cp30 is offline cp30 Post #1  July 22,2009, 2:50pm

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It has been interesting to see the evolution of this website. I've seen so many people come and go, and so much around this place improve and become nicer overall and a bit less "wild west" (though I do love the wild west, not really in my message boards).

When this group was started we were asked about improvements we would like to see and how to keep people on topic.

It used to bother me too, when literally everything (including topics that were of personal nature and had NOTHING to do with dating) was posted in the dating section. Yes, that is annoying and as a rather focused librarianish type who works with data standars... I fully appreciate organization of data! woo!

But lets face it....the topics are the problem themselves. We all know the "dating" topic gets the most traffic. That has been abused in the past. But I think the moderation is getting a little heavy handed.

I don't think the problem is people going off topic anymore or posting in the wrong categories...sometimes it is...but the problem IS the categories. I vote for an overhaul. You have made huge improvements on this site why not make categoris that make some sense?

Ask a Dating Expert? Who me? yeah I consider myself pretty insightful and reasonable...but...come on. That category confuses most people and we all know it...same with About You. The only real useful categories are dating, relationships (there is a fairly clear difference there) and 'using eharmony' for the more techincal questions. though there still is some gray area.

Most of us who have been here long enough know the quickest way to make a thread go away is to move it into a category that makes sense to no one....about you, or ask a dating expert or "everything else"

while I apprecaite the effort, its also really frustrating because it is SO subjective...I posted what to me, was a valid dating question and if it gets moved, I just feel annoyed that I went to the effort.

It's not like the old days when people were literally posting EVERYTHING in the dating section. It was a real dating question! Sure, there was some other stuff in there...I happen to write a lot for context (have you noticed!?) that doesn't make it "about me"

Regardless....I'm glad there are people here who care about organization. Woo. standards! But they are vague and they don't make sense and it undermines the effort of people who want some intelligent discussion if every time they try to engage people they are moved to a category that no one visits because it doesn't seem to pertain to relationships or dating.

As someone who works closely with standards and data myself...and communication and technology, I KNOW there has to be a better way.
 
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HarryG is offline HarryG Post #2  July 23,2009, 10:27am
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CPok! Long time-no CP.

So-if you had the Magic eHA wand, what would you keep, throw out, rename? Are you thinking more specific forums or less forums entirely??

And yeah-it *is* subjective.
 
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D_Lion is offline D_Lion Post #3  July 23,2009, 2:17pm
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I agree that too many threads are being moved. New people may make a mistake, but when someone who has been around selects a forum, I think they did so deliberately … and knowing who, and with what tone, tends to post in which forum can be part of the reason. As such, moving their thread undermines the point.
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neardc is offline neardc Post #4  July 23,2009, 2:25pm
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I'm sure I'm to blame for some of the moving of threads (there really are quite a few, still, that get posted in Dating even though they have little or nothing to do with dating...it may not be noticeable because they are more often moved now). I suggest that if a thread of yours is moved when you think it shouldn't be, you just contact a CL or mod and explain the dating connection and why you posted it there and ask that it be moved back...

That being said, I think your point about the current categories is spot on. There are a lot of questions that really don't quite fit into the current categories (e.g., some of those "so what do you think about..." types of questions), although I'm not quite sure what a new category should be called. Certainly it would make sense to break the dating forum into some subcategories. The "Ask an Expert" category makes little sense as a forum title since anyone can respond (and there are no designated eHA "experts," anyway). I suppose there could be a category reserved for serious questions about personal concerns/issues/situations where someone wants input/feedback, though; there are quite a few of those kinds of posts and they deserve serious responses. It should be clarified that the Using eHarmony forum is also the place to ask technical questions about eHA. A "Games" forum is in the works, which should help items posted in "Everything Else" be much more visible...

Generally speaking, I think you want to have the minimum number of categories needed to easily sort the maximum number of threads into meaningful categories such that there are no categories that contain a huge number of threads, and none that contain only a few...

What additions/deletions would you suggest to help the organization of the boards make better conceptual sense?
Last edited by neardc; July 23,2009 at 2:29pm.
 
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cp30 is offline cp30 Post #5  July 23,2009, 2:30pm

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HarryG wrote :
CPok! Long time-no CP.

So-if you had the Magic eHA wand, what would you keep, throw out, rename? Are you thinking more specific forums or less forums entirely??

And yeah-it *is* subjective.
I dunno. I'd think outside the box. Does there *need* to be 5 categories? What about 4? What about 6? Does it have to be buttons at the top of the page? There are tons of ways to organize the data and some that make more sense I'm sure.

It's been the same way from the start. Lots of things have changed here but that has not. Maybe in the beginning the site developers had plans for "ask a dating expert" and then ....no expert showed up and just regular people answer the questions. I don't know.

I don't think 'ask a dating expert' gets more seriously replies...I've seen a lot of confused replies like "um, so who is the expert"?

About you I can see...if, its really about you. But they have been moving a lot more dating/relationship stuff in there and its a fine line. So I don't even know if its neccessary, or maybe it needs a new title (I'll think on that later...)

Maybe the solution is changing the categories and the defaults in a way that ensures all categories get equal exposure. Mix it up a little.

I'm sure there are lots of good ideas out there.
 
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neardc is offline neardc Post #6  July 23,2009, 2:35pm
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[quote=D_Lion;684258]I agree that too many threads are being moved. New people may make a mistake, but when someone who has been around selects a forum, I think they did so deliberately … and knowing who, and with what tone, tends to post in which forum can be part of the reason. As such, moving their thread undermines the point.
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cp30 is offline cp30 Post #7  July 23,2009, 3:06pm

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neardc wrote :
I'm sure I'm to blame for some of the moving of threads (there really are quite a few, still, that get posted in Dating even though they have little or nothing to do with dating...it may not be noticeable because they are more often moved now). I suggest that if a thread of yours is moved when you think it shouldn't be, you just contact a CL or mod and explain the dating connection and why you posted it there and ask that it be moved back...

That being said, I think your point about the current categories is spot on. There are a lot of questions that really don't quite fit into the current categories (e.g., some of those "so what do you think about..." types of questions), although I'm not quite sure what a new category should be called. Certainly it would make sense to break the dating forum into some subcategories. The "Ask an Expert" category makes little sense as a forum title since anyone can respond (and there are no designated eHA "experts," anyway). I suppose there could be a category reserved for serious questions about personal concerns/issues/situations where someone wants input/feedback, though; there are quite a few of those kinds of posts and they deserve serious responses. It should be clarified that the Using eHarmony forum is also the place to ask technical questions about eHA. A "Games" forum is in the works, which should help items posted in "Everything Else" be much more visible...

Generally speaking, I think you want to have the minimum number of categories needed to easily sort the maximum number of threads into meaningful categories such that there are no categories that contain a huge number of threads, and none that contain only a few...

What additions/deletions would you suggest to help the organization of the boards make better conceptual sense?
Well, personally I would hire a team of consultants to hammer it out....never said I had the answers myself!

I do think its the kind of thing you sort of survey people about, get some ideas then take the best ones and see what can be done realistically.

It's not really my full time job, so I don't want to spend too much time on it...

off the top of my head, yeah I would simply remove "ask a dating expert" and change "about you" to something a little more specific or even a little more all encompassing, even though we already have an "everything else" maybe something more along the lines of "self improvement" or "reflection" just thoughts off the top of my head..."deep thoughts" why not! lol.

What I wonder, and have for a long time is just that the site could really use a total overhaul. Dating is the first topic, I think that is one of the reasons it gets the most traffic, the site is slow and sometimes it is annoying and time consuming to click around to other topics.

So I think it is a combination of categories that are not meaningful enough, but also the site design, and the slowness of the site too.

It might also be cool to start a new archive of old posts....instead of just having them stack up in each of the categories.

You could do an archive by topic or by date (yearly, or month/year).

I think they need a good librarian with experience with this site (I'm ready to move to California whenever)
 
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D_Lion is offline D_Lion Post #8  July 23,2009, 4:57pm
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Now we get to another reason people post in dating (and I think, for many, why they stick around here): just to unwind and have fun.
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eHA_Admin_Lori is offline eHA_Admin_Lori — Advice Official Moderator Post #9  July 23,2009, 7:03pm
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.wysiwyg { PADDING-RIGHT: 0px; PADDING-LEFT: 0px; BACKGROUND: #f7fff3; PADDING-BOTTOM: 0px; MARGIN: 5px 10px 10px; COLOR: #000000; PADDING-TOP: 0px } .wysiwyg A:link { COLOR: #085790 } .wysiwyg_alink { COLOR: #085790 } .wysiwyg A:visited { COLOR: #085790 } .wysiwyg_avisited { COLOR: #085790 } .wysiwyg A:hover { COLOR: #ff4400 } .wysiwyg A:active { COLOR: #ff4400 } .wysiwyg_ahover { COLOR: #ff4400 } P { MARGIN: 0px } .inlineimg { VERTICAL-ALIGN: middle } Good thread, folks. There are changes I have wanted for a while not but have not been able to wrangle both my time and tech's time to implement.

When I started here, Everything Else was very popular. It STILL is from an activity perspective b/c of the games but I'd like for the games to have their own forum (Play Room? Fun Stuff?) so that Everything Else could once again be a popular repository for random conversations.

I'm wondering if we should combine Music/TV/Movies into Entertainment.

I would really like to see the Off-Topic areas grow, becuase I think of it as the area of the site (besides Groups) where we can ALL relax and unwind and get to know each other better outside of where a lot of the "hard work" is done around here, Dating / Relationships.

I agree that the Dating Expert forum is not ideal but am still considering what to do about it.

As always I welcome your feedback, suggestions, ideas, etc.

Best,
-Lori

P.S. I was a librarian once! Well, in college, in the law library. Looooooooooooooooong time ago!
 
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neardc is offline neardc Post #10  July 23,2009, 8:17pm
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