Forum Structure

Anyone have any ideas on how to consolidate some of the topics or for any additions. There's too much going on for the stage we're at I think.

I would start with removing/combining the forums that are not really used now. I think the following could be done to reduce the amount of forums.

Announcements should stay

Not sure about Core Code and Code refactoring. I don't see a real advantage in having two forums so I think these could be combined into a Core development forum.

The Modules/Plugins forum could be merged with Snippets forum until there is a lot of traffic to justify seperate forums for these.

With the previous merging of forums you basically get a Core forum and Snippet/Module/Plugin forum. This is just for the sake of keeping things apart. If you really want to reduce forums this could be coombined in to one Coding forum, but I don't think it is a good idea.

Bug reports should stay obviously

Wishlist is OK

Crossing Borders is not needed I think. Bugs with other languages could go in the bugs forum, Ideas for enhancement in Wishlist or General forum.

Installer could be removed I think. I see it as a part of the Core code

Templates should stay seperate

Documentation, I am not sure what is supposed to be in such a forum, but it might be a good way to link to documentation as done on the Etomite forums, so it can stay.

PR-Outlets is not needed IMHO this could be a (sticky?) thread in a general forum when it is needed.

Site showcase is nice should stay or if we get a website it could be a section the site like Etomite has.

Branding could be a sticky thread in a General talk forum so forum should be removed.

Forum suggestions, always a good idea to have one. A clear place for users to give feedback on the forums ;-)

General discussions is a need to have. Would be nice if it was a bit higher in the list.

Introduce yourself is not really needed IMHO. You could make an "Introduce yourself" thread in the General forum and remove this forum

I miss an Off-Topic forum

Concluding I would propose a forum structure like this (17 >> 11 forums):

Announcement
- Important News
General
- General MODx discussion
- Off topic (discussions not related to MODx)
- Bug reports (could go in development also)
- Wishlist (could go in development also)
- Site showcase (could be also a thing on a website if we get one)
- Forum suggestions (could go in development also)
Development
- Core development
- Module/Plugin/Snippet development
- Templates
- Documentation (if there is user documentation it could go under General also. Maybe it should be higher onthe list with forums so visitors see it faster.)

I put the Bugs and wishlist forums higer up the list so visitors will see them earlier, both could also go to the development forum.

I hope this gives some inspiration in how the forum could be.

I suppose since it's my ox I'm more concerned about it, but I think Internationalization is extremely important. The other CMS scripts that I tried before this all have long, unhappy discussions of trying to create multilanguage sites, and in almost all cases the developers of the scripts were totally unconcerned about the issue.

My target market is Switzerland and Germany, and the fact that I was able to easily design a site that uses 5 languages was the only reason that I'm involved here at all. So I would like to see Internationalization as its own forum.

Well done mitch, thanks.

2 Things:

- I'd go with scottwell and keep a Development>>Internationalization forum. We already had a long discussion about translation and internationalization, and I think now as the tech review is out there will be again demand on this topic.

- I don't see the need for a "forum suggestions" forum; when the forum is reorganized this is somewhat static, there's no need to change the forums all the time, so I expect not much discussion here.

So according to your excellent structure this would result in

Announcement
- Important News

General
- General MODx discussion
- Documentation (moved up as it's primary for endusers and not developers!? or is this intented as discussion forum for developers on the docs??)
- Wishlist
- Site showcase
- Off topic (moved down as it's the least important thing/least related to modx)

Development
- Core development
- Bug reports (moved down from general, high score here as bugs and fixed are quite important, ie. security vulnerabilities)
- Module/Plugin/Snippet development
- Templates
- Internationalization

Later on, depending on the future userbase, it also might be usefull to add a another forum for international support. I really hate when you've got 1 forum where there's a wild mix through all languages I even can't read.

International Support
- Spanish/Espanol
- German/Deutsch
- French/Francais
...

Great suggestions folks. Look for some changes soon!

Lots of forum reorg done now. Thanks for your thoughtful suggestions.

I added a dedicated support channel because I think it's important enough to stand alone and broke support inquiries apart from bug reports (two separate issues and no logical place to address those intially). For now, support will remain below development as we're still very much in early development mode and that's our most important focus. The Branding & PR forum will also probably fold into General support as soon as we finalize our product name and new support site.