More subforums is a bad idea

Yeah ... it's something I've been fighting with ... I, too, like the simplicity of fewer forums.

Despite having just created the sub-forums, I'm hesitating.

I'm in total agreement with the sentiment posted here. Please, no sub-forums.

I'm going to have a re-think and shut off the majority of the new sub-forums until I have further discussions with the mgmt.

I'm will leave the new Genius Bar sub-forums as-is, as an experiment.

Agree with BRussell.

I find that the biggest 'problem' with the forums is that users tend to post threads in the wrong forum. For instance in current hardware is a thread titled "PCI Firewire problem-driver needed". Wouldn't that be better posted in Genius Bar? I'm not trying to pick on the author of the thread because I'm sure I've made a similar mistake as well.

But I don't think sub forums will help in that regard. In fact it will probably make it worse.

The only other forum I'd like to see is a 'classifieds' area to sell Mac stuff. But it would probably get inundated with spam.

It's difficult to keep up with threads that are posted in the wrong forums. When I see 'em I move 'em.


I'd like a 'Send free stuff to the admins' forum.

I've considered a Buy/Sell/Trade forum but I'd have to make sure that there is no liabilty on our part for transactions that go badly.

Did I mention the 'Send free stuff to the admins' forum?

Why not post any and all hardware and general software questions to Genius Bar?

Points taken.

Overall you guys do an excellent job. No complaints here.

Isn't that where they are supposed to go?

Unless the thread is " Why doesn't Apple use AMD chips in the Mac Pro?" or JTD's favorite " Why doesn't the Mac Mini have dedicated graphics?"

You should just refer people to eBay instead (and you could probably pick up additional click-through traffic revenue) to avoid the liabilities inherent to want ads. It would also discourage the site spamming I see regularly perpetrated by companies selling junk (usually hiding behind a new name every week).

We actually already allow people to post items for sale in the General Discussion forum, within reason. Personally, I have no problem with an established member posting a computer system for sale. You're right, though ... we're not ebay.

It's impossible to avoid the spam postings ... every forum out there is plagued by them. We use a captcha system on registration, but those are easily defeatable with screen-readers.

Hmmm. Looking back over this thread, it's been 'spam'med, too.

One thing that I'll add to the conversation: I understand that the PoliticalOutsider is an integral element of AI, but it really is a completely different topic from computers in general, and Apple in particular. One alternative to the current setup that I want to suggest is how a similar situation was handled at another forum I frequent: http://www.sffworld.com/forums/

Several years ago at SFFw, there was an issue with "Spamming" and recurring jokes that were polluting all the subforums (I was guilty of this too, and at least at AI there isn't any spillover into other forums) Basically there was way too much Off Topic crap floating around. To accommodate those of us who wanted to continue in our games and not detract from the SFFw forum as a whole they created the FunZone, which is listed in the forums list, but when you follow the link it takes you to a totally separate forum, which has a few subforums: http://www.sffworld.org/funzone/

The way they have it setup the FunZone even has a separate member list and requires separate login...

The advantage is that for people who use the forum for the primary use(Apple news & conversations) their experience isn't affected by a different topic when it begins to overtake that primary use, while still satisfying all the users who want that other topic (here that's the P.O.)

In use, for me, when I come to the AI forum I search by the last 24 hours, today there are about 8 out of 85 topics from the P.O. Not too bad, but it is still about 10%. And as I scan the thread listing topic headlines like: "Gaza: American fascists look the other way" & "Spitzer Goes Down. Literally." can be pretty distracting.

Like I say, I have no problem with the P.O. and I'm glad that a place like AI is willing to cater to the people who want that. But most of the time I'm not looking for that subject, and not following any of the threads, and for me it does take away from my experience at AI...

FUTURE PRODUCTS? That forum is going to be loaded with every cockamamie Hardware, Software, Prototype, Speculation, Load of shit on earth product there is. I thought the specifics of having changed the forums last time between hardware, and software totally worked. This change is just bring it back to the way it used to be which really sucked.

Changed it back to 'Future Hardware' ... the change to 'Future Products' was related to the addition of sub-forums, which I reversed yesterday ... I just forgot to change the main forum name back.