This Forum is functional again!
Posted: Fri Mar 25, 2022 4:32 pm
There has been a period of several months during which this forum has not been 'moderated' and that has meant that posts from members have not been appearing. This is something that the AYRS committee was not aware of until it was pointed out by one of our members, Theo Schmidt. I am pleased to say that Theo has now offered to act as a moderator for this forum and he has also looked at possibilities for improving the structure of the forum, so I can now say that this forum system is fully functional and we hope that it will serve a useful purpose in the future. Apologies to those who have sent posts to the forum over the past few months, these posts should at last be showing on the forum, so let me know if you have sent a valid post and still do not see it.
My own view is that this forum has too many categories and sub-categories. I will put this to the AYRS committee and would also like to hear views from forum users. I can see that if an internet forum receives a very large number of posts, say tens or hundreds of posts every day, then it is helpful to divide the forum into categories so that a user whose interest is limited to certain aspects of the main topic does not need to look at everything that is posted. However, this is far from the case with the AYRS forum which receives relatively few (albeit interesting) posts and which covers a fairly limited area of technology as its main focus. I cannot imagine that someone who is interested in the technical aspects of monohulls would have absolutely no interest in multihulls, or that someone who is interested in using kites as sails would have no interest in other advanced sailboat rigs. So on this basis I would say that we need just one large category to cover all technical discussion on this forum. Maybe we could have a few other categories for certain clearly defined purposes, for example, a category for new members introductory posts, items for sale or wanted, AYRS administration, forum administration. Maybe a category for AYRS events, although I would not want this to be simply a repeat of the 'Events' section accessible from the main menu on this website. If we have an 'Events' category on this forum I would see that as a way for members to discuss details of plans for events, or to report on events, rather than the place to initially announce events.
Would it be too drastic to reduce this forum to just such a selection of categories, assuming that the change can be made without too much work or without loosing previous posts? Let us know your thoughts.
John
My own view is that this forum has too many categories and sub-categories. I will put this to the AYRS committee and would also like to hear views from forum users. I can see that if an internet forum receives a very large number of posts, say tens or hundreds of posts every day, then it is helpful to divide the forum into categories so that a user whose interest is limited to certain aspects of the main topic does not need to look at everything that is posted. However, this is far from the case with the AYRS forum which receives relatively few (albeit interesting) posts and which covers a fairly limited area of technology as its main focus. I cannot imagine that someone who is interested in the technical aspects of monohulls would have absolutely no interest in multihulls, or that someone who is interested in using kites as sails would have no interest in other advanced sailboat rigs. So on this basis I would say that we need just one large category to cover all technical discussion on this forum. Maybe we could have a few other categories for certain clearly defined purposes, for example, a category for new members introductory posts, items for sale or wanted, AYRS administration, forum administration. Maybe a category for AYRS events, although I would not want this to be simply a repeat of the 'Events' section accessible from the main menu on this website. If we have an 'Events' category on this forum I would see that as a way for members to discuss details of plans for events, or to report on events, rather than the place to initially announce events.
Would it be too drastic to reduce this forum to just such a selection of categories, assuming that the change can be made without too much work or without loosing previous posts? Let us know your thoughts.
John