Suggestions on forum and subforum organization

[oceancalligraphy]

I'm actually a long-time lurker and finally signed-up. Really like the discussions on the site!  \(^ _ ^)/

 

I just wanted suggest some ways to reorganize a couple of forums.

 

The forum "Chinese names, tatoos and quick translations" could be changed to "Welcome" with

Subforum: "Announcements"

Subforum: "Community"

   with sub-subforum: "Meetups"

Subforum: "Tatoos, names, and quick translations"

 

"Announcements" can include forum announcements, giveaways, and posts about other forums. Items here would need to be approved before posting. The current "Announcements" forum could be changed to "Site Support"

 

"Community" would be a good place to put topics like Why Chinese and most embarrassing moment. Vivi's Anything you think you'd like to ask a native speaker would go there, and maybe we could expand it so a different member each month has their own "ask me anything" type thread. New members can also post there to introduce themselves. Kind of a fun and games type area. A "Meetups" sub-forum could keep all those meetup posts together.

 

The forum "Chinese courses outside of China" could be changed to "Studying Chinese outside of China" with

Subforum: "General Discussion" (the current subforum "Studying Chinese outside of China")

Subforum: "Asia"

   with sub-subforum "Taiwan"

   and sub-subforum "Hong Kong"

Subforum: "Europe"

Subforum: "North America"

 

A few location-specific subforms may help in the organization. Maybe this will encourage members to post more location-specific events that may interest others.

 

Anyway, just my two cents on some ways to organize the board. And yes, I'm willing to help if needed.  ^ - ^

[imron]

Hi yst,

 

Welcome to the forums and thanks for the suggestions.  Here's my views as an admin, about why some things are this way..

 

 

 

The forum "Chinese names, tatoos and quick translations" could be changed to "Welcome" with

The problem here is that then everybody who comes asking just for a Chinese name, tattoo or quick translation would miss it.  We get a relatively large number of these sorts of requests from people who have no long-term interest in the forums or in learning Chinese and it was getting tiring to keep having to move their posts to the correct sub-forum when they kept posting in the wrong place.  This sub-form was purposefully moved right to the top of the list so it's right there and you'd have to be blind to miss it (and some people still do), but putting it at the top made a big reduction in pointless admin busy work.

 

 

 

The forum "Chinese courses outside of China" could be changed to "Studying Chinese outside of China" with

I think the issue with reorganising this is that it's a relatively low traffic forum.  If you split it up further, then several of those sub-forums would appear basically dead.  From that point of view it's better to have one broad but alive sub-forum than several more-specific, but dead sub-forums.

[roddy]

Have you done any online community management before, yst? Good to see some interest in how the place is set-up, anyway. 

 

I've long wanted to take the forums structure apart and rebuild it. Overall we should have fewer, more active, sections. Maybe even as few as ten to twenty, I don't know. Some are far too quiet (six weeks since the last post in the news forum). New forums would need a group of keen members who will post regularly. 

 

I have been thinking of having some kind of listing of topics which most people can post in and which can run pretty much permanently. I hadn't thought of making that a specific forum, but it's worth thinking about. It might involve taking some topics out of the section you'd expect to find them in, though. 

 

I was pleased to see the response Vivi's post got, and I like the idea of doing those ask-me-anything topics more often, with a mix of regular and new members participating. To distinguish ourselves from reddit's AMA I'd suggest we call them WWA, which stands for 问我Anything. Yst, perhaps you'd like to volunteer to identify potential participants?

 

I'm not that keen on a stand-alone introduction topic, at the moment I prefer to get people to introduce themselves in context of the site - hence I suggest people post in Why Chinese, Aims & Objectives. But the best way to get people involved in the site and keep them coming back is through good and quick answers to their early posts. 

 

If you've been lurking you may already have seen these, but if you're interested in what I've been spending that portion of my time I manage to allocate to the site on, you could have a look at what I've been up to.

[oceancalligraphy]

Thanks for the responses. The explainations and historical reasons for the forum organization makes sense now.

I'll look around the forums for members that look like good candidates for WWA.