We've been talking about how to make this forum more welcoming, while at the same time preserving deep discussions, and part of that involves reorganising the forum main page to make it clearer what sections of the forum are for real-world support and more casual discussion, and what parts are for getting deep and more controversial.
I just decided to take the plunge and just change it. If you don't like it tell me here.
I've divided the entire forum into three sections:
Start here: Basic info about the website, frequently asked questions.
Family life: Intended to be more of a "community" and "marriage ministry" space. Take it easy on people here, this is what newbies will see first as they scroll down the forum.
Deeper discussion: This is for all the sorts of deep discussion that this forum is well-known for and does very well.
It's not a perfect system, as I've kept all the old forum sections and just shuffled them around. There are some pretty deep discussions in the "family life" section, and vice versa. But over time, if new threads go into the appropriate sections and we move a few that are inappropriately placed, this should sort itself out.
I have added a new subforum simply called "Help!". This is to give a really obvious place for people to post real-world problems. By default, every thread that is posted in this forum will also be labelled "Support" (unless the person posting it changes that). This should hopefully make those critical posts that are most important for us to address well very obvious to all, and make it far easier for new users to know where to post.
The point of all this is to help improve the general tone of the forum for new people coming on. But a simple reorganisation does nothing to change the tone of the forum. The only person who can make people feel welcome here is you. This reorganisation is just a tiny little tweak that might make that a little bit easier to do.
I just decided to take the plunge and just change it. If you don't like it tell me here.
I've divided the entire forum into three sections:
Start here: Basic info about the website, frequently asked questions.
Family life: Intended to be more of a "community" and "marriage ministry" space. Take it easy on people here, this is what newbies will see first as they scroll down the forum.
Deeper discussion: This is for all the sorts of deep discussion that this forum is well-known for and does very well.
It's not a perfect system, as I've kept all the old forum sections and just shuffled them around. There are some pretty deep discussions in the "family life" section, and vice versa. But over time, if new threads go into the appropriate sections and we move a few that are inappropriately placed, this should sort itself out.
I have added a new subforum simply called "Help!". This is to give a really obvious place for people to post real-world problems. By default, every thread that is posted in this forum will also be labelled "Support" (unless the person posting it changes that). This should hopefully make those critical posts that are most important for us to address well very obvious to all, and make it far easier for new users to know where to post.
The point of all this is to help improve the general tone of the forum for new people coming on. But a simple reorganisation does nothing to change the tone of the forum. The only person who can make people feel welcome here is you. This reorganisation is just a tiny little tweak that might make that a little bit easier to do.
