Rangefinder forum has been expanded + General info on forum expansion..

[Sean]

Hi All,

The Rangerfinder Forum on APUG is one of the first of our forums to undergo some new expansion into subforums. I believe the size of the community is now large enough to begin fragmenting several of the main forums into more detailed subforums. This will add a new level of managing the content so that members are not overwhelmed by post volumes. For example the new software we are upgrading to soon allows great control over which forums you want to view. If you are only interested in Leica M rangefinders you may want to put on a block to the other rangefinder categories. The end result is when you check posts in the morning you don't weed through 30 rangefinder posts, you just see the 5 or so leica posts. If you adjust several other forums like this you can begin to tailor the info you get rather than coming back from a weekend holiday to 2,000 new posts.

I decided to start with the rangefinder forum after reading Stephanie Brim's posting from the other day. She has worked with me to expand the categories and will be moderating that forum and subforums with the current team. So thanks Stephanie

Now would probably be a good time for suggestions on expanding some of the other forums. We don't want to get too fragmented (for example having 100 subforums under 35mm forum). Thanks for any feedback.

Sean

[Sean]

Also, the forums most suited to fragment would typically be the busy ones such as B&W: Film, Paper, Chemistry with 5,000 threads. This shows there is plenty of activity there and some subforums might come in handy..

[Michel Hardy-Vallée]

I have a brilliant idea Sean: Why not split the Film, Paper, Chemistery forum into three separate forums. Each of them named Film. Paper. And Chemistery.

[argus]

Michel,

I would only split in 2:

- paper & chemistry
- film & chemistry

Greetings,
G

[Michel Hardy-Vallée]

Argus: clever!

[copake_ham]

I'd like two Nikon subforums.

One in the RF Forum for the S- mount line.

The other in the 35mm Forum (maybe renamed "35mm - SLR"?) for the F-mount line. In this regard - perhaps a subforum for each major SLR maker (Canon, Leica, Nikon, Olympus, Pentax etc. - tried to be "alphabetical" with my examples list....).

I like to use the "global" view but glad to see these subforums for gear. Will really be useful when you are looking for some specific help on a particular camera type....

Yeah, Sean. Good luck Stephanie (quite an honor, BTW).

[copake_ham]

Sean,

A thought regarding the RF Forum/Subforum.

Could you be perhaps preparing for an in-rush of RF filmsters after the digi-M8 comes out and the RFF site "goes digi"?

[df cardwell]

Sean

How about an addition for Kiev rfdrs ?

More than enough variations, peculiarities, and lore to fill a forum !

[copake_ham]

Sean

How about an addition for Kiev rfdrs ?

More than enough variations, peculiarities, and lore to fill a forum !

The "other site" approached this with a FSU forum.

But I have a Kiev 4, that is compatible (m/l) with Contax RFs. And then there are the FSU "Leicas" (e.g. the Zorki and FED lines).

So should we segregate the FSUs - which results in a cross-over?

Or should we put the "FSU equivalents" in their respective "major" subforums (e.g. Contax, Leica etc.)

OMG - could there be sub-subforums? :o

[Jerevan]

Well, basically the subforums is a good idea, but I feel it may lead to fragmentation of APUG as a whole. And going through 40 subforums don't appeal. As for splitting the Film, Paper, Chemistry forum into two or three (sub)forums: many of the questions are related to each other, like what film to what chemistry and so on. On both RFF and the LF forum, they seem to have gone in the other direction, less subforums. Larger forum groups seems to make for slight confusion but also a lot of healthy crossbreeding.

Whatever, don't go bananas with the forums, that's my take.