It would be nice to have a N Scale forum..As it stands now one needs to read between the lines if the op doesn't specify what scale the question is about...
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"
nucat78Ummm, how about upgrading the forum software? dancepartnersonline has a better user interface than Kalmbach. Ok, so I'm just a rabble rouser...
How about a more powerful server? All the software upgrades have done is taken up more memory--and not necessarily for the bet------OK---I'll shut up now
Any argument carried far enough will end up in Semantics--Hartz's law of rhetoric Emerald. Leemer and Southern The route of the Sceptre Express Barry
I just started my blog site...more stuff to come...
http://modeltrainswithmusic.blogspot.ca/
Robt. Livingston I started a thread on passenger cars (with that wording in the title) and it has slipped off the front pages into oblivion. It was intended not only to show my own work, but to elicit the work of others. And so it did, until it got buried. I get the feeling that few visitors to this forum scroll back through the pages. Things happen fast on this forum, due to the high traffic, so things get lost easily, and quickly. I think breaking the forum up into a handful of subsections would be an improvement, and I second the motion that there be separate, titled sections for weathering and operations. While one could argue that too many subfora are a bad thing, one could also argue that too few subfora are as bad. One could even say "too few fora are the quickest way to kill a forum; I have seen it happen." Setting aside the boxcar-spotting section (as it is really just an advert. for the magazine company, and they are entitled to it), we really only have four sections. I think one or two more would be good. Just for the record, I have a high level of interest in weathering, and a low level of interest in operations. On further thought, probably "paint, decals, and weathering" should be the name of a subsection, so it would include the related arts.
I started a thread on passenger cars (with that wording in the title) and it has slipped off the front pages into oblivion. It was intended not only to show my own work, but to elicit the work of others. And so it did, until it got buried. I get the feeling that few visitors to this forum scroll back through the pages. Things happen fast on this forum, due to the high traffic, so things get lost easily, and quickly. I think breaking the forum up into a handful of subsections would be an improvement, and I second the motion that there be separate, titled sections for weathering and operations.
While one could argue that too many subfora are a bad thing, one could also argue that too few subfora are as bad. One could even say "too few fora are the quickest way to kill a forum; I have seen it happen." Setting aside the boxcar-spotting section (as it is really just an advert. for the magazine company, and they are entitled to it), we really only have four sections. I think one or two more would be good. Just for the record, I have a high level of interest in weathering, and a low level of interest in operations.
On further thought, probably "paint, decals, and weathering" should be the name of a subsection, so it would include the related arts.
Some years ago there was a topic here on the forum titled "The 'N' Crowd" which, as you may perceive, was oriented around N-Scale; I went looking for it on one occasion and had to go clear back onto page 15 to find it. One thing I wish they would do is come up with some sort of a "GOTO" instruction as in GOTO Page 47, or GOTO Page 102. As it stands now you can go to Page 5 and from there you must work backwards in two page increments. Let me assure you at that rate it would take two birthdays to "GOTO Page 102!
If you want to resurrect a topic go over to the right hand margin where you will find "My Profile"; click on your forum name and then select "Search for posts by . . . . .". It'll bring up everything you ever initiated or responded to.
From the far, far reaches of the wild, wild west I am: rtpoteet
There are always those who will resist change, Change is very hard for some people, they just never see the need. I feel it is a GOOD idea. DCC was resisted got many moons, then we finally convinced the power to be to add the forum. If for no other reason, it makes it much easier to just enter THAT forum which is dedicated to a given part of the hobby.
Robt. LivingstonAnd so it did, until it got buried.
I have to disagree, in my case, I read the new posts and messages of interest to me since my last visit, Page 1, 2 or 3, however far back they go.. To be honest, if the subject is interesting to members here, your post would stay on the front page longer, but they all eventually cycle to the back pages, more people need to learn to search.
I dislike those other forums that have 339 categories from N Scale to Nn3 to Nn3 steam to Nn3 frog switches to Nn3 stub switches to Nn3 stubs switches painted black.
I like the current forum but agree that a "Ops" and "Weathering" category would be okay with me. As long as it didn't attract the socially challenged and immature posts we have seen in the past on that weathering thread. I get enough of that watching politics.
"The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination."-Albert Einstein
http://gearedsteam.blogspot.com/
There are too many now as it is IMHO, they did this on the Trains magazine forum, split it into 6 sub-forums, killed alot of interchange on it in doing so.
Have fun with your trains
Hm. I see why a forum owner would have a tough time. Trying to make us all happy with so many varying opinions would be a nightmare.
Todd
Central Illinoyz
In order to keep my position as Master and Supreme Ruler of the House, I don't argue with my wife.
I'm a small town boy. A product of two people from even smaller towns. I don’t talk on topic….. I just talk.
I have some mixed feelings about this idea; this is the only forum I participate in because, even if the majority of the members here model in HO-Scale, it is really not scale specific. I do look in on Atlas N-Scale, and, on occasion, the N-Scale sub-forum of idiotboreddotcom; I find this latter to be quite cliquish and myopic and I have to be really interested in exploring just where senselessness is going these days to get me to look in on it.
Be that as it may I would have nothing against a sub-forum dealing with weathering or operations. At the current time I am not really interested in electronics or DCC so I have only looked in on that sub-forum a couple of times; neither, at the present time also, is shoving cars around my forte but I am always interested in reading about how others go about weathering their models and I would probably become an active participant in a sub-forum dealing with weathering topics.
I'm surprised there isn't a separate forum for operations topics here. MR seems to be at the forefront of supporting this type of model railroading, and there are many nuances to it... I think it would be a valuable resource, and more readily accessible to newer people interested in what their trains can do other than rush around the table top...
Lee
Route of the Alpha Jets www.wmrywesternlines.net
TA462If you want a Weathering or Operations section then just start a thread like the "Diner" thread. It seems that thread is one of the most popular even though it breaks the rules of the forum. If it seems like it stays on the first couple pages consistently then maybe MR might look at making it permanent. I think the weathering idea is a good one but not the operations idea.
If you want a Weathering or Operations section then just start a thread like the "Diner" thread. It seems that thread is one of the most popular even though it breaks the rules of the forum. If it seems like it stays on the first couple pages consistently then maybe MR might look at making it permanent. I think the weathering idea is a good one but not the operations idea.
Ah, there's the real problem. I'm not interested in weathering but am interested in operations. So who decides? Maybe leaving a good thing alone is the best idea.
Enjoy
Paul
I have to agree with cacole; I think those two subjects are well covered in the existing forums. When I've needed to research the subjects, I just do a search in the "search community" box. Just my . (Yep, four cents..)
Marlon
See pictures of the Clinton-Golden Valley RR
gregcsteinjrgregcHowever, i like the feature i've seen on other forums where the postings with changes i haven't looked at are highlighted. Threads you have read has an icon that is lighter colored/whiter than the icon for the threads which has content you haven't read yet (where the icon is darker gray).that's not what i had in mind, and i didn't explain is correctly. On other forums, they keep track of my visits and highlight the postings that have changed since my last visit, whether i've looked at the posting or not. I think they may keep unread postings lighlighted for 24 hours.
steinjrgregcHowever, i like the feature i've seen on other forums where the postings with changes i haven't looked at are highlighted. Threads you have read has an icon that is lighter colored/whiter than the icon for the threads which has content you haven't read yet (where the icon is darker gray).
gregcHowever, i like the feature i've seen on other forums where the postings with changes i haven't looked at are highlighted.
Threads you have read has an icon that is lighter colored/whiter than the icon for the threads which has content you haven't read yet (where the icon is darker gray).
that's not what i had in mind, and i didn't explain is correctly. On other forums, they keep track of my visits and highlight the postings that have changed since my last visit, whether i've looked at the posting or not. I think they may keep unread postings lighlighted for 24 hours.
Closest you get might be on the forums front page (http://cs.trains.com/trccs/forums/), left side of screen, link titled "Posts you have not read".
That gives you a new page (http://cs.trains.com/trccs/forums/TopicsNotRead.aspx?ForumID=-1), where the default choice is to list threads that has new content (or has not been read ever) from all forums in all sections during the last three months.
Drop down menu on top allows you to select e.g. "Model Railroader forums" only or "Model Railroader General forum" only, and how far back you want the list to go (including "new since last visit").
Would have been smarter to have a couple of these standard searches in visible locations that are easy to find for a new user - e.g.having a "new since last visit in subscribed/watched forums only" very easily available for the users, and grouping the threads by forum or some such thing.
Smile, Stein
greg - Philadelphia & Reading / Reading
Function is there, only implemented in a too subtle/non-obvious way.
Maybe you could say that read threads are "low-lighted" rather than highlighted ...
i like the activity on this forum, that when i look at one of the forums, there are quite a few postings that have changed. The alternative, is that there are many separate forums, some with little activity.
However, i like the feature i've seen on other forums where the postings with changes i haven't looked at are highlighted. for example: http://www.modelrailroadforums.com/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=57
steinjrAnyways - it would probably be a good idea for Kalmbach to get a user interface specialist to do a quick evaluation of their web pages and make recommendations for some changes.
I believe that was sort of one of Bergie's specialties.
Apparently he is with Readers Digest now?
Though I don't claim to be an expert or even an experienced forum user, I can say that the current choices seem fine to me. If however I could make it different, or as I see it better, remember just my opinion, I would add a painting, weathering, finishing category as dingySP suggested and a "crew lounge" type area as stein suggested. I feel there would be enough interest in the weathering thread that it could be very useful to have its own section to go to. I also think the crew lounge type category would also help keep the other categories clean for those who don't have any interest in that aspect of the community. It would keep the threads purely Train related unless you actually wanted to go there. Though I also think like chefs, too many threads spoil the stew.
Can we break the weathering into sub-classes: chalk, gouache, oils, air brush?
Just kidding!
Phoebe Vet One thing I WOULD be in favor of is putting this line on the bottom as well as the top of the page like it used to be before they redsigned it. Trains.com Forums » Model Railroader Forums » General Discussion (Model Railroader) » How about new forums?
One thing I WOULD be in favor of is putting this line on the bottom as well as the top of the page like it used to be before they redsigned it.
Trains.com Forums » Model Railroader Forums » General Discussion (Model Railroader) » How about new forums?
I totally agree with that suggestion. It's a pain to have to scroll back up to the top of the page.
Rotor
Jake: How often does the train go by? Elwood: So often you won't even notice ...
I tend to agree with this. Things work pretty well as is, but as Selector says, it can be undone if necessary, so why not try a weathering sub-forum?
If we're voting for one more sub-forum on a trial basis, I say yes. If it works out, great, if not, back to the way it is now. As it is, most of the weathering discussion comes about in the general area, and most frequently in the WPF threads (some really nice work in those!).
As far as the current titles go for descriptive qualification, I had no trouble understanding that 'Electronics and DCC' means all things electrical relating to control of the trains, accessories, etc. and the 'Layout Building' section relates to structures, scenery, and includes wiring for lighting, and room preparation. Obviously there will be some subjects which could logically be placed in either section, but given a suitably descriptive thread title, it should be obvious what the thread refers to.
I do agree that it is extremely important for any forum poster to be sure that the title adequately reflects the subject, to save everyone time and frustration when searching later on, after the thread has migrated several pages down the list, but this is not the responsibility of the mods, people, it is our own responsibility to make sure we make it perfectly clear what we are posting about from the outset.
I feel that the current fourms are doing a good job as they are, with the exception of the anniversary fourm which serves no purpopse. The titles and descriptions do a good job of directing me to what I'm looking for. For example "layout and layout building" implies scenery and weathering wether the description calls it out or not.
However I do have a beef with the search system. Searching by thread would be so much easier than searching by post. Individually pulling up 10 posts from the same theard then trying find the start of that thread is a waste of time. Pulling up 10 threads then finding a specific post would be faster. Imagine looking for your car keys which you know you left on a dresser. Do you start by looking at each individual dresser in every house on your street or do you start with dressers in your house?
Modeling the Cleveland and Pittsburgh during the PennCentral era starting on the Cleveland lakefront and ending in Mingo junction
jeffrey-wimberly As a forum owner I can tell you that more choices is not the answer. In fact, many people tend to shy away from sites that have too many choices as they tend to be confusing.
As a forum owner I can tell you that more choices is not the answer. In fact, many people tend to shy away from sites that have too many choices as they tend to be confusing.
"Too many choices" is by definition a bad thing, since we use the word "too" to describe something that is excessive. I don't think anyone advocates going to "too many" :-)
And equally obviously, more choices is sometimes a bad choice. But not always.
One question is how many forums are too many. A separate question is whether the choices seems to be organized in a logical manner, so it is fairly obvious what group a post belongs in to the great majority of users.
Those are actually non-trivial questions.
Here is a not totally serious list of potential forums that could be presented for someone posting:- "I'm new here" (FAQs, a place to ask basic questions, etc)- Track planning and layout design- Layout building (benchwork and carpentry, modular standards)- Track laying and basic wiring- Scenery and Buildings- Engines and rolling stock - Controls (DCC, electronics, automation,signals) - Prototype information and research - Operations (making your trains move like the real thing)- "The crew lounge" (hanging out with friends, general comments, announcements, showing pictures)
These are categories that roughly cover the phases a model railroader goes through (or may go through) while building and running a layout. It is probably a fairly logical grouping for posting - it should be fairly clear to most posters in what category a question belongs.
Is it convenient for a one-stop browsing e.g. for someone who is only interested in e.g. weathering, but is interested in both weathering tracks, buildings, engines and rolling stock. No.
As Mark pointed out:
markpierce It is tiresome to have to enter a subforum, and then have to exit it, and then go to another subforum, and so on and so on. Usually there is only a single post or two in each subforum, so there is little to "mine" for each visit.
It is tiresome to have to enter a subforum, and then have to exit it, and then go to another subforum, and so on and so on. Usually there is only a single post or two in each subforum, so there is little to "mine" for each visit.
With the current user interface of the forums, where most users probably either doesn't realize that there is a "what's new" list at all, or only see "what's new" as a little list of the last ten posts collected from all the forums in the right hand column of the screen, and then only when you are on the forum list front page), most users will think that you pretty much have click into each forum to see what's going on.
That probably makes anything beyond 3-5 forums a very bad idea for most users, who actually do enter a forum, look, and back out.
An intelligent "what's new" feature would have allowed users to put a "watch" on the forums they are interested in (and then it becomes smart to have more forums, since you can be more selective about what you are interested in), and then present the user an easy way (from any screen) to get one list of what's new in the watched forums since his or her last visit.
Actually, the forum already has a mechanism in place that fairly easily could be extended to provide such a function - under your name in the right hand column on the front page, there is a link named "Forum subscriptions". It is not totally clear to me what this link controls (RSS feeds only? Update: actually: email notifications about new posts).
But it ought to be easy enough to extend it to work in tandem with the idea from the other link in the right hand column on the front page ("Posts you have not read"). If you use that link, you will find a list of threads (from all forums) that has new content since the last time you read that thread.
Default choice is "Threads with new posts from all forums". Drop down list allows you to pick "Threads with new posts from Model Railroader forums" or "Threads with new posts from the Model Railroader General Forum".
No choice to get updated threads from subscribed forums only, but that should be a fairly trivial change to add, if Kalmbach wants to do so.
Also, a sensible user interface would put that "new posts in watched forums" link somewhere visible e.g. into the "My profile" box on the right side of the screen, or on top of all lists, so you always had it available, and then add a link to the subscribe/unsubscribe page from the "new posts in watched forums" page.
Furthermore, a sensible design would make sure new users get an email with the forum user guide and links to important information, and that new users are forced to wait for and scan through that email (to e.g. get a poster activation link) before they can post, so it becomes slightly more difficult to totally miss these features.
Anyways - a sensible forum reorganization consists not only of adding a new forum for some random group (e.g "weathering"), but also of removing stuff that serves little purpose, maybe re-labelling and re-positioning some things for better visibility to make their intended use clearer and so on and so forth.
I'll stop harping about this subject now. There are people who do professional user interface design. I am not one of them. My knowledge of the field is pretty limited - I took a class on Man Machine Interaction back in college, 18+ years ago, and I haven't followed the last 18+ years of research in this field.
Anyways - it would probably be a good idea for Kalmbach to get a user interface specialist to do a quick evaluation of their web pages and make recommendations for some changes.
Addendum: I forgot to say that I don't actually care all that much personally about how many forums there are - I can find what I need or want to find either way, whether we have 10 MR forums or 1 big MR forum or whatever.
I just have a thing about sloppy reasoning (and sloppy programming/configuration) that sometimes makes me nitpick about stuff like this :-)
JSperantomikawaTTBack when we were discussing the creation of what is now the DCC forum, I suggested that the word electrical should have been included. It wasn't, and we still get wiring and accessory power threads posted here and in the layout forum by analog DC users who shy away from the DCC aspect. Yes MR could have been more descriptive when they named and described the DCC forum, but if anyone actually reads the description they should get the general idea from that. I think too many users tend to post without looking first for the forum that is most suitable for their post, so wiring and DCC threads still tend to end up in Layout Building and General Discussion. Having more categories would just compound that issue and make more work for moderators.As for creating new forums categories, good luck. It was like pulling teeth to get MR to create the Electronics & DCC forum and the only reason it happened was that Bergie was already considering creating a forum category for DCC.While I understand the desire, I do disagree with the idea of creating more categories and I think the moderators and administrators of the forums are on the same page.
tomikawaTTBack when we were discussing the creation of what is now the DCC forum, I suggested that the word electrical should have been included. It wasn't, and we still get wiring and accessory power threads posted here and in the layout forum by analog DC users who shy away from the DCC aspect.
Yes MR could have been more descriptive when they named and described the DCC forum, but if anyone actually reads the description they should get the general idea from that. I think too many users tend to post without looking first for the forum that is most suitable for their post, so wiring and DCC threads still tend to end up in Layout Building and General Discussion. Having more categories would just compound that issue and make more work for moderators.
As for creating new forums categories, good luck. It was like pulling teeth to get MR to create the Electronics & DCC forum and the only reason it happened was that Bergie was already considering creating a forum category for DCC.
While I understand the desire, I do disagree with the idea of creating more categories and I think the moderators and administrators of the forums are on the same page.
I think a lot of people post in 'General' because it has the largest reader traffic.
Paul3The quickest way to kill a forum is to split it up into too many sub-forums. If you look around the 'net, the websites with many (over a dozen) forums may have one very popular forum, but the rest are ghost towns. IMHO, we need websites with few forums like Atlas (N, HO, O, DCC, Admin), MR (General, Layout, DCC, Proto, Anniv.), etc. to keep up interest in the subject matters at hand. Too many forums will siphon off interest into the various sub-forums or will be ignored. Paul A. Cutler III *******************Weather Or No Go New Haven*******************
The quickest way to kill a forum is to split it up into too many sub-forums.
If you look around the 'net, the websites with many (over a dozen) forums may have one very popular forum, but the rest are ghost towns.
IMHO, we need websites with few forums like Atlas (N, HO, O, DCC, Admin), MR (General, Layout, DCC, Proto, Anniv.), etc. to keep up interest in the subject matters at hand. Too many forums will siphon off interest into the various sub-forums or will be ignored.
Paul A. Cutler III
*******************Weather Or No Go New Haven*******************
That is also a good point.
gregc superbeOne solution woud be for subject lines be more descriptive of what the post is about. A problem is that many of the Subject Titles leave you guessing as to what's in the post. people could try starting a trend by putting the category as the first word in the subject, such as: "tracklaying - having a problem with Xyz company switches".
superbeOne solution woud be for subject lines be more descriptive of what the post is about. A problem is that many of the Subject Titles leave you guessing as to what's in the post.
people could try starting a trend by putting the category as the first word in the subject, such as: "tracklaying - having a problem with Xyz company switches".
You could, and I'm all for informative titles. But, you run into the risk of twelve thread sright in a row all starting with "tracklaying - having a problem with" and getting "lost". Whaere as "problem with Xyz flex" and "Can't get XYZ switch tro stay in position" are easily recognizeable as two different threads.
-Morgan
Paul3 The quickest way to kill a forum is to split it up into too many sub-forums.