apps forum

do you think there's enough justification for an apps forum? i don't have any statistics, but i think there seem to be some queries as to how to install/use linux apps like Office Suites, mp3 players, window managers, browsers etc etc.

anyway, got this thought after seeing that most of this stuff went into the 'linux-general' or 'general' forums.

I like that idea actually. makes sense, even if most problems like that do come down to people taking that extra one minute to have a go for themselves.

I am going to break apart the installation forum into a hardware forum and a software forum. This will happen in the very near future, just a few other things to do first. Does everyone think that it would be better to keep the install forum and add the hardware and software forums? I just don't want to make it so that there are too many forums. Thanks,

--jeremy

hm... i think the decision at the end of the day will have to be weighed by what you want out of it...

but here's my take:
a hardware forum and a software forum will suffice. i'm not sure which part of the Venn Diagram the install forum will fit into if you already have both the hardware and software forums. i suppose as much as redundancy is the bane of database systems, so it is for people trying to go to the right place for help. if the list is too long and many categories are replicated, people get confused. i vote for doing without an extra forum.

in any case, with the kind of traffic you're getting jeremy, it seems that so far it's been a great success... so i think you'll know what's best. i have only a limited vision and limited information.

I don't know that we need another forum. When push comes to shove, a newbie will post his/her question regardless of how many forums there are. If he/she is to be a regular visitor, they will most likely use the 'check new posts' thing more than actually look through the forums. From keeping an eye on this page, it is very aparent that 'guest's don't spend too much time actually looking through the forums. At the time of writing, there were 43 guests; 2 were searching, 6 were actually reading threads, 2 were viewing history, and 1 was syndicating. The majority, however, seemed to be simply hanging out on the Main Index. I don't think more forums would confuse anyone, but I don't see that it is neccesary.

$Ž€¥£ 0.02

I think an "apps" forum is a great idea. After all, people spend most of their time on the computer using various types of software. I would rather see discussions about software in its own forum than spread throughout all of them.

Maybe the software forum could then have sub-forums for specific software packages ( similare to the Linux - Distributions forum ). There could be a "games" sub-forum, as suggested here:

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...threadid=17807

Originally posted by jeremy I just don't want to make it so that there are too many forums.

I don't think its so bad to have lots and lots of forums as long as they are organized into a "tree structure" as sub-forums.

The major benefit of organizing posts into "lots and lots of forums" via a "tree structure" is that it is easier for those answering questions to find the types of questions that they want to answer, quickly, even if there is a high volume of new posts.

Maybe a moderator could go around and move misplaced threads into more appropriate forums.