Forum Content & Fragmentation

[DarkPrince]

Just curious on the move of separating OSHW-specific projects from the others. Noticing that just about every project's design is open, just just badged 'OSHW', isn't this a concern of content fragmentation? Of course I don't know much beyond what OSHW stands for (legal sense, etc), and a good chance I am being ignorant. Just curious though... seems strange.

Alternative would be to have a Projects/Designs/Technical category with subcategories. Ex: Designs and Ideas, Projects, etc.

Just caught my attention. Why not start a discussion on it.

So for example, I am nearing completion of my PCB... if I keep the OSHW logo on it... I put it in one forum, but if I take it off it goes in the other, even if I do release all related resources?

[EEVblog]

There was a poll on this in another thread. Not too many seemed to be against it?

Dave.

[EEVblog]

I've changed the EDA/PCB section to the "Child" concept.
What do people think?
I don't like that it doesn't display the child topic info, like the description and post count etc.

Dave.

[FenderBender]

Hmm yeah I agree with Prince. I think if anything OSHW should be under projects and designs. Potentially any project could be OSHW. OSHW might be more "commercial" while projects might be more "personal", okay...but they're still pretty much the same thing in my opinion.

[FenderBender]

I've noticed the child forums are getting very little attention. I think people don't realize they are even there or they're afraid to post in it, plus there's no "status" (last post etc) as you said before. OSHW also has no new threads.

Just my thoughts.

[AntiProtonBoy]

I reckon you should merge all General PCB/EDA/CAD Discussion forums and its children into one generic forum. If you look at the child forums, they are very sparse with topics, and quite frankly not popular enough to warrant their own forum category.

Same thing with Blog Specific category. Cull its children and dump its content into the parent forum. You can prefix "News" to thread titles, ie: "News - Blah blah blah", in the same vein as you did with announcing new EEVBlog vids.

Less is more, IMO.

[FenderBender]

I reckon you should merge all General PCB/EDA/CAD Discussion forums and its children into one generic forum. If you look at the child forums, they are very sparse with topics, and quite frankly not popular enough to warrant their own forum category.

Same thing with Blog Specific category. Cull its children and dump its content into the parent forum. You can prefix "News" to thread titles, ie: "News - Blah blah blah", in the same vein as you did with announcing new EEVBlog vids.

Less is more, IMO.

I agree. I have been on some forums with like 6.5 trillion sub topics and its almost impossible to navigate and it gets daunting. I hate those types of forums, well especially where there isn't much traffic anyway.

[HLA-27b]

Just curious on the move of separating OSHW-specific projects from the others. Noticing that just about every project's design is open, just just badged 'OSHW', isn't this a concern of content fragmentation? Of course I don't know much beyond what OSHW stands for (legal sense, etc), and a good chance I am being ignorant. Just curious though... seems strange.

When suggesting an OHSW section I was thinking of OHSW as a concept including legal and social aspects licenses, community etc. but not necessarily individual projects.  Projects should go under projects section of course and there should be child forums under Projects for big/popular ones.

You might argue that this kind of subdivision is unnecessary but looking at the big forums out there we see that sensible subdivision keeps them easy to navigate which is very important imho.

[EEVblog]

Well, I have very few topics anyway I think, so I didn't see the OSHW category as big extra.
The PCB one was just an experiment, and it's under sub-categories, does make it look much neater.
The problem is some people like categories, some don't, so what to do?

Dave.

[HLA-27b]

The problem is some people like categories, some don't, so what to do?

Look at CNCzone for example. It is subdivided and categorized like none other and I believe this is exactly what keeps it manageable. CNC machining is certainly not a bigger topic than electronics yet that site has orders of magnitude more following, probably exactly because of the subdivision they made.

[FenderBender]

But you have to have a HUGE amount of active users to pull off a CNCZone. Yes EEVBlog is probably one of the most active electronics forums on the internet, next to AAC perhaps. I have nothing against some more subdivisions. I just don't like the Child concept. If anything, make them regular topics.

[robrenz]

Make the parent forum show all the child headings and then show ALL the parent and child content below with all the child content expanded. This way if you dont like the child subdivisions and you want to see it all, you just scroll below the child headings and have at it. If you do like child headings and know which one you are looking for you click on a child heading and you have now narrowed your content. Everybody is happy, I know this functionality may not be available but there may be forum members who could create it.

[DarkPrince]

Yeah how the sub-forums are right now are very hidden and really don't jump out to attention. Can't say for any of the CAD related software, have not been browsing that category much.

So would the OSHW topic be more for external OSHW projects/products rather than our communities projects. That does make sense! I still vote to have community projects broken down into Design and Development/Completion. I love to watch the design grow but sometimes I just want to see finished/beta designs actually built and working. Maybe then in design link in the forum url for the finish/physical milestone. Ah just a thought.