Forum too big?

[Sisophon2001]

With 400,000+ members, I think the volume of messages on the forum deters people from answering difficult questions that may not have been addressed before. I gave up reading all the posts "since my last visit"s after the first few tries - there are just too many- and I am sure the experts here must also feel that it is "too much" sometimes to read all messages.

When I post an original question (two out of two tries so far) then it is read by 15 or 20 people before it is lost in the sea of messages with no answers. I am sure many of the 400,000 members know the answer but they never see the post. I don't like to bump posts, unless I have no choice. This is not enough exposure. The first 15 or 20 readers may have no idea about the topic of a post.

On other forums (like those for OpenSUSE) with less active participants you have to wait longer for answers, but the answers arrive when the resident guru's check in. And if they don't arrive, then you know the problem is not easy to solve. You also get to know the experts quickly enough, making communication easier.

I think the forum should be broken up in some way, perhaps regionally. Or has this already happened? Are there other side groups with smaller numbers of members catering for sub-groups of some kind?

Thanks

Garvan

[Kingsley]

Topics usually get answered if they're placed in the correct subforum.

[Zipster90]

I agree with this. I've posted several questions that just get lost in the deluge of other messages. Only a few people get to read it before it gets buried two or three pages back.

Separating the forums into regions is a great idea. Either splitting it up by continent or country would help a LOT. :)

[n3tfury]

there's actually a team of members that look for unanswered posts. whether they do a good job, i have no idea. we just had a "answer unanswered posts" day last saturday which went pretty well.

[n3tfury]

Separating the forums into regions is a great idea. Either splitting it up by continent or country would help a LOT. :)

That's a terrible idea. Everyone can help everyone else (for me as long as it's in English).

[sanderella]

I have always found that people answer my posts, even the silly ones.
Maybe you're not posting in the right places.:KS

[Kowalski_GT-R]

That's a terrible idea. Everyone can help everyone else (for me as long as it's in English).

ditto

[st4rdr1ft3r]

That's a terrible idea. Everyone can help everyone else (for me as long as it's in English).

I get the feeling that was a joke...

[jr.gotti]

I get the feeling that was a joke...

I don't think it was. He speaks english...therefore he can only read English questions. In turn, he can only help English speaking (or typing) people.

[n3tfury]

I get the feeling that was a joke...

you talking to me or the guy who proposed the idea?

[rwap]

I was about to make a post about this myself and offer my services, I have a very large web serving account, im not using it and i have experience with operating forums, I was wondering what would happen if i started a accessory forum, Dont get me wrong this forum is great and its vast information is a pot of gold but its just to big, i myself have been trying to get a post answered for 3 or 4 days now- This is very discouraging when your trying to get linux to work, For me and others im sure forums and google is the only hope, Again dont take that offensively because i know there are people around here that work very hard to help users but its simply to much for one website to handle and still be controllable.

I would like to help the ubuntu community but seeing as i am still figuring out the OS i dont know what i could do, other than donate money, which isnt much of a option to me.

Whatever, I dont think a new forum would hurt any thing.

I haven't been around here long, if there are a ton of other forums for ubuntu then say so and ill forget the idea, I didnt spot any of significance with a quick google search, Im talking about a 125% ubuntu dedicated forum, like this one, only smaller not a smorgish-board of everything under the sun.

[n3tfury]

one centralized location is better. then, there's always google and the wikis.

[LaRoza]

For the Unanswered Posts team, of which I am a member, we are effective, inasmuch as we are able to answer the questions that are unanswered. I take the time, like others, to use the unanswered posts feature of the forum and search through pages of posts. I can not answer a question to which I don't know the answer, but I doubt page 4 gets much attention otherwise.

[Jose Catre-Vandis]

The forum does take a little while to load these days, being so big. It's good to have everything in one place, but if perhaps solved posts found their way to somewhere special? So perhaps split out the solved and unsolved?

I also like to help out in Unanswered Posts, (and do what I can!) but find that the forum won't let me browse more than one page, if I view a post on the first page.

[Sisophon2001]

I have gone back and added SOLVED to the posts I received no reply to, as I have at this stage figured out the answers from posts on other sites, and I don't want to waste the time of people doing good work reviewing unanswered posts. It is nice to share the solutions anyway, in case somebody looks them up.

As far as I can tell they were all in the correct sub-forum, but I see one of the moderators saw fit to move this post to "Forum Feedback and Help", so perhaps my judgement is not always correct.

I appreciate the wiki for what it is best for, (documenting procedures to solve common problems), and Goggle for its better search indexing, but I still feel there is an issue with the shear number of posts swamping out posts that do not have easily documented solutions and may not be easy to answer. I believe that 15 to 30 views of a post on a forum this big will not be enough for such a problem, and then user is left waiting and hoping for people like LaRoza to turn up. Bumping posts just makes the problem worse, flooding the forum with even more messages.

So, in the absence of more specialised forums, best of luck to the Unanswered Posts Team.

Garvan

[Frak]

The forum does take a little while to load these days, being so big. It's good to have everything in one place, but if perhaps solved posts found their way to somewhere special? So perhaps split out the solved and unsolved?

I also like to help out in Unanswered Posts, (and do what I can!) but find that the forum won't let me browse more than one page, if I view a post on the first page.
I agree with this idea. A great way to document Solved problems.

[arashiko28]

I don't think that the main idea is to make that only the guru's answer the questions. What I mean is that if you, in an example, know the answer, you can help the other user or in any instance, have the same problem and you find the answer first, let it know to others. That's what I do, help others with their problems that I've already solved and I'm not an IT nor Linux guru. I just ran into many beginners problems, and still have a few from time to time.

[mmcmonster]

If you have the time, check out the Apple Forum (http://discussions.apple.com/index.jspa) design. When someone creates a new message there, they can mark it as a question. Later, they can mark responses as helpful or answering the question. People get "points" for answering questions, as well.

On a slightly different approach, many of the subcategories are not easy to find with the site redesign. Given the number of categories on the forum, that is understandable, but maybe some smart redesign will help (Maybe using bigger text for the main categories and smaller text for the subcategories? Get rid of the column with the latest message, since that changes so frequently?).