No... like I said earlier, last restructuring.

The implementation isn't complicated at all, and I don't think I ever said it needed to be. Heck I could craft something up in half an hour or less, have it in a day later, done.

The problems though have already been highlighted. There are going to be posts that straddle 2, 3 or more of the sort of sections we're talking about, especially in the case of troubleshooting posts. There's no getting around that no matter what sort of structure is created.

The complications, then, are in the aftermath of change. Where the Law of Unintended Consequences reigns.

So the best we can do is identify, at a very high level, the best sort of structure to begin with (is there anything remotely near a clear consensus on that yet? I can't tell) and then as we drill down into details (ie, opportunities for posting confusion) we identify and implement the best solutions for managing what we can with regards to "topic bleed".

Or least worse solutions, as the case may be.

And I would truly love to be wrong in that above assessment.

I think I'm just going to subscribe to the RSS feeds for the more relevant subtopics.

By the way, I'd been meaning to share this graph from Google Reader of the main feed statistics.



The blue is the number of new posts per day. (The orange is the number of posts I read each day.)

Texrat and fatalsaint, I think we have different levels of patience here. I have the feeling that you're letting the Perfect be the enemy of the Good. Perhaps because you have more interest in the N900/Fremantle, you may still see this Forum as Good Enough. For me, the current state of the forum is clearly Not Good.

Sure, there are instances where a person could post in different threads. I don't see that as a big deal. If they post a thread in "OS/Platform: Fremantle" or in "Software: Fremantle," it just isn't going to make much difference. Maybe they can't tell where software ends and hardware begins and they post it in "Devices: N900." So what? Usually they'll probably be right, and it just doesn't much matter if they aren't.

The Diablo world however has little overlap with the Fremantle world, so they need to be split. Maybe someday Mer will make that distinction fuzzy -- well, at that point, a person can look through both.

Your posts have done nothing to show me what's lacking in just (A) dividing up Software by OS (with or without subcategories for Apps, Games, etc.) and (B) instituting a checkbox filtering mechanism for Searches including the New Posts search.

I'm yet to see a specific hypothetical that shows a significant problem.

Less important:
As far as I'm concerned, Software could be divided up into (1) Games and (2) All Software Other Than Games (and other than the OS Itself, which would still be under OS/Platform). Then there would be

Fremantle
--Games
--All Software Other Than Games

Diablo/Chinook
--Games
--All Software Other Than Games

And when Harmattan gets software of its own, the above categories would continue to exist, along with, above those,

Harmattan
--Games
--All Software Other Than Games

This is not meant as any offense at anyone and it includes myself: I see this subject as continually going in circles. Everyone has their pet vision for how this place should look and THAT is my main complaint: I don't see a consensus despite or maybe because of a lot of talk.

Personally I think this is one of those issues that requires a benevolent dictator (ie Reggie), and the following process:

- Someone starts the Brainstorm (I'm willing)
- Every one passionate about reforming the forum proposes one solution apiece, adding a well-documented plan to the Brainstorm item.
- At some point, Reggie sifts through the suggestions and picks one (or parts from many)

Now, this is of course incumbent on (a) Reggie's willingness and (b) adequate participation.

Start that Brainstorm going, buddy!

At no point did I even attempt to say there is anything wrong with dividing the forum into OS sections. In fact, that's exactly the outline I've been saying.

I simply agree with Texrat that there will be no one-sized fits all solution. As passionate as you are about it.. there's someone else out there that will dislike whatever you come up with.. and this will be brought up again. People still will get confused about where to put what.

Just because I acknowledge and accept these facts, does not mean I'm in any way arguing against a reform. The two notions are in no way related.... I can believe in a reform and yet still completely accept that tomorrow (assuming the reform happened today) there will be a thread that says "I DON'T LIKE THE NEW LAYOUT!!!!!!!".

Brainstorm created.

Item: http://maemo.org/community/brainstor...sign_for_2010/

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

Time to get solutions going!

Just to say to whomever it was wanted a solution that will last for 10 years... why? Who knows where any of us, including maemo, will be in ten years?

If we can get a solution that will keep most of the people happy most of time for the next 6-12 months, we can think again then. Communities change. Websites change. If we can come up with a structure that will expand and incorporate Harmattan when the time comes, than I think we'll have done extremely well.

I don't have any clever solutions to offer, though I can see how annoying it must be to members who're still making good use of the 770,. n800 and n810 to find the forum flooded with n900bs.

For me the most challenging element is threads that wander: there was a case in Apps where a thread had started out being about OS2008, then wandered off into saying 'this would work on the n900 too'... then a newcomer came into the forum and started a brand new question asking exactly the same question about the n900 - and quite rightly hadn't made the connection that his question was answered in an OS2008 thread.

In a perfect world, that might be sorted by having lots of mods willing to extract posts from one thead to another, merge, create back-links etc. But I'm reluctant to suggest more moderation in somewhere so free.

How deep a level can we filter by tag? Could you tag individual posts. Could you make checking an 'OS' box a component of posting (preferably required)? Could it at least be a requirement of posting a new thread?

I guess the reason I wanted to look ahead is because the people that have been around even longer than I (800/770) have seen this exact thread over, and over, and over again. I have witnessed a couple of these myself and I joined about 1.5 years ago, I guess? Several threads over time have crept up over the life of the forum requesting complete re-orgs for this reason or that.

Firstly, that has to be annoying for Reggie and other mods. Plus, some of those threads were more successful than others... and some caused some major problems.

Constantly reorganizing the entire forum every time something new comes out seems silly. But that is just my humble opinion.