Opinions, please ;-)

[Renate]

I'm adding boards all the time, but I wonder if we really need them, or they are rather confusing and split the forum up unnecessarily.
For example, do you think The Lion's Den is useful, or shouldn't CC go into the various categories?

Please feel free to make suggestions what to change, or add, or remove, or just move.

[glenda]

Hi Renate!!

I saw this new category this morning and actually thought what a great idea it was to have it separate. This way I think it would be more noticeable, with less chance of being lost in each category. Meaning people will probably recieve their CC sooner this way!!

[Tela]

I like the way things are shaping up. I also think a separate board for CC is great.

[laura]

I'm silently watching this forum starting to explode Nice, but subforums seem to multiply like rabbits and getting out of control and I still miss some sections The good thing about forums is that you can always move stuff around and rearrange as needed without losing any content.

Me thinks favorite artists and favorite places could easily be joined to one under name "your favorites" (or similar)

Then "The Beadsoup Lounge" and "General Board" are the same stuff - one general board is more than enough.

Here's how I see it (roughly):

General Board: (either here or at the bottom.. but I prefer to have "help" and news immediately visible)
- Faq and forum use support, ideas, suggestions
- rules, news, announcements (only staff can post here)
- Hello and Welcome! (I'm not sure it's needed at all - there's "show your work" which can have a one sticky thread for hello and intros)

Jewelry Makers community (??registered members only??)
- Show your work! (general gallery and "show off")
- The Lion's Den (CC, learn, improve, work in progress)
- The Nature of Creativity (general jewelry related chit chat)
- Creativity booster ;-) < -- rename to something more intuitive as "challenges and contests" - boring but easy to understand without reading small print
- general chit chat (whatever - for "life, universe and everything" topics)

Techniques (I'm not quite sure what topics go here?)
- Wire work
- Beads & Cabochons
- Mill and Forge Work (can be joined with "wire work"?)
- Clay
- Mixed media (+ ?? )
- The Art beyond...

Resources (serving as links and reviews "database")
- Your favourites (galleries, websites, artists, etc)
- Tools and Supplies (+reviews)
- Tutorials, instructions, how-to's

What do you think?


++ I'm missing the "selling/marketing" forum, probably should go to the community section. There're many things to discuss here - from branding, packaging, to selling venues, websites, shows, magazines, etc.. Or you plan to keep this in general chit chat? (Or avoid the topic completely?) I'm thinking it's rather large (+popular) and well defined category on its own.

[Tela]

You have some great ideas and valid points, Laura! This is still a work in progress, so your input is very valuable. I think Renate has been busy, but after she reads this we can get together about some of the changes you suggested. Thanks so much for your input.

[Renate]

Your suggestions are very welcome, Laura, and I agree about the rabbits and most of the suggested changes and renaming.
As Tela said, this is a work in progress, and subject to changes, and all kind of input is valuable.
Before we start moving around everything, I would like to discuss this a bit more.

Btw, glad you decided to participate actively.

[laura]

That said I'm still thinking about this myself.. And see at least one other way to introduce manageable (and easy to use) structure with room to grow but not over complicated yet.

Different option: organize forums based on techniques and work from there, that would looks something like this:

Wirework
- gallery and CC (finished works)
- learning/tips/tutorials (how to and work in progress)
- resources: supplies, tools, education, inspiration (what's best, where to buy, people to follow, books to read, etc)

X technique
- gallery and CC
- learning/tips/tutorials
- resources: supplies, tools, education, inspiration

All other techniques
-
-
-

while the forum is still young, 2 and 3 could be in one pool (how to and resources). Major "Techniques" to start could be "metal and wire" "beadwork" "other" - when this "other" grows and has enough content to split, then make another "Technique" forum)

+
Community (members only)
- challenges/contests/events
- jewelry talk (general)
- selling/marketing/web stuff
- chit chat about ufo and cats


Advantages - things get organized by area of interest, easy to explore and find info. Has lot's of room to grow painlessly.
Disadvantages - a possible danger that members would explore/participate in other sections less (stay mostly in their "comfort zone"), and that there will be less interaction among the "interest groups". But there's community section for that.

/goes to think some more/

[Tela]

Laura, I like the way you think. I am first to admit, I am not the most organized. You should see my computer files!

Keep your thoughts coming- I am seriously considering all that you say. I have to think about everything and wrap my brain around it.

[Renate]

So far I like your first structure much better. Have to mull it over in a quiet minute.

The second structure may be good for a VERY huge forum. Call me a pessimist, I don't think we will get there any time soon. ;-)

[laura]

So far my favorite:

General Board:
- Faq and forum use support, ideas, suggestions
- rules, news, announcements (only staff can post here, and here we also have announcements about active/open "events and challenges" with a link to specific topic)

Jewelry making ("serious" topics, working, learning, etc- open for all)
- Techniques (all in one place, later can have sticky thread with the "table of contents" with links to most important/valuable threads OR can be split and sorted to subforums by each technique when there are so many topics it gets difficult to navigate)
- The Lion's Den (gallery for CC, learn, improve, work in progress)
- Tools and Supplies (+reviews)
- Tutorials, instructions, how-to's
- Selling, shows, marketing, and all that stuff

Jewelry Makers community (relaxed place for musings, chit-chat, show-off, games, etc, open for registered members only)
- Show your work! (memers gallery and "show off")
- The Nature of Creativity (general jewelry related chit chat)
- events, challenges and contests
- general chit chat ( for "life, universe and everything" topics)
- Your favourites (galleries, websites, artists, etc - for sharing links, and maybe not even jewelry related, could have topics like "favorite recipes" or "places for color inspiration" or "funny videos" etc)


I like a clear distinction between work and play/relax areas, and I also believe that roughly half of the content should be "member only" - it motivates people to register and participate

/goes to think some more/


I wonder if you can set thread prefix in this software? It's something that is added to the beginning of the topic headline and user can choose from the list when posting new thread (you define the list in ACP), usually looks like this when posted (usually they also have different colors for usability)

[wirework] how to strip electric cables?
[beading] Fireline vs Nymo
This is thread that ain't got suffix
[beading] and one more topic about beads

It could be useful to apply in "techniques" forum .

[christine]

My head is spinning!! I do think all of the suggetions, once I get my head around them, sound positive. Making areas distinct but not over cluttered is essential.
Thanks for all everyone is doing. I like this place!

[Renate]

I’m still at work, and have to steal a minute, but would like to say quickly, that I think the „Show your work“ (=equivalent of personal, individual gallery and showcase) and the “Nature of Creativity” are the heart and center of this forum – that is what makes it different. And I don’t consider it fluffy chit-chat, but an ongoing serious discussion to explore the nature of creativity and the interactions (inspirations) between artists. Hopefully. Not sure if it will work, but we can at least try. So I would like this to be reflected in the structure of the forum. Off to do some work and mull it over when I find the time.

[Tela]

Christine, thank you very much for saying that. Big hugs We still have work to do on setting it up, but I think it is clear that the emphasis is on creativity and creating. All of it is relevant, of course, but this should shape up to be an inspiring sort of place.

[laura]

Sounds good Don't get me wrong - I'm in no way trying to give you a bulletproof "structure" that you absolutely must use Take what you like, rethink, adapt, or go in a completely different direction. I love to watch you create this place And I hope that showing you drafts of what you don't like will also help you shape the place of your visions

What works best for me when trying to come up with some easy/usable/logical structure for a forum is:
a. brainstorm and make these quick drafts on paper or in notepad, make several versions with different scenarios (focus)
b. (a very old fashioned step) cut strips of paper, write "topics" on them, add quick notes what goes there and what is the point of that section, and then sit on the floor and shuffle them around (with bits of paper it's also very easy to group and stack them if you see that you've expanded too much)
c. (extra step, not needed really) install forum software on local server and set up a dummy forum - at this step I try to come up with the "public headlines" for categories instead of the "code names" in my drafts.

And I also do much planning ahead, e.g. what categories are likely to grow, at what rate. It helps to come up with a more basic/simple structure for the beginning but then you also have a "growth plan" - how to split and where to put new sections when they start to explode
(example - "techniques" in the drafts above; for the beginning one major category is enough, but when you see that the number of wirework topics is enough to fill two-three new pages of the new categories - move them to new "wirework" subforum and rename the parent techniques category to "other techniques". Then watch that fill up until you have enough content to create a separate pool for "beadwork", etc.)
But this of course also sets the tone and focus of the forum.

[Tela]

In the next few days, I will be studying the best approach to moving things around and running them by Renate.

We would like to have an area for members only. Before we restrict any area to members only we will make an announcement about it.

If you visit and find the site down- it's because of maintenance.

[susan]

While I know that there are many different jewelry mediums and techniques, are you wanting to focus on one technique more than any other?

I think that the more simple things are kept the easier it is going to be to maneuver the site.

Thanks for the heads-up on the site maintenance (when you have one), Tela.

~Susan

[laura]

Tela, you don't have to close the whole thing to move things around.

The easy way to do it is:
1. create new board/subforum/category (tune descriptions, permissions, etc)
2. close/lock the single old board/category you want to remove (to make sure no one is posting there at the time of moving) - this can be done from admin control panel (ACP)
3. in frontend select all topics from in the old category and move them to the new one (using standard moderator tools)
4. delete the old empty board from ACP

OR

you probably have enough boards/categories already created, so you can rename them and set new permissions in the ACP, then come to the frontend and move topics to the right places one by one or in batches.

And there must be a way to reorder categories in the ACP - either by dragging them or assigning order numbers.

(I'm not familiar with proboards software but these are standard admin features and moving/renaming/permissions can be done seamlessly on a live forum)

[Tela]

Laura, I think you would be surprised at how "old school" this board really is

I just made the changes and hoped for the best. LOL! I'm just about done now.

Here's something you might find interesting, Laura. In order to use sub boards all members would have to change their default preferences in order to view them correctly. That didn't seem like the thing to do, so we have some new categories, instead.

[laura]

Yep, that's weird about subforums... But honestly I'm not a big fan of those unless the forum is really huge and there's no other way to organize stuff without introducing extra clicks.

Please tell me you are still going to merge the three "utility" categories we have separate now?
- statements rules
- help with board
- forum business

I really really think the last two should go to the top one and one pool is more than enough for them ("rules, announcements and forum help", or similar)

Here's why:
- rules - you can put all of them in a sticky locked topic, update as needed. At most you'll have two topics - general rules and "ethics" or whatever you like to call them. And even all-in-one is enough - less confusion. Having a separate board just for rules is a waste of space IMO and more visual clutter.
- help and "forum business" are really the same things. What people go there for is usually one on these: help with pictures (nr1), how to resize/edit images (nr2), help with registration/passwords/name change (nr3), help with avatars, and last - suggestions and bugs. Anything else is something like 1 topic/year. And the major questions can be covered in one topic/each.

Btw it's insanely useful to write a step by step tutorial how to insert pictures in posts and another one - how to format messages (text links, quoting, italics, bolds).

[Tela]

Thanks, Laura- I see your points- I just haven't had more time to evaluate and do everything. Like we said, this is a work in progress.