Technical Discussion Board - Breaking down into Sub-Boards?

Venture

Administrator
Staff member
Founder
Joined
Feb 26, 2010
Messages
2,121
I want to start putting a little more rigor around the categorization of the Technical section. This section is really the heart of the forum, because it is arguably the most useful.

I'm thinking that I should create a bunch of sub-boards under the technical section to make it easier to categorize the information. What say all of you?

Some ideas:

"Engine"
"Suspension"
"Wheels/Tires"
"Wiring/Electronics"
...

What say all of you?
 

Koinz

Active Member
Founding Member
2011 Site Supporter
2012 Site Supporter
2013 Site Supporter
2014 Site Supporter
Joined
Nov 13, 2010
Messages
2,100
Location
Newtown, PA
Sounds good to me Chris - I have seen this on other boards and has worked out pretty well.
 

Big Blu

New Member
2013 Site Supporter
Joined
Feb 19, 2012
Messages
1,226
Location
North Port, Florida
Looks good to me. ::008::

Ya may want to consider adding add a section on "body work/wind screens" and either add an "exhaust" topic or add exhaust to the Engine topic.

Regards, Paul
 

jajpko

New Member
Founding Member
2011 Site Supporter
2012 Site Supporter
Joined
Nov 26, 2010
Messages
2,776
Location
North Texas
I'm not sure that is a good idea. As it is now, if you are cruising through the tech forum, you will see a discussion that might interest you. If it were in another sub forum, you may never see it. With a sub forum you may only go there if you need some help in that particular area. I don't think that is so good for a young forum... jmho

I hope that makes sense... :)
 

Bigbore4

Active Member
Founding Member
Joined
Oct 20, 2010
Messages
845
Location
Andover Minnesota USA
Kind of agree with Japako, I like cruising the board for topics of interest. Another thought is a How To board. Much of the stuff in Tech could be moved to "How To" leaving the tech board for guys looking for help on issues, repairs etc.

my .02
 

mingo

Member
Founding Member
Joined
Jun 26, 2010
Messages
387
It would certainly make info easier to find.
 

Karson

Active Member
2012 Site Supporter
2013 Site Supporter
2014 Site Supporter
Joined
Feb 26, 2012
Messages
2,001
Location
IOWA
I think it is a good idea to break the technical discussion apart, and also agree with a previous post about having a How-to section dedicated to common themed mods that are documented well.

As a relatively new member to the forum, I can see for folks just starting out like I did that it would help accustoming them to the site.
 

colorider

Moderator
Global Moderator
Founding Member
2011 Site Supporter
2012 Site Supporter
2013 Site Supporter
Joined
Sep 25, 2010
Messages
5,442
Location
Sidney, NE
I'd kinda like to see a formal "knowledge base" section and move some of our stickied threads there that deal with specs and how-to's.

The sub-category idea sounds good to me!!

::008::
 

DubbleJay

Pasadena MC, Est. 1907
2012 Site Supporter
2013 Site Supporter
Joined
Sep 17, 2012
Messages
148
Location
Seattle, WA
GarageMonkey said:
If that comes about, can we off the 'modifications' board and move that stuff into technical sub-forums?
::026::
 

terrysig

Member
2012 Site Supporter
Joined
Jan 11, 2012
Messages
775
Location
Pittsburgh PA
"How to" would be strong and leave the other boards less cluttered. Breaking down is good and one can still leave on to see all new responses since last visit.
 

trikepilot

Active Member
2014 Site Supporter
Joined
Aug 21, 2012
Messages
1,184
Location
Roanoke, VA - Past: Asheville, NC & Fayetteville,
My $0.02... likely worth less.

Sub-forums are always good for those who know what they are looking for. But as noted higher in this thread, the beauty of enthusiast forums like this is that you can be idly scrolling through a forum looking for nothing in particular and stumble upon something that you can really use but never knew you needed. So is it possible to have it both ways? In other words, there is a overall forum header that holds all the posts and then below that are the sub-forums that are sub-categorized by topic.

An even greater need in my opinion is to have a place where "how-to's” are listed (preferably as PDF files) and made sticky and read only. As a new S10 owner and new forum user, so often the hard part of finding what you want here and other forums is sorting the signal from the noise. For example... I recently needed to spoon on new tires as I have never dealt with a bike that has a final drive before. Sure enough there are tutorials available with pix here at the site for both front and rear wheel removal and replacement. The first post has the bulk of the info and some great pix. Then many pages of subsequent posts later we find ourselves talking about divergent topics. Of course among all these later posts are scattered nuggets of info that are key to the wheel removal and replacement process. But the very fact that they are obscured by all the noise deep into the thread makes them hard to find. This is true of about any thread as they almost all unintentionally (or intentionally!) get hijacked.

I am well aware that this website is administered by volunteers so I am not suggesting more work for them, but at the same time the S10 community is populated by people who are quick to share their knowledge. So would it not be very nice to have an easy to search section devoted exclusively to specific mods that offer easy to find downloadable PDF files that held only the very important info on the instructions, specs, and pix of any one project?

Maybe we could ask for S10 forum volunteers to step forth. Each volunteer could look at the list of mods that would be most useful and pick one to do. Then that volunteer could do a forum search to gather everything he/she can find on a particular topic and then distill it all down into a simple MS Word document. Then this document could be submitted via email to a panel of 4-6 very experienced S10 riders/mechanics to vet these documents for accuracy and completeness. Once the checks have been made, the document would be converted to PDF and posted to a section of the web that is not a forum per se, but more of a library of documents that is read-only so we keep the signal to noise ratio high.

I know that this can work as I have been party to other enthusiast forums where it has been done very well. The KLRWorld forum comes to mind as being particularly effective in this respect. Again this is just a suggestion. But since I made it and if this thing gets traction – I will step up and volunteer to put together the documents for the front and rear tire removal and replacement that I recently used.
 

Mzee

Active Member
Joined
Mar 17, 2013
Messages
823
Location
Johannesburg
It will be a good idea especially for amateurs like me. I can easily find the information I am looking for. Go ahead and do it.
 
Top