This makes no sense to me. What do apps have to do with Operating Systems?
Why a super category with only one sub-category?
This doesn’t make a lot of sense to me either. Why do we need sub-help categories for the individual OSes? If there is a bug in an OS it should be discussed in the bugtracker, issues not caused by the OS can be discussed in a more general help category and if you just have an issue because you don’t know how to use a function of an OS it should go into OSes.
PS: I missed the lower part of your post.
That explains the super-category for roadmap/fairphone.
I just think there will always be topics that don’t fit anywhere else, so some kind of “off-topic” category should exist. I don’t mind that not being the community category.
In other categories there is the possibility to post topics without specifying any category. Maybe that would be an option for us too? At first I thought it looked strange, but I’ve gotten used to it.
I like the idea.
Yeah because the general discussion takes place in a few long topics instead of lots of short topics.
Okay here is my new proposal for super-categories based on what you want your intention is for posting/reading on the forum:
you want to ask for help → Help
you want to find guides → Guides (would include all guides, all topics should be 1-post-topics and it would be structured by cross-linking and tagging)
you want to meet, join or contribute to the community → Community
you want to talk about the company → Fairphone/Company/Roadmap/whatever
you have a general questions → General
you want to discuss something unrelated to Fairphone → Unrelated
you want to buy/sell → Market
you want to discuss the forum itself → Meta
That way there could be OS specific help-sub categories like you suggested while guides on installing/updating/using the OSes would be in Guides.
General would be for questions/discussions about the product (including all the “should I buy it?” and “does it have function x?” topics), an OS (“does x work on this OS?”, “is this OS ready for daily use?”) or any other general questions related to Fairphone.
General + Unrelated could also both just be uncategorized or joined with the Roadmap category in a super category.
In the early days (Nov 2015) the #fairphone-road-map category was called “Fairness” and the #community category was called "Fairphone Café.
What about a new Café* category alongside the #community category? I imagine it could work a bit like this**:
Super Category
Sub-categories
Café
The Phones
The Company
The Software
Anything that’s not directly connected to any of the phone products (FP1/FP2), the company itself or an OS/apprecommendations would go into the super category.
Revised proposal
I’ll copy in a revised complete proposal:
Super-Category
Sub-Category
Community
Local
DIY
Developing
Beta
Café
The Company
The Phone
The Software
Blogs?
Help (mostly individual requests)
FP1
Android 6
LOS
Open
AltOSes
Modules & Peripherals
Guides
Market
Wanted
Offered
Meta
[…]
Note that Repair, Hardware, Roadmap and Software categories would be most affected by this (I think ).
Why is nobody else interested in such a big decision? @moderators should give their opinion, and I also invite @trust_level_4 and @trust_level_3 to share their views. Otherwise this happens (this is a threat! ):
*Actually something very Austrian:
** Though I would avoid the namings “General” and “Unrelated” because they are not self-explanatory.
We’re getting closer (to finding common ground among just the two of us ).
I just have a few points of criticism left.
E.g.: I don’t feel the articles for the Café sub-categories. Especially “The Software”.
Why do you think we need this separate from FP2 help?
To avoid confusion (is this a guide or not?) we could make a super category for all wikis and a sub-category for wikis.
I fully agree with these. I think the rule should be: Fixing something that got broken → help. “Fixing”/Improving something that doesn’t work for everybody the way it is designed → DIY.
Ok, thanks for the honesty! Im just worried that in the end people, who are accustomed to the status quo, are confused or point out inconsistencies that @paulakreuzer and me hadn’t considered.
Do you want to discriminate the little article??? I’m not insisting on it, but at least for phone and company it would make it clear that the category is not about each and every phone, but about Fairphone’s product. I’m fine without it, too.
Oh, do you mean that we simply should have a structure like this, where issues with the Google-infected OS and with the hardware go into a “general” FP2 subcategory of help (like it is now with FP2 Help)? Visual:
Super category
Sub-category
Help (mostly individual requests)
FP1
FP2 (OS with Google / hardware issues)
OpenOS
LineageOS
Alternative OSes
I first thought that there should be one Android 6 category and one hardware category, but this setup is probably better from a non-technically-inclined FP2 user’s perspective (reason: how should one know from the first moment whether it is software or hardware failure?).
Since the ✏ List of local repair shops that are familiar with Fairphones (by City) is not a guide per-se, I’d put it where people in need would find it helpful: the Help category. The Help super category should host all such topics that aren’t guides, but are still relevant for both FP1 and FP2 (can’t think of many other topics atm).
Let me post another revised structure
Super-Category
Sub-Category
Community
Local
DIY
Developing
Beta
Café
(The?) Company
(The?) Phone
Software & Apps
Blogs?
Help
FP1
FP2
LineageOS
OpenOS
Alternative OSes
Guides
Market
Wanted
Offered
Meta
[…]
Please give feedback on the remaining question marks (?).
I do care, but that’s not something I’m good at. I trust the people who are mods and use the forums a lot to take care of this. I never even use the categories TBH. I just look at my notifications and the recent threads…
I suppose it is important the categories work well for the new people, but also for regulars and moderators. I take it you can see the viewpoint of all 3 interest groups. I mean, someone who’s really new here ain’t gonna read this specific thread.
I like the latest suggestion for Help and Guides super-categories, preferably with having the same subcategories for both.
I would also support the suggested Hardware sub-category.
Lately I’m far more limited in the time I can spend on the forum. I’m just not finding time.
I personally hardly interact with the categories system. I’m curious how many people actually do. In any case, the opinion of the current users is more important than mine. My limited use is not because the system is lacking, it is more that other tools already help me get to where I want to go.
I agree with @johannes in every aspect.
Yet, there is just one point, that makes me wonder:
Why the “super”-category Cafe?
I can understand, that it’s a local (Vienna) thing, but in general this name lacks the explanatory factor, that all the other super-categories have. Plus, just from the name, there is no evident distinction between Community and Cafe, as both names imply a social meeting point.
Therfore I would opt for another name. If I understand correct, that this category is for topics around Fairphone, but not Fairphone in itself, it’s something like a Fairphone Orbit? (Well, that - as a name - would not really be more explanatory, just more different from Community.)
The categorisation of the forum just doesn’t excite me
I personally wouldn’t expend so much effort on trying to have a clean & tidy forum. While the sub-cats are useful, I don’t think that means we should always have them for each super-cat. It just means you (I say you because I never move or categorise topics) spend loads of time doing something which doesn’t necessarily mean very much to everyone.
The name “Café” was initially @anon90052001’s idea. He is from the US, not Austrian. I think that Café is pretty omnipresent, except in Germany, maybe:
Community might be a “social meeting point” in its use in German speaking countries. Wikipedia describes it as follows:
In my head Community is for discussions about the Fairphone community and Café is for everything else that Fairphoners want to discuss.
An alternative name for Café could be “Lounge” and for Community it could be “Movement”. (I’m not saying that we have to change both.)
As long as you don’t call it coffeeshop I like the word Lounge more (but whatever floats your boat); cafe and lounge would refer to casual chat. On another forum we had a place called (translated) “canteen”.
I don’t interact with the categories system directly —I just check New and subscribe to those threads I like, so updates appear on Latest—. For what I’ve read here, I’m not the only one. I think moderators and categorizing-people like you both are more aware of the categories in a daily basis.
I’m specially lousy at classifying things. I always struggle at putting things in their right box (for who?). But since you are empathetic people and you are doing a thorought work considering new visitors, I’ll just make some observations, completely IMHO:
Since we have sub-s, we should try to keep super-s at a minimum or they will conquer us humans and generic and broad to avoid paralysis by analysis.
Making super-s verbs will express actions, engaging new people and embracing multiple sub-s coherently: “I came to the forum to discuss about the company and to participate in software development and local communities”.
Discuss — Participate — Help — Market is my preference over Café — Community/Movement — Help — Guides? — Market.
Meta should dissapear be a non-verb super-, I guess, because it has enough size to not be inside Discuss.
Help - “Alternative OSes” could be just “Other OSes”, because LOS has a sub- of its own.
I like that idea a lot, but I would be more strict about it.
Discuss
The Products
The Company
The Industry
The Forum
The World
Participate (in)
Local Communities
Software Development
Hardware Tinkering (DIY)
other Community Projects
Beta Testing
The Angels Program
(get) Help (with) (including guides)
FP1
FP2
a specific OS (mostly just guides)
Buy/Sell
PS: I guess the biggest difference just from a what-goes-where point of view would be that a lot of topics would move from Community/Participate to Discuss.
I think I can agree with many of the last remarks.
The categories don’t interest me: I only use the “latest” view, where I can see the topics I track (and the new ones). The forum grew so much, I don’t try to read everything anymore…
Further, this topic itself seemed interesting, but it went on too quick. I think there where already 15 or 20 (long!) posts when I visited the forum the first time after this topic was created. This was not very encouraging to take part in the discussion
On topic, I don’t feel the need for change. If it would be done, I agree with @Roboe: “active” supercategories seem more logic.
All in all, I would advise not to spend too much effort in it. (new) Users will keep making mistakes, even if it’s the most logic and intuitive system imaginable