Forums | MacLife

Which forums are you referring to specifically?

The games forum is active all the time, even with new topics often, even if they're for windows and console games. And I like the games forum. It must stay. It will.

Former Windork wrote:

Well, for instance, you could fold On The Go, The Pro Shop, Programming, Networking and Gaming into In Tech News and rename it to something more general purpose-Mac oriented.  Those forums only have about 6-12 threads with any replies since the new year and most haven't had any responses in anywhere from 2 days to 2 weeks.

The three forums under the Alternative Life heading are totally dead.  Boot Camp and Hardware Hacking could merge into the existing help forum and the Vintage Apple one could go into the new all purpose Mac forum.

SETI hasn't had a post in 6 months.  It could just go away.  Folding isn't exactly busy either. 

I don't know what to tell you about all the Clan MacLife stuff. 

That's just what comes off the top of my head.  I've seen forums with 3 times the activity with less than half this many forums.  All the subdividing of every different possible subject matter into different forums just makes things seem even more slow and dead.

The Pro Shop, Programming and Neworking areas might be combinable. Tech News is a separate subject and isn't soemthing that should be grouped with the others. Boot Camp and Hardware Hacking are sufficiently diverse to warrant being separate. Vintage Macs are a totally different subject as well and should be kept separate.

I've seen the mish-mash method of combining topics and the separated method.   The problem with combining is that its hard to go back without either losing threads or without a new database structure.   

If the place isn't hopping, start a new thread on some topic of interest.   Be a leader, not a follower.

ukimalefu wrote:

The games forum is active all the time, even with new topics often, even if they're for windows and console games. And I like the games forum. It must stay. It will.

What he said.

Former Windork wrote:

That's fine.  I don't think it's as active as you think it is, you're just more interested in it.

No. Not only do I post often there, as easily seen, my Net connectivity has been frequently interrupted lately. I expect that to be temporary.

Go back a little further, you'll see a lot more activity.

ukimalefu wrote:

I understand SETI and Folding both use BOINC. And there are other things that use BOINC too. Maybe there could be one BOINC forum.

No, SETI and a lot of other projects use BOINC. Folding uses it's own software, though they have looked into BOINC.

arkayn wrote:

ukimalefu wrote:

I understand SETI and Folding both use BOINC. And there are other things that use BOINC too. Maybe there could be one BOINC forum.

No, SETI and a lot of other projects use BOINC. Folding uses it's own software, though they have looked into BOINC.

Well, volunteer computing and/or grid computing, or whatever it's called. I think all of those could be rolled into one forum.

I run SETI@home because I want to believe and find "them".

Folding scares me because it can be used for (resident) evil. Ok, not really I hope it helps find cures for cancer and aids, etc. But I don't use it.

Here's the BOINC website:

http://boinc.berkeley.edu/

arkayn wrote:

SETI has released a GPU unit for Nvidia cards on Windows(official) and Linux(unofficial) machines.

Mac OS X support is coming soon

http://setiathome.berkeley.edu/cuda.php

I personally don't have a problem with merging Everyday Tech and In Tech News, but i don't care if they stay the way they are, either.

I always saw it as aimed at creative professionals myself.

Merging all three or just Programing & Networking would seem to be feasible options to me.

If the former were done (merging all three) The Pro Shop would still be a viable name but I say the tag line would need an update, say maybe "The art and science of using a Mac professionally."

If the latter were done (merging Programing & Networking), a new name would be called for as well as a tag line update.

How about renaming Everyday Tech into something more descriptive.  It doesn't sound like a tech support forum at all.  I agree that many of the forums could be combined to make a more streamlined experience.  The Clan forums can all go together at this point.  Its rare to see any activity down there. 

How about this forum list:

Maclife Readers

Forum Feedback

Tech News

Tech Support (combines Networking & Servers, On The Go, and Everyday Tech)

Creative Corner (combines Programming and Web Dev, The Pro Shop)

Gaming (well, duh!)

Unplugged

Minithink

The Others (combines Vintage Mac, Boot Camp, Hardware Hacking)

Distributed Computing (combines Folding and SETI)

Clan MacLife (combines all the clan forums)


Face it folks, some of these forums just don't get the traffic needed to justify having a separate forum.  Having fewer forums on the list would be far less daunting to new visitors, and it would help prevent people from posting things in the wrong areas.  Some topics may interest people in several forums, so they could be all together.  Other forums (the Boot Camp, Hardware Hacking, and Vintage Apple for example) may not be totally related, but they don't get much traffic alone, and could be combined for simplicity sake.  Someone interested in old Macs might not visit the hacking site, but someone may be looking for info there about modifying an old Mac.  Same with Boot Camp.  Someone asking for help running an emulator for the classic Mac OS on Windows may get help from someone in the vintage Mac section.  Things aren't as mutually exclusive as they may first seem.

Those in charge may think that having more forums makes things simpler for people, but I think that it is just the opposite.  Instead of having to browse a dozen or more forums, one could just hit the two or three that would contain them all.  Saves time, saves screen space, makes less stress. 

Last edited by Orion (2009-01-19 10:31 pm)

I've pointed this out only about 380 billion times already but Everyday IS NOT, I repeat, IS NOT exclusively a tech support forum. It is also for general tech discussion say sharing what your setup are like or what sort of configurations you prefer for your browser.

Last edited by ScifiterX (2009-01-19 11:02 pm)