too many subforums
 

I think there are too many subforums. I wish everything was just in a single hamilton forum that listed all of the threads.

I find that I only use the "recent threads" section--and that only lists a limited number. Once they fall off there they are forgotten about.

An alternative would be a "recent threads" page that listed all of the threads in the order of "last reply" with a user-set limit for how many to display on the page, with multiple pages just in case.

Possible?

i agree. i have problems finding threads that don't fit neatly into the given categories.

I agree with you.

I never use the categories, just the latest active thread list. You definitely miss a lot of active threads if you don't check more than once per day. Mods can't change stuff like that, but perhaps we could ask for the number of categories to be reduced.

Or ask to increase the number of active list from 10 to 20. Though I don't know if people would like that idea, making the page longer to navigate.

I think increasing the list size would be the way to go, the sub forums tend not to be that much of an issue, as I quite like the categorisations.

If the list actually mentioned the time and name of the person who had made the posts that make up the list, it would save a lot of scrolling down to see if someone had responded to a thread you had just responded to or if it was still your's as the last one posted or opening up a thread only to realise that no one had responded yet.

increasing the active list would satisfy me.

i gotta ask - what is the point of the categorizations? can't people tell from the title what the general category of the thread is? the categories just confuse matters if your post kind of overlaps them, causing many to get lost etc.

I think the best solution is to reduce the sub forums.

Honestly - I think that we would do just fine (better in fact) if we only had two categories: hamilton photos and hamilton discussion. A possible third could be general discussion. I'd even argue that the photo threads should come in under a single-topic system, so that they get more attention.

I just went to take a closer look and the more I think about it, the worse the categories seem. They ALL overlap and are so intertwined it makes no sense to split them off like they are:



Downtown and City of Hamilton (11 Viewing)
Suburbs (1 Viewing)
Why do we segregate geographically? I would prefer we didn't - but these groupings are the only ones that make at least little bit of sense.

Urban, Urban Design and Heritage Issues (5 Viewing)
Doesn't urban fit under downtown? Isn't urban design related to the economy? And to transportation for that matter? If I post about LRT streetscaping, is it urban design or transportation and infrastructure?

Business, Politics and the Economy (5 Viewing)
Doesn't politics encompass everything we talk about here? ANd doesn't everything have an economic side to the story? Do house price discussions go here, or do they go in the downtown/suburban sections depending on where the houses in question are located?

Transportation and Infrastructure (2 Viewing)
Do I post B-Line information here or in "Downtown and city of hamilton". And if it's about transit funding, does it go here or in the economy subforum?

Culture, Dining, Sports and Recreation (1 Viewing)
Talk of a new stadium - does it go here? Or under Business? Or Hamilton Downtown? Or Urban Design?

General Discussion (3 Viewing)
What does this mean under the current context? Anything that doesn't fit into other categories? Anything that fits into too many other categories? Non Hamilton discussion?

Hamilton Photos (3 Viewing)
This is the only one that is clear as day :-)

The biggest reason I think we should get rid of the subforum structure is that I have no clue where to start when I am looking for a thread. I know I replied to a thread on a certain topic and without fail, I open 3 or 4 subforums looking for it once it's dropped off the active threads list. I can't be the only one!

edit to add: The only argument I can think of to keep the subforums is if there are people who are really only interested in one or two of the subforum themes and will routinely ignore the other ones. These people would be annoyed by sifting through LRT discussion if they only care about sports and culture for instance.

But do ANY of our users stay away from ANY of the categories? If not, then they do much more harm than good I think.

I think the issue is the subcategories are not being used as originally intended:

Downtown and City of Hamilton and Suburbs were meant to discuss the specifics of individual construction projects as they progress from planning and design to construction. There is always scope creep in these discussion points to include urban design issues and politics, which were never meant to be included in these threads.

Urban, Urban Design and Heritage Issues is more encompassing and is where urban issues for specific neighbourhoods should be discussed (i.e, Locke Street, Innovation Park)

Business, Politics and the Economy This is where any socio-economic or political discussions should be confined. It tends to creep and cloud most threads here.

Transportation and Infrastructure is where the design and construction of LRT, road construction, sewage treatment plants etc. belongs

Culture, Dining, Sports and Recreation should be self explanatory. This is where new shows, restaurant openings, sporting events are discussed. I really don't think talk of a new stadium belongs here. That would be a construction item. Talk of a team moving to Hamilton, however, does belong here.

General Discussion and Hamilton Photos are self explanatory.

I am really not in favour of removing categories. This is a standard format for Local SSP's as they are created here. I am pretty sure the forum creators would like to keep things as standardized as possible for a databse like this. I think it really is more a question of it being used as intended as opposed to the free-for-all posting that has been taking place to date.

From the forum entry page there is a clear description of what each sub-forum category should contain. As long as you read that before proceeding, you'd get a clear picture of what kind of discussion belongs where.

oh, come on. how else will the mods get a power trip for deleting 'off topic' posts???
:cheers:

I do this, too. However, in the absence of a decent search function, I`m not persuaded that getting rid of subfora will improve things.

At 50 threads a page, it will be rare to have to go further than one page to find all the threads that have been active in the last week or so. So ctrl+f would work way better and faster than the vbulletin search function. Even if you ahve to go back 100 threads, thats' only two pages, and two ctrl+f invocations.

The community is too small to sustain this many subforums. At a minimum the categorization needs to be much clearer.

The categorization is pretty clear-cut as is. Every sub-forum category has an explicit description of what its content should be. I don't see how it could be clearer. A flat-line forum would much be worse for finding specific discussion topics. That is the way it used to be, and it was horrible to try to navigate.

I don't even care about the different forums... I stick to the 'latest active threads' list.

Often time I just relocate threads to the proper subforum.

This happens often with the "Downtown and City of Hamilton" section. Majority of the time I relocate it to the "Urban, Urban Design and Heritage Issues" section.

I'm not talking about a single thread - that's how it used to be. Just one topic. I am talking about a single forum with many topics which is much, much different.

I gave several examples about lack of clarity - Say an article comes down from the spec about B-Line routing. Is that Transit? OR Downtown? Or Urban? It could even be about heritage if it discusses comparisons with the old streetcar lines.

This is a perfect example of how clarity is lacking for many users - and the moving of topics causes them to get lost even faster.

How were the subforum topics chosen initially? Are they standard across all ssp local sections?

Yes I believe they are pretty much the same for all of the SSP:Locals.

Here's a list of threads moved from the "Downtown and City of Hamilton" (it's in blue) and questionable threads that's in the "Downtown and City of Hamilton" that probably should be relocated but hasn't. This is just the first page, just to give you an example.

Survey from Tony Battaglia on Downtown Hamilton (12)
LikeHamilton

City Business Parks
raisethehammer

Entry Condos
bornagainbiking

Moved: Rental Licensing/Licensing Fees
Manage
Blurr

Moved: Property Tax Increase Notice
Manage
MsMe

Moved: James North
Manage
hmagazine

Moved: City Kidz
Manage
adam

Durand Neighbourhood Association
Jon Dalton

King William guerrilla gardening and ssp meet-up! (12)
highwater

Downtown Filming
Lukey

Locke Street Festival
MsMe

The Idea Factory (123)
MatchstickMan

Hamilton Gateway Sign (12)
FairHamilton

Moved: Reasons for Hamilton High Tech
Manage
FairHamilton

Birks Clock outside Jackson Square
JoeyColeman

SVP Sports looking at Hamilton
Da Warrior

Moved: No Shortage of "Squelchers"

But this is exactly my point - a need to move so many threads means that there is a lack of clarity in how the topics are broken down. If it was truly clear, everyone would innately post in the correct topic and nothing would need to be moved.

Nobody has really made any points in favour of having so many subforums... what are the advantages? The only advantage I can think of is that it makes it easier to ignore certain general topics altogether - and I'd argue that most users on here do not need that feature at all.

Many days I click on my trusty bookmark and I'm overwhelmed by how much clicking I have to do in order to follow the last 5 conversations I was interested in- so i check out the top few "active topics" and leave.

I'd go as far as saying that if we simplified SSP Local Hamilton, and the other local forums followed suit, there would be less stress on the servers due to significantly fewer page requests as users click around looking for "that thread that I was following yesterday."

To me the subforums are pretty crystal clear. For the "Downtown and City of Hamilton" section it's for specific projects/developments in the City of Hamilton such as Lister Block, Hilton Hotel, City Hall etc, (very specific).

Majority of the moved threads went to "Urban, Urban Design and Heritage Issues" because they deal with urban issues such as property taxes, James St North, Rental fees, etc.

Perhaps I'll be more strict and relocate threads to their proper subforum in the future.

But don't you see? The rather large list of moved topics means that it is NOT crystal clear to whomever posted those.

So the questions to the mods is: is it possible to have an active topics "page" that has the last 50 topics, presented in the format of
Topic Title/Starter - Last post time - Last poster - # replies

It could (and probably should) be separate from the main page.

THen everyone gets what they want. People can still browse by topic, or if they prefer having access to all at once, they can have more than just the last 10 active topics...

May I present to you a Hamilton discussion that covers a huge diversity of topics and does very well with just one category:
http://www.stillepost.ca/boards/index.php?board=8.0

I never pay attention to the categories, but if we got rid of them and just had a single forum, it would no longer be the SSP:Local format.

This sounds like an is-ought problem. The subfora perhaps ought to be clear to the community, but your own evidence suggests that several people (myself included) are unclear on the categories.

Your options are: 1) to continue to expect that people ought to be able to figure it out, and to move threads more aggressively; or 2) to recognize that for whatever reason, the subfora are not actually as clear to the community as they are to you (perhaps because others are less intimately involved in the detailed operation of the forum) and to make such changes as are required to make them clear.

Web communities are successful to the extent that they respond to how users actually behave, not to how users ought to behave.

Is-Ought ethics theory applied to a discussion forum? That's giving its application a bit of an stretch.

I think the clarity of the subcategories is entirely dependant on the participant actually bothering to read the description of the subcategory before diving in to a discussion. It's not so much an inability understanding the SSP Local concept as it is a disregard to its structure. I would suggest that if a participant wished to use this forum, they should respect the intents of its creators. If they are unable (or unwilling) to do so, they should simply be politely asked to search out other platforms to satisfy their urge to express themselves.

I for one think there is too much of a leeway given to postings here as it is. Discussions run off-topic regularly here. I certainly would not want it redesigned to encourage mindless ramblings. There is enough online schizophrenia as it is without advancing towards online anarchy.



Is it really that hard to follow simple guidelines today?

My rule of thumb, if in doubt put it in the "Urban, Urban Design and Heritage Issues" section. We all pretty much discuss about urban issues.

I think the current set-up is simple enough. If you wish to have a single forum we should just go back to the old format and eliminate SSP:Local format.

As a compromise we could increase the active topic to 15 or 20

I'll be stricter and relocate threads in the future. Whenever I do relocate a thread I'll make a note that it got relocated. Hopefully over time people will begin to understand the set up.

I wouldn't say that. An ethical system, like a UI, is fundamentally a methodology of interaction. In articulating the is-ought problem, Hume was pointing out that if you wish to establish an interaction system, you must proceed based on how thing actually are rather than how you might wish they would be. His insight applies in any interaction system, as, say, the usability design movement has demonstrated empirically in decades of study. (Aside: it also explains why religious abstinence-based sex education fails to reduce teen sexual activity and why moral suasion-based energy conservation strategies fail to reduce energy consumption.)

If the system depends on users bothering to read the subcategory descriptions but users aren't willing to do so, then the system is broken and needs fixing. The users aren't here to accommodate SSP and the artifacts of its design; SSP is here to accommodates what its users want to do with it.

You've got it exactly backwards. If the creators of this forum wish to draw and retain users, they should respect the intents of its users and adjust the forum to accommodate what people want to do with it. (Within reason: the forum exists for its members to discuss urban issues, and it makes sense to preserve this raison d'être - but only in the context of allowing/encouraging users to do so in an intuitive manner that reflects what people want/are prepared to do.)

Again, a system in which users frequently post threads to the wrong subfora is a non-intuitive system. As Steve Krug famously put it, "don't make me think".

Or possibly the structure is considered inappropriate or unneccesary by a majority of the users...?
Uhh. this isn't meant to be a soap box for the users. This is a discussion. A community. If the intent of the creators is to host a community discussion then it is up to the creators to make the environment welcoming to such activity.
This isn't about morality and following rules. It's about making the discussion forum easier to use. It's really not that big a deal. All I suggested was that the "active threads" function was the most useful one, and that it should be expanded. And it seems like most of the people in this thread see things the same way.

I only questioned the divisions because there is clearly a lot of confusion about them - which totally makes sense because most of the topics we discuss cannot be so neatly categorized. They overlap the divisions.

But really, all I (we?) would really like is an expansion (or preferably, removal) of the limit of the length of the active threads section. A bonus would be to add a note about the last poster in each thread.

Yet another argument that the other sections are extraneous!
no... the old format was one thread. My argument is we need only one (or two) topics which is absolutely not the same thing. My desire is that we, at a minimum, investigate a separate "Active threads" page that lists the latest 50, or latest 100, or multiple pages of ALL the most recent threads.
THat would be a great start. And then if we could increase it to 50 and give it its own page, and add "last post by" then it will be even better :-)
We shouldn't have to cross our fingers and hope people eventually figure it out. It should be completely intuitive even for first time posters...

What I have proposed is to relocate the active topic section below the subforums, instead of the current setup where the active topics are above the subforums. Relocating the active thread section we could increase the number from 10 to 15 or 20.

This way you get both the long list of active topics and the subforums.

Just to give you an idea, I couldn't fit all the subforums......

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y21...mer/anidea.jpg

Relocating the active topic below the subforums we could increase the number.

^^^ boo-urns.

Millhouse, are they booing me?

Having 20 active topics listed would be great. I am personally OK with them being at the bottom, but the top would be more convenient

They should put 20 at the top, but use Javascript to allow users to show/hide them like the other forum sections. I don't think they'd like this idea though because of the advertisements.

Maybe, in the interests of democracy, we should put it to a vote through a poll run by the Mods?

Options being:

1) to increase the number of "Latest Active Threads" and leave the subforums as they are

2) to increase the number of "Latest Active Threads" and leave the subforums as they are and relocate the LAT list below the subforums.

3) to delete all the subforums and create a simple flat forum were all items for discussion are in the same place, regardless of underlying subcategory, and the "Latest Active Threads" list becomes irrelevant.

Other suggested reconfigurations to be added before creating the poll?

Include a fourth option - leave the forum unchanged.

I think the ideal solution is to leave the main page as is but offer a secondary "Active threads" page that has as many as you want to show - i'd say 50. I know it's technically feasible to do, it's just a matter of who can/would do it...?

THen anyone who is really tied to the current setup can just ignore it, and those that want to browse without subforums can still do that. Only main downside is that threads will still have to be moved if people making brand new ones don't know where to put them...

We might get an MMP outcome then ;-)

Here's one way
http://www.vbulletin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=158887

First I have to see if this is possible with the admins, relocating the active topic and increasing the number of active topic. I'll keep you posted.

I don't see why we need to move the list to the bottom, just increase the list from 10 to 20 or more. That makes it a simple change, unless changing the length of the list can only be done forum-wide.

Thanks for this, I'm sure it will be widely appreciated! :cheers:

I have shut off the active thread section. I find it annoying and a waste of time. I did not like it from day one. I will go directly to the 3 Sub-Forums section and then to the 9 Sub-Sub-Forms and open new tabs for just the ones I want to read. I also use a 7 button mouse that makes it easier to open, close and page forward and back.

^ That's why I feel the long list of active topics should be located below the subforums.

That's when the search files button comes handy. One can type a word in for what they are looking for.

unless you mistype it, or want to search for another item too fast. YOu can only search once per minute which doesn't sound so bad til you have to sit staring at a blank screen waiting for it to cound down from 44 seconds.

I guess multitasking has it's advantages. ;)

haha - i have tabs up the wazoo. All I want is removal of roadblocks.

Throw your support if would like to see my proposal become a reality......

http://forum.skyscraperpage.com/show...69#post3938769

My opinion will cost money. Enough to send me south for the winter, ok. :haha: