Forum changes - your views please

[Clippy]

+1. Bear in mind that usability studies show that most people don't actually read a web site; instead, they scan the page looking for trigger words or phrases that make them think they've found the right thing, and click on that. With the current layout, the phrase "General issues affecting and of interest to contractors" right at the top leads them straight into the bearpit, where they ask their question about brollies or VAT (which is an issue that affects and is of interest to them as a contractor) and get flamed.

As vBulletin allows forums to be grouped into subsets, something that would work well would be to group the serious topics at the top, with General and LR (and possibly an Intros section) in a second group below that. Something like:

Professional

Welcome / FAQs
If you're new here and have a question, there's a good chance you can find the answer in this section. Be sure to read the guide to forum etiquette before you post!

Business / Contracts
For IT contractor companies to discuss business and contract opportunities.

Accounting / Legal
Financial and legal issues affecting IT contractor companies, including IR35.

Technical
For software, hardware, bugs, reviews, questions.

Social

Greetings
New here? Say hello!

General
All hope abandon ye who enter here. Seriously.

Light Relief
For anything not too serious, now including sports-related banter and polls!

I like the look of NF's suggestion but the issue I have faced on several occasions is when a contracting question does not fit into the Business or Accounts sections thus only leaving the General section. However, because the likelihood of getting relevant answers in General was slim, I didn't bother to post the question.

Personally, I don't understand why everyone who hangs around in General posting Daily Mail links etc (myself included) can't post those same threads in Light Relief which would free up General for contracting questions that do not fit into the other designated categories.

Another couple of suggestions are:

1) An area for service providers to offer deals to the community.
e.g. Discounted insurance (business related and personal), late availability training deals etc.

2) For Sale board
e.g. As IT bods, I am sure there are plenty of us with old gadgets lying around which we could sell on. How about somewhere to post your un-wanted items? Note: Obviously, MF would not be allowed to use this section as a dumping ground for the tat he is unable to sell in his tat shop!

[NotAllThere]

"For Sale", I like. But make it a market place, then you get "for sale" and "wanted".

Rants - a place to vent about anything
Social events. (well, maybe not that social)
Commercial events
Support: Question about forum use, suggestions etc.

[Ravello]

Another vote for Nick's structure. I also liked:

• Having a catch all sub forum in Professional for 'general contracting questions' i.e. what General was originally intended for
• Having coffee lounge/chit chat/general general or whatever in the social section to replace current general
• MF's suggestion of filtering access to (the social) general on post count
• Introducing Rep

Further to the above I'd suggest that less strict modding is applied to the social area of the site but this should be made clear, both in the sense of a warning for newbies and in the sense of guidelines as to how the area will be modded.

The banter is usually pretty good in General and it'd be a shame to lose that, at the same time though some users seem incapable of joining in without going over the top - maybe we could have a separate rep system for "Social Awareness"

[TheFaQQer]

I would also like to see some kind of way of showing whether a post has been given an infraction / warning.

I know that most moderators leave a comment that says who has edited the post or not, but if there was some way of showing that someone has been punished, then it would be much clearer that the moderators had taken some kind of additional measure as well as just deleting the comment.

Whether that can be built into the rep system or not, I don't know.

[TheFaQQer]

Still whining?

No - the top part

Someone in a different thread had suggested that having a title structure that starts with newbies being "Not worth listening to" didn't necessarily endear the site to new posters.

was, believe it or not, a serious suggestion. (As was changing AtW's status to 'single, no mates and sitting in his bedroom' )

[norrahe]

Also there are some of us who are in gigs and are possibly in a position to hire other contractors, you could have a "gigs" section for people to pm said hirer direct?

[TheFaQQer]

"For Sale", I like. But make it a market place, then you get "for sale" and "wanted".

Rants - a place to vent about anything
Social events. (well, maybe not that social)
Commercial events
Support: Question about forum use, suggestions etc.

Missed this one earlier - I agree.

BUT, amongst my re-reading of old threads (and at the risk of being accused of being a sad post-searcher), I found this:

In all seriousness, we do not want the board to descend in the social networking / dating board as one of our regular posters suggested so please keep it clean and confine your smut (still no swearing though) to light relief.

I don't necessarily agree with that - I think that there is a place for the social side of things here, just in the appropriate place. And there's always time for smut.

[EternalOptimist]

What about a 'Sit on my Knee' section ?

where young newbie female contractors, or wannabe contractors could get some advice from an 'uncle type' figure ?

This need not be a paid advisory role, although I would appreciate expenses and a credit card would be nice

[Mich the Tester]

What about a 'Sit on my Knee' section ?

where young newbie female contractors, or wannabe contractors could get some advice from an 'uncle type' figure ?

This need not be a paid advisory role, although I would appreciate expenses and a credit card would be nice

How about a 'kneel down in front of me' section, where young female contractors can…no, forget it, I’ll only get into trouble.

[norrahe]

What about a 'Sit on my Knee' section ?

where young newbie female contractors, or wannabe contractors could get some advice from an 'uncle type' figure ?

This need not be a paid advisory role, although I would appreciate expenses and a credit card would be nice

I'm sure they can provide you with a dirty mac