Brainstorming and Suggestions for Forum

I figure it is the best time now to determine how to fine tune this site. How would you guys like categories and forum structure? What features do you want? (For a listing on Discourse plug-ins, check this out: plugin - Discourse Meta) Is there anything you liked from TCPR that you really want here and anything you didn’t like you don’t want ever again? Would you like the main site (https://www.tabletpc.review) to have reviews and news or even perhaps spotlighting of forum contributions? The sky is the limit so please brainstorm!


Old forum structure:

General

  • What Tablet PC Should I Buy?
  • The Tablet PC Life
  • Professions
    • Artists
    • Educators
  • Buy, Sell, Trade and Tablet PC Deals
  • Site Suggestions and Site Help

Tablet PC News

  • News Headlines
  • Best of TabletPCReview
  • Press Releases and Announcements
  • The RoundUp

Apple Tablets

  • Apple/iOS

Windows Tablet PCs

  • Windows 10
  • Windows 8
  • Legacy Windows OS (Windows 7, Vista, etc.)
    • Windows Vista OS
    • Microsoft Windows 7
  • Software
    • OneNote, Evernote and Organizers
    • Linux on Tablet PC Forum
  • Hardware
  • Accessories
  • Acer (Gateway)
  • Asus
    • EP121 Slate
  • Dell
  • Fujitsu
  • Hewlett Packard
  • Lenovo (IBM)
  • Microsoft
  • Motion Computing
  • Panasonic
  • Samsung
  • VAIO / Sony
  • Toshiba
  • Other brands
    • Axiotron Modbook
    • Electrovaya
    • LG
    • TabletKiosk
    • UMPC - Ultra Mobile PC

Android Tablets

  • Amazon
  • Asus (Android)
  • Barnes & Noble
  • Google
  • Lenovo (Android)
  • Samsung Galaxy Note and Tab
  • Other Android Tablet Manufacturers
    • eReaders
    • Acer (Gateway)

Off Topic

  • Off Topic Chat
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Select the “Answer” button from the top/original post to make an upvote-able reply like this example.

I liked the Inbox feature for private message groups - that’s what got our lifeboat here.

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I enjoyed having a category that was for Artists and art tablet tech that didn’t fit in the Windows/Apple/Android division quite so neatly.

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Also, the ability to pin threads and a buy/sell/exchange device page would be good too.

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Pinning is already available so that is all set and ready to go. I will add a buy/sell/trade marketplace section really soon! Done!

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A first though is that IMO the original TPCR was too fine-grained. There were so many subforums that each got a little quiet.

I’m trying to think of the best categories. I like what’s there now (ios, windows, android), but maybe we need a category ‘other’ for those rare devices that don’t fit any of these categories.

We could then handle the various brands and types with tags. Like a “Microsoft” tag, or an “e-ink” tag, etc. Saying ‘devices’, because it’s not just tablets, we also have convertibles and all in ones etc.

I also like a separate section for art like @Lilawyn said. What should we call that? Just “Tablet art”? I’d love some active threads with new work product, and a thread/section for “how you work” etc. Our previous community had a good number of artists, which kind of set the community apart from other tech sites.

And maybe we could have separate section for software, including OS update discussions etc. Anything else I’m forgetting?

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If anyone wants dark mode, navigate to preferences, select interface and be sure to check the dark mode option. It will follow your OS’s color scheme (dark/light). If you want dark mode always on regardless of your OS’s color scheme, select Material Dark from the Color Scheme dropdown.

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So we have many options with regards to this. Discourse allows for two tiers of categories, categories and subcategories. Underneath that, we can add tags which also can have parent and child tags. I have already begun to tag our first topics. I agree: the old forum was too granular. I will write out the hierarchy of the old forum tomorrow in a list and we can discuss how best to break up that up into a new forum.

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I would very much like one art forum. I think combining artwork with news/discussion about art related software would keep it livelier than it did on TPCR.

Maybe it could be called “Content Creation” so it could include discussions regarding graphics-tablets, AR/VR, CAD, GPUs, metaverse, NFTs, etc

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I’ve always enjoyed reading the art/creative professionals topics so I’m all for this. As @JoeS pointed out, TPCR was too fine grained. A combo such as this would be an improvement, I think.

What are everyone’s thoughts for rearranging and streamlining this forum structure? I see this as a long-term transition which will occur over the next six months to year as we get settled in. I am going a bit crazy right now to get things organized but simply because I don’t want topics to get scattered and cluttering all over in the migration only to have to back track a lot. So if you really want to make my life easier, my number one concern right now is the forum folder structure and the spit and polish and other fine tuning can occur latter down the road. I know an art section is widely requested and certainly needed, and to slot that in in just the right place, I want to have a good forum structure first and foremost so I know just where to slot it in.

Anyone else having trouble uploading a profile pic?

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@Marty told me that he was having issues as well. Looking into this.

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I think the easy first iteration is to basically remove all the subfolders from the OS headers. I’m not even sure I would call them ‘tablets’ anymore as we have phones, DUO, yoga style laptops, etc. It seems like Windows tablets have really dwindled over the years too, I don’t feel like we need all those manufacturer subcategories anymore.

I never really felt I spent much time in “Table PC News” either. I think the Apple and Samsung event discussions got posted in their respective OS sections. I’d lean towards just eliminating that whole News section so people post news in the OS section by default.

That leaves the General section which I think I’m generally fine with. While I like the concept of “Tablet PC Life”, I often feel that comments about product usage wind up again in the respective OS sections.

I do love the “art” section, but its all buried under professions/artists. So as I mentioned earlier maybe something simply called “Content Creation” to open it up to art, CAD, notetaking, art software etc would bring more energy and views into the discussion.

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One note: I verified that uploading images to posts and threads is working. It just is profile images that aren’t working.

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I’m not sure what to make of the “Latest” tab for the forum.

On TPCR, new posts show up in list order, similar in style to regular threads.

Here, it looks like a Kanban board, except someone took my lower cards and jumbled them up in a somewhat nonsensical fashion. I guess I just need to get used to it?

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Thanks for the feedback. There are options for how user activity is listed in the user interface and I am open to changing how that activity is displayed based on yours and others’s feedback as you are doing right now. I will say though it is definitely not jumbled but in a definitive descending chronological order in that view. Would you mind elaborating or is it just the radically different UI that may have muddied the waters in wrapping your mind around the post order?

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Update: It is a Discourse issue affecting many Discourse installs that just came up in the last day or so. I will be watching this closely and will have this issue hopefully closed in the next 24-48 hours.

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As a temporary workaround, you can upload an image to Gravatar (need a WordPress account to use) and select the Gravatar option when changing your profile pic.

Also for anyone who may be experiencing problems receiving confirmation email for sign up, pm either me, @marty or @sonichedgehog360 on the old TPCR forums and we can manually approve your registration.

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