Suggestion: New Sub-forum - Linux-Media

I was almost certain there was one, but when I came here guess I was wrong. I was thinking it would be nice to have a sub-forum (or even a major forum) for media-related issues, such as mplayer configuration, xmms, etc. One could say this could all go in the software forum, and they'd be correct. But given the multitude of questions asked on even the previous two topics, let alone countless others, I think the need is there for a forum for Media content.
For now, I'm off to post my mplayer question in Slackware

Cheers

In my experience of other sites, the more complex the site forum/sub-forum layout, the more likely users are to simply post their questions any- and everywhere and just leave it to the moderators to put them into the correct places.

Also, how would you exactly separate the questions out? Would a problem installing mplayer due to missing libraries by under "software" or "software/mutimedia"? How about not being able to record audio files from the aux port on your soundcard? Would that go in multimedia, software, linux general or hardware?

Just my £0.02.

Originally posted by Thymox In my experience of other sites, the more complex the site forum/sub-forum layout, the more likely users are to simply post their questions any- and everywhere and just leave it to the moderators to put them into the correct places. Also, how would you exactly separate the questions out? Would a problem installing mplayer due to missing libraries by under "software" or "software/mutimedia"? How about not being able to record audio files from the aux port on your soundcard? Would that go in multimedia, software, linux general or hardware? Just my £0.02.

You've a good point - never really though of that. But, then again - would a problem installing a nVidia driver on slack go under: Software, Slackware, Hardware, <Insert random forum here because it's been in them all>?

But I do see your point...
It was actually my idea to make it a subforum of Software
Hence: If the drivers were having problems, it would go under multimedia - its a problem with the Software of a Multimedia device
If the card was shot or they needed to check compatibility, then sure, Hardware...
Along then comes xmms and mplayer
Multimedia Software - hence going intot he Software->Multimedia forum - ie: problems compiling, configuring, etc. But if it's a problem with OOo, then it wouldnt go into multimedia - it's Office software. A topic such as this though, doesn't come up enough to require its own forum

Just my $0.02

I always have a dread of sub-forums and sub-sub-forums ad infinitum. They are not very intuitive and will only add to the clutter.

But no matter how many categories you have, there will always be ambiguous questions which might fall into one or more forums. You can never have a perfect question:

For example:

An nVidia question might fall into software (driver installation) or hardware (3d acceleration problem) or into games (I can't play UT2003/2004/Quake!!! Help!).

Similarly a modem question could fall into either hardware (not working) or networking (I can't connect to the internet!! Help!).

So the more categories there are: the more cluttered it will become.

I don't like subforums just because you can't tell if there are new posts or not there from the main page, I like to shift+click down the page opening all the forums before marking as read, then going in to actually read them all, however this way any sub-forums (although I make an exception with slackware and open it first anyway, it's always posted to) I don't bother with since I can't see whether it's had new posts.

choose the best sub-forum and leave it to the moderators.

Originally posted by da_zombie choose the best sub-forum and leave it to the moderators.

For that, I banish you to General

Originally posted by scuzzman You've a good point - never really though of that. But, then again - would a problem installing a nVidia driver on slack go under: Software, Slackware, Hardware, <Insert random forum here because it's been in them all>? But I do see your point... It was actually my idea to make it a subforum of Software Hence: If the drivers were having problems, it would go under multimedia - its a problem with the Software of a Multimedia device If the card was shot or they needed to check compatibility, then sure, Hardware... Along then comes xmms and mplayer Multimedia Software - hence going intot he Software->Multimedia forum - ie: problems compiling, configuring, etc. But if it's a problem with OOo, then it wouldnt go into multimedia - it's Office software. A topic such as this though, doesn't come up enough to require its own forum Just my $0.02

Oh, I fully understand where you are coming from. Segregation of questions by relevance is a very important issue - if it weren't then we would just have one very large forum and be done with it .

To my mind, though, the majority of questions start by being really quite vague.
"I just installed Fedora Core 2 and Doom 3 won't work. Please help".
Now, is that a D3 problem, a problem with the hardware, a problem with the drivers/modules, a problem with libraries... only until later would the truth come out and more details would be given. By that time, however, the thread would need to be moved since it is more than likely to have been put into the wrong forum in the first place, and as such it rather negates the point of having a separate forum.

http://www.linuxquestions.org/questi...der=descending

this has been asked after this post- so I thought I'd (gasp!) bump it so people would be able to see the discusion about this issue. (mods please tell me if I shouldn't be bumping this thread.) (note this said MODS)

titanium_geek