Simplifying this forum area

r3naissanc3r

r3naissanc3r

TNPer
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I've always been puzzled about why Forum Operations has so many subforums.

1) Do we need a separate "General Announcements" subforum? Can't announcements relating to forum administration be made inside Forum Operations itself? If anything, putting the announcements in a subforum makes members less likely to read them.

2) What is the use of the "Moderation Discussion" subforum? Judging from the description, everything that is meant to go there could go either in Forum Operations itself, or in General Announcements (which, as I said in (1), already appears to be a redundant forum).

3) Is there any reason " Forum Appendix 3 adoption" cannot be moved to the archives? Last post there is from 2006.

I would suggest that the admins get rid of General Announcements and Moderation Discussion (after moving their contents in Forum Operations), and move Forum Appendix 3 adoption to the Archives.
 
This has been bothering me as well :P

EDIT: Also, unless we're taking applications for admins on a constant basis, does it really make sense for the admin apps re-direct forum to still be here?
 
Sorry, first time I have seen this.

Moderation discussion will probably stay for discussing decisions made with the rest of the moderation team as opposed to admin only decisions. I have no issue with the rest of your suggestion, as it isn't a hugely pressing matter we will discuss this first and make a decision soon.
 
We already have Moderation HQ for the kind of discussions you describe, and indeed we frequently use it that way. I have no objections to that staying.

The Moderation Discussion forum on the other hand is very rarely used and seems useless.
 
Moderation HQ is a private forum. I mean for discussing it in the public domain, especially with people who may have been warned.
 
Can't this discussion happen in this forum, "Forum Operations"? I don't see why it needs to be in a separate subforum.
 
I actually do not have aproblem with the "Forum Operations" area. It's a spot for mods and admins. Moderation HQ, i believe, is only visible to moderators where Mod discussion is visible to all forum participants. To them, there really isn't any clutter, per se.

I think Forum Appendix 3 could have the posts that are still relevant rolled into General Announcements. I like a specific subforum for Announcements, honestly. Some admins don't but I think it's a style preference and that's one thing I'd like to keep. There are actually even more subforums that even Global Mods are unable to see within Forum Operations but I like, overall the structure.
 
mcmasterdonia:
r3naissanc3r:
Can't this discussion happen in this forum, "Forum Operations"? I don't see why it needs to be in a separate subforum.
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I don't see why it can't happen in a separate subforum :P
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It seems a bit silly to keep a separate subforum when it's already basically never used and the viewing permissions are identical to the larger forum.

It'd be different if it were semi-private, with access given to people intermittently in order to discuss their warnings/bans and threads archived after each discussion. That's something that might make sense. But it's publicly visible, and nobody posts in there for things... doesn't make sense to me to keep it rather than just putting what few things come up in here directly.
 
I've opened a discussion on it, so far, we have no clear agreement.

We take your comments on notice, but as it is an admin area and not a government area (where we try to accommodate the requests of Government as best as possible), we will make the final decision and you will see that implemented over the next couple of days I expect.
 
mcmasterdonia:
r3naissanc3r:
Can't this discussion happen in this forum, "Forum Operations"? I don't see why it needs to be in a separate subforum.
Click to expand...

I don't see why it can't happen in a separate subforum :P
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Well, by that logic, I don't see why we can't have 7 forums named "Moderation Monday", "Moderation Tuesday", and so on, and just put threads in each one depending on the day of the week ;) .

I know that's an extreme example, but I'm using it to illustrate my point. Given that all these threads can be in the top-level forum, I don't see any need for having an entirely separate forum just for some apparently arbitrary subset of them.
 
Also, since we're here can I make another suggestion for the admins to consider:

I think it would make sense to move the Lockbox inside Forum Operations. It is a thread we use to effectively hide threads or posts. So it makes no sense that we maximize its visibility by having it on the index page, especially as we try hard to keep the index page as short as possible.

Given how closely related the Lockbox's purpose is to mod actions, I think it fits well inside Forum Operations.
 
r3naissanc3r:
mcmasterdonia:
r3naissanc3r:
Can't this discussion happen in this forum, "Forum Operations"? I don't see why it needs to be in a separate subforum.
Click to expand...

I don't see why it can't happen in a separate subforum :P
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Well, by that logic, I don't see why we can't have 7 forums named "Moderation Monday", "Moderation Tuesday", and so on, and just put threads in each one depending on the day of the week ;) .

I know that's an extreme example, but I'm using it to illustrate my point. Given that all these threads can be in the top-level forum, I don't see any need for having an entirely separate forum just for some apparently arbitrary subset of them.
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Nobody is proposing that and extreme examples are hardly useful. I don't see why it is a significant issue if we have a separate one even if the separate forum only has a couple of announcements/discussion threads in it, so far the other administrators agree with that view at this point.

r3naissanc3r:
Also, since we're here can I make another suggestion for the admins to consider:

I think it would make sense to move the Lockbox inside Forum Operations. It is a thread we use to effectively hide threads or posts. So it makes no sense that we maximize its visibility by having it on the index page, especially as we try hard to keep the index page as short as possible.

Given how closely related the Lockbox's purpose is to mod actions, I think it fits well inside Forum Operations.
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We haven't made significant changes to the index page for some time, so the Admin team has continued to keep the index page as short as possible for some time. The Lockbox is only viewable to moderators and admins, so for the standard user it has no effect on the length of the index page and I expect that is why it is located where it is. There are other forums on the index page that are viewable to admins only, it is possible we could add the lockbox to that area, given it's context it probably does not need to be viewable to all moderators in any case.

As I said in my other post, given that this is an admin area we will consider your requests, and we will make the final decision and implement the changes after we have discussed them. Your points have been made, and we will consider them just as we would any other request.

Thanks for your comments.
 
I'm a strong proponent of keeping General Announcements and Forum Operations separate. It's really a stylistic choice where I like not having to wade through all of the forum operations threads (like this one) and can see just the general announcements of either the admin or mod team.

To me, that has value and a purpose. Merging the two doesn't make sense to me. Again, it's style but as an administrator on the boards I find the bifurcation of the two of some value.
 
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