Hei all,
Hope this is the right place to address this kind of query, and that no one gets insulted or annoyed:)
I do find this forum both helpful and well structured as such, however, I would have liked it organised with a bit more nuance, and/or perhaps reconstructed with that in mind. I understand and acknowledge that it possibly may involve some issues regarding administration; issues towards ‘where to post?’ from the one who makes a request’s view, could, if the forum’s structure were organised with more sub-categories, consequently involve some more redirection of posts, and, thus, possibly create a lot of extra work for the administrators. As well as, of course, involving an effort to enact it in the first place. I do not know all to much concerning how this is organised! But, what I often miss is to just click into a category/sub-category and read post related to my problem, there and then. E.g. categorise the hardware section with sub-groups as for example: camera/webcam, harddrives, graphic cards, sound cards, … etc. Or, perhaps, erase the divide between hardware and software, and create a totally different structure in which includes both hardware and software related topics: Video, Audio, Photo, Office, Mathematics, Programming, System, Security (…), and so on. Perhaps with a hardware subcategory of the, latter suggestion, with maybe a subgroup below there again just for drivers and driver issues. Anyhow, narrow it down so it contains more specific content and less in amount.
I have not reflected to much regarding my suggestions so they may seem ridiculous to some, alas, something which they of course also might be:’(, haha. I just feel the need to be able to address a potential problem(problems) in a different way than exist in the forum right now, and I have often problems specifying my search correctly, hence, I do not always find the relevant information easily. The aim is as such to improve the forum as an archive with better taxonomy.
Furthermore, I think that information concerning special features, operations, demands, etc, could, with reconstructing the forum, be better cared for, something which is what I intentionally was concerned about. There might be a potential issue in respect of competence if this should be effective, but if attended and addressed more actively one might, as well, attract those users with those special needs to this forum. Thus, gradually such information is accumulated and made available on this forum. My concern was initially towards audio and I have used, among others, the Jacklab forum a great deal. However, that community is rather small and, understandably, not to vital, but there is a whole lot of nice tips and information stored there. Jacklab is now partially, I believe(?) and anyhow based on OpenSuSE and as such relevant for this forum, incorporated into the OpenSuSE project, and personally I would like to see the Jacklab forum merged with this one. Provided, of course, that a modification in this forum’s structure makes it practical. The Jacklab project is, of course, the developer of the JAD release, a DAW for linux, hence they generally work towards improved usability and stability for audio real-time processing, audio apps, audio environment etc. There is not much information, and at least not easily retrieved, regarding these features on this, the OpenSuSE, forum. And that is what I would like it, this forum, to achieve, more special information regarding: sound, audio, realtime capabilities etc.; and stored in a more easily retrieved way. Furthermore, this approach could certainly (well in my view, anyhow) be relevant towards other fields of computer tasking with need for special information as well.
In another perspective, a forum which is well documented, is well structured and has a wide approach topic wise, and which thus provides and/or stimulates to discussions regarding special and smaller topics as well as on common problem solving issues, could have impact on the choice of distribution for those who have special requests. And by which, again, could make the forum flourish. One is allowed to be a bit ambitious, right?
I am not saying that this forum has no interesting discussions or that it does not deal with or has focus on special concerns, as I would not know anything about it, except for some of the things I have tried to elaborate a bit about. I am a happy SuSE user which has some difficulties with audio, and more recently with video editing, importing and recording. And, in general, I find both the forum and document DB very useful.
And, finally, this was just a thought which accidentally became a bit long, probably a bit formal and possibly flawed (in both form and content). My excuse has to be that I’m Norwegian.
Cheers,
Olav
