Forum Re-organization

[calguy1000]

Thanks to Ted the forums have undertaken a significant re-organization.

As you can read it for yourselves here: http://forum.cmsmadesimple.org/index.php The forums have been re-organized into 'Official' and 'Community' sections.

Essentially, the 'Official' forums are moderated and reviewed by the CMS Made Simple development team.  The 'Community' forums are probably not and our intent is that the user community at large will support itself in these forums (though they are still moderated).

Anybody posting any topic should still be well aware of the advise and rules posted here:
http://forum.cmsmadesimple.org/index.php/board,40.0.html

[casidougal]

Great ideas . . . I especially like the guidelines:

"be nice to others and others will be nice to you"

and

"All posts must be polite, topical, well researched and well explained."

[Nullig]

I participate on a number opensource boards, relating to products from firewalls to PBX's and I would like to make a recommendation in regards to the forum board for Modules/Add-Ons. Right now, questions are posed willy-nilly and keep being asked over and over. I've seen a large variety of forum configurations and have found the following to be the easiest for newcomers to grasp.

Within the Modules/Add-Ons board, each Mod, Tag, UDT, etc. should have it's own primary post, with all questions related to that mod posted in that thread. That way, the developer only has to follow one thread to monitor for problems or questions regarding their mod. Also, everyone knows where to post questions for each mod - within that mod's thread.

I believe that this would reduce the number of questions asked, as users could easily go through the thread to look for answers before they post their questions, as it's the only place to post those questions.

Also, the first post in the thread, by the author of the mod, would be the most recent announcement, installation and configuration info for the mod, updated regularly when a new version is released.

As a sticky in the Modules/Add-Ons board, a posting could be made listing all of the mods available, with links to their threads in the board.

I've seen this setup on a number of boards and it seems to work quite well.

Nullig

[drew]

I completely agree with Nullig's suggestion. Especially the sticky announcements at the top.

If this suggestion is considered, I wonder if each module should have its own board or its own thread. Individual boards might present a bit more organization instead of a single board where 'all module' threads live.

[Pierre M.]

I wish Nullig's suggestion were used in the documentation.
Hopefully the documentation project has new manpower.

Pierre M.