Still I think , The "Software-Forum" needs some specialisation....
 

As it is now , that forum pulls an insane amount of traffic , which I think is hurting the purpose.

I'll explain by example : I post a question , get one (=1) reply by a helpfull soul ,that happens to be online at about the same time , I reply within my same session.
Half a day later , the post is THREE pages down....
I "bump" it ; 6 hours later : another three pages down...

Not many will go beyond the first page to look for fresh content , and of those who do , there might not be anyone with the proper expertise.

This state of affairs is not beneficial to the exposure of the "Less Mainstream" topics ; Unless the post immediately sparks a lively discussion , the majority of the members don't even get to see it.
Hence many questions never get a proper answer ; Just the "regular" ones and those keep returning with a steady frequency.

Over time , there have been several requests for Sub-forums in the "Software-department" and every time , it has been turned down with the reasoning : "I don't see , the suggested subdivision pulling enough traffic to warrant a forum of its own."
I want to look at it from the oposite side :
The Software-forum pull TOO MUCH traffic to warrant the nomination of being helpfull.

I do have a few suggestions for subdivisions , but will keep 'em to myself , unless specifically asked for.

I feel the same way. When posting into Software you must have a "clever" topic to make people see it and read it since there are too much competition with too much other posts, the chances are that not much people will answer or even read the post. Even if you can use the "read post with 0 replies" this won't do it anymore.

I agree and believe that this forum would be a lot better off with some more subforums.

like me, i guarentee the huge majority of people who generally come here to answer don't look in individual forums. instead they look at the "View New Posts" searches. 10 posts in 1 forum or 1 post in 10 forums, is still going to end up as a list on 10 posts this way.... but tehn with specialised forums, people will double, triple, quadruple post more, and not use the correct forums, and it'd be a lot messier i think.

Like Chris, I *never* browse by forum. I wonder how many people do. At any rate, looking at the software forum you are correct in that only 6 hours worth of posts are on the front page. That indeed does not seem like enough. If we do break it into a couple subforums they need to be cleanly delineated. Any ideas?

--jeremy

Most people have problems with software installation. So there *could* be a subforum for Software Installation and Dependency Issues.

Personally I'm wary of introducing a large number of new forums -- as I see it, too many choices is just as bad as too few, since it makes it hard for newbies to choose the correct forum if there are, say, half a dozen choices that all seem appropriate.

That being said, if Software does get split, I would suggest breaking it into what I'd consider clear distinctions:

"Software - Installation & Configuration" -- new forum dedicated to setup questions
"Software" -- the current forum, intended for usage or other discussion topics

As always this is strictly my 2 cents. As a final comment, I'll agree with acid_kewpie and jeremy that other than the forums I moderate, I never go through a forum thread-by-thread. Instead, if I'm looking for posts covering a given topic I use the Search function, which has the beauty of returning results from LQ as a whole, rather than just one forum. -- J.W.

And maybe a "Software-Search"-forum?
There are also quite a lot of posts like : "I want to achieve X , combined with Y under circumstances Z. Which App would meet my needs best?"
(Yes , I know the standard answer : Google.... ;) )

On a tangent : If one was to suggest a piece of software/project , where would that go? Software? Programming? Or , like I did last week : General?

Yes of course too many forums is not good either. But just adding one forum called "Installation and configuration" is a great idea. That would be enough to sort the kinda already messy software forum but not fill it too much with subforums.

I agree with this - an Installation forum would be a great idea...

Remember I suggested it first ;)

Yeah, but I was thinking about it already :p

An installation sub-forum would be logical and should keep them in one place.

Yeah, I'm another View New Posts guy, though I will hit a couple of forums when I don't have time for VNP. Never go through the board as a whole by forums, though.

Looking over the first couple of pages, it seems like a remarkably diverse group of questions. The most obvious split is 'compile error, package management error, installation troubles in general' vs. 'really general'.

Another possibility would require a bit of an honor system - split it into a 'software troubleshooting' and a 'software discussion' section. The only real difference between the two would be serious post-install errors and configuration troubles. If you split 'install/general' then post-install errors go in general. In 'troubleshooting/discussion', they go in troubleshooting. And configuration is fuzzy no matter what - where's the line between installing and actually getting it working or between getting it working and getting it working *right*? ;)

I think the latter division is better except that I can see people posting 'Emergency! Having trouble deciding on the best FPS' in troubleshooting, hoping it gets seen.

But I don't see splitting it up into 'types of apps' or anything like that. Does seem like a split is called for, though. Linux Newbie is also pushing it, though, with 10 hours of posts on page 1 (at the moment). Members intro might have helped take some pressure off. No idea how to split it up beyond that except to encourage people who aren't *really* newbies not to use it and pick a specific forum, even if many of us *feel* like perpetual newbies.

The rest of the forums seem good, though.

Re: Still I think , The "Software-Forum" needs some specialisation....
 

And to be honest, so did Linux - General when it was at the top. We figured since most things can fit in the Software forum, it would be better off at the top. If it were any other more generic forum on top, I'd feel it would get just as much traffic to it.

Completely agree with Tk. It's amazing the amount of posts that are placed in wrong forums. LinuxAnswers are probably 50% questions at first.
I believe placement of a thread in the correct forum is FAR more important than breaking down the existing forums into sub-forums to specify their topic.

The 2 biggest things that would make a world of difference on LQ are in the hands of the poster:
1. Thread location. The correct forum is very important to get the right exposure;
2. Thread title.

These 2 things are the biggest things that can be improved. Jeremy and the Mod Team have brainstormed and brainstormed, there are several threads on the forums with members brainstorming, looking for ways to get these 2 things to actually work. When you create a new thread today versus 2 years ago, you see a plethora of ways to actually help you achieve the above 2. But in the end, there are threads that will fall through the cracks.

Jeremy is constantly updating the wording of the forum descriptions, but this doesn't seem to have the desired effect to the extent one would hope.

Basically, to sum up what I'm saying, I don't think creating sub-forums would really make the difference one would think it might. Members will do what they will, just as they do now.

Cool

Ah yes ; T.K. and M.C. : "The Predictable Twins".
Condescending and reactionary as always....