I would like to think the next re-org addresses 90% of the complaints and avoids future restructuring. That is the only reason I have acted as devil's advocate in this. Like fatalsaint, I don't want to put Reggie or my fellow moderators through this very often.

Then please list all the complaints you can think of regarding the forum's structure, and please be specific. I haven't noticed lots of complaints about the structure of the forum. Maybe I'm myopic.

Here's a start : my complaints:

1. Threads about Diablo and pre-N900 devices (I'll call these collectively "Diablo-relevant") are lost in an undifferentiated sea overwhelmingly dominated by threads about N900/Fremantle

2. There is no way to view all (and only) the Diablo-relevant New Posts (or some other combination of New Posts, such as Diablo-relevant and Community)

3. There is no categorical way to determine if a thread about an application is Diablo-relevant or Fremantle-relevant, even though the two categories of software are incompatible. Sometimes you have to read into the thread a ways before you even know what OS it's for.

Then I'm confused, because to me ALL the complaints appear to be about structure--including yours. In that respect being specific misses the point (half kidding).

And I'm not meaning to be rude, but I'm all talked out on this for now. I'd rather see some useful brainstorming begin.

http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?p=428487

Not taken as rude, just please list a few. Honestly, if you want to remedy "90 percent of the complaints," we have to know what they are. I have a specific problem I want solved. It's serious enough that I believe it has driven good people away, and I'm on the verge of leaving because of it. I really just don't get what problems you're trying to solve, and I need a list to understand your point.

People primarily complain that there are repetitive threads and that the OP should have joined an existing thread; or that lots of the posts are stupid -- I don't see these as structural problems.

Gerald, no offense, I don't see any value for me in harvesting and relisting what's already discussed in this thread-- which, please note, is titled "is it time to re-structure talk.maemo.org". That forms the context of my comments. And please note, again, that my participation has been devil's advocacy-- I didn't start off proposing a restructuring but rather have been asking for a formal process as opposed to undirected complaints.

But granted not all of your own remarks point directly to restructuring-- but the ones that don't tend to be policy-oriented and that's a whole different issue than the OP started with.

If you're simply wanting more moderators and/or more moderation in action, there's another thread for that...

http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=28675

I think you might be missing some of our points. By saying that this discussion has taken place previously, is not saying that the OP should have searched and joined that discussion. This discussion is a "new" discussion of the current state of talk.maemo, where as older threads on this topic were of previous states of talk.maemo. So this was a perfectly fine new thread.

However, it's a new thread, about a topic that has occured before - and we have issued warnings about ways we have seen this develop before. Complete re-orgs are not easy, and constantly changing the website because users decide they don't like it anymore can get severely cumbersome for moderators and admins.

I have no seen anywhere Texrat say he doesn't want a re-org or wouldn't support one. In fact, my understanding of his posts are the exact opposite: He acknowledges a problem and would stand behind a fix that makes sense. What I don't see Tex doing is getting behind a "bandaid" solution that will just be changed in a few months anyway.

Simply changing the "new posts" to allowing what to select is a band-aid solution, for example. It address your primary problem, but not the overall problem as I see the forum. (and also, seeing the problem below, there is almost no feasible way to even implement this as is - that I can think).

Here's your specific example, as I have already said:

The categories and structure of this forum was done in a non top-level and hierarchical manner. Maybe Non-relational would be a better way to put it. What I mean by this, is that we have a "Software" section, for example. Beneath that "Software" section we have Multimedia, Games, and Applications.

Multimedia Apps for Diablo are Different than Fremantle, and 2006. But all we have is "multimedia". There is no way in the current configuration to show a relationship from an Application or "Software" to where it actually belongs (except through tags).

This is why in the layout I advocated we look at the most basic of what our devices are. In their simplest forms we have Hardware, and we have an Operating System. Those should be, IMHO, the root level categories.

Beneath these are pretty obvious, Hardware lists the different devices, Operating Systems will list the different Operating Systems.

Now, for something like "Software".. if there is a need for another category (I don't know how many sub-categories the forum can go) you would actually create several. You would have a Applications, Games, and Other - for example - beneath ALL the different Operating Systems. This shows, in some way, the relational aspect of the software, to it's OS - which is very key. So there will be several categories called "Applications" - one under Femantle, one under Diablo, etc.

Users would then only pay attention to their top-level category that they care about. I think this "relationship" is what Tex was referring to as dimensions (I could be wrong) - and no solution will cover all possible relationships between Software to OS to Hardware. I am in no way saying my idea is best, and I haven't put together or built a whole plan in utilizing it or providing a full example.. which is why I have not gone to the brainstorm.

This is just the problem as I see the current structure, and a possible solution... it's about as clear as I can make it, for me anyway.. so I will probably be posting less in this thread like Tex. I just don't think I can explain it any differently, unfortunately. So if I'm just not making any sense... I apologize.

You said it better than I did fatalsaint. I've tried explaining my thoughts so many times, so many ways, I can see I've just contributed to the confusion while ironically trying to clear it up...

In the "old days" a member would make it clear in his initial post what device he is using and the OS. In addition his "signature" would include that info. If posting in "applications" he would also give the version number of the app that is in question. Is this too much to ask?

The only problem I see there Den is "new users" would not know to do that. They probably wouldn't even know what OS they are on, let alone know they are supposed to have a signature, and detail it in the post and title. It's just too prone to user error I guess. Even a sticky that says "READ ME NOW" is likely ignored by most people.

Is getting every single member of this forum to change their signature too much to ask? You tell me. It would be easier if our member profile contained fields for this information, but still you couldn't guarantee that people would fill them out. So maybe more relevant questions are: "Can we depend on it" or "Will it actually happen" or "Can we filter on it".

But I agree with Texrat, I think now is a good time to convert this discussion into Brainstorm mode. If we want a solution, we need to propose one and hammer it out.