Yeah, the Q&A feature (it’s activated by the “Question” tag and any other tags I explicity declare in the admin panel) should only be used for troubleshooting sections where you have answers and comments to those answers.
Things are getting a bit complicated for me now. First, the colors are getting inverted so that I can’t read texts in white fonts. I remember @Hifihedgehog talked about choosing dark/light theme or device theme in preferences, but I can’t find it.
Also, I couldn’t find a way to post this without selecting a post and quoting it. Is it because it’s pinned?
Edit: Nevermind, found it all, and problem solved 
I love the the Material theme and the dark theme interface.
I think the chronological style of the old forums would make life simpler for us simple-minded folks. What’s the consensus on that?
Edit. …or maybe not. Now that I’ve figured out the hierarchical style, I think it makes more sense than the chronological thing. It’s easy to find all the replies to a particular post in one single thread. Keep it up, guys👍! That’s why I brag about having smart friends and comrades😂
3 Likes
We can also send the links via private messages. I did send one to Kuma. Hope she joins.
I changed that upvotes field to answer karma.
I’m having trouble with this, too…
Tech Target might have an issue with this…
OK, this will probably seem a bit radical, but here’s my current thinking about a forum structure:
-
General
General Forum Announcements and Admin
Member Introductions
What Device Is Right For Me?
Help & Suggestions -
Tablet News
Headlines, Press Releases and Announcements
-
Buy, Sell, Trade Devices
Buy, Sell & Trade Devices and Deals
-
Apple Devices and OS
Free structured threads on specific issues possibly including upvoting and “best answer or comment”
No pinned threads! (OK, well maybe pinned threads on major topics)
OS is folded in because we usually can’t talk about a device without collateral OS comments
Note: “Devices” because we’ve become about more than just tablets -
Windows Devices and OS
Same as above; maybe have a few dedicated sub forums for major brands like Lenovo and HP
-
Android Devices and OS
Same as above
-
Software
Office, Teams, Apps of all kinds
-
Artists and Content Creators
Start with a “blank” forum and let the artists suggest how they want it configured
-
Social
Tablet Life
Off Topic
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Starting from @SteveS suggestions above, but trying to further simplify things (to make sure subforums don’t go too quiet, how about
General
- Forum Announcements and Admin (new thread for each announcement)
- Member Introductions (ongoing pinned thread)
- What Device Is Right For Me? (pinned thread curated by mods)
In the subforum description mention these three: (no separate threads)
Help & Suggestions
Headlines, Press Releases and Announcements that don't fit elsewhere
Tablet Life, the quest for the perfect tech setup, etc
Artists and Content Creators
Windows (all things Windows)
Apple (all things Apple)
Android (all things Android)
Other (for chromebooks, ereaders, etc)
Off Topic (includes 'Social')
Buy, Sell, Trade Devices
This would be eight sections, enough for some order, but few enough that each forum hopefully won’t be too quiet. The Buy/Sell will be quiet but that’ OK imo.
I placed the Art forum near the top, hoping that it will help with activity.
I placed Windows above Apple (personal preference 
)
I’m conflicted on setting up another section for ‘software’ since a lot of that will fit in either Windows/Apple/Android/Other. Maybe start without it and see how it goes?
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Kind of funny that the one thread where we’re making forum suggestions has a Q&A structure with as a result a fairly confusing order! I guess we can upvote ‘answer threads’ here. Not sure we ever want to use that again 
1 Like
That sounds good. And considering Apple were so against styli, they deserve a lower place!
There might still be some issues with some devices. Is an eReader running Android ‘Android’ or ‘Other’? I think those devices will find a home naturally, but it might get confusing and off-putting for anyone new though.
3 Likes
@everyone: Signatures are back and enabled by default. Big thanks to the Discourse team for just now adding the option for it to be on by default. And if you do hate signatures, you can still turn them off.
I’d like to make a counter-proposal for topic structure, based on some discussion I’ve had with @Hifihedgehog and @SteveS and thinking I’ve done over the past couple of days.
First, we should note the threads in the old forum which got the most traction, ie. the “megathreads”: Best Smartphone Companion (general phone talk), latest Surface Pro (general x86 tablet talk), SPX (general WOA talk), and notice a pattern that these threads acted more like News threads, than device threads.
We can also see this pattern in the Cintiq Alternatives (drawing tablet news), Art Programs (drawing app updates), and e-ink tablets threads, etc.
Individual devices that get discussed may or may not get a dedicated thread, depending on popularity. And oftentimes, key informative posts on a particular device will get buried in a megathread, which made searching/backreferencing very difficult.
So in order to capture the old style “rolling comments” and exchanges our forum is beloved for, while also trying preserve the organization and searchability of information, I suggest we adopt a forum structure with a pinned News topic at the top, and invidual device topics underneath.
MAIN SECTION
-
PINNED News Thread (for upcoming and just released products, general topical chatter and ‘soapboxing’)
-
Threads By Device/Topic (for already released products, reviews, comments, issues & help, etc)
As for the list of main sections, I’m going to propose we go by form-factor (usecase), rather than OS. The reason is that, Windows x86 covers such a fast range of usage, that anything from desktop replacements to mini-tablets would be grouped together. Also, most new users I think would be looking to compare the best laptop/tablet for school, or for professional work, or just media-consumption and not neccesarily have decided on if they want to go Windows, Android or iOS.
So for rough, starting sections for tablets (names subject to change):
- Sub-11" Tablets (Mini/side tablets: Surface Go, iPad Mini, Atom Tablets, smaller Android tablets)
- 12-14" Tablets (General purpose: Surface-style 2-in-1’s, HP Spectre style convertibles, iPad Pro 12.9", Galaxy Tab S7+)
- 15"+ Tablets (Workstation class: Surface Book/Laptop Studio, Concept D7 Ezel/D9, Mobile Studio Pro)
- All-in-One/Large Format (Surface Studio, Cintiq Pro Engine, digital whiteboards)
- Smartphones (esp. with stylus, Galaxy Note, Fold, Duo)
Then we have special purpose sections:
- E-ink Devices (Boox, Remarkable, Chinese OEM etc.)
- Drawing Tablets (Wacom, XP-Pen, Huion, Xencelabs, etc.)
- Pens and Accessories (Pens, Nibs, Bluetooth remotes, etc.)
- Art Software (Photoshop, Clip Studio, Painter, and mobile counterparts)
- Notetaking Software (OneNote, orgainzer/journaling tips and topics)
And finally, we’ll have technology-related sections:
- Windows x86 (Windows news, Intel/AMD news)
- Windows ARM (WOA news, Qualcomm 8cx/SQ)
- Apple Silicon (MacOS news, M1 processors)
- ARM/Android (Android/Chrome OS news, processors developments (Snapdragon, Exynos, etc), and ARM platform news (Nuvia, Nvidia, MS, Tensor)
- General Technology (digitizer tech, privacy/cloud topics, emerging platforms, eg. RISC-V)
That should cover the bulk of technical topics, and then we can round it off with Annoucement, Off-Topic, Artworks, Buy-Sell, and Recommendations as discussed previously. What do you guys think?
2 Likes
This looks quite simplified. Think I like it👍
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Oh, please implement the spoiler (hide image) feature. I remember in the old forums people complained about the images cluttering the threads. That was a nice little way to tidy things up and still enjoy the entertaining memes/gifs and informative images.
Not that I ever figured out how to use it.
Use the “Hide Details” option in the gear wheel 
Summary
1 Like
A lot of though went into this! 
I’m a little confused how this would look though.
- Is a “pinned News topic” a subforum?
- you mention a “List of main sections”, are those also subforums?
As for dividing things up by screen size, would that not add friction? Example, if I’m curious what TPCR says about the iPad Pro, in the previously proposed structure you’d just head to the Apple subforum, and since it’s a popular device, you’d see an active thread near the top. If we split things by screen size, now I need look into different subforums (do I want the big one? How big is that actually?) and then I end up on a subforum with tons of PC tablet threads and a couple of iPad threads.
_
Another thing to consider is mod load. Would threads likely end up in the right place? If not, mods are going to have to move things around. Simple buckets means less modding.
_
Selfishly whatever we do would work for me, I’d just be hanging around wherever the Surface threads are (Lenovo and I broke up).
_
PS how do we insert empty lines here? Just composing with some empty lines results in a wall of text post.
1 Like
Sorry if it was unclear, each Main Section has it’s own News thread pinned up top, for general chatter on the subject. Then users could create specific threads underneath by Device.
For example, the Smartphones section would have a News thread pinned, that essentially replaces the “Best Smartphone Companion” megathread of old. And underneath that, we’d have individual threads for Fold 3, Duo, etc.
The motivation for the section list actually came from looking at each megathread we used to have, eg:
- The Art Tablets news thread replaces the Cintiq Alternative thread.
- The WOA technology news thread replaces the SPX/“Will WOA Wow?” megathreads.
- The x86 technology news thread replaces the Intel/AMD megathreads (though there is a case for keeping Intel/AMD seperate, alot of news discussion is comparing benchmarks so I’d be ok just having a single x86 advancements news thread).
- And the General Technology section could have a multiple News threads (eg. one for battery advancement, digitizer technology, etc.)
That way each forum section would have constant updates via its News thread, while still allowing specific device/topic threads the branch out and keep info orgranized.
True, for the iPad Pro line specifically, it would add friction as it would divide iPad Pro discussion into the Sub-11" and 12-14" Sections. But iPads are a special case, as most discussion on the forums is still about Windows tablets (that don’t have uniform designs in several sizes). And the upside is we don’t have an overloaded “Windows Tablet” section (with pretty much every tablet we ever talk about).
Also, consider from a new user perspective: people generally choose tablets by with a general form-factor in mind. For example, a student might be looking to buy a medium-sized 2-in-1 (SP8, or an iPad Pro 12.9, or Galaxy Tab S7+) or even a convertible. Instead of having these in all seperate forums, this structure would encourage comparison based on competing models within the usecase or market segment.
I actually see it easier on the mods, because every device/topic has a pretty clear category. Whereas with the OS based structure, you’d have software, hardware, and peripheral discussions all mixed together, and sometimes things apply across OS.
But maybe that’s just the engineer in me talking.
3 Likes
I don’t hate signatures, but they sometimes do take up a lot of space! Where do we turn them off? I tried looking all over “preferences”, to no avail.