I had an idea for organizing the forum. Since a lot of flashlights now accept multiple battery types and configurations (1xAA/1x16340, 1xAA/1x14500, 1xAA/2xAA with extender, etc.) what if I organized the forum categories into Keychain, Small, Medium, and Large categories, and then in each post allow for tagging? Tagging would be basically be some checkboxes above the post editor window which would contain a list of different battery types, and possibly even modes and configurations, and the poster could check all that apply. Then, it would be possible to do searches or get a nice list of posts that meet specific battery configurations.
Any thoughts? Or any other suggestions on forum organization?
There's two options for using this tagging system: I can make it optional for a user to tag his post, or I can make it required to tag at least one. I don't want to make the user jump through too many hoops just to make a simple post, especially if he's not doing a review and just wants to ask a question. But I also don't want people to just ignore the tagging system, because that defeats the purpose. So.... what's the consensus?
Any way to do a trial run to let members try it/critique it/praise it/blast it? Edit OOPS, jumped to “last post” without realizing. Sorry all. If I delete this post will the thread drop off the top of the que?
This was actually a good idea which didn’t get much airtime. By size: <18650 (small), 18650 1 emitter (med), >=18650 multi-emitter (large), or by tier: no-name generic (low end), budget brand (romisen, genuine TF/UF), and premium (jetbeam, ZL) makes more sense than one for each battery type. I mean, a battery costs 1-10$ so really shouldn’t be the limiting factor.
Tagging is a great idea now that this place has grown so much. That doesn’t even require a change to the layout to be useful in finding older info. Agent’s idea of tier organization isn’t too bad though. With the growth, there is more discussion of premium lights. Even if the focus is still budget it makes the place more complete.
I think the tagging idea is great. Putting a tick in a few boxes is no big deal, especially for an initial thread starting post. I don't feel it would be needed on any but the original post in a thread.
I mean, if someone posts about 1AA/14500 light but adds only 1AA tag or 14500 tag, then its only partial tagging which will make difficult for users to search for information over here.
sounds good. just make it automatically add the tag to the forum being posted to. keep the existing forum categories as tags (a simple SELECT INTO statement); that way you keep everything searchable and are only adding nuggets of info to new posts.
Tags vs forum reorg aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive, and if anything tend to complement each other.
Best way forward if such a choice is made is to create new “tier” forum for cheapies / mid-brand / primo, and retroactively dump everything into cheapo/mid with tags attached (ie threads from 18650 would get 18650 tag attached). Hardest part of migration would be choosing where to fit old material, but maybe a script/alg which searches title+OP for brand names would suffice. Some manual cleanup might be necessary for any egregious errors afterward, but it’s a limited one time pain for more logical org.
This is still an issue, though. Some people are lazy and would make posts without any tags, thus causing more disorganization. On the other hand, others might simply want to make a quick post and feel obligated to find the right tags for the post, which is a bit more time consuming.
As far as migration, I think that would be fairly easy. Migration and bulk re-tagging are one of Drupal’s strong points.
Tagging? I have no clue what you are talking about and I bet a few others might not either. I don't know what tags are or what they are used for, but if it meant adding more into my post, I wouldn't bother. I'm lazy and probably wouldn't make any use of it, but then again I only come and read the first two pages of recent posts and leave, LOL.
It’s just a label you can associate with a thread, not unlike the “label” of battery type we implicitly already use to put threads into the forum categories. Search function though in most ways alleviates the need for comprehensive tagging, but the problem is that the (google?) index doesn’t allow sort by date, so you can’t check on the latest threads with a certain keyword.
The suggestion for tier reorg is mostly because now we have people talking about $100+ vs $10 lights in the same 18650 forum (much greater diff than buying a $10 18650), and maybe it would make more sense for those shopping for $$ lights to have a separate listing.
