[seanc]

People keep posting things in the wrong places and it's annoying me more and more, so my idea was to try and clarify the descriptions on the forums e.g

Power Mac

Discussion and support of the hardware for all Power Mac models. Includes Xserve discussion. Mac OS X and Applications/Software have their own forums unless specifically related to the Power Mac, below.

I realise this is obvious to some people but others still ask why iTunes won't work on their iBook in the iBook forum (that was an example) when iTunes is an application and the question should have been asked in there.

A BootCamp forum would also be worthwhile when you have the chance as well as Intel and PowerPC subforums in the Mac OS X forum.

I realise you all work in your spare time on this forum and have other issues to deal with, but if possible these things could make life easier with not having to lock or move posts.

Sean.

[tooki]

The thing is, it doesn't matter what we write in the descriptions, because people ignore it. For example, the PowerBook forum's description is "Discussion and support of PowerBook- and MacBook Pro-specific topics." Nonetheless, people who merely own PowerBooks post questions that are pure OS, software, or peripheral questions. Similarly, the OS X forum explicitly says no questions about applications, but people still post them there.

And FWIW, the hardware-centric forums (which should really be the "model-centric" ones, I suppose) are for discussing non-hardware issues that are specific to certain models. (For example, when only iMacs had Front Row, it made sense for that discussion to go there.)

But the upshot is, lots of people regularly ignore the rules and descriptions, often not even bothering to read them.

tooki

[seanc]

Originally Posted by Tooki

Similarly, the OS X forum explicitly says no questions about applications, but people still post them there.

Thats what i'm on about, can we not make the headings bold with flashy lights etc or make a banner at the top of the page where you start a new thread just to remind people where to post things?

I suppose i'm making a big deal out of nothing but I just don't see why people don't check first to see what forums there are and what their question would be best suited in e.g http://forums.macnn.com/showthread.php?t=291227

Oh well *turns rant off*

Sean.

[bradoesch]

How about when a new user tries to start a new thread they are greeted with a series of questions about their topic, and their answer to those questions determines which forum the thread gets posted to. Have the questions narrow it down to the correct forum and don't even let them choose their own forum until they are a senior member or whatever.

[seanc]

Originally Posted by bradoesch

How about when a new user tries to start a new thread they are greeted with a series of questions about their topic, and their answer to those questions determines which forum the thread gets posted to. Have the questions narrow it down to the correct forum and don't even let them choose their own forum until they are a senior member or whatever.

Sounds like an interesting idea. Just don't make it too patronising

[ghporter]

Whenever I find a thread posted in the wrong forum, I either close it or move it where it belongs. It depends on the tone of the post and the experience level of the poster; I give really new people a lot of slack that I don't give to experienced users (and I expect people to actually pay a tiny bit of attention to where they post, too). The funny thing about this is that I've gotten a ton of grief from users who complained that I didn't "hold Johnny Noob' hand" and move his misplaced post into the appropriate forum when "Johnny" has over a hundred posts under his belt. Gimme a break!

I think it would be good if we could get OTHER USERS to be on guard and report misplaced posts instead of just going along with them (thanks for your comment in Networking earlier) so we could police them better. And the flip side is those other users NOT acting like the world will end because of a misplaced post...

[seanc]

You're welcome. I like to try and help for a few reasons, some being:

a) It helps new posters realize their mistake and check next time
b) it means you don't have to tell them so if the thread gets moved or closed they know why instead of moaning.

I brought up this thread as lately I seem to be scrolling through the forums seeing too many locked posts by Tooki, no criticsm of Tooki, just shows that people aren't reading forum headers etc and causing unnecessary work for Tooki and the other mods and thought we might be able to make it better some how.

Sean

[turtle777]

Originally Posted by bradoesch

How about when a new user tries to start a new thread they are greeted with a series of questions about their topic, and their answer to those questions determines which forum the thread gets posted to. Have the questions narrow it down to the correct forum and don't even let them choose their own forum until they are a senior member or whatever.

Maybe that would cut down spam a bit...

-t

[tooki]

How about when a new user tries to start a new thread they are greeted with a series of questions about their topic, and their answer to those questions determines which forum the thread gets posted to. Have the questions narrow it down to the correct forum and don't even let them choose their own forum until they are a senior member or whatever.

That's an interesting thought, really. Surely that would require custom software (or at least something other than vB), and it would require a lot of updating to keep the questions current and relevant, but it could really help people. Hmmm...

tooki

[seanc]

Hopefully the time spent updating questions would save time in locking and moving posts.