another category with "Networking Help", "Photoshop Help", and "Web Design Help" (Sub categories would be things like HTML, PHP/MySQL, etc)
4. "Site Showcase" forum.

What do you all think?

I'm open to other possibilities, so feel free to share em!

[ikersley]

I like the idea of some further sub-divisions within the main forum. I suspect it will help with the issue of "techie" vs. "yakker" postings. Personally, I like to see topic-specific areas, because it makes searching for an answer to a specific problem significantly easier IMHO. Go for it...

Ian

[macgyver2]

My thoughts...

I like more organization over less. For instance, I don't like how Fantastico stuff is mixed with scripting stuff. At the very least, I think there needs to be some sub-forums implemented there.

To answer your post specifically... I do think there needs to be an announcements section (#2). I think that's a given. I also like #3, with another sub-forums being "Security". I don't think #4 is necessary, as a forum/sub-forum...a sticky in the off-topic forum should be fine.

[BrandonK]

a sticky in the off-topic forum should be fine.

Yeah that actually sounds like a better idea to me.

[Taresa]

One of the ways I like to learn is through casual reading. If something catches my eye, it would be nice to just go to a particular topic and read thread after thread without a lot of questions about stuff that doesn't interest me.

I still don't really understand the difference between the General and Fantastico, etc. categories. It looks like there are a lot of threads in General that couls also be in Fantastico, etc. That's confusing to me, so I just check out new posts. The existing organization just isn't intuitive/appealing to me.

So, yes to more sub-forums!

[cajun]

1] General Information
a. announcements
b. updates/alerts
c. Forum Rules

2] Support Forum
a. ASP
b. CGI
c. control panels
d. stats
e. PHP/MySQL

3] Some other stuff

[bruphoto]

I'm all for more forums / sub-forums, but I think in this case too many forums could be more confusing than helping. Less is more, so to speak.

This is my syggestion (based on Cajun's post )

1) General Information (including forum rules as a sticky)
a. announcements
b. updates/alerts
c. Control panel questions

2) Scripting (with general questions)
a. Server-side scripting
b. Client-side scripting

3) Other (like web-design)

[BrandonK]

1] General Information
a. announcements
b. updates/alerts
c. Forum Rules

2] Support Forum
a. ASP
b. CGI
c. control panels
d. stats
e. PHP/MySQL

3] Some other stuff

We don't need a forum dedicated to the rules, I can just make an announcement post that'll show on every forum. ....just have to wait for permission with that.

[Taresa]

Yes. Add to General:

Fantastico Installs (way too big a category to be lumped in with other CP stuff)
Mail (with everything we see/hear about spam control, I think this is important)

Announcements = Updates = Alerts, in my book.

One thing BH lacks is a way to let us know when there's a problem with some or all of our services. If the forum is the place for that to happen, that should be a high priority.

I say this because BH does NOT need the bad press they can get from trouble reports on their forums/blog, etc. Also because we need (at least) one place where we can go as soon as we see our sites are behaving poorly. If there's a splash page on the help center, that may be more appropriate. We need it, somewhere...

[JCsDesignz]

Woohoo more places to post LOL

Id love the photoshop help if it gets set up. I currently use paintshop pro 8 and 9 for my graphics but also have Photoshop,Dreamweaver and fireworks but no idea how to use them LOL

Dreamweaver and fireworks help would be a good one as well if anyone has enough patients