no "Best of CA" in over a year??

[Craig D]

The best of CA forum hasn't had anything added to it in over a year.
Are we going to ditch that forum or is someone asleep at the wheel?

[Jasonwclark]

It might be helpful for thinking about this stuff, if we split the main forums into two general categories: one for the active discussions/art posting forums, and another for the forums that are intended more as archives, and then organize everything so that most active forums are at the top of the tree, and all the archival stuff is at the bottom. For the most part that's how things are set up already, but there are a couple forums like "Best of CA" that could perhaps be shifted around.

Right now we have 7 major sections

EDUCATIONAL PROGRAMS AND INSPIRATIONAL EVENTS
ARTWORK
ACTIVITIES
OFFICIAL
GENERAL FORUMS
EDUCATION & LEARNING
EMPLOYMENT

Some of those titles are not as descriptive as they could be, which is why a tagline for each section (like we have for the individual forums) would be a good idea. Likewise, some sections could probably be re-titled to be more specific. For example, using the same order as above, they might read more like this:

CA NEWS AND EVENTS: for the latest info about ConceptArt.org+MassiveBlack.
ARTWORK: a place to post your artwork and gather feedback.
COMMUNITY ACTIVITIES: collaborate and compete with other CA artists in bi-weekly projects and challenges.
WEBSITE SUPPORT: CA.org Q&A and bug reporting.
GENERAL DISCUSSION: For conversations, creative tangents, and related banter. (Please keep it constructive).
EDUCATION AND TUTORIALS: Tools and advice to aid in the learning process.
EMPLOYEMENT: Artists seeking work, and Employers seeking Artists.

When presented like that, you can see that there are a couple forums (like Best of CA, or CA Exclusive Content and Thunderdome) that could be folded into a different section, or dropped to cut down on the scrolling on the main page. Similarly, the order of the sections could probably be tweaked so that the most active forums are at the top of the list. Something like this would be ideal I think

ARTWORK
GENERAL DISCUSSION
CA NEWS AND EVENTS (a good place for any introduction/orientation/CA bio type threads as well. Exclusive Content could also go here if not in the Education section.)
COMMUNITY ACTIVITIES (Thunderdome would be more appropriate here)
EDUCATION AND TUTORIALS
EMPLOYEMENT
WEBSITE SUPPORT

Right now I count about 30 forums within those 7 main sections, which is quite a few. It’s manageable, but anything that eliminates some of the redundancy would probably help.

[Jason Manley]

http://conceptart.org/search/index.php?page=1&cat=bestof&forumid=5


ahem

user voted now

[Jasonwclark]

Actually that brings up a good point. I'm sure someone is already thinking about this, but it would be nice if we had a forum section for new users that described the Gallery feature... what it is, how it’s used, or any other relevant info about the Gallery that might not be immediately evident to the average forums user.

You could fold that and a lot of other material into a basic "Introduction to CA.org" section at the head of the forums tree. Right now most of this stuff is handled in the Support forum or the Lounge, after the fact. Like someone asks a question "how do I use feature X" and then one of the mods gets to it with an answer in a day or two. There are a lot of questions that we could preempt though, if we had something like an Orientation/FAQ section. The FAQ that we have already is good, but the link is a sort of tiny up there. I think if it’s possible to organize that info using the forums structure as well (ie. sections with threads/stickies), even if it’s just the same material re-posted, it would probably help. If you were going to do it that way, I would fold the 'Support' forum into the 'Intro to CA' section, and put it at the very top instead of the bottom (to emphasize priority.) First at the top or last at the bottom is the way to go for that stuff though, rather than having it in the middle of the forums tree. That way its less likely to get passed over

Also, I'm guessing there's probably an invisable forum or two on this site for staff type discussions, or forums that haven't been published yet. Invisible forums of that sort should probably be listed last instead of first. The idea being that mods would scroll past all the other stuff on the way to the staff section (presumably pretty active) to ensure a regular scanning over of the entire tree.

[Jason Manley]

mod forums are at the bottom. if anyone wants to help make those kind of threads, please..by all means. we are swamped. doing all we can already.


j

[emily g]

It became hard to add threads to the "Best of CA" section after we started using the attachment feature. When you copy threads over, the attachments don't come with them. :(