* Proposed Changes to the Forums

[ColeValleyGirl]

This is a long post, but please read and comment if you like/dislike the proposals (with practical suggestions for improving them if necessary).

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It has been suggested that we modify the General Usage Forum to make it easier for people to avoid 'technical' posts/posts that that are of no interest to them, and to find posts on specific subjects more easily: Is it time to split the General Forum? (21810). There has also been discussion on Making the Plugins Discussion Forum more useful (21445). IMO, it makes sense to address both sets of changes at the same time, and also to consider whether changes to other forums are worthwhile.

My criteria for deciding how to move forward are:

• It should be simple to determine where a post belongs, without subjective judgements.
• It should minimise the need for moderator intervention.
• It should be possible using the existing forum technology.
• It should not rely on users (new or occasional users specifically) magically understanding what they need to do to categorise their post.

The original suggestion for the General Usage forum included a split by experience ('Novice', 'Intermediate', 'Advanced') as well as into specialist topic areas. However, it would be a subjective judgement which experience level a topic belongs in, and a question that initially seems 'Novice level' might receive a complex 'Advanced level' answer. In addition, many topics span more than one experience level, and the forums lack the capability for an ordinary user to assign a post to more than one sub-forum.

It has also been suggested that users be asked to 'tag' their posts with one or more topic areas. However, the forums lack the capability to enforce 'tagging' a post; users can be asked to do so, but new or occasional users are unlikely to remember, reducing the utility of any tags and/or making work for the moderators.

I'm therefore proposing to pursue the option of:

• splitting out the more specialist and/or self-contained topics into sub-forums of the General Usage forum
• moving discussion about using plugins into the General Usage forum or sub-forums
• moving discussion about Exporting from FH into a sub-forum of General Usage

Inevitably, this introduces a compromise where by some 'technical' discussions are still visible in the General Usage forum, but it should reduce the quantity of them.

My proposed revised structure is as follows. I've tried to identify fairly self-contained topics to split out, although inevitably they'll touch on more general topics.

General Usage Sub-Forums

• Diagrams and Charts
• Exporting
• Installing, Migrating (to another PC) and Upgrading
• Managing Media
• Place, Addresses, Maps and Geocoding
• Research Planning
• Sharing Your Research: Reports, Books and Websites
• Sources and Citations

I am not proposing sub-forums for 'Searching and Querying', or 'Functions and Data References', or 'Facts and Fact Sets' because those topics will inevitably crop up all over the place, as they're fundamental to the way things work in FH.

Anything that doesn't clearly fit in a sub-topic belongs in the top-level General Usage forums. Moderators will move things if necessary.

With experience, we may decide to introduce additional sub-forums, so this is just a starting point.

Importing and Exporting

• Move discussion about Exporting to a sub-forum of the General Usage forum.
• Rename the 'Importing and Exporting' forum to 'Importing from another Genealogy Programme'.

Exporting is something many users will do in the course of their use of FH, whereas Importing is most often a key element of the process of changing from another Genealogy programme. It's important that advice on Importing is clearly available to newcomers when they visit FHUG, to get them off to a good start, but is unlikely to be of interest to others.

Plugin Discussions

• Move discussion about using plugins to the General Usage forum or appropriate sub-forum, or the Importing forum. Much such discussion happens there already, as it comes up in the course of discussing general topics, including the development of one-off plugins to fix a problem for a single user. Also, announcement of new/updated plugins (after they have been tested and published in the Plugin Store) and requests for beta testers for enhanced or new plugins.
• Rename the 'Plugin Discussions' forum to 'Plugin Programming', and use it for:
  • Bug reporting and enhancement requests.
  • Beta testing of enhancements, bug fixes and new plugins.
• Create a sub-forum 'Programming Technicalities' for discussions of Lua programming and the development of new plugins.

Plugin authors may wish to further sub-divide the 'Plugin Programming' forum, but that can be a later discussion.

Note 1: There is no intention to move existing topics (all 11,000+ of them) into the new sub-forums, as it would be a huge amount of work. Moderators may decide to move active existing topics, and will move new topics if they believe it's appropriate.

[AdrianBruce]

Rename the 'Plugin Discussions' forum to 'Plugin Programming', and use it for:

• Bug reporting and enhancement requests.
• Beta testing of enhancements, bug fixes and new plugins.

The one thing that occurs to me is that if I, as a "civilian", wanted to report a plug-in bug, I wouldn't imagine that "Plugin Programming" would be what I needed to go to. I'd have thought that would be used by propellor-heads who actually do programming...

Would "Plugin Requests" be a better title?

[BillH]

I'm not sure I would think of reporting a bug as being a request.

Not sure what a good name would be. Maybe another subforum in addition to Plugin Programming called something like Plugin Support or Plugin Troubleshooting?

Bill

[AdrianBruce]

... Would "Plugin Requests" be a better title?

"Plugin Bugs & Requests"?

[jbtapscott]

I would count myself as a reasonably experienced FH & AS user and hit the FHUG website a couple of times a day (at least!) using a URL that incorporates the "unreadposts" option. Over the last few months I have been opening / reading less and less of these and just using the "mark all read" quite frequently because I am finding that many of the topics are becoming too technical (although I have an IT background!) or too pedantic in what is required / expected of FH. I therefore had some sympathy with the thoughts expressed in the first post on the "Is it time..." topic.

I am sure there will be some too'ing and fro'ing in terms of getting the exact terminology for the Forum names, but in essence, I think the suggested groupings from Helen sound just about right (to me!!)

[Gary_G]

It will be interesting to see how the reorganization works out. This is because a number of posts talked about posts being "too technical", but I don't think I've typically seen the poster define what they meant by the term. Just the bare-bones FH7 can be relatively complex to configure and use for someone coming from some of the other genealogy apps. For some, I imagine that just the configuration and use of its standard features may still be seen as "too technical".

[PeterR]

I would welcome the changes proposed by ColeValleyGirl, and cannot think of any wothwhile changes to what was proposed.

[BillH]

I think these changes are well thought out and should help those who think the changes are necessary.

Bill

[Mark1834]

Looks good as a basic framework. Plugins may be the trickiest group to get right, as evidenced by the comments already, but I think I see four basic buckets:

• Using Plugins - general discussions about using existing plugins. They will not in general lead to any changes to existing plugins, so of potential interest to most users.
• Plugin Development - there’s a bunch of related stuff here that feels like it belongs in the same thread - bug reports - new versions, etc. The focus here is existing plugins and their development/maintenance.
• New Plugins - anything to do with plugins that don’t yet exist, such as suggestions/requests for new ones. Up to and including beta testing of prototypes.
• Technobabble - Lua programming, libraries, etc. Probably a specialist thread for only a relatively few users.

First one in General forum, others in a divided up Plugins forum, with suitable names?

I think we should keep bug reports and beta testing together, as one often leads to the other.

[BillH]

I think we should keep bug reports and beta testing together, as one often leads to the other.

But they are not always related to beta testing. I've downloaded plugins from the store and then had a problem and had to report them. I would suggest that bug reports should have their own subforum or they should go in Using Plugins.

Bill

[jelv]

Overall the proposals look good to me, I'm just concerned about plug-ins. I think the descriptions of the purpose of each of the Forums is good and wouldn't want to see any further splitting as that increases the chances of posts going to the wrong place. It's just the name 'Plugin Programming' that bothers me.

As the names of some of the other forums (proposed and existing) are quite long, why not give this a more descriptive title? E.g. 'Plugins - Development, Testing, Bug reports and Requests'

[jnunnally]

As a fairly new FH customer, I would make one suggestion that might help new users considerably.

Quite often, new customers, or those who are just testing the waters, are directed to FHUG as a good resource, which it is. But If someone starts at the Forum home page, it is probably going to be somewhat overwhelming.

Perhaps there should be a more deliberate statement on the forum home page directing new users to the FAQ's in the Knowledge Base. Almost all forum articles look technical to the uninitiated.

It might also be helpful to have a "Welcome to the forums" article somewhere prominent that explains how they are structured. It helps to know the rules of the game.

[tatewise]

I think the suggestion for a more friendly welcoming way into the Forums and Knowledge Base is an excellent idea.
That should include a pointer to Forum Usage Tips and FAQs.

I'm still unsure about the strategy for Plugins.
It makes sense for discussions of the usage of Plugins to be in the General Usage forum or a subforum as appropriate.
But such discussion threads are the ones that typically lead to bug reports or new feature requests as the user explores the Plugin features and that leads to beta testing updated Plugins in the same thread. I could cite a great many threads where that happens for my Plugins and those of other authors. I'm uncomfortable about having to switch to a subforum of a separate main Plugins forum. I don't believe users who have started discussing using a plugin in one forum will switch to that other forum to report bugs and suggest enhancements. For me, that work flow just does not work.

IMO the Plugin... forum should be just for technical discussions among authors.
i.e. Coding techniques, FH API discussions, Libraries, Lua issues, IUP issues, code snippets, etc.

[jelv]

I'd guess in many cases a topic in the general forum would end up being split when it evolved in to a bug report or feature request. As long as the original topic ended with a link to the new split topic I don't see why any users would have issues following the link.

IMO the Plugin... forum should be just for technical discussions among authors.
i.e. Coding techniques, FH API discussions, Libraries, Lua issues, IUP issues, code snippets, etc.

Helen suggested a new sub-board for exactly that:

[*]Create a sub-forum 'Programming Technicalities' for discussions of Lua programming and the development of new plugins.

The point is that discussions of bugs or new feature requests and testing of new versions often get quite techy and scary for less experienced or new users and therefore most definitely should NOT be in the General Usage forum. What you are suggesting is the exact opposite of what Helen is trying to achieve.

[brianlummis]

One of the objectives is to make the Forum more user friendly but I have been unable to find one of the things that would help me and no doubt others, so I am not sure if it is possible.

I have a bookmark in my browser to the URL for Unread Posts which I use at least once a day. However it brings up all the Sub Forums, some of which I have no interest in reading. The only way I have found to remove these is to open the topic and then refresh the list of unread posts by using the browser bookmark. If there was a way I could "unsubscribe" from a Sub Forum that would be perfect as I could then avoid any of the more technical Sub Forums.

Is there a way that this could be introduced or is it a restriction of phpBB?

Brian

[Mark1834]

There is probably a responsibility on plugin authors to keep their response appropriate to the question and avoid introducing undue complexity. I've taken a critical look back at my posting yesterday regarding a bug report with the Ancestry Sync plugin:

Colin kindly shared his export file with me, and the problem arises with date phrases containing quotation characters, as these are not escaped when creating the SQL statement that updates RM.

It started off more or less ok - most users will know what quotation characters are, but perhaps I should have explained date phrases briefly, as it is assuming the user knows about how dates are stored. The final clause in the sentence is pure technobabble, and will mean nothing to most readers. All it does is alert other authors to a potential problem area, but it's of no value at all to the original poster.

[fhtess65]

I'm happy with the changes as proposed...The plug-in forum is one I monitor, but don't use frequently, so will go along with whatever heavier users of it decide. As one of the less techy people here, I admit there are times I still enjoy wading through the posts, watching how the conversation develops.

That said, I will add my voice vociferously to the suggestion for a post directing those new to FH / testing it out towards a FAQ and the Knowledge Base.

Thanks for taking the suggestions from those earlier posts, Helen, and coming up with this proposed new structure.

[neil40]

I too welcome the changes to the forum. Hopefully it will make it clearer for beginners to advanced users alike, where to find appropriate information/assistance.

Neil

[tatewise]

I'd guess in many cases a topic in the general forum would end up being split when it evolved in to a bug report or feature request. As long as the original topic ended with a link to the new split topic I don't see why any users would have issues following the link.
: : : : : : : : : : : : : : : :
The point is that discussions of bugs or new feature requests and testing of new versions often get quite techy and scary for less experienced or new users and therefore most definitely should NOT be in the General Usage forum. What you are suggesting is the exact opposite of what Helen is trying to achieve.

Ok, let us assume that a user is discussing a Plugin in say the Exporting subforum. That user discovers a bug or requests a new feature and posts the details in the same thread. The Plugin Author may reply with some ideas or suggestions, et al...
At what point does the Plugin Author decide to switch to a subforum in the Plugin Programming/Development forum?
If the Plugin Author is not a Forum Moderator then they do not have the privilege to Split the original thread.
So the new thread begins without the context of the bug or feature discussion unless it all gets laboriously copied across.

Similar technical discussions take place with regard to FH and AS bugs and feature requests, so should they have separate subforums to hide the technicalities from newcomers?

If the objective is to hide all technically advanced discussions from newcomers then it is not just a Plugin programming subforum that is needed but some technical discussion subforums for FH features and AS features, as well as Plugins.
It must also be recognised that even simply using some existing features can get very technically involved, so should they migrate to other subforums to hide them from new users? I'm thinking about customisations that require complex use of data references and functions such as in Queries, Text Schemes, Sentence Templates, Source Template Formats, etc.

[Mark1834]

Helen covered that in her initial proposals. Things like data references are ubiquitous throughout FH, so shouldn’t be split off. IMO, there’s no harm at all in occasionally having to give a complex answer, but it may not be appropriate to get into a deep discussion in a general forum.

[AdrianBruce]

...
It must also be recognised that even simply using some existing features can get very technically involved, so should they migrate to other subforums to hide them from new users? I'm thinking about customisations that require complex use of data references and functions such as in Queries, Text Schemes, Sentence Templates, Source Template Formats, etc.

I am concerned that we may be chasing the impractical and impossible if we try to hide technical details from those who are put off by them. Further up this thread, it said that

... a number of posts talked about posts being "too technical", but I don't think I've typically seen the poster define what they meant by the term.

A good point. Tongue in cheek I would say that the definition of "too technical" is actually simple - anything the reader can't understand. That is somewhat flippant but the point holds that different people will have different tolerance levels for technobabble. In my view, it is, therefore, impossible to use anything more than a very broad brush approach to dealing with the "too technical".

Further, as Mike implies, what starts as a discussion about a simple feature can rapidly grow, organically, into a discussion about more technical aspects and it gets impractical to hide such technicalities or to split them off (I'll take advice from those with the ability to split threads on that score). To say nothing of the fact that the technical element might be 5%, 20%, 60% etc... Where and when does one draw a line?

I think that we need to set expectations and, as well as an introduction to the Forums and knowledge base, we also need to warn fellow Forum users that there will be threads that start basic but evolve a technical element and please bear with us on that. So long as we have a technical area to put discussions that start out technical... And please let's also remember that this is as much a social facility as a technical so we crave your indulgence if we do occasionally reminisce about punched cards...

[tatewise]

Helen covered that in her initial proposals. Things like data references are ubiquitous throughout FH, so shouldn’t be split off. IMO, there’s no harm at all in occasionally having to give a complex answer, but it may not be appropriate to get into a deep discussion in a general forum.

If there is no harm at all in occasionally having to give a complex answer then why do we need a Plugin Prog/Dev subforum?

If it may not be appropriate to get into a deep discussion in a general forum then in which forum do such discussions take place?

[NickWalker]

Helen covered that in her initial proposals. Things like data references are ubiquitous throughout FH, so shouldn’t be split off. IMO, there’s no harm at all in occasionally having to give a complex answer, but it may not be appropriate to get into a deep discussion in a general forum.

If there is no harm at all in occasionally having to give a complex answer then why do we need a Plugin Prog/Dev subforum?

If it may not be appropriate to get into a deep discussion in a general forum then in which forum do such discussions take place?

Isn't the idea that the General might be where people discuss issues with published plugins in the store, but the sub-forum is where you might discuss testing new versions that are not published in the store? If a discussion in the general forum appears to need a new plugin to be developed or enhancements to an existing plugin (which you'll inevitably then want them to test before publishing) then take that discussion into the subforum?

[Mark1834]

I think Adrian has summed it up well. It’s difficult to use the more advanced features of FH without getting technical at times, but a clearer structure and the excellent proposal for a “start here” for newbies will make the forums more inviting.

[jelv]

If a plugin I'd written was being discussed in the general forum, I'd have no problem 1. creating a new topic in plugin forum with a link back to the original topic (or a particular post in the original topic) and 2. adding a post in the topic in the general forum with a link to the new topic in the plugins forum (or a particular post in a topic in the plugins forum if there were already a topic discussing changes/bugs in the plugin). Zero moderator activity required!

We frequently see posts replying to queries with links to previous answers - so I don't see any reason why plugin authors wouldn't be able to manage this.

Topics frequently migrate to another area, if we followed some of the comments being made the (il)logical conclusion would be to have one forum for everything!