recent reshuffle of forums - good or ill-conceived ?...

[polsteam]

I wonder if I am a total freak and grumpy unconformable personality or maybe there is a significant (non-neglectable) number of forum users that share my view...  :-)


First of all changes seem to be arbitrary, made without prior "public consulting process"... Are admins "knowing everything best" (especially are they knowing what is best and most convenient for most of the users) without seeking users opinion ?...


I cannot understand recent changes in forum structure - they seem unjustified logically and in terms of "user friendliness", "convenience", "clarity", etc.

Instead - they (in my humble opinion) add to chaos and make forum less usable...


First of all...
When the number of forum users and posts increases (with time, with increased number of registered users of shipspotting.com) it is _logical_ and reasonable (and contributes to convenience and clarity) to DIVIDE the most popular sub-forums into bigger number of more precisely (and more narrowly) defined and constrained ones...  and NOT to join the biggest, most busy forums (that "shipping news" and "shipspotters" were)...

The new major sub-forum "Shipping News and information", made by merging former two most popular (most busy) forums "shipping news" and "shipspotters" is now aggregating by far too many various (often not really fitting) subjects / topics... (even though Copyright issues were moved out).
Now this new "superforum" is a kind of "duke's mixture" or "dog's breakfast"...
It is now more "overloaded" and chaotic...
The two biggest sub-forums really should have not be merged, but rather (better) divided into a few forums (3 or 4)...  Such dividing, more narrow categorizing of topics really helps / siuits clarity, order, useability, user-freindlines...

Previously I could save time and use forum in more convenient way when I was more interested in Copyright issues and potential participation is shipspotters meetings and other issues affecting "shipspotting trade" and shipspotters and I could omit "shipping news" (because I usually rely on other sources for news from the industry). This is by no means to tell that "news" forum was bad or not useful...  this was very good and useful forum and I occassionallu used it too, but it was better the old way - not mixed with many shipspotters' issues...


Copyright issues, topics, threads have recently become quite "hot" and popular subjects / threads on the forum...
It is reasonable and logical to put them in a separate (devoted) sub-forum, instead of banishing them to end up in a less popular and less important forum, where they are "lost" between many "Help and Advice" sub-subjects...

After all Copyright issues seem to be quite important for shipspotters / ship photographers both in "active" and "passive" terms (position) and for this reason alone Copyright issues seem to deserve to get a devoted sub-forum...
It would also serve as something showing casual visitors (and villains, who come here to steal some photographs for their own unlawful use like re-publication without asking for permission) that Copyright is an important issue...
Easily visible (seen as one of the main sub-forums here: http://www.shipspotting.com/modules/newbb/) "Copyrigh" might "ring a warning bell" at least to some of them...
Now, Copyright is downsized in its importance (diminished as an issue, as a problem) by mowing it to a less popular sub-forum, to share space with many other subjects (not really fitting after all)...

I do not understand, why some Admin decided in arbitrary way, that Copyright issues should be pushed to the margin, when everyone can see that this issue is of interest to many members of the community...

And some users posting to (recently quite hot) Copyright related threads were suggesting setting up a separate (dedicated) main sub-forum for Copyright subjects... instead admins banished these issues out of one of the top two most popular forums and jammed and hid them into less popular forum among many not-fitting subjects...


If there are some major forums that are of very low popularity (such as ship models) then two or three such forums should (or could) be merged...
But not two biggest and bisiets forums !
After all - I do not mind ship modelling topic... It is very interesting (but not well developed and popular here, in this community), but...  just during recent few months there were much more posts in Copyright related threads than in the whole history of "ship modelling" forum...  so why during recent reshuffle of forums "ship models" were retained as a separate, dedicated major sub-forum and Copyright issues were marginalized by pushing them form one of the two most popular major sub-forum (where they enjoyed high "audience rating" or "high reate of visibility" (like "prime time" in TV), which they deserve, because this is an important issue) ?...

And further to the above...  it would be interesting to see the number of hits at various posts and threads (I admit, I have'nt (yet) done this reasearch of reading numbers and comparing - but I may compare only number of posts, because number of hits is not revealed).   I do not know, but it seems to me that Copyright issues are VERY popular...  
Even if not very many (number of persons actively posting on Copyright related threads) users contribute to discussion, I suppose still VERY many users read them and find (at least potentially) useful...  
So - many persons are interested to see "copyright breach cases alerts"...
Then why make their life less convenient and force them to open (regularly check) much less popular forum "Help and advice" ?...
Popular topic should STAY in popular (busy) major sub-forum...

So.. in my opinion such "hot" topic as Copyright issues deserves either to be left (retained) in one of the most pupular (busiest) forums or deserves its own, dedicaded forum...


Obviously there are as many concepts of an "ideally structured" forum as members...     Maybe I am totally wrong...
But previous structure seemed (to me) much better...  more usable and convenient...   it is a pity changes have not been consulted with the community...

Why change something that is working well ?...
Were there many complaints about the previous structure of forums? I haven't noticed it...

Anyway if MANY users share my view - this view should not be neglected...
And major changes in forum structure should be (as a general rule) first consulted with forum users... (regardless of if I am right in this particular post or not)...

[polsteam]

aha...  OK....

then it is confirmed that we, as a community, "were sold"...  and have nothing to say about shape and usability of things we use and have been building up to current position by our commited membership...

and even if this was the order of the new owner (to reduce number of forums), then why it was done so illogically ?   for example with leaving (retaining) low traffic "scale models" forum, while some threads (eg. Copyright issues) are more popular... (therefore more deserving its own dedicated forum, than "scale modes")...

[Phil English]

Hi Derek,

Appreciate your immense hard work re-organising the forums and trying to keep a semblance of order here. You can't please all of the people all of the time but I think I speak for most members, who are happy with all that you do and appreciate your efforts.

Cheers
Phil

[Richard Paton]

Hi Phil,

I for one second that, Derek has gone above and beyond in his duties to this site at times, and i also appreciate everything that he has done for all of us.

Regards
Richard