What do YOU want from the forum

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Peter McLennan
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Re: What do YOU want from the forum

Postby Peter McLennan » Thu, 28 Jul 2016 9:17 pm

Sorry Rath, I underemoticoned (again). I wasn't seriously proposing that we become 'Forums' or 'Fora', nor restructuring using a hierarchical matrix (which isn't supported by phpBB anyway).

A restructure isn't required per se, but it could help to better expose things like 'writing challenges' which are all over the shop ATM and, given their importance and popularity, deserve to be more accessible. I'm loathe to simply keep on adding new forums at the 'top level', which is why a more considered approach may be beneficial. Paul's had a hack at it elsewhere; I'll make a proposal soon.
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Re: What do YOU want from the forum

Postby Peter McLennan » Fri, 29 Jul 2016 8:54 am

BettyBoop_71 wrote:...What sort of hosting is this running on?

VentraIP Economy ($8.95/month).
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Re: What do YOU want from the forum

Postby AJ Konlucko » Fri, 29 Jul 2016 10:58 am

Do we ever get close to exceeding those limits?

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Re: What do YOU want from the forum

Postby Peter McLennan » Fri, 29 Jul 2016 11:25 am

PGB wrote:Do we ever get close to exceeding those limits?

We're currently sitting at 750MB out of 5GB storage (and probably most of that is backups), and 1.8GB out of 500GB bandwidth. However, we occasionally hit the limit of CPU allowance.
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Re: What do YOU want from the forum

Postby Peter McLennan » Fri, 29 Jul 2016 2:38 pm

BettyBoop_71 wrote:...That is a very good price for those specs and bandwidth.

Yep: and the company is Australian and their support is excellent.
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Re: What do YOU want from the forum

Postby Peter McLennan » Sat, 30 Jul 2016 12:25 pm

Okay, here's a rough suggestion. Main reasons for change:
  • Accommodate individual genres (only done within 'Reviews' at this stage)
  • Clearer place for 'writing challenges'
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  • Information, etc*
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This contains many compromises. Have at it! :)
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Re: What do YOU want from the forum

Postby AJ Konlucko » Sat, 30 Jul 2016 3:47 pm

Looks good but too many sub forums, I think a few are not needed and can be combined under one heading. Happy to hear others thoughts.

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Re: What do YOU want from the forum

Postby Peter McLennan » Mon, 01 Aug 2016 5:51 pm

I was hoping to hear others' thoughts too. :(

I already combined a few sub-forums in the proposal above, but am happy to do more. Any particular suggestions?

Another option is to make more use of sub-sub-forums, but that tends to hide things (which is what we're trying to avoid).

One related knotty problem is selecting which genres to create review sub-forums for. Smashwords lists about 60 genres. Amazon lists 10 at the top level, which is better but still rather a lot. Perhaps we could create genre-specific sub-forums only on request, to keep the number down. I think we'd also want to insist that nothing more specific than (say) Amazon's genres be used, to try to contain the proliferation of genre sub-forums. Or should we allow Smashwords' more specific genres until there's a problem?

Another issue is that many writers (including I) believe that their stories are cross-genre. I think we'd want to resist creating multi-genre sub-forums too. Such stories could be posted in one sub-forum, with a link from the other.
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Re: What do YOU want from the forum

Postby AJ Konlucko » Mon, 01 Aug 2016 5:59 pm

Peter McLennan wrote:I was hoping to hear others' thoughts too. :(


So was I...

Peter McLennan wrote:One related knotty problem is selecting which genres to create review sub-forums for. Smashwords lists about 60 genres. Amazon lists 10 at the top level, which is better but still rather a lot. Perhaps we could create genre-specific sub-forums only on request, to keep the number down. I think we'd also want to insist that nothing more specific than (say) Amazon's genres be used, to try to contain the proliferation of genre sub-forums. Or should we allow Smashwords' more specific genres until there's a problem?

Another issue is that many writers (including I) believe that their stories are cross-genre. I think we'd want to resist creating multi-genre sub-forums too. Such stories could be posted in one sub-forum, with a link from the other.


I think we should create them when and as needed, have as few boards at the top level and only create other ones as needed.

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Re: What do YOU want from the forum

Postby AJ Konlucko » Mon, 01 Aug 2016 6:04 pm

My Thoughts:

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Forum Admin
Home Page (rules)*
Notices
Help
Moderation [mod]

Writing Discussion/Business/Trade
Writing
Publishing - removed
Marketing- removed
Members only [mem] - removed

Writing Resources/Information (could put under ‘Writing Discussion’)
Information, etc*
Reviews [mem]
Beta-readers [mem] - removed
Genre 1 (eg, Spec Fic) [mem] - removed
Genre 2 (eg, Romance), etc [mem] - removed
Regulars Only [reg]
Private Circles [as req’d] - removed

Events/Activities - removed
Hall of Fame* - Linked
Writing Challenges [mem] - top level board
Collaborative/Communal Writing [mem] - moved to Writing Discussion
Other Events [mem] - moved to Writing Discussion

Social
Introductions
Members*
Writers’ Groups (ACT, NSW, etc)
Personal Journeys [mem]
FB*
G+*
Off Topic
Members Only [mem] - removed


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