reorganizing the forums

[Kevin Harney]

DARN IT all of the spacing I did for outline sake is gone !!!!! DRAT that makes it hard to read perhaps if I try with line breaks. Or I will try inserting some tabs or something ....

[doug]

Thanks for the input so far. Basically, we're trying to make things better. With the Model S unveiling coming up, there are likely to be some new members. It would be nice if our layout could reduce ambiguity and make it easy for people to know where they should post. Would also make it easier for moderators, so there's less clean up.

We also need to be better about communicating features of the forum.
New Posts (which is in a drop down menu when you click the "SEARCH" button at the top of the page) and Today's Posts (which can be found both under "SEARCH" and "QUICKLINKS") are shortcuts I'd expect most regular readers to use.

[doug]

DARN IT all of the spacing I did for outline sake is gone !!!!! DRAT that makes it hard to read perhaps if I try with line breaks. Or I will try inserting some tabs or something ....

Go ahead and edit your 7:47am post. Press the "Go Advanced" button and use the "Increase Indent" button to get the effect you want. Also use bold and underline, like I did, to make it clear. Use "Post Preview" to make sure you have what you want. The forum automatically removes extra spaces. Something I find annoying, but probably has it's reasons. Thanks for your input.

[doug]

I liked your suggestion but as I see it the last 5 things on the lists should be their own Forum - perhaps off topic or something like General information. They seem to not necessarily be related to Electric Performance.

I agree... I just couldn't think of a name.
"General information" ... "Issues" ... "All the Rest"
I got nuthin'

Maybe off topic could have some categories as well that seem to be well used like Solar, Wind, Geothermal etc....

It's clear that members want to talk about alternative energy. I'm not sure however there is enough content to merit a section for each type. Often, several different types will be discussed in the same thread, and in which case, where do you put it? My thinking is a single "Energy and Environment" forum is enough for that purposes of an EV site.

Also, perhaps adding a category under Tesla Motors for the Roadster Sport edition. I think that is a seperate model isn't it ?

I'm not sure that it's a separate model per se. Right now there is only one thread specifically devoted to it. If we get more content about the Sport, it may eventually merit it's own forum. We started a specific Model S (Whitestar) forum once there was a critical mass of content about it.

Thanks for your suggestions.

[Kevin Harney]

OK i tried to edit my list. I could not make the indent work so I changed the font size to match where the indents were. Hopefully that idea is not too complicated but I think the more refined the categories are the less clean up the moderators will have to do ....

[TEG]

I just couldn't think of a name.
"General information" ... "Issues" ... "All the Rest"
I got nuthin'

How about just "Non-EV talk" ?

[doug]

I think the more refined the categories are the less clean up the moderators will have to do ....

My guess is that, in fact, the opposite is true. The more specific categories and sub categories you have, the harder it is to figure out where a thread should go, since the subject of a thread might seem appropriate for more than one category. I suppose we also need to be better about describing the purpose of each forum.

[Kevin Harney]

My guess is that, in fact, the opposite is true. The more specific categories and sub categories you have, the harder it is to figure out where a thread should go, since the subject of a thread might seem appropriate for more than one category. I suppose we also need to be better about describing the purpose of each forum.

That may be why you are a moderator and I am not but I think some of that problem will be fixed by duplicating some categories in many places rather than just one like News, Articles and Events. That way it can go in just Roadster News instead of General News. All Praises to the moderators that do so much work behind the scenes

[dsacks6]

I personally think we should keep this forum as simple as possible.
We should anticipate any changes that will need to be made in the future however. For example, when and if the model S comes out, that is gonna change things a little.

I think we should try to avoid subforums all together. I rarely see them used well and I want to make this place very friendly to any user, especially people who are new to forum software.

For the moment, it is probably unnecessary to have a technical, a performance a etc. version for each model and all. There is way to much general discussion and overlapping and everything. However, the issue comes with when there may be in the future lots of discussion like this. Do we just keep it general? Or do we seperate it again?

Maybe in the end, there will be a software by which we can use a tag system. Doug was talking about this, I wonder how that would work for a forum.

[Kevin Harney]

If you are doing that way I suggest you go all the way....

Make a Tesla Forum and a General one. Maybe a sub category for each tesla car.

KISS. But I think that more is better in this case. If you don't do more you will just have to have this discussion over and over and over as it continues to grow. I have only been here for this discussion twice .....perhaps others recall more times....