New forum layout.

[Bruno]

The time of change is upon us. Again.
SRP has seen a lot of growth over the last year. As our membership grows, so does the forum structure. Over time, we have added the 'finer things' forum, the ladies corner, the forge, the DE forum, the reviews, the wiki forum, the clubs, the meetings, the videos, ... and I'm sure I've forgotten some stuff still.

SRP has grown organically to accomodate these changes, with each thing being added where it made most sense at that particular time. While this worked for each individual change, as a whole, the forum structure has become rather messy. I'm sure many will use the word 'homey' and 'cosy'. And this is true, but it is still fairly chaotic and with each new thing that gets added, it becomes less and less obvious where these new things should go.

Because of this, we set forth to reorganize the forum structure in a way that makes more sense, and that allows for future growth. We have started the initiative in the mod forums, where lots of time and effort was spent working out different proposals again and again. Then we went to the mentors, to get their feedback and adjusting our proposals accordingly. This whole process took months.

Finally, we ended up with the structure that is outlined below (see screenshot). We believe that this structure is a good balance that maintains the friendliness, cosyness and spirit that SRP has always been, as well as being a solid foundation for allowing future growth in a way that is logical.

Of course, some of the structure will be unfamiliar, and it will take some time adjust to it. I'm certain that there will be some tweaks here and there when we are using it. That's ok. And if there are problems that we didn't anticipate, we'll figure out how to solve them.

Please take the time to look at the new layout in the screenshot, to familiarize yourself with the new layout before we take it live. If you have feedback you want to share with us, feel free to post about it here.

[mainaman]

Looking good and very clear.

[JimmyHAD]

Great work guys ! I'm looking forward to it.

[DPflaumer]

I think it looks great, all positive changes in my opinion.

One idea, though I don't know how large it would be... I have seen a lot of talk about scuttles lately, both ones on the market and those being made by first times and in arts and crafts. Might scuttles deserve a place in the Equipment section?

I like the changes though, for sure.

Drew

[AlaskaDrew]

I am new here, and so cannot reflect on how this change impacts the familiar and cozy feel of the forums... But as a new person, the structure laid out above seems impressively intuitive and extremely easy to navigate when looking for any variety of topics to browse.

Nice work!

[LarryAndro]

I like splitting up the Forum into more subjects. If someone isn't interested in, say, strops, it makes it easier to avoid those threads. I'm sure many will like this approach.

On the other hand, I never go to the Forum page on SRP. I want to review every message posted no matter what forum the message is in. So, for those like me who want to put their mouth up to one big hose, when you split the forums up into smaller more specific threads you are moving the paradigm away from our preferred reading mode.

But, fortunately there is an elegant solution: news feeds. I subscribe to SRP forums using the Google news reader, http://www.google.com/reader. (There are many other good news feed software choices.) After doing so, every message posted in any forum pops up for my review no matter which forum it originates from.

I fully support your splitting up the forums into more discrete subjects. But, for those like me, my suggestion is that you prominently advertise, educate and inform about news feed use.

[Stubear]

Looks great to me! Very clear and easy to see where threads should be posted and gives additional clarity when searching as well..!

Good stuff!

[STRAIGHTRAZOR13]

Looks great guys. Nice job, very descriptive, and seems to add a better sense of direction on related topics or help, ect. Looking forward to this positve change.

[crushnbugs]

It looks good!

I like where the Reviews are posted!

Much easier, job well done. Cant wait to give it a try...

[hoglahoo]

I like it. It's not perfect, but it looks like a good improvement