[wp-forums] Changing things

[Lara at Anubis Marketing]

> I'm also not talking about adding 20 additional topics - just one, 
> because that's the one where people never know where to post, and rarely
get help.
> And again, because that's a way to give others a chance to help where 
> they can, due to their previous design knowledge. That's all... I know 
> I'm not the only person who thinks we should have this... it's been 
> said many times before.
> 
> ~ Lara

'just one' - just one what? Forum? But we have one already. If we have 2
we'll have "Wrong forum!" posts and further confusion. We already have a
forum for XHTML and CSS - do we really need another?

P.

We get questions on HTML and CSS in the installation, troubleshooting, and
plugins threads, and the majority of questions in the "Themes and Templates"
thread are theme specific (which is fine, that's where theme specific
questions should go, I suppose, though I wouldn't have envisioned it that
way in the beginning). Theming is more than just XHTML and CSS - it involves
the Loop, positioning, widgetizing, etc. I'm talking about a place where
people can ask questions like this one:
http://wordpress.org/support/topic/85766?replies=3 instead of putting it in
"Your Wordpress" or this one, about link hovering:
http://wordpress.org/support/topic/84804?replies=10 as opposed to putting it
under "How-To and Troubleshooting"

Sorry, you asked for opinions and thoughts - I'm just sharing mine here...
clarification is really important on an information site. And people are
very obviously confused by the current setup. Just trying to help organize
things so that people are less confused. Nothing more...

Another thing I'd like to see is have the list of topics at the TOP of the
"latest" on the first page. That might cut down on the people unknowingly
hijacking threads... 

And when you're viewing a certain "forum" (this is another irksome thing -
the http://www.wordpress.org/support "section" is a forum, the categories
(like "Themes and Templates") are topics, and the posts within them are
threads - as it sits now it just comes off as confusing, IMO) but why are
there no navigational elements like links to the other "forums/topics" and
so on, on the left hand side?

Again, just responding to the call for opinions and suggestions here... and
trying to bring myself back to the first time I entered the forums looking
for help when coming up with ideas. I think sometimes for those of us who
have been here for so long, we forget what it was like to "step in" the
first time. And I also think, in the case of many sites out there, that the
strive for "minimalism" in look and appearance, is a false lead to thinking
that keeping it "minimal" makes it easier to navigate. There's a fine line
there - and I just don't think the current support site is within 10 paces
of being on the right side of it. It's not 100 paces, but it's just not
there yet.

~ Lara