Subforums - Your Input

[Jamie McDaniel]

I think we have grown to the point where we should consider dividing the Main Forum into subforums. I've looked at past threads to get an idea of what categories our threads tend to fall in. The criteria for a dedicated subforum should be something like 10% of more of our threads could be described by the subforum's description.

For example, the Hello My Name is... forum is a good subforum because every thread that gets posted there is an introduction. Out of the roughly 1000 total threads that we have, 203 of them are introductions. Hence a dedicated forum for those threads is useful.

So here is what I've come up with from spending some time going over old threads. I'd like to hear suggestions or improvements from others, though. It would be good to think this through before creating the new subforums and categorizing all the old threads.


Hello My Name is...
This is a great place for your first post. Introduce yourself. We would like to get to know you.

Soulforce Activism
This forum is for all things related to Soulforce activism, such as event announcements, discussing events, and posting media coverage, pictures, and links to videos. This is also the place to post your letters to newspaper editors, politicians, church leaders, etc.

Theology, Religion, Spirituality, Faith, and Nonviolence
A forum for conversations about God, Theology, Religion, Spirituality, Faith, the Bible, etc. If you have a short story, quote, or poem that illuminates or conveys a truth, you can share those here too. This is also the forum for discussing and studying principles of nonviolence.

GLBT News/Issues/Events
Use this forum to discuss news, issues, and events which impact gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people. If discussing a Soulforce event, please use the Soulforce Activism forum instead.

National and World News/Issues
A forum for discussing all national and world news and issues. If your post would more appropriately fit in the GLBT News/Issues/Events forum, please post there instead.

General Chat
This is the forum for sharing what is happening in your life. It is also for posting entertaining messages, links to less serious news, fun polls, movie reviews, and the like.

Forum Instructions
Consult this forum for instructions or tutorials related to using the Soulforce Forums as well as forums announcements. Posting limited to administrators and moderators.


An appropriate number of subforums would provide more structure to the forums and organize the threads somewhat (finding that month-old thread was elementary :inspector: ).

However too many subforums may make posting confusing (which subforums does my thread best fit in :confused:) and navigating the forums more challenging for new people.

[NathanATX]

I think it's perfect!

[Daniel]

Jamie- I think your plan is a good one, and I am hard pressed to find a major change to what you have proposed that would be an improvement.

However, two minor things come to mind:

1. Some might want 'Nonviolence' (Hypen? No-Hyphen?) bumped to 'first-place' in the line it appears in. Its appearance at the end of the line may give the impression to some that is derivative rather than primary in importance. I don't have problem with it however.

2. You might consider taking out 'Events' in GLBT News/Issues/Events. Events, strictly speaking, are 'News' and could be easily confused with Soulforce Activism.

[BruceChris]

I like it.-- Chris

[Lydia]

Great idea.

[tdogg]

Looks good to me Jamie.

[SolApollo]

Hey Jamie:
Its great! Very thorough too. Good job.

[Jennifer5]

I can imagine that this most of taken a really long to time to come up with all that... good job:love: ......my only concern would be GLBT News/Issues/Events & National and World News/Issues ... could over lap a lot.. but maybe that's not an issue at all, I don't know...

[Zerbie]

I was thinking sorta along the same lines as Jenn5 - there might end up being overlap between LGBT news/issues and general world issues, so maybe we can leave a broader category for them both. Other than that, leave as is. . .

Z

[Jamie McDaniel]

I can imagine that this most of taken a really long to time to come up with all that
Actually, Jennifer5, what will take a good amount of time is moving each of the 778 threads to the appropriate subforum. Unless this guy -->:magic: can do something more than just look cute. You know he worked in the forums for an ex-gay ministry before coming over to ours.

1. Some might want 'Nonviolence' (Hypen? No-Hyphen?) bumped to 'first-place' in the line it appears in. Its appearance at the end of the line may give the impression to some that is derivative rather than primary in importance. I don't have problem with it however.

2. You might consider taking out 'Events' in GLBT News/Issues/Events. Events, strictly speaking, are 'News' and could be easily confused with Soulforce Activism.
Good idea. I think shortening Theology, Religion, Spirituality, Faith, and Nonviolence to Faith and Nonviolence works better. The description could then list all the types of discussions that would go in that subforum.

And :smashy:Events

...my only concern would be GLBT News/Issues/Events & National and World News/Issues ... could over lap a lot.
I was thinking sorta along the same lines as Jenn5 - there might end up being overlap between LGBT news/issues and general world issues, so maybe we can leave a broader category for them both.

Yeah, I wondered about that. Still, it would be nice to, in the future, go back and look at all the news that impacted the GLBT community and what Soulforce people had to say about it. For example, the recent Washington Court decision :sick: or the Senate defeating the Federal Marriage Amendment. I think it would be convenient to have those in their own subforum rather than intermingled with threads discussing Israel's war against Hezbollah or the Andrea Yates verdict.

I do see the potential for overlap, though, in some of the subforums. For example, if a new edition of Mel White's What the Bible Says, and Doesn't Say, About Homosexuality is released, does that thread belong in Soulforce Activism (it's a Soulforce publication), Faith and Nonviolence (it deals with the Bible), or GLBT News/Issues (it's about homosexuality).

(The more appropriate category, I think, would be Soulforce Activism.)

Now having nonviolence and faith together is good, because a lot of people want to study nonviolence out of their faith calling. If those were seperate, I could see threads going in a direction where we started out talking about nonviolence but ended up talking about faith, and vice-versa.

Some thread drift is inherently part of forums, just the natural course of our conversations. But having some structure in which to build those conversations around is helpful.

Ok, I'm drifting myself now. :x

[BruceChris]

Jamie, would it make sense to have one for humor, or would that just be too much hassle to monitor?

P&L, BruceChris

[Emproph]

Jamie, would it make sense to have one for humor, or would that just be too much hassle to monitor?

P&L, BruceChrisMy sentiments as well, hassle-wise.

But for the record, that idea occured to me too as I was reading through this thread earilier and before I got down to BruceChris' post. :magic:
_____________________________

Never mind, I just read this part:
The criteria for a dedicated subforum should be something like 10% of more of our threads could be described by the subforum's description. So BruceChris, we need to find about 70 humorous threads.. :D

[Mia14]

Wow. Much easier. I actually ntoiced that there were some categories I wasn't as interested in when it was all in one forum, so now it's easier to just go through the categories I'm interested in. Jaime scores again. :)

[Vanessa White]

Hey Jamie: Thanks to you for the work of setting these subforums up- now I don't know where to begin! It is a great idea, especially for newbies that aren't sure where to go after their intro. Looks really good.....:)

[Jamie McDaniel]

Would it make sense to have one for humor, or would that just be too much hassle to monitor?
For us non-professional comedians, I think humor works best when the reader isn't expecting it. I really appreciate that sudden text in a long thread which elicits amusement and laughter.

For now, if you have a thread that begins with, "Have you heard the one about..." just place it in General Chat. Just don't end it with, "Can I get a :laughing:?"

[NonLemming]

Love it. Good job, Jamie!