Detonation
Member
I'm not sure if this is the right place to post this, but I figured "Site Assistance" was the probably closest thing related to this post.
Anyways, I've been a long time visitor/member of DroidForums (ever since I got my OG Droid in November of '09) and love the site. But I have a couple comments I've been wanting to make, being a former forum administrator of another site (non android related).
My first comment is regarding the Droid News forum. In my opinion it seems like the News forum is disconnected from the rest of the site. There are just a couple people who are the ones posting news, and they aren't really seen anywhere else on the site. Often times they will post news topics that already have a thread in a different subforum, and based on the content of the post, its usually clear they have no knowledge of the existing discussion and didn't even look. Worse yet, sometimes they don't even check what's already in the news forum, because I've seen duplicate topics in there a few times. Reposts aren't a big deal, just merge them together, but usually this doesn't happen with the news, and it creates two split discussions on the same thing.
If there was a news team member more active with the rest of the forum, they could just move the newsworthy topics to the news forum. Which leads me to my next point, which is the quality of the news sometimes. I'm not trying to call anyone out here, but often times topics that are posted in the news aren't that newsworthy (imo) and are simple things that belong in the basic discussion. Not to mention they are often filled with typos and errors, and even worse, sometimes aren't even factually correct or up to date. Maybe I'm just making a big deal out of this, but the news forum is what shows on the front page - the first thing people see when they visit the site...I'd think it would reflect poorly on the entire site if its a bad news story or is something filled with typos.
My other comment is on the fragmentation of the subforums. There are just so many of them. If I wanted to create a topic, I would want to do it where the most people will read it (especially if its a need help topic), but most of the time if I were to post in the actual correct area, it would be buried 20 subforums down in the list. Its clear most people just go to the "Droid Discussions" area either way. If I have a topic about the Droid 2, why would I post it in the Droid 2 General Discussion (currently 130 viewing) when I could put it in the overall Droid General Discussion (currently 1406 viewing). I guess having a separate subforum for each phone, with each of those having separate subforums for discussion, accessories, etc, is overkill IMO, and the organization is doing more harm than good. While I don't have a immediately solution for this in mind, I do think things need to somewhat simplified, at least maybe consolidating some of the subforums.
I'm not trying to criticize the site with this topic. I love the site and visit it many times a day, which is why I'm offering my opinions/suggestions for possible improvement. And like I said above, maybe no one else really cares about all this stuff and I'm making a big deal about it, but as a forum admin these were things we looked at when trying to improve our site.
(And mods if you think this topic is inappropriate for public discussion, feel free to delete it and take to PM).
Anyways, I've been a long time visitor/member of DroidForums (ever since I got my OG Droid in November of '09) and love the site. But I have a couple comments I've been wanting to make, being a former forum administrator of another site (non android related).
My first comment is regarding the Droid News forum. In my opinion it seems like the News forum is disconnected from the rest of the site. There are just a couple people who are the ones posting news, and they aren't really seen anywhere else on the site. Often times they will post news topics that already have a thread in a different subforum, and based on the content of the post, its usually clear they have no knowledge of the existing discussion and didn't even look. Worse yet, sometimes they don't even check what's already in the news forum, because I've seen duplicate topics in there a few times. Reposts aren't a big deal, just merge them together, but usually this doesn't happen with the news, and it creates two split discussions on the same thing.
If there was a news team member more active with the rest of the forum, they could just move the newsworthy topics to the news forum. Which leads me to my next point, which is the quality of the news sometimes. I'm not trying to call anyone out here, but often times topics that are posted in the news aren't that newsworthy (imo) and are simple things that belong in the basic discussion. Not to mention they are often filled with typos and errors, and even worse, sometimes aren't even factually correct or up to date. Maybe I'm just making a big deal out of this, but the news forum is what shows on the front page - the first thing people see when they visit the site...I'd think it would reflect poorly on the entire site if its a bad news story or is something filled with typos.
My other comment is on the fragmentation of the subforums. There are just so many of them. If I wanted to create a topic, I would want to do it where the most people will read it (especially if its a need help topic), but most of the time if I were to post in the actual correct area, it would be buried 20 subforums down in the list. Its clear most people just go to the "Droid Discussions" area either way. If I have a topic about the Droid 2, why would I post it in the Droid 2 General Discussion (currently 130 viewing) when I could put it in the overall Droid General Discussion (currently 1406 viewing). I guess having a separate subforum for each phone, with each of those having separate subforums for discussion, accessories, etc, is overkill IMO, and the organization is doing more harm than good. While I don't have a immediately solution for this in mind, I do think things need to somewhat simplified, at least maybe consolidating some of the subforums.
I'm not trying to criticize the site with this topic. I love the site and visit it many times a day, which is why I'm offering my opinions/suggestions for possible improvement. And like I said above, maybe no one else really cares about all this stuff and I'm making a big deal about it, but as a forum admin these were things we looked at when trying to improve our site.
(And mods if you think this topic is inappropriate for public discussion, feel free to delete it and take to PM).