I don't see "maintain unnecessary complexity" as a goal, but that's what the proposed hierarchy does.Kariudo wrote:Why?I Fight For The Users wrote:Flatten the hierarchy.
That's how the current layout is, save for Org Supported Contests and Video Editing Software. Part of the goal here is to clean up the board index, another part is to keep things visible, yet another is to group things logically. Flattening would run counter to at least one of those goals.
There is no need to separate AMV scene discussions from an Anime Music Videos board; a post about the former is perfectly on-topic in the latter, and a board without that additional hierarchy is a simpler one. People tend to use their browser capabilities (i.e. history, bookmarks) and forum capabilities (notifications) to come back to popular threads.
Retrieval and query can be addressed in ways that don't involve unnecessary, vague categorization, like curated tags or (better yet) not using a discussion forum as an information repository.
Then flatten the resulting duplications into the same forum, and eliminate unnecessary categorization. "Anime" is fine as a top-level board; "Anime Discussion" is redundant, because it's an online bulletin board system. Of course it's discussion; you don't need to put that in the title.Kariudo wrote:It'd be a general name . If we change to "General [X]" into X, we'd have X appear twice in some locations (Category - Anime, Forum - Anime...same with AMVs when no contests are running) which comes across as tacky.I Fight For The Users wrote:There is no need for "General [X]". Seriously, what kind of category name is "General"? You might as well just call it "Other" or "Uncategorized". Move "General [X]" into X.
"Anime Music Videos" and "Anime" are not the same term, so that's fine too.
Permit posts in those forums to be tagged as program-specific; get moderators to maintain those tags. That eliminates some scanning. Make those tags selectable and you'll eliminate all scanning.Kariudo wrote:I count on people following naming conventions as much as I count on people reading stickies before posting. I believe there's still value in maintaining the visual separation. It cuts down on the scanning that people experienced with a particular program have to do when looking for a thread they can help in. It also makes a clear delineation for new(er) members looking for help.I Fight For The Users wrote:There is no need to separate video software help by program; people tend to include a popular name of the program in their post title.
Your last point doesn't make a lot of sense, as the program-specific sub-boards are currently only visible as small text on the main index. It's much easier to ask for help in a "video software help" board with useful filtering than it is to go through a tediously small list of links.
How naïve do you think I am?Kariudo wrote:Why merge them? The sub-forum is achieving its goal in my eyes.I Fight For The Users wrote:Merge Org Redesign into the top-level Website forum, and grant me the ability to sticky selected threads in that subforum.
The sub-forum has achieved dick. The proportion of people who seem to be interested in reworking this site to those who have actually commented on the active product remains frustratingly, hugely tilted towards the former side.