Restructuring of Video Help Forums

[Corran]

Keep it simple.

Video Hardware help
Video Software help
Audio Hardware help
Audio Software help

Links to guides.

I think that if you start creating a thousand subdirectories it'll just dilute the responses.

Dillute the responses or make them more targeted and relevent? Honestly I don't know jack when it comes to WMM so I doubt I will post in there. Probably for the better to let those with experience reply there.

Doing this also improves the usefulness of the forum search as users can now select the avisynth forum to see if their avisynth question has been answered.

I do agree though that there should be links to the guides, preferably in the forum descriptions to the relavent guide topics.

[madbunny]

Dillute the responses or make them more targeted and relevent? Honestly I don't know jack when it comes to WMM so I doubt I will post in there. Probably for the better to let those with experience reply there.

Half the time it's a common problem though. Like "how to I ripped my DVD for WMM?" that is easily solved. You're right about not checking WMM, I'm sure not an expert in it either, but even I can point people to the relevant links for ripping pretty easily. I'd never even look in a WMM section.

[Zarxrax]

I'd never even look in a WMM section.

But there are plenty of other people who would. I don't think there is any risk of important questions going unanswered just because the forums get restructured. And the point about common problems is really one of the main reasons for the restructuring, I would think. Now you can have more targetted sticky threads to let people easily find the answers to more common problems, and if there are existing threads asking the same question, they would probably be more likely to find them, because they aren't mixed in with so much other random stuff.

[godix]

There are too many proposed catagories. Several of those options would have low traffic and over time knowledgable people would quit checking it because there's rarely a post in there. Plus newbies tend to have problems enough figuring out where things go as it is, I doubt adding even more forums would help.

I suggest:
Capturing/Ripping
Pre processing (including AviSynth)
Video Editing Software
Post processing (including compressing your video)
Video Hardware
Misc. video

The general idea being the list goes in the same order you edit in without getting so specific that it gets overly confusing to newbies.

[Gepetto]

I agree with madbunny and godix. Too many forums can overwhelm newbies, and the purpose here is to help them, right? I, for one, don't see the need to change but if we do, my vote goes for godix's distribution. And link to the guides, naturally.

[Scintilla]

Several of those options would have low traffic and over time knowledgable people would quit checking it because there's rarely a post in there.

Surely I can't be the only one who relies on "View posts since last visit"?

[Zarxrax]

godix, I think your suggestion would be much more confusing O.o
For instance, pre-processing and post-processing has a HELL of a lot of overlap. And your proposal only has 2 less forums. Are two more forums really going to confuse people? As long as you have good descriptions on the forums, I think thats going to work out perfectly. I mean heck, look at a community like creativecow.net--they have like 100 forums, and I rarely see anyone post in the wrong place.

And besides, if someone posts in the wrong place, we have the moderators there to move the posts, so its not like someone posts in the wrong forum and all of a sudden their AMV editing career is over :p

[godix]

Several of those options would have low traffic and over time knowledgable people would quit checking it because there's rarely a post in there.

Surely I can't be the only one who relies on "View posts since last visit"?

I used to but there are quite a few forums I just don't care about and don't feel like scrolling past.

For instance, pre-processing and post-processing has a HELL of a lot of overlap. And your proposal only has 2 less forums. Are two more forums really going to confuse people?

So combined post/pre processing. I suggested them seperately because while there is a lot of overlap they are seperate steps of making a video and most new people wouldn't realize they're very similar.

And my issue isn't so much the number of forums but how specific they are. Adobe After Effects, Premiere, and WMM (and probably Vegas somewhere along the line) all get seperate forums? Hell with that, a lot of the issues have the same or very similar answer regardless of program.

[Tsunami Jones]

And my issue isn't so much the number of forums but how specific they are. Adobe After Effects, Premiere, and WMM (and probably Vegas somewhere along the line) all get seperate forums?

Right now the only ones getting specific forums are Adobe (covering Premiere, Photoshop, After Effects, etc.), and WMM. The others are getting rolled into one at this point.

[godix]

And my issue isn't so much the number of forums but how specific they are. Adobe After Effects, Premiere, and WMM (and probably Vegas somewhere along the line) all get seperate forums?

Right now the only ones getting specific forums are Adobe (including Premiere, Photoshop, After Effects), and WMM. The others are getting rolled into one at this point.

That's what I get for not paying too much attention. I think an earlier mention of this idea had different forums for each program. Whoops.