How would residents STRUCTURE the forums?

maybe update the forum software for a start?

*Resident Support Forums*
Resident Answers
Troubleshooting
Animation Tips
Building Tips
Businesses In-world
Events
Movies & Machinama
Scripting Library
Scripting Tips
Sculptie Tips
SL Games
Texturing Tips

*Technical*
Mac Discussion
Linux Discussion
First Look Viewer Feedback
Beta Grid Feedback
Current Version Feedback
Feature Suggestions

*Information Forums*
Blog Discussion
Known Issues
JIRA (links first to Wiki and then to JIRA)
Support Information

*Resident Information*
Gallery
Real Life Meet-ups & Events
Resident Run Websites
Resident Sites & Blogs
SL Volunteers & Education


Classifieds
(as is)

International Forums
(as is)

Archives
(as is)



Other changes being recommended:
-- Open up the forums to all residents to read. Keep restriction on posting by payment-on-file only.
-- Team of resmods (team of at least 5 mods (resmod or Linden) proposed)
-- Linden liason (already proposed)
-- Incognito resmods
-- Clarified policies
-- More extensive moderator self-training materials
-- More transparency on moderator decision-making
-- clearer police blotter notifications
-- appeals process to whole group of moderators for thread decisions


Not recommending:
-- General discussion forum
-- Lindens choose moderators (resmod or Linden) This was always the case
-- Upgrade software (discussed, but it is a separate issue)
-- End to link between inworld/forum bans
-- Roleplay forum

? Bring back group forums

OK. Yes, Meade, Robin is still in touch, yay! So Qie and I need to get this done.

I think this version of Isablan's fabulous structure incorporates the recommended changes. However, I have some questions/observations at the bottom of this post. We NEED feedback on the questions, so please do read them and post.

Thank much, this has been a great effort so far!!

*Resident Support Forums*
Resident Answers
Troubleshooting
Animation Tips
Building Tips
Businesses In-world
Events Tips
Movies & Machinima
Scripting Library
Scripting Tips
Sculptie Tips
SL Games
Texturing Tips

*Technical*
Mac Discussion
Linux Discussion
First Look Viewer Feedback
Beta Grid Feedback
Current Version Feedback
Feature Suggestions

*Linden Website Links*
Blog Discussion (linked to directly from Blog)
Known Issues
JIRA (links first to Wiki and then to JIRA)
Support Information

*Resident Information*
Gallery
Real Life Meet-ups & Events
Resident Run Websites
Resident Sites & Blogs
SL Volunteers & Education

Classifieds
(as is)

International Forums
(as is)

Archives
(as is)


Questions:

1. Did not add a Roleplay forum; didn't hear much support for it, and I think folks will tend to ask about it in Resident Answers anyway
2. Renamed "Technical Answers" to "Troubleshooting". Better or worse?
3. Restored "Tips" after all the content fora names. The participants in those forums need to be able to steer animation 'product wanteds' or product advertising to the corrent subforums.
4. Cristalle, I heard you about putting the content fora ahead of RA and Troubleshooting/Technical Answers, but I did not see broad support for that idea. Frankly, I also think this structure is more useful to newbies, though you are right, we will still be redirecting people.
5. Renamed the "Information Forum* section to "Linden Website Links* and moved it far down the list. Everything in this section links directly to other parts of the website.
6. In "Linden Website Links", what is in "Support Information"? If no one can answer this, I'll remove it.
7. Also, is the "Known Issues" section useful to people?
8. I didn't follow up on the suggestion about restoring the "Groups" section because I don't really know what they were, and how they would work. If folks could explain that, it would be a blessing.
9. I didn't follow up on my own idea for an "Open Source Developers" forum, because it appears that they don't feel the need for one.

Also, be aware that Qie and I will not be recommending yet the return of a General Discussion forum. I could be wrong, but as I read Linden vibes, that would jeopardize the chances of getting anything else done. We'd like to get some moderators in place for when Aki leaves, some improvements to forum structure and policies, and a decent working relationship with LL. Then, once some trust is built, we can tackle harder issues.

Some other general recommendations were made in this thread about forum improvements -- e.g. upgrading software, moderation policy, etc.. I've made note of these - most of them were in the initial proposal to LL -- but I suggest we confine discussion in this thread to the forum structure, so we can quickly wrap that up.

Thanks much all!

I like the look of this Nika. It looks like a lot of hard work. thankyou

I prefer the Technical Tips being Troubleshooting. I would have probably just looked over anything Technical, as i'm not that techie, but troubleshooting would make me look.

I had no idea half of these forums were here. I guess i need to explore a bit lol.

Need feedback to post #51. TIA!

Define "broad support" Nika. Do I have to place a poll here to get broad support? Quite candidly, the suggestion is made because of people complaining about others directing people to the right forum.

I do not think that we should second guess human nature here. People will literally stop reading once they see the words Resident Answers, or stop reading closely enough, and then say "I didn't know where to put this, but..."

Give the content creation forums the first due, so that we can stave off most of the building questions. This is why these forums exist. I mean, last week seemed like this forum was Resident Textures instead of Resident Answers.

Putting Resident Answers first, without a general forum, means that the moderator of this forum has more unnecessary work to do. Give us all a break move tech and content creation questions first.

Please more comments on the structure. Robin's office hours are in one hour, and we'll probably give her a preliminary version then.

I kind of think that the JIRA section is redundant to the JIRA itself, and should probably be nixed, but JIRA doesn't lend itself to finding anything, so I'll leave it alone.

I also notice that the only other active mod is Nada Epoch in the scripting forums, and Nada has apparently been consolidating the library into Scripting Tips, for whatever reason. Everything has been getting moved. I would say that the Library is probably out, sadly enough, in favor of the wiki.

I disagree on the content-first fora structure being less helpful to newbies. The clueless will always find RA. But at least let them know that the other fora exist. If their eyes don't get past RA, RA will get far more traffic than it should, for the wrong reasons.

Posted my comments in the other thread

My suggestion via WEB-224 was to create a JIRA sub-forum here - not just have links to the wiki/JIRA..


There's also a thread I created when I added the JIRA that has a bit more rationale in it.. /13/c9/196802/1.html


edit...

If I understand you correctly, especially the "JIRA doesn't lend itself to finding anything" bit, this is exactly the reason I suggested a sub-forum...

Yes, this is what I meant to convey with the Jira subforum, Meade. Tho I would appreciate feedback from others on whether they want these discussions split off from RA. There's such a thing as too much granularity ... I'm on the fence.

Ok.. Just checking - I misread Isablan's suggestion to be just to have links to the wiki & JIRA.

Well, the reason I wasn't specifying a sub forum for JIRA is that bug reporting is more of an art form and left to those who know what they are doing with it - a better choice for checking on something would be Known Issues. JIRA is very good at what it is designed for but too many people have been trying to use it for Feature Suggestions and voting - a great example is the thing about expanding groups beyond 25. That isn't a bug and has no business being in JIRA, it is a FEATURE request and belongs elsewhere.

JIRA is supposed to be both for bugs and for feature requests and MISC-208 (more than 25 groups) is listed as a new feature request...

There are new features that I'd rather have LL work on than some of the existing bugs. I've got no problem with having both in JIRA and being able to vote on which ones I'd like to see addressed.

The suggestion for a JIRA Issues sub-forum was so that people could talk about existing issues - be they new features or bugs - in a place that's a lot more talk-friendly than JIRA.

You're absolutely right - I got my brain scrambled reading too many arguements involving more vocal participants elsewhere.

The JIRA link should be be a sticky in the Feature Suggestions forum, no need to have two forums doing the exact same thing.

Er.. Either you're messing with me or I'm still not being clear.


edit: and I hadn't considered before that there's an existing Feature Suggestions forum. I'd merge/rename that and have a single sub-forum for both suggestion and bug discussions.

Good idea, then it reflects the structure of the pJira.

I might put a list of the forums on the left currently empty sidebar area and put a list of links to the blog, the wiki, the support and knowledgebase, our accounts, etc. on the right currently empty sidebar areas.

These area shouldn't scroll. so these links would remain visible all the time we are using the forums.

I'd put non-scrolling areas filled with useful links at the top of the page and a place to have a view of a different url at the bottom, also fixed so they are there all the time. I'd add a right click menu options to look up the highlighted text in either the wiki, the knowledgebase, etc. and display it in the fixed area at the bottom.

So how did the meeting go with Robin?

/me wants to know too!!

/me pokes the thread, wondering if it's really dead.

Welllll ... yes, it's dead, Jim. Qie and I actually went to quite a few meetings, and made proposals in writing, including one for restructuring, as requested. The meetings were generally quite positive.

However at this time the Lindens have decided to take the topic of the forums "under advisement", I would term it. That is, they have collected and have looked at all the information, and many of them have expressed a desire to do something to update and support the forums, but no decisions have been forthcoming. However, they did recently hire a new Community Manager, and the forums come under that person's responsibilities (as of course do many other things). It would be unreasonable to expect this new hire to do anything at all for another month or so; I'm sure this person is in "listen and learn" mode.
.

We're doomed.

It is a bit ironic that there's been no communication about the new Community Manager. I think both Nika and I have been more or less mum on the Forums topic just because, well, it's kind of LL's story to tell, once they have their story straight. So... Well, I dunno, but I don't envy anybody the job of Managing any Community, and the Forums may pose a special challenge now, having run open-loop for a while. And yet, and yet: a lot of potential here to multiply that Manager's effectiveness. At least my fingers are still crossed, hoping for some good news, when there's news.

How long have you been waiting to use that line?

Do we know who snagged the community manager position? I remember hearing something about it but don't know which Linden it is..