Thank you.Stop this back and forth about the mods.
Joe is asking for suggestions, not for arguments between the members.
If you don't have a constructive comment to post, then don't.
esquared
Anandtech Forum Director
this is just a terrible idea altogether...of course i realize that this is just another vague rebuttal/suggestion without backing it up with the opinions of other DC forum supporters...but i don't want to literally repeat everything that was already said about it, so i've quoted some of the more important highlights:...
Software
All Things Apple
*nix Software
Operating Systems
Programming
PC Gaming
Console Gaming
Distributed Computing
Security
...
Those of us that participate in Distributed Computing use our computers to support various academic labs around the world that need computational resources for their research in mathematics, astronomy, molecular dynamics/Protein Folding, etc.
Most of us build our own rigs so the cpu/graphics card/MB/RAM reviews that
AnandTech publishes are key for us making our hardware choices. AnandTech is known for high quality and in depth reviews of CPUs/Graphics Cards, etc so keep them coming! The graphics card Folding@home compute benchmarks I believe are unique to AnandTech so we appreciate those as well.
Another vote to keep the distributed computing sub-forum. Even though a lot of us don't post incessantly inside of it we do run into issues & coordinate inside of it. It is the one key area to ask specific Distributed Computing/BOINC related questions & report issues to ask others for help. A lot of other DC teams have their own sub-forum or full blown website with forums to communicate with each other.
Another issue to consider: TeAm AnandTech has profiles on most DC projects. Those profiles have links to the DC forum. It would be a lot of work to change that!
I hope that the DC forum is left alone.
I think that there are enough influential people in here that things will be left as is.
This area has been a mainstay in AnandTech and has given back an incredible amount of support to the community and AnandTech in general.
This is what has helped buld AnandTech to what it is today.
It would be sad to see too drastic of change, I'd hate to have to move on after close to 20 years here.
i also strongly disagree with merging the DC forum with ANY other forum...it simply does not make sense....
* Highly Technical & Distributed Computing (merge, since they're both fairly advanced topics)
...
home automation sub category? a lot of the NAS stuff is really made for video surveillance systems. a lot of members have this, there is a lot of free software out there...
and also, make a forum entry for every article. it seems weird that the comment system is divorced from the forum community.
and also, make a forum entry for every article. it seems weird that the comment system is divorced from the forum community.
I am not sure we need to get rid of Highly Technical but It's a pretty silly forum right now. I'd expect threads on physics, astronomy, etc. Not:I agree with leaving DC alone. Do we even really need a Highly Technical forum? Couldn't those threads go into whatever subforum they best fit, with things like physics and math going in OT?
Just a thought.
Stop with all the useless sub-forums. Virtually no one posts in many forums, meaning virtually no one browses them, meaning the few posts that do go there just languish often unread. Plus it is really hard to determine the proper place to post. If your video card is not working on a motherboard in Windows 7 is this a post for "Video Cards and Graphics", "Motherboards", "Computer Help", "General Hardware", or "Operating Systems"?
I would look back over the last few months and eliminate any sub-forum with fewer than an average of 5 new threads/day. Merge them into forums with actual traffic so users get their questions answered and their thoughts seen.
For example, when I click on Power Supplies, I get on the first page posts that are 1 month old (that doesn't count the 6 stickies). That sub-forum just isn't used. Same goes for "Cases and Cooling" and "Peripherals" which all really belong in "General Hardware".
For example, what is the difference between SFF and HTPC? They are essentially one and the same with just a slight tweak in usage.
For example, the "*nix Software" sub-forum only shows 19 threads TOTAL in the last month.
Deleting the useless sub-forums would really help with making the site more clean, give more users more threads to view without having to click on dozens of pages, and give more visibility to new users who put posts in unused sub-forums then quit the site disappointed. And for the dedicated long-term posters, it would help us from loading a page 6 hours later and seeing nothing new (boring). I cut back my posting about 95% when all these sub-forums popped up since it is too boring to see nothing new and too tedious to click on 20 forums that might interest me.
Get rid of the official nef thread.
It serves no constructive purpose.
This, so much this. Keep the data here, and allow entry from both the forum as well as the article.Absolutely this. The editors/writers should be doing that.
home automation sub category? a lot of the NAS stuff is really made for video surveillance systems. a lot of members have this, there is a lot of free software out there...
and also, make a forum entry for every article. it seems weird that the comment system is divorced from the forum community.
Excellent suggestion. I know there are some plugins or mods for vB that allow site integration (probably easier if AnandTech main site is using some type of CMS or otherwise sharing the database), or third-party systems just for comments.... it seems weird that the comment system is divorced from the forum community.
Right now you have two different logins, too, which seems unnecessary unless you really want to isolate the two as different sites.
again, depending on who the Op is would ecide if the post was appropriate..rather than the post on its merits alone.The ability to upvote or downvote a post
again, depending on who the Op is would ecide if the post was appropriate..rather than the post on its merits alone.
That's a very bad idea!
agreed!!I think on the tech side it would be good to at least try. On the social side it would be pointless.
Someone mentioned having more flexibility in searching latest posts, and I like that idea.
I really do wish there was a way to differentiate between the social and technical forums when viewing new post activity. I think this might help give some languishing tech topics more attention.
The ability to upvote or downvote a post
If someone is wanting to see only new tech posts, the large amount of social and particularly OT posts are just "noise" at that point, and it is therefore easier to overlook a topic which could use attention.I don't understand. The "New Post" page clearly shows the forum. It might be nice to have two such links, though. One for Social and one for everything else.