Longer Term Merger suggestions - Structural and otherwise

[Swift]

Rather than tie up the other Merger thread, I started this one.

If you have suggestions for medium/longer term changes in the post-merger CQ, such as forum structure changes, please post them here.

Please continue to report emergency things, like bug fixes post-merger here

[R.A.F.]

If you have suggestions for medium/longer term changes in the post-merger CQ, such as forum structure changes, please post them here.

It does seem a bit "cluttered"...with an awful lot of subsections....but that's really just a "nit-pick".

[Noclevername]

It does seem a bit "cluttered"...with an awful lot of subsections....but that's really just a "nit-pick".

You can close the sections you aren't looking at, it neatens it up a little. There's a little arrow thingy on the far right of each bar.

[mutleyeng]

Is the draft structure Pamela showed in the other thread still an ultimately intended layout? That seemed reasonable to me.
Suggestion, a link from the do science area of website to go straight to that projects sub section (talk about (insert project))

[caveman1917]

Just a few ideas to reduce the clutter and get what, to me, seems a more logical ordering of subforums.

Subsume General/The lighthouse into "Forum introductions and feedback"
Subsume General/Random Chatter into Off topic babbling
Put General/Google Hangouts into "About the forums" or perhaps in "General interest"

That gets rid of the "General" section and should reduce the clutter somewhat

Put "Listen, learn, teach and engage" between "Bad Astronomy" and "General Interest"
Put "Open source projects" all the way down as last (since it has the least to do with astronomy directly)

ETA: so the subforums being in order:
About the forums
Mappers
Investigators
Science and space
The proving grounds
Universe today
Bad astronomy
Listen, learn, teach, engage
General interest
Open source projects

[R.A.F.]

You can close the sections you aren't looking at, it neatens it up a little. There's a little arrow thingy on the far right of each bar.

I did not know that...thanks.



edit to add....please don't tell me that button was on the old board...

[Moose]

edit to add....please don't tell me that button was on the old board...

Heh. Okay, we won't tell you that it was.

[ToSeek]

Just a few ideas to reduce the clutter and get what, to me, seems a more logical ordering of subforums.

Subsume General/The lighthouse into "Forum introductions and feedback"
Subsume General/Random Chatter into Off topic babbling
Put General/Google Hangouts into "About the forums" or perhaps in "General interest"

That gets rid of the "General" section and should reduce the clutter somewhat

Put "Listen, learn, teach and engage" between "Bad Astronomy" and "General Interest"
Put "Open source projects" all the way down as last (since it has the least to do with astronomy directly)

ETA: so the subforums being in order:
About the forums
Mappers
Investigators
Science and space
The proving grounds
Universe today
Bad astronomy
Listen, learn, teach, engage
General interest
Open source projects

I think "Science and space" should be up toward the top and that the UT/BA/LLTE areas possibly be merged as part of an "Outside Cosmoquest" forum, viz.:

About the forums
Science and space
Mappers
Investigators
The proving grounds
Outside Cosmoquest
- Listen, learn, teach, engage
- Universe today
- Bad astronomy
General interest
Open source projects

[caveman1917]

I think "Science and space" should be up toward the top and that the UT/BA/LLTE areas possibly be merged as part of an "Outside Cosmoquest" forum, viz.:

About the forums
Science and space
Mappers
Investigators
The proving grounds
Outside Cosmoquest
- Listen, learn, teach, engage
- Universe today
- Bad astronomy
General interest
Open source projects

That seems better indeed. On the note of consolidating things in the "outside cosmoquest" subforum, perhaps we could subsume the current 3 "bad astronomy" sections into a single "bad astronomy" one, seeing that they are all nearly unused there may not be a need to keep 3 seperate subforums.

Likewise for the universe today subforum we now have 3 sections. Both the first and the last consist almost exclusively of mirrored stories, and for each it is very rare to get any replies at all. Perhaps we can also consolidate those 3 sections in a single one, with the mirrored stories and podcasts becoming stickied closed threads (ie a new post in the respective thread for each mirrored new story/podcast rather than a new thread for each as now). Closed so they wouldn't become diluted, and if someone wants to respond to a specific story or podcast (which happens very rarely), they can just start a thread in that section.

[mutleyeng]

i would be hesitant to put the proving grounds below the science projects. perhaps even that should go into the bad astronomy section so future generations might understand why it is there and what its purpose is.

[weatherc]

I may be missing something, but is the time stamp missing from individual posts in a thread? I'm seeing Join Date, Location, and Posts, but not a time stamp or the post number.

EDIT: Okay, I just found the answer to my own question: switch to vB4 Default Style in the dropdown menu at the bottom left of the page.

[Gillianren]

Heh. Okay, we won't tell you that it was.

I will say it's why I never knew what was going on at UT.

[slang]

I may be missing something, but is the time stamp missing from individual posts in a thread? I'm seeing Join Date, Location, and Posts, but not a time stamp or the post number.

EDIT: Okay, I just found the answer to my own question: switch to vB4 Default Style in the dropdown menu at the bottom left of the page.

Yeah, it is there in the CosmoQuest style, but it happens to be white on white. Known issue, will be fixed.

[Moose]

I will say it's why I never knew what was going on at UT.

Yup. I wanted to make use of it, but you know... Now I can.