Forum suggestion: Separate Forum entitled Peripherals & Accessories

[Black Panther]

This would be either a separate forum in TPU or a sub-forum under "general hardware" to cover all peripherals and accessories to our rigs,
i.e. the place where all discussion involving Mice, Mouse mats, Monitors, Keyboards, Speakers, Headphones, Gaming Consoles, USB Flash Drives, Joysticks, Webcams, UPS's (uninterruptable power supplies), External Hard-Drives, External Floppy Drives, Voltage Stabilizers, LED's, Printers, Scanners, Photocopiers, Fax Machines and any combination thereof and anything else that I might have missed out.... get to be discussed.

As the situation stands right now, threads having any of the above subjects as topics end up in "General Hardware" despite the fact that they aren't about pc hardware at all but about peripherals. This results in having the "General Hardware" forum being unduly congested and hence it would be more difficult for the readers since they have to mentally separate the 'general hardware' parts from the 'peripherals' part.

Also, as it is right now with the 'General Hardware' forum being very busy, certain threads (on either topic) might easily get 'lost' due not to lack of replies but due to more posts being done either topic's thread at a certain time. IE just to give an example, if two or three members happen to open a thread each, one on Mice, another on Monitors and yet another asking a Headset recommendation - one might ask oneself upon seeing the first page: this is not a general hardware forum at all. The same could happen vice versa: someone might post asking for a cpu suggestion and the thread would get lost due to other members posting new threads on the peripherals and accessories mentioned above.

Finally, just to clarify - I did this poll not because I'm displeased in the forum in any way, but just beause I think it's a way to make it better.

So, what do you think?

[btarunr]

Peripherals = computer hardware too. As it is, I don't personally see General Hardware being "busy", having an abnormally high number of threads started, or even a high rate of threads that go unanswered (again that's user choice) in the very recent past. I could be wrong. 'lost' is what I would feel when the forum index is cluttered with too many forums. At present, we have 37 public forums already.

[Black Panther]

Originally Posted by btarunr

Peripherals = computer hardware too.

Well, allow me to not agree on that issue.

Originally Posted by btarunr

At present, we have 37 public forums already.

Yes that's the main problem.
See the following 2 screenshots of a random usage of TPU's 37 forums and one can easily see which are being used reasonably, which are not, and which are being used excessively, and which aren't being used at all.




(I think the graphics cards forum ought to be an exception right now seeing the current ATI/Nvidia situation.... and after all the 'graphics cards' forum is already sub-divided between "general graphics", "nvidia" and "amd/ati" so the amount of users/threads there gets sufficiently distributed as well.)

Another issue would be analysing which are the most viewed threads under 'General Hardware'. Are they those really involving computer hardware, or are they those involving monitors, mice, speakers etc?

[freaksavior]

personally, i think it is fine. if we did more sub forums i would say in the fs/ft section.

I like how on XS it is divided into sub categorizes

like this.

[btarunr]

Originally Posted by Black Panther

Well, allow me to not agree on that issue.

Stalemate. I disagree as well.

Computer peripherals by default become commodities classified under hardware. Unless you come up with concrete statistics to suggest there's a genuine need for a sub-forum, this suggestion doesn't move me. Secondly, in my observations, Graphics cards always had more views over GH (which is natural since TPU is the home of GPU-Z, ATITool and Graphics Card reviews, (dominantly, reflecting on the general tastes of our audience)) (my statement is as 'concrete' as you telling "exception right now seeing the current ATI/Nvidia situation...."). The only forum that's expected to be buzzing with activity due to "exception right now seeing the current ATI/Nvidia situation...." is the News forum as that's where the users catch the real content relating to the "current ATI/Nvidia situation...."

oh, since we're randomly picking up screeenshots to back our claims, here's one relating to the first page of the General Hardware forum:





Count the number of threads relating to "Mice, Mouse mats, Monitors, Keyboards, Speakers, Headphones, Gaming Consoles, USB Flash Drives, Joysticks, Webcams, UPS's (uninterruptable power supplies), Voltage Stabilizers, LED's, Printers, Scanners, Photocopiers, Fax Machines and any combination thereof and anything else that I might have missed out...."

[Morgoth]

votes yes cus i'm bored

[KBD]

Originally Posted by freaksavior

personally, i think it is fine. if we did more sub forums i would say in the fs/ft section.

I like how on XS it is divided into sub categorizes

like this.

i like that approach. the only thing i see as a problem is if a person is selling a whole bunch of stuff at once that belongs to several categories, like a lot of folks do here. i guess that would go under gen. hardeware.

[freaksavior]

Originally Posted by KBD

i like that approach. the only thing i see as a problem is if a person is selling a whole bunch of stuff at once that belongs to several categories, like a lot of folks do here. i guess that would go under gen. hardeware.

true. but if your looking for a hdd then you go to storage. I was looking for a hdd here and i had to look through 8 pages before i found one.

[Black Panther]

I use your same screenshots for fairness (I circled the topics on peripherals and accessories):





The old stickied threads are obviously appropriate to the forum so I don't think they should be counted in this instance.
Obviously I counted the same threads shown on both screenshots only once too... (would make no sense counting the same thread twice)

So that makes in your page 16 threads for computer general hardware and 12 threads for computer peripherals.

Add to that a thread asking for information on computer cases and it brings the total to 15 threads on computer general hardware and 13 threads for computer peripherals and accessories.

So, that was my main reason for thinking that this would be beneficial to the general planning of the forums -- in the screenshots posted above, where a member opposing this idea took a random screenshot himself, nearly half of the threads don't involve general pc hardware but only involve pc peripherals and accessories.

Actually only 58% are on general hardware. The remaining 42% are on computer peripherals and accessories (and this only if we don't count the 'pc cases' thread which popped up as soon as I refreshed) otherwise the percentage would be 46% on peripherals and 56% on real computer hardware.

I mean here we're not talking about an isolated random thread or two, we're talking about nearly half a forum's content being inappropriate for the given title of "general hardware" because it's "computer peripherals".

Anyway, that's the end of my suggestive argument now it's up to the guys who really work and know what would be the best for the forums to decide. I urge all of you reading to help them by giving your opinion, because no leader can take the best decision without first knowing the wishes of his people.

[btarunr]

^Sound cards and monitors are very much computer hardware.

Your contention is based around computer hardware-related threads "overshadowing" or burying peripheral-related threads and hence a new forum and that General Hardware is getting cluttered end of it, mine is that since those relating to peripherals get "buried", it's due to them not getting too many replies on their own merit, not because the forum structuring causes that. If there's a topic that's interesing enough, draws enough attention, has the general bulk of users interested, and happens to be peripherals related, naturally it will stay atop "hardware" related threads. The trouble is, today General Hardware by itself isn't as busy as say Graphics Cards, News, or even General Nonsense for that matter. Let it buzz. Let us see it cluttering the New Posts list to begin with. Let's not split such a forum to form two forums with lesser amount of activity each. By the way, the description for the General Hardware reads "Hardware discussion not covered by any other forum". A peripheral per say is always a subset of hardware. We all saw how popular Storage ended up being, months after its creation. Let's be conservative and careful with the forum index. A cluttered index can be a put-off for many.

[BrooksyX]

I think the forums are fine for the time be.

[DanTheBanjoman]

So, you basically say people don't post in the right sections. Nothing new. External hard drives, floppy drives, USB sticks, etc belong under storage. Christmas belongs in general nonsense.
The rest are, well, general hardware. They don't generate enough topics to justify it their own section. Besides, if you give everything a section, what would be left for general hardware?

[erocker]

One of the reasons I like this website is the simplicity of its forum and sub-forums. General hardware is good for all other hardware related subjects that aren't covered by the other forums. I see no problem with the way things are. Rarely does a thread go unnoticed.