Mindboards

Currently, there is only 4 forums based on the old NXTasy forums.

How about using more specific forum names. There could be forum about :

• user robotic projects,
• user brick projects (with only the NXT brick),
• electronic hacks,
• firmware hacking,
• several languages :
  • NXC/NBC
  • leJOS
  • NXT-G
  • NXT OSEK
• Hardware/OS problems
• more idea?

I'm not opposed to creating some subforums under Mindstorms Software. If we choose to do something like this I would suggest a Firmware sub-forum, a sub-forum about writing programs that run on a programmable brick (On-board Programming?), a sub-forum about programs that control the brick remotely while running on some other platform (Remote Programming?), and a General Programming sub-forum. The reasons for not doing something like this include not wanting to create a forum that winds up being a ghost town. It might be best to wait a bit and see what makes sense after a few weeks.

John Hansen

Having so many sub forums has the issue that it will take a LOT more work from admins to move posts around to the proper forums when they're not in the right spot. We have 76 members at the moment and not nearly enough posts to warrant this kind of sub dividing just yet.

- Xander

I like it very much the way it is currently.
Only 1 extra forum I would appreciate, as it's a bit more specific than "open discussion":

- General Robotics (non- Lego / including homebrewed hardware)

I think that adding a few more specific forums would be a good idea. But I think the choice of forums and their names is really important for a forums success, so I think this shouldn't be done on a whim however...

I was thinking something like this for the software section:

• NXT-G
• Other Programming languages, NXC, RobotC, leJOS and so on (in a single forum)
• General software, stuff like RicEdit, MLCad, downloading firmware, BCC and such, stuff not directly related to programming...

I think we should keep the amount of forums visible on the front page to maximum 10 or something like that so all forums can be seen without too much scrolling. I suspect too many forums visible at once would just confuse new users. If it really is necessary with so many forums, perhaps making some of them sub-forums would be an idea?

mightor wrote:We have 76 members at the moment and not nearly enough posts to warrant this kind of sub dividing just yet.

I agree that we should wait a little, but this forum have been up for a week and there is already 76 members and ~260 posts (40 topics). It is not going to take long... (And remember, once you change the forums you will need to sort all the existing topics, the more you wait, the more topics there will be to sort ; ) )

having a non-lego part would be nice. Because I know that sometimes I just want to talk about some cool stuff with people I know. (for example if I were to build something cool non-lego or if I get some new geeky toy) but the problem is we arent allowed to. Having a non-lego forum would make things pretty fun I think. By non-lego I dont mean talk about anything under the sun but like keep it to geeky stuff, technology, maybe if there is some really cool thing someone saw in nature or a cool bug, ect. not "i just remodeled my bathroom"



also sub forums would be nice and that would also help people who are coming and trying to find the answer to a problem because it would spread it out more. Say they want to know how to do something in nxc with their enhanced firmware they can go directly there instead of going to a forum about nxc, lejos, pblua, nbc, robotc, nxt-g ect and then flipping through tons of pages only to end up reposting a question someone else posted.

however for the sub categories too many isnt fun either, I used rcgroups before and they have far too many sub forums that i almost gave up trying to find where to post because it seemed wherever I posted someone would tell me I was doing it wrong. I think thenxtstep has a good amount of subforums but in some cases they dont have enough.

whatever I happens I think we should still have a contest section so that people can make their own contests like I used to do.

I personally hate forums with tons of sub-sections. One thing I loved about NXTasy was the fact that, just like MiBo, it only had ~5 real sections. I would say keep the sub forums to around that many, even if (oops, when) these boards become as active as NXTasy.

megamindstorm wrote: also sub forums would be nice and that would also help people who are coming and trying to find the answer to a problem because it would spread it out more. Say they want to know how to do something in nxc with their enhanced firmware they can go directly there instead of going to a forum about nxc, lejos, pblua, nbc, robotc, nxt-g ect and then flipping through tons of pages only to end up reposting a question someone else posted.

we got sth like that in our German Mindstormsforum http://www.mindstormsforum.de (maybe you wish to have a look: currently 32520 posts, 2658 registered users.)
As a moderator of that forum I daresay that 99% of the moderation job is moving posts from one to another (sub-)forum. In this regard I must (unavoidably) fully agree with Xander.

That's why we decided to simplify the forum structure to a far simpler one in the next weeks.

But some more specific subfora we will keep: "general and non-Lego robotics" and "off-topic".