Forum Taxonomy - suggestions?

[FourthWorld]

It seems the forums have too many sections and sub-sections, sometimes making it difficult to decide where to post a question or look for info on a topic. I've made a few minor adjustments, but before I go too far it seems prudent to solicit your input.

What categories here do you feel might be well suited for consolidation? Do you feel there are categories that aren't here but should be? Is the taxonomy here good as it is?

Looking forward to your ideas.

[WaltBrown]

Richard, I agree, think it would make it a bit easier if there were fewer categories.

Some thoughts - I frequently look via search or the "new", "unread", or "my posts" rather than by category anyway. Additionally, many questions are asked when a person is either searching or has a thought triggered rather than trying to find the most appropriate sub section - note the many questions about "How do I..." in most of the subsections. So I think a few sections can be arbitrarily combined or eliminated without generating much angst - people will find the closest match to their question and ask there regardless.

I can only throw a few on the table - note I haven't spent any time on worrying about sacred cows (see Academic section comment...)

1. Combine the two Getting Started for Beginners and Experienced Developers into just Getting Started. I think it's pretty individual what the dividing line is - I have decades in Fortran and turned from coder to manager about when Win3 came out - does that make me an experienced developer? I had the same "well, doh" questions as anyone, probably more. There's the Intermediate and Advanced sections anyway.

2. The Using Environment Extensions may overlap with Widgets/LCB now. Given an Extending Livecode section as well, maybe it can get folded in there.

3. The Project Specific section isn't too heavily used. Maybe fold Games into Getting Started or Intermediate, Digital Art into Rich Media, and Business and Kiosks into Marketing Your Product and remove Project Specific entirely.

4. The Academic sections might take some condensation - Teaching and Outreach seem to conceptually overlap (I know, I know, you just started that one).

5. Put MetaCard into Off Topic and remove Alternate IDEs entirely.