Forum Suggestion

[bradrel]

Hello,

I would like to throw in my $0.02 about managing forums. I have found that is best to start with just a few forums (2-5) and then expand as the need arrises. I think when people come to a site like this and see 10-20 different forums, they get a little intimidated and don't know which one to post in. Starting with just a few allows you to expand and create additional forums based on the subjects the majority of people are posing about.

Again, just my 2 cents.
b

 

[tonymacx86]

Thanks bradrei-

That was my thought initially as well. I added some forums today that I thought were necessary- I hope that I'm not confusing things too much!

 

[thelostswede]

Is it possible that we can add specific threads for the various motherboards?
There seem to be a large group of users here with the Gigabyte GA-P55-UD4P beyond the GA-P55M-UD2 and there also seem to be some UD6 and UD3x users.
I guess the same would have to be done for other brands to.
I know this adds a lot of threads, but it would make it so much easier for when people are trying to find what they're looking at and this could be paired up with the Q&A that someone suggested, as in the solutions would be copied into the Q&A thread which would be a sticky on top of each of the motherboard sections.

 

[tonymacx86]

Is it possible that we can add specific threads for the various motherboards?
There seem to be a large group of users here with the Gigabyte GA-P55-UD4P beyond the GA-P55M-UD2 and there also seem to be some UD6 and UD3x users.
I guess the same would have to be done for other brands to.
I know this adds a lot of threads, but it would make it so much easier for when people are trying to find what they're looking at and this could be paired up with the Q&A that someone suggested, as in the solutions would be copied into the Q&A thread which would be a sticky on top of each of the motherboard sections.

Thanks for the suggestion thelostswede- I appreciate it. Now that the forum's been up for over a week, and there's a bit of activity, we should definitely look to expand the topic list. I just want to be sure to make it as concise as possible without any overlaps. I pretty much am thinking that there's a few ways we could go.

Here's how the forum looks now.

OSX86 HELP DESK
Installation
Post Installation
DSDT
Buying Advice

BETA TESTING
tonymacx86 Boot CD

OTHER
Bat Cave
Site Suggestions

Building upon the suggestions so far, we could add a forum group like this which would be similar to Insanelymac. I don't think this is necessary at this point though.

HARDWARE
Graphics
Audio
Network

I'm really puzzled as to how we could set up your idea without making it too specific. Here's what I'm thinking as a possibility:

P55 MOTHERBOARDS
Asus
Gigabyte
Intel
MSI
Other

Considering this is the list of all mobos, having each be a separate forum would probably be ridiculous:

ASRock P55 Deluxe
ASRock P55 Extreme
ASRock P55 Pro
ASRock P55M Pro
ASUS Maximus III Formula
ASUS Maximus III GENE
ASUS P7P55 LX
ASUS P7P55 WS SuperComputer with NF200
ASUS P7P55D
ASUS P7P55D Deluxe
ASUS P7P55D EVO
ASUS P7P55D LE
ASUS P7P55D Premium
ASUS P7P55D PRO
ASUS P7P55D-E Deluxe
ASUS P7P55D-E Premium
ASUS SABERTOOTH 55i
BIOSTAR T5 XE
BIOSTAR T5 XE CFX-SLI
BIOSTAR TP55
BIOSTAR TPOWER i55
DFI LANParty DK P55-T3eH9
ECS P55H-A
EVGA 121-LF-E652-KR
EVGA 160-LF-E659-KR
EVGA P55 FTW 200 SLI 141-LF-E658-KR
EVGA P55 FTW SLI 132-LF-E657-KR
EVGA P55 LE 123-LF-E653-KR
EVGA P55 SLI 132-LF-E655-KR
Foxconn P55A
Foxconn P55A-S
Foxconn P55MX
Foxconn Inferno Katana
Foxconn Inferno Katana GTI
GIGABYTE GA-P55-UD3
GIGABYTE GA-P55-UD3L
GIGABYTE GA-P55-UD3R
GIGABYTE GA-P55-UD4
GIGABYTE GA-P55-UD4P
GIGABYTE GA-P55-UD5
GIGABYTE GA-P55-UD6
GIGABYTE GA-P55A-UD3
GIGABYTE GA-P55A-UD3P
GIGABYTE GA-P55A-UD3R
GIGABYTE GA-P55A-UD4
GIGABYTE GA-P55A-UD4P
GIGABYTE GA-P55M-UD2
GIGABYTE GA-P55M-UD4
Intel BOXDP55KG
Intel BOXDP55SB
Intel BOXDP55WB
Intel BOXDP55WG
MSI P55-CD53
MSI P55-GD45
MSI P55-GD55
MSI P55-GD65
MSI P55-GD80
MSI P55M-GD45

Any suggestions- I'm totally open to expanding, but I really want to make sure it's not confusing and there's little to no overlapping of forums. I could set up the topic list in each Mobo-specific forum and make it so people wouldn't be able to post new topics, just post in a specific topic, i.e.

P55 MOTHERBOARDS - GIGABYTE

GIGABYTE GA-P55-UD3
GIGABYTE GA-P55-UD3L
GIGABYTE GA-P55-UD3R
GIGABYTE GA-P55-UD4
GIGABYTE GA-P55-UD4P
GIGABYTE GA-P55-UD5
GIGABYTE GA-P55-UD6
GIGABYTE GA-P55A-UD3
GIGABYTE GA-P55A-UD3P
GIGABYTE GA-P55A-UD3R
GIGABYTE GA-P55A-UD4
GIGABYTE GA-P55A-UD4P
GIGABYTE GA-P55M-UD2
GIGABYTE GA-P55M-UD4

 

[thelostswede]

You got a list of just about every single P55 motherboard
(there's a DFI model missing and Gigabyte has a UD7 coming)
Well, maybe my idea wasn't so smart, but yeah, at least a separate forum per brand might not be such a bad idea.
Not sure how important Intel is, I can't see that many people buying Intel boards, but I could be wrong.

 

[tonymacx86]

I think that possibly that would work, but I don't want to necessarily separate into Mobo specific forums. That may cause a lot of unanswered threads, as people sometimes with different mobos have the same issues.

Can anyone else chime in? I'm wanting to make this forum as user-friendly as possible, and I need your help! Go team!

 

[ellnic]

One thing which I think would be really useful is a "Thanks" button. I know it's more of a back end change as opposed to general topics etc. I don't know if this would be easy to implement?

 

[lectrcman]

How about a section for cool tips and tricks? Just random things we know that we can share. Especially for the folks new to OSX.

 

[ne0shell]

What this place needs is what is missing from insanely and some of the other mac forums. A content management system.

They have a few indexes and wikis but when I come along as a new user and want to build a hack if I use one of the other sites I have to rely on forum searches to find out if anyone has fixed any of the myriad of issues one runs into w/ hacks.

I used to design those type of systems and what I would do would be to set it up w/ containers for all the various hardware types and copy in information from the forum posts as it relates to them. For the most part people are going to run into the same issues, the branching comes in once we start getting into peripherals like video cards, pci firewire cards, etc.

Granted it's a lot of work but w/ a few volunteers it could be accomplished. Otherwise, if you plan to rely on a forum to act as a content mgt system I would suggest adding subject "tags" based on predefined lists of tag words and do whatever possible to get people to use them.

 

[thelostswede]

Are you volunteering to make that for us?