Forum topics

The top-level forum topics have been evolving over many years but have mostly just grown in number and never been holistically re-evaluated. Recently, some forum members voiced the opinion that it was time for an overhaul. This thread lets us discuss what that should look like and come to a community agreement.

One request, if it’s ok for everyone, could be that at least in:

- Community Support
- Porting RISC OS
- Bugs
- Code Reviews
- Wish Lists
- RPCEmu

people are required to stick to the topic. Hope this doesn’t upsets anyone, but it would make it so much easier to find answers and reduce the amount of stuff one has to read to find what we need.

Thanks

[edit: P.S. the need for this is that obviously for people like me (with a limited English language) it can be long and tiring to have to go through a lot of of posts in search for an answer. Yes some answers indeed require a lot of background etc., but if the long answer is off-topic followed by another off-topic, followed by another… well it can be quite unsettling, if I can use this term. ]

I know it wasn’t quite the original intention, but the ROOL forums have largely become a replacement of the old CSA.* newsgroups. They’ve become the hub of the community – and with a little reorganisation, I think they would be more attractive to newbies.

- Announcements
- General
- Programming
- RISC OS Wish Lists
- Porting RISC OS
- Bugs
- Bounties
- Off Topic

I’m in agreement with Paolo, that users should roughly stick to the topic in the main categories.

The first 3 in this list are effectively non-ROOL-specific, general RISC OS discussions. The next four are more specific to ROOL. And finally we have Aldershot/Off Topic.

- Programming

I’ve always been a little unsure about where to post programming questions. Code Review seems to be more aligned to changes to the OS, rather than questions about developing third-party apps. Meanwhile Community Support is more of a Q&A about how to use the OS from a customer perspective.

In other words, I’d be happy to see a more general Programming forum.

Might just be me, but I can’t see a real distinction between “General” and “Community”

One thing, that I suspect might not be possible, that I’m sure most would like is a means of ensuring replies to specific threads are pushed into a more appropriate location¹ so that Announcements, for example, had a list of single post Announcements only.

“Bounties” seems in some respects to duplicate the “Wish Lists”

Isn’t the definition for “General” all but asking for Aldershot style discussions? With the existence of “Community Support” and “Aldershot (or any other name)” I would suggest that General has no distinct purpose

¹ Here come the suggestions about down mines etc…

Room for non English users? (German, French, Spanish for example).

Possibly, but that may cause more division. I’m in two minds:

1. It’s divisive and reduces the collective library of information available.
2. It’s perhaps helpful to those who don’t feel their English is good enough to participate in a discussion with largely native English speakers. We all know they are reading this, but wary of that first step into the pool.

My thoughts on this are:

- Announcements
- Community Support
- Porting RISC OS
- Bugs
- Code Reviews / Programming
- RISC OS Wish Lists
- RPCEmu
- Off Topic (General Chat)

I think its very important we keep the Community Support for helping users both existing and new to the OS.

Would it be possible in the case of Announcements in some way to limit it to the initial announcement from whoever and direct any comments relating to it to another forum, Thus limiting announcement to the actual announcement.

Do we archive all the existing forum data from the date of the re-organisation – but still accessible via a search option.

Can the RSS feeds be improved, they currently do not indicate which forum the post is in.

Room for non English users? (German, French, Spanish for example).

I would not feel we should have a special forum for this. But maybe we should have a translate button which would work for everyone.

It’s divisive and reduces the collective library of information available.

Let’s face it: it’s already the case. The 30-40 French people who do not talk English at all are on another place (a mailing list). It’s the same for some German people.

Nota: a BBC Basic section would be nice too.

I would not feel we should have a special forum for this. But maybe we should have a translate button which would work for everyone.

We already all have this kind of button in our browsers. Anyway, I could reply that we could have some non-English sections and put a translate button for the other people :)

IMHO, if RISC OS wants to grow, we need localised versions. And with localised versions, localised support. In France, legally, a translate button is not OK: we must provide the OS and the help in French. At least some community support. I do provide it today on a separate mailing list, but I think it would be better (for visibility) to bring the French discussions here.

Here’s another list for consideration:

- Announcements
- Community Support (hardware, software (Apps), networking, coding (programmer))
- Wish List (incorporating Bounties discussion)
- Porting RISC OS (incorporate RPCEmu))
- DDE (GCC/DDE) – Development Environment, tools discussion
- Bugs
- Projects (talk about the RISC OS projects you are working on, involved in)
- Alt (Social – introduce yourself here)

Some of the topics are dated; headings are now, perhaps, focused and contain less redundancy. ;)

Edit: General removed; too vague. Code Review removed; Git incorporates this critical function.

General topics
- Announcements
- Community Support (includes general)
- Programming
- Bugs
- Projects
+ RPCEmu?

RISC OS 5 specific
- Porting
- Code review
- Wish Llst

Other topics
- Deutsch
- Español
- Français
- Etc. while time passing
- Aldershot / Alt / Off Topic

Thanks for doing this, Andrew. I don’t think the current Forum topics are that bad, tbh, though I’d be happy to see the list slimmed down a touch. My suggestions would be:

- Merge Community Support and General. I’m not sure of the difference between them, really. I’d probably call the new one ‘General’, so it’s a place to catch all the on-topic posts that don’t have a more specific home.
- Rename Code Review to Programming. I think Porting could be folded into this one too.
- Maybe merge Wish Lists and Bounties? They’re both about future plans for the OS.

I think @Chris’ slimmed down list sounds good.

Why change? We all know where to look.

These days, too many things are changed for the worse.

Currently we have eleven topics which for me requires scrolling to see all of them.
I would like to see this reduced to about six along the following lines:

         ANNOUNCE    – keep but move discussions out.

         RPCEMU      – move to PORTING

         WIBNI       – BOUNTIES + WISH LISTS  – or other new name

         PROGRAMMING – incorporate BUGS

         SUPPORT     – new name for COMMUNITY + GENERAL

         FARRAGO     – new name for ALDERSHOT (in-joke passed its sell-by-date)

I’ve read and considered the changes suggested above. None of them appears to me to improve anything (or, for that matter, to make things worse, either).

So, unless a much better idea comes along, I vote for leaving the topics as they are.

From Paolo in another thread:

My personal proposals is to have certain categories more “focused” and others more “relaxed”, hope this makes sense.

…which is something to consider in the mix. I also note the notion of things like Announcements being a single-shot post domain, which implies a feature akin to e-mail “Reply-To”, so I’ll add that in the features thread now.

I’ve read and considered the changes suggested above. None of them appears to me to improve anything (or, for that matter, to make things worse, either).

It is always worse if it is changed without having significant benefits.

Sorry, should have been posted elsewhere.

(Edited quote) Sorry, should have been posted elsewhere.

Thanks for moving that :-) – helps keeps things focused here. I think we already have a feature list item to make that easier listed over in https://www.riscosopen.org/forum/forums/2/topics/16871.

See also https://www.riscosopen.org/forum/forums/2/topics/16871?page=2#posts-128195 which crosses over a bit, in terms of how we might alter visual presentation for the topics we settle upon.

Is it possible to categorise forums into broad themes? That might help direct people a bit, rather than a flat list. Not saying it needs a hierarchy, just a few headings.

Of the forum titles:

Announcements: change the strapline to ‘For announcing new RISC OS hardware, software and other RISC OS news’. The current strapline invites threads like ‘New ARM board XYZ – can it run RISC OS?’ where the answer is usually ‘no’. This wouldn’t be a locked or moderated board so threads attached to the announcement would be fine.

Heading: Community support
with members
Beginners forum: New to RISC OS? Ask your questions here!
User support: Ask fellow users for help
Emulation: Using and developing emulators of RISC OS (or separate RPCEmu, VRPC, etc forums?)

Heading: Future
Wish lists and bounties: What should be developed or changed? (perhaps make the live bounties stickies on this board)
Bugs: Bug discussions that aren’t covered by the bugs database

Heading: Development
Developer support: Software development discussion related to RISC OS
Learning development: Learning a new language or tool? New to RISC OS development? Post here!
Porting RISC OS: Porting RISC OS to new platforms
Code review: Developer peer review of proposed code alterations
Cross-platform development: Development related to RISC OS on other platforms (I’m thinking things like the Linux port, hypervisor stuff, cross building, etc might go in here)

Heading: General
Miscellaneous: Things related to RISC OS that don’t fit anywhere else
Site: Problems or issues with the forum or site?
Sandpit: For testing out the forum software
Off-topic: Everything with nothing particularly or remotely to do with RISC OS

Some of those might be a bit quiet, but hopefully pull out a few strands that are mixed up in the current forum. The headings also allow creating further topics under those groupings at a later date.

With the exception of merging wishlists+bounties, all of those should just be renames of existing forums.

It does look like some kind of higher level grouping is emerging as a common theme, but also a general feeling of wanting fewer to choose from and less or no scrolling if possible (but much of that is of course dependent upon the size of your browser window / device screen).

I’ve made some amendments, tidying up my original list, hopefully expanding on my earlier thinking.

• Announcements
• Community Support
• Wishlists
• Porting RISC OS
• Developer Tools
• Bugs
• Projects
• Alt.Social

Announcements. No change.

Community support. The go-to place when you need help with programming or applications or RISC OS in general.

Wishlists. Perhaps incorporating the bounties discussion might focus more on the future, reducing the number of options.

Porting RISC OS. Removing RPCEmu and its absorption into this theme might stimulate a shift in thinking away from pure RiscPC emulation into other realms.

Developer Tools. Bringing to the forefront what tools are available for coding, programming on RISC OS; opening up conversation to include Open Source IDEs/Development environments.

Bugs. No change.

Projects. I envisaged this as a place where community members can talk about their RISC OS work, bringing to the forefront: What are you doing with RISC OS?

Alt.Social. A less focused place, room for general chatter. Perhaps a move away from the derogatory Aldershot name.