Forum re-org consultation

So what I propose is simply this:

1) To create a new forum for Cycle Training. There is demand for this and volunteers interested in disseminating their collective and experienced wisdom.

2) To move Open Toolbox from Social Forums to the Mechanics forum as a regular subforum.

3) To destroy the Moulton social forum and to move the threads to Bikes & Bits

4) To delete the Book Club social forum and to move the threads to Misc & Meaningless

5) To rename the Freestyle forum as Freestyle & Tricks and put it at the top level

6) To move Trackies to the top level

7) To move all place forums into a single top level forum for United Kingdom, thus removing the need for people to join a social group before being able to participate in a local forum (which I do get a constant stream of requests about from confused people)

8) To delete the now empty social forums

9) To allow city based forums to be requested for #7 once a criteria of X posts by Y members in a city based thread has been met

10) To take steps to allow for some queries to exclude Classifieds if desired (perhaps an option on your UserCp)

What I would like before I do all of this, is a little feedback about how well it might be received.

What I'm trying to do is to help with the forums growth by allowing the different forums to exist more autonomously and with more prominence prior to a design change in the near future.

Being able to silence Classifieds should work for all forums... noise reduction if you're not interested in something.

Ultimately, I would be interested in allowing the work that hippy and I do to be further sub-divided so that those with a strong interest in a particular area help maintain the quality of that forum. An example would be the polo forum and how well the guys there manage their own stuff and it exists as a strong subculture within a larger community (this forum and the wider fixed scene).

I also think that whilst we are about London, that as tens of thousands of posts relate to other cities that those cities should be given a more prominent place. Not quite top level as this is a London site, but something less vague than "social forums" and more noticeable.

And all of this leads to one big thing... the end of the ability to just create a forum. But there's a reason for that... it's a hack. A big smelly hack. And that functionality isn't going to be easy to reproduce in the next version of the software which I am way overdue on upgrading to precisely because of big smelly hacks.

All sounds good to me. I especially like 1 and 6.

Couldn't we have an injury sub forum where discusion of injuries, recovery and recuperation and gory details of post operative trauma could be enjoyed? ;o)

6) To move Trackies to the top level
.

Sounds good to me. Happy to continue as mod.

I would also say maybe change it simply to "Track" as it's become a much larger resource than just a social group.

I'll second that RPM.

Can there be a mirror forum, called lfgssforthedicks.com.
Looks exactly like this one except it's got all the reposts, trolling, flaming, immaturity etc.
Maybe once a user has had their 'report' button clicked 5times by different people they automatically get redirected there. With nothing to show them that they have been sent to the children's table.

By coincidence I had just PMed David about a Cycle Training sub-forum having been working on the idea for a few weeks with some of the other trainers on here. So, very happy that it will be a high level forum. The aim is for it to be the best place on the net to find out anything and everything you might want to know about Cycle Training and to encourage more members to take it up and share their experiences and ideas.

And Cycle Training has been created:
http://www.lfgss.com/forum49.html

wiganwill and Skydancer are the initial moderators on that, with a remit to ensure that the quality of posts in there are helpful and instructive and that people get the information that they need to support them in getting training.

In other words, they're allowed to delete bullshit and tangential posts if they wish, though I've said that they shouldn't without just cause. Which they are free to define by a process of intolerance to it, but I'm generally in favour of allowing a little slack.

It's their forum though, so whatever... as I just tell hippy all the time, so long as the thread titles are not all SHOUTY and actually communicate the thread contents well, I'm happy. :)

Can there be a mirror forum, called lfgssforthedicks.com.
Looks exactly like this one except it's got all the reposts, trolling, flaming, immaturity etc.
Maybe once a user has had their 'report' button clicked 5times by different people they automatically get redirected there. With nothing to show them that they have been sent to the children's table.

I think I'd prefer that to the non-dicks forum.

wow, I only went for some food and its LIVE. great work.

I've done half of this now... will wait before I do the places one and delete the Social Forums crap that is hacked in.

Thicky question - does this mean the Coventry Social Group http://www.lfgss.com/group45.html will become a forum under the United Kingdom heading?

Nice move on the Cycle Training side.

Something like that yeah... that the list would go something like this:

• General
  
• Rides & Races
  
• Other UK scenes
  ** Birmingham
  ** Brighton
  ** ...
  
• Polo
  
• ...
  
  

So the ordering of the front page would be:
1st: General rubbish and rides relating to London
2nd: General rubbish and rides relating to other cities
3rd: Sub-cultures and scenes that cross all locations (but with an emphasis on London)
4th: Useful stuff like mechanics, training, travel, etc
9999th: Forum crap

Something like that (does it show that I make this up as I go along?)

like

oes it show that I make this up as I go along?

The best way.

Menu structure makes sense to me.

10) To take steps to allow for some queries to exclude Classifieds if desired (perhaps an option on your UserCp)

kisskisskiss

Can there be a mirror forum, called lfgssforthedicks.com.
Looks exactly like this one except it's got all the reposts, trolling, flaming, immaturity etc.
Maybe once a user has had their 'report' button clicked 5times by different people they automatically get redirected there. With nothing to show them that they have been sent to the children's table.

Reported

(I cringed, but someone had to)

Neither myself nor Skydancer (or anyone else who becomes a mod) are interested in censoring people. It's first and foremost an LFGSS resource but we also want to make sure it is not off-putting to anyone from the 'outside'. Obviously if people troll the forum or just come along to be obnoxious they won't get any leeway but otherwise we want it to be lively and in keeping with the rest of LFGSS.
So, in a nut shell, no hipsters, fakengers, nodders, roadies, mountain bikers or Spanish. Otherwise everyone is welcome :)

Good work with the training sub-forum.

Just don't let any *polo*cks there.

City forums now moved into a UKFGSS section.

I'll tidy up social groups later.

I am liking the tidying up

Will all the new top level forums be on the tab bar at the top?

Something will happen to the top navigation in a re-design coming shortly... the subcultures will definitely be up there, the places, well probably up there just as UKFGSS.

I need to tidy all of that up and figure it all out. We've got what it looks like nailed, but the actual navigation structure will change to make it more useful and to reflect the actual forum structure now.

And the social groups thing... that's likely to just go.

Another question...

11) Members List... I'd like to remove the ability for guests to see this. It seems to me that this is used predominantly by members and that allowing guests to see it simply provides a way for people to snoop without being registered. I'm also concerned by reports from other large forum admins that the members list is used a source for phishing trips... that scripts crawl it and try the usernames against popular email providers (gmail, yahoo, hotmail) with common passwords.

Oh, fuck it... I"ll just do that now, makes total sense.

Can I suggest removing the Dublin forum from UKFGSS which was last used in September '09. There is a site www.dublinfgss.com for local issues & events. Any of the Dubliners here seem to use the general forums for info.

Nice work, David...

and we thought you were busy with the new job!