Forum Changes

[IrishWhiskeyChaser]

Please beaware that you are not going mad and that threads are jumping around and forums are dissappearing.

Will update you all once we're finished.

Thanks for your patience

Cheers

[IrishWhiskeyChaser]

Okay all, it was thought that there were too many sub forums on here and that it may have been to confusing for some. It was decided to totally cut the amount of sub forums to see if we can get more people involved.

This is quite a drastic change from what regular forumers are used to. I'd like to hear all comments good and bad in relation to this change.

[IainB]

Honestly I think this makes it very difficult to navigate. For a start you have to go down past a whole page of stickies to get to new topics.

Secondly when you look, for example, at the whiskey chat section theres a lot of different discussions on various topics without any sense or organisation to how they're laid out. The heading were great for where you wanted to discuss or read up on something specific such as Irish, Scotch, Collecting etc.

If the aim is to condense the forum I would maybe consider condensing the society and non whiskey stuff, but leaving a few headings in place on whiskey chat.

In summary it's now just a big jumble of various topics.

Anyway, it's not that I want to appear critical, and I'm grateful to all of you who keep this going, but in the spirit of being asked an opinion I've given as honest a one as I can.

[DavidH]

I've streamlined things a little further. Besides taking out a whole menu layer, I've noticed some redundancy - in the Whiskey section we had two "read me first" threads, two "What are you drinking?" threads and two "What's your latest whiskey purchase?" threads, for example. So I've combined them and thus reduced the number of stickies.

More to be done...

[DavidH]

Bear in mind that this is now the first page that new visitors will see. It's far more inviting. We have a big problem with society members taking one look at the forum and fleeing. If this forum is to fulfill its purpose we need to extend participation beyond the current handful.

The "New Posts" function works as well as it ever did. If you are looking for posts on a particular topic, the search function is perfect. Threads you like to return to again and again can be bookmarked.

I like this structure myself. I'm pretty sure hardcore forum heads will cope fine with the changes with slight adjustments. What do you think of the changes from a newbie point-of-view?

[varizoltan]

why don't we just call it MAZE instead of FORUM?

[TheWhiskeyBro]

Congrats on all the hard work guys, but I think it has gone the other extreme now, too pared down!!! Anyway leave it for a while. Is it easy to unravel some of these threads?

Personally I would have preferred about 8 headings...

I think it is a lot harder to resurrect old threads (search of course is available)

a good example is the thread on books or tastings (i feel they are now buried)

Bargain buys?... I think it will lead to random posting with threads being repeated...

I'm prepared to wait and see... it was not what I was expecting

[DavidH]

Some threads are still in the wrong place so that will be tidied up.

On the busiest forum ("Whiskey") it looks like there will be about two weeks of posts on the first page. That seems right to me. In a forum older discussions are supposed to drop away. In part, we have been misusing the forum. If we are relying on certain threads to stay up near the top because the info in them is still useful then that info shouldn't be in the forum at all.

For example books should be on our bibliography page (it's my fault they are not - I'll get to it soon, I promise). If a new book gets mentioned on the forum it should be noted, the details moved to the permanent web page and the thread allowed to sink into oblivion.

To answer your question, the structure can be built up from this point. But I'll be interested to hear what people think after getting used to it for a while.

[PureDrop]

Actually my comments would echo Leo's.

However, the forum serves a few purposes at present
1) the chat type stuff
2) the interim repository of useful information that will one day deliver static content or at least be associated/linked from a static webpage.
3) the source of information on the society events.

I'd leave all the chatty ones as they now are in a big lump.

However, I'd restore the sub for or devoted to (or generating) what will become static(ish) content on the website:
- the tastes of particular whiskeys (although in time, they might migrate to the more static content parts of the web related to each whiskey with ability to post comments)
- those related to Whiskey Literature
- Ditto again the society tastings/events should have their own sub-forum - if I was picky, I'd relabel each from "February 2010 'Whiskey 101' (25th)" to "February 25, 2010 Whiskey 101" - I think the exact date in brackets is odd and non-intuitive,

Originally, there were ~15 sub-fora which was too many (IMHO). However some of them were/are really placeholders for the main site and thus valid until the main content goes live.

I guess now that there's a smaller number, one might question the need for so many stickies.
(I find it amusing that we've more forum members than readers of the "Read the forum rules" - such is life!)

One weird thing I'll share with you. I've been on websites from the very beginning (NCSA mosaic etc.) but for some reason failed to register the existence of the sub-menus under Forum (.e. new posts and active posts) for a few weeks. Now, I generally come to the forum via a link to "new posts"

For a newbie,/occasional visitor, its probably an improvement with fewer subfora.
For the dedicated, I can feel their pain.

Well done & despair not.
Michael

[DavidH]

I've put introductions and rules right out front where they can't be missed. There are far fewer stickies in the Whiskey forum now. Along the way I've been proofing sticky content too so the whole place is gradually getting a spring clean.

I have to say, for the first time, I feel I know what's in the forum. And that's speaking as an admin who has read every single posting on the forum.

And despite some complaints that Tastings had disappeared, IWC in fact left Tastings as a very obvious sub-forum of Whiskey. So I'm wondering if you are reviewing this forum at all or another one entirely

[IrishWhiskeyChaser]

I forgot to re-instate the premissions So it was just you and me David that could see them ... all should be able to view it now bar guests.

Think it maybe nice just to have a few areas like this for people who take the time to sign up.

[PureDrop]

Permissions, is it? Looking good.
I note that David's crossed with mine (the whole domain was inaccessible for a couple of minutes www.irishwiskey and forum.irishwhiskey). Its a nice balance now. Run with it, and as you say in your post, moving some of the content/stickier posts to static pages will be a good thing.
Beir bua,
/M