Time to split up the T&M categories?

[joeqsmith]

Er well, there are 5 DMM sticky threads that could then go into their own child board. 

Otherwise leave things be.

I only count 3.

3 for the 121GW alone.   Maybe the 121 needs it's own special category.

[tv84]

Installed, try it!

Much better! I can live with this.

[Muttley Snickers]

Installed, try it!

Much better! I can live with this.

I just tested the search feature again and it's still buggered, using "politicians" as the search word it returned thirteen pages with fifty results per page, the first two pages display as expected but the third page was blank, further searches do not show any results at all.

[beanflying]

This is the mod I used to use for search improvement https://custom.simplemachines.org/mods/index.php?mod=1634 It may be out of date with the current version of SMF but it does look ok for 2.0.15.

Installed, try it!

  Works like it did on earlier versions. I did also play with the menu system to put it back into there but a potential PITA when a new SMF version comes along.

[tv84]

You could also correct the search to accept the "between quotes" and do the exact search of what is quoted.

Example: "black scope" should retrieve only the pages that have "black scope" and not "black" + "scope".

[DaJMasta]

I think if you're going to split off from the main T&M category, it would be best to put them into another existing category, or to reform them with existing categories, so that you're not splitting up traffic too much.

While this forum gets a lot of posts, it also means posting things here get a lot of views, so if the topic is sort of on the fence with other categories, putting it here almost always results in more frequent replies, and for people who have some experience with something specific but don't visit the forum specific to it as often, it will probably even get good replies from people who wouldn't have otherwise found it.  Splitting things up too much in forums seems to just reduce the view count for threads sometimes, so it's not always that helpful.

That being said, if you split off specific kinds of the test equipment into other forums (Metrology does this well with almost all the calibrator and 7.5 digit+ meter threads ending up there, as does thermal imaging), you may be able to reduce the focus on this one forum to help keep other ones going.  Something like moving spectrum analyzer threads to the RF forum, or maybe moving precision timing threads over to Metrology (some already go there) could be useful for categorization and help spread the traffic to other forums more evenly.

Maybe making another for a specific subset of equipment is still valuable, though I don't know what would be best, but too many divisions I think wouldn't be worthwhile.

[SparkyFX]

I have not many questions to ask or answers to give on the EEVBlog Forum, so i usually visit single categories and check the first page for new content to see if something interesting is in for me, so if there is not enough activity per category, i would stay away. If too many other users do that too, topics would not get answered.

So imho the rate of posts per day is more important than absolute post count. I mean it is the active users that make the forum work, things should be oriented toward their use case (survey appreciated). And of course newbies need to be able to navigate to the right place, so regular users and new users need to be able to keep it working. A lot depends on the category description.

Other options to adding categories would be to generally increase quality of content (not saying it is bad..., it is another method to escape the clutter), by implementing a second order information upcycling like FAQ-Lists (!!) or a Wiki (imho horrible to moderate and organize). The search is of course very important and topics that do not name the subject or the right keywords are a lost case in whatever category they are in... never gonna find that old thread with the important information without the keywords stated in it. Not all threads require naming a make and model, but well, this is the Products->Test Equipment category, most probably do and good threads contain that information and are therefore found more often.

I usually favor these over other methods, because people that complain about others cluttering the forum can be sent that way to ... maintain an FAQ or do a good writeup on a subject that can be pinned or linked in a fixed place.

Category, age or absolute post count would not matter as long as the search can find it, but the content needs to be filled in by active users that visit these areas.
Another effect to consider: the more context is provided by a category a certain content is in, the more of this context is left out in the actual thread by whoever writes it, making this context unavailable as keywords.

Forums are complicated... and complaining is easy. I´d wait till there are new posts to fill the first page within a day before splitting into subcategories.

[genghisnico13]

One possibility to keep everyone happy could be to add the categories but keep the T&M landing page as it is, with all the post from all it's sub-categories, this wouldn't bother the people that would like to keep it as it is (me included) but would also allow a better way to classify and find old threads without the need to search. And if we go even further, nesting this concept we could have sub-categories for example the category scopes could have a sub-category for each manufacturer, probably making reps jobs easier.
Maybe something similar could be done with tags, so a thread can be part of several sub-categories, for example #scope #analog #tek or something like that, from a predefined list of available tags.

[tkamiya]

I'd like to see a split along manufacturers.

HP/Agilent/whatever
Tektronix
Fluke
Rigol/Siglent/etc
all else

[tggzzz]

I'll note in passing and without comment that 10% of the posts in the Test Equipment subforum are in one thread.

Anyway, you are suggesting an enhanced taxonomy of test equipment. The disadvantages are well known.

Any taxonomy (that doesn't allow a thread to be in more than one branch) can only indicate where threads aren't - not where they are. For example, in one taxonomy an HP Oscilloscope thread wouldn't be in the Tektronix or PSU branch, but could be in the "HP" branch or the "Oscilloscope" branch.

Hence, the more branches, the more places it might be and the more places it isn't.

For me a worse problem than not having enough sub-forums is that there are too many posts that are buried in deep in a thread, when future readers would benefit from them being spun out into separate thread. The ginormous 2465 thread contains many of those.

[wilfred]

I have not many questions to ask or answers to give on the EEVBlog Forum, so i usually visit single categories and check the first page for new content to see if something interesting is in for me, so if there is not enough activity per category, i would stay away. If too many other users do that too, topics would not get answered.

I think you make a good point. I sorted the T&M category in reverse order of replies and 1500 threads have no replies.

[nctnico]

I have not many questions to ask or answers to give on the EEVBlog Forum, so i usually visit single categories and check the first page for new content to see if something interesting is in for me, so if there is not enough activity per category, i would stay away. If too many other users do that too, topics would not get answered.

I agree with that. Previous category splits have made me visit a smaller part of the forum. Potentially missing interesting stuff but out of sheer lazyness I'm not going through every category even though it may be of interest. IMHO a forum should be like a magazine you flip through so you also get to see the stuff you are normally not interested in but may be useful. Lead you away from your own beaten path.

[The Soulman]

Only a couple sub forums should suffice to de-clutter things.

Test equipment
--> News (new products and speculating)
--> Product (purchasing) advice (what chinese cro is less bad discussions are also driveling on in here)
--> Hacking/modding
--> Test equipment repair (is currently divided between "repair" and "test equipment" sections)
--> Tear-downs and general bragging
--> ?

Dividing by brands or vintage or operating voltage or whatever will end up in a huge mess. imho

[nctnico]

Perhaps the repair of test equipment should be brought back into the test equipment section.

[EEVblog]

Poll is almost split down the middle again, not really an overwhelming majority for it...

[EEVblog]

Only a couple sub forums should suffice to de-clutter things.
Test equipment
--> News (new products and speculating)
--> Product (purchasing) advice (what chinese cro is less bad discussions are also driveling on in here)
--> Hacking/modding
--> Test equipment repair (is currently divided between "repair" and "test equipment" sections)
--> Tear-downs and general bragging

The problem with a News section I see is that new scopes get added there and then we end up with a 100 page forum thread in the news section for a particular bit of kit.
I guess maybe you could later move it from News to Scopes but then that's extra work to maintain and the old URL remains.

[EEVblog]

Hence, the more branches, the more places it might be and the more places it isn't.

True.

[xrunner]

Test Equipment would get its own top level category and then sub categories for different types of gear.
Oscilloscopes
Multimeters
Power Suppplies
etc

Well I don't see anything wrong with the idea. Put the obvious major categories in. Are you going to get volunteers to sort out the old threads and move them to new categories or just let the new posts go where they are supposed to be?

I'd volunteer to help but it might take several months.

[beanflying]

Test Equipment would get its own top level category and then sub categories for different types of gear.
Oscilloscopes
Multimeters
Power Suppplies
etc

Well I don't see anything wrong with the idea. Put the obvious major categories in. Are you going to get volunteers to sort out the old threads and move them to new categories or just let the new posts go where they are supposed to be?

I'd volunteer to help but it might take several months.

The other issue and while it may not worry Dave to much is the major hit to built up search index results over time if you start shoving threads around. I have forgotten how friendly url's react to moved threads but I am fairly certain the category will change from memory.

We already have three principal categories where T&M threads exist adding more is more dilution and I suspect less views of those threads as people don't go in for a look.

Until the last week or so for example I simply didn't follow the Thermal Imaging section as I haven't owned or felt the need for one (playing catch up bigtime). The renewables thread is of zero interest to me currently and I can't think of the last time I crossed into it. In both cases I have missed scanning the thread titles minimum which is the first reason to read if it sounds interesting.

[Housedad]

Re-arranging or minor splits may be needed, but look at this dilemma I have found on other  technical forums like welding, bullet casting, or a physics group.  For the well educated enthusiast or pro,  they  can be very happy with a narrowly defined area of interest.  But for the novice or like me, still striving to learn, those restricted areas limit exposure to ideas, concepts and equipment that I would normally never see.  Having the interests intermixed has exposed me to many concepts that I have followed and learned, that I may not have incidentally run into, from just seeing a question or something in a thread title.

[bitseeker]

Having well-defined content structure is good when it's professionally maintained. It's not so good in a public forum where most people are focused on what they're writing, not the forum's taxonomy.

Broad categories can already be problematic (fixing a DMM = Repair, Test Equipment, both?). Having more granularity and depth just increases the cognitive load and potential confusion for posters.

A more flexible way to organize and discover content is by applying tags to posts since they're not limited by a rigid taxonomy. However, most people are focused on what they're writing, not figuring out how best to maintain the forum and its content.

So, although I like organization, I think simpler is better for the forum.

---

As for the size of the TEA thread, I hadn't realized it was 10% of the TE forum. It's a good thing TE lovers are friendly.

[EEVblog]

Re-arranging or minor splits may be needed, but look at this dilemma I have found on other  technical forums like welding, bullet casting, or a physics group.  For the well educated enthusiast or pro,  they  can be very happy with a narrowly defined area of interest.

That could be the trick here.
I'd hazard a guess that if you like test equipment then you are going to have an interest in most types of test equipment, so one section covers it well. Unlike things like the Metrology and Rf sections that really do have their own narrow focused groups.

[tggzzz]

Having well-defined content structure is good when it's professionally maintained. It's not so good in a public forum where most people are focused on what they're writing, not the forum's taxonomy.

Yes indeed.

Potentially more sub-forums -> more postings in the "wrong" place -> more work for moderators moving them.

[Plasmateur]

Would it be possible to add some kind of quick filter functionality? It would be like a drop down menu right above the top sticky posts.

The drop down menu would have the options
- All (default)
- Oscope
- Signal Analysers
- Function Generators
- Power Supplies
- Etc Etc Etc

I think this would require something like adding "flair" to a post, kind of like reddit?

Sometimes I come to eevblog test equipment forums looking to research one type of test equipment. 

Other times it's more for like a news site for me, where I want to see all the posts in the test equipment section, in this case it would be the default.

Alternatively each user could have their interface in one of two modes. One more would be the old eevblogs. The new mode would parse out the test equipment sections. This would have to be specified in user settings.

[tv84]

I just noticed the Test Equipment section has over 300,000 posts, the one with more posts is general chat.
And given that I'm always promoting this as "the biggest T&M forum on the interwebs" (and it is), have just one big category for everything now seems kinda dumb.

Don't break this into sub-cats!

If the section has such success with everything in the same categories, then it's the other places that are wrong.