Forum consolidation

[Oliver]

On the laws and regulations section, I'm not sure how you plan to change the USA section. It would seem to me that there should be both an FDA (national) section and a State/Local section. The national and local governments frequently have different regulations going on and it might help to keep them separated.

Yup, I thought about this and still don't know the right answer.

I think it can be dealt with using prefixes, but the danger there is that the FDA stuff drops off the page if there's mucho state/town action.

 

[cats5365]

Yup, I thought about this and still don't know the right answer.

I think it can be dealt with using prefixes, but the danger there is that the FDA stuff drops off the page if there's mucho state/town action.

How much state/local do they have in the TPD countries? I wonder if there is a way to either put the big gorillas (TPD/FDA/Canada?) in something like a National Forum and then under the national have State/Local/Province under there.

US on top, FDA is one sub, State/Local is the other sub.
Europe on top, TPD is one sub, Country/local is the other sub
Canada on top, Canada National is one sub, Province/local is the other sub

If other places, like Australia, NZ, Asia have their own similar breaks, could we give each one a jumping off point so that the governments could be lumped in together. (durnit, it's so hard not to think like a 'murrican here and leave someone out).

 

[Eskie]

I think it's looking way easier to navigate and decrease the "overwhelming" factor, especially for new members. Once the AMS is online and indexing is all done, are further consolidations difficult to accomplish?

 

[Oliver]

No, it shouldn't be too hard. The things that will be time demanding are:

1. Deciding on categories for articles
2. Setting up articles correctly (where they need additional features, like attachments)
2. Styling the article system
3. Converting stickies and so forth to articles

After that, it's a question of keeping committed to the system and ensuring it's kept up to date.

 

[Letitia]

I'm all for decreasing the overwhelming factor!

 

[retired1]

I think it can be dealt with using prefixes, but the danger there is that the FDA stuff drops off the page if there's mucho state/town action.

Be careful of over relying on prefixes. Many will get the prefix wrong (or just forget/refuse to add one) which eventually creates a mess when searching for something. Not to mention, it adds another query when one should be finding ways to decrease queries to the DB.

 

[Oliver]

No, it shouldn't be too hard. The things that will be time demanding are:

1. Deciding on categories for articles
2. Setting up articles correctly (where they need additional features, like attachments)
2. Styling the article system
3. Converting stickies and so forth to articles

After that, it's a question of keeping committed to the system and ensuring it's kept up to date.

Also, I should say: I'm not going to do this in one fell swoop. In fact, one of the areas that I think will benefit most from the consolidation/article system tie-in is the "DIY eliquid" forum, which currently sits as a sub.

I'd like to build out a site section for DIY, which has a number of articles and resources and which links back to the DIY liquid forum.