Changes to forum categories - comments/suggestions invited.

[Miles]

The moderator team have been discussing changes to the forum categories in order to present the content in a more rational and proportionate way. Obviously, there are practical limitations - whole sections can be merged but moving threads between sections breaks existing links etc.

Here's a suggested re-working which would be reasonably simple to implement.

All suggestions and comments will be considered but the final decision rests with the moderator team, because we have the responsibility to make it work........


GENERAL

General Discussion
Talk about anything and everything here within reason.
[Polls & Surveys archive incorporated into here]

Alternative Energy
Solar, wind, hydro and other non-fossil sources of electricity.

E-vents

Link to Wiki
[Technical Reference Area content to be moved there.]


ELECTRIC VEHICLE TECHNOLOGY

E-Vehicles General Discussion
General Discussion about electric vehicles
[EV Business integrated into here]

Battery Technology
Batteries, Chargers, and Battery Management Systems.

Motor Technology
Electric Motors and Controllers

Other Related Technology
Materials, techniques, processes, tools,
mechanical & electrical parts, etc.


ELECTRIC BICYCLES

E-Bike General Discussion
General Discussion about electric bicycles, tricycles & velomobiles.

Hub motor Drives Technical
Get all your technical information about hub-motors and controllers, here.

Non-hub Motor Drives Technical
Get all your technical information about Non-hub motor drives, here.

E-Bike Reviews & Testing
Get real world experience and user feedback on the electric bicycle products.

E-Bike Photos & Video
Show off your E-bike creation here.


OTHER SMALL EVs

Skateboards and personal eVs
(portable kick scooters, powered roller blades, etc)

Motorcycles & Scooters
Discussion about electric scooters and motorcycles.
[E-Scooter and Motorcycle Photos & Videos incorporated into here]


OTHER ELECTRIC TRANSPORT

Electric Cars
Electric cars, trucks, ATVs, NEVs - things bigger than a motorcycle.

Electric Watercraft
Boats, Jet Skis, Kayaks etc., including hovercrafts

Electric Aircraft
Things that fly


ONLINE MARKETPLACE

Resources & EV Related Parts
A place to list links to retailers that sell EV related parts.

Items Wanted

Items For Sale New

Items For Sale Used


LOUNGE/BIKER BAR

OT Discussions

ES TV

Food & Drink

[Drunkskunk]

I think it works well the way it is, Although a few small changes could be made.


Technical Reference Area could be moved into Electric Vehicle Technology since a tech referance forum makes sence in a section for EV tech


Electric Aircraft and Watercraft could be changed into Other Electric Vehicles and also include things like MAGLEV, Electric comuter trams, N.E.V.s, hyper golfcarts, Electric snow mobiles, 100mph mobility scooters, Submarines, and electric subterranean diggers, or anything else we can invent.


The Biker Bar should stay The Biker Bar. ES TV doesn't belong there, The Bar's too rowdy.
But you could change BEER into BEER and Munchies






.

[Miles]

Technical Reference Area could be moved into Electric Vehicle Technology since a tech referance forum makes sence in a section for is part of EV tech

I've edited this bit (see above).

[neptronix]

1) need a 'tech support' forum so that other sections don't get crowded with help requests.
2) ebike photos & video should be renamed to something more suited to the threads in there, which are build threads.
3) don't change the biker bar!
4) add a section specifically for controllers.

[Xanda2260]

+1 for tech support

I hate having to post my help requests in amongst the awesome discussion threads.

[NeilP]

I see motor type sections, but how about a dedicated controller section. Already have a battery secton

[Miles]

4) add a section specifically for controllers.

I see motor type sections, but how about a dedicated controller section. Already have a battery secton

At the moment we have:

Battery Technology
Batteries, Chargers, and Battery Management Systems.

Motor Technology
Electric Motors and Controllers

So, everything is covered.

What is the compelling reason for having a separate forum for motor drives?

[NeilP]

[



What is the compelling reason for having a separate forum for motor drives?

So what are you suggesting? Merge hub drives and non hub drives? I think they should be seperate, as should controller based subjects

[Miles]

Any comments on this re-wording?

E-Bike General Discussion
General Discussion about electric bicycles, tricycles & velomobiles.

Hub motor Drives Technical
Get all your technical information about hub-motors and controllers, here.

Non-hub Motor Drives Technical
Get all your technical information about Non-hub motor drives, here.

[Miles]

So what are you suggesting? Merge hub drives and non hub drives? I think they should be seperate, as should controller based subjects

You haven't given a reason.

[John in CR]

Way too many categories already. It makes things harder to find or worse, interesting things harder to simply run across.
"If it ain't broke don't fix it." Combining and simplifying isn't fixing.

If you want something to fix, then fix the friggin search function, which is all but worthless.

If changes are going to be made, then start with the no-brainer stuff. If that works out, then move on to simplification.

***edited- Thanks TD. Somehow it hadn't dawned on me to try sorting the member list from the headers. It should open as alpha from the start.

[TylerDurden]

Way too many categories already. It makes things harder to find or worse, interesting things harder to simply run across.
"If it ain't broke don't fix it." Combining and simplifying isn't fixing.

I just use "view active topics"... hot/interesting issues are always near the top, regardless of category. Placement of new topics is where categories help me.

If you want something to fix, then fix the friggin search function, which is all but worthless.

That's a phpbb programming issue, not easily addressed like organizational, categorical stuff. Searches can be refined procedurally (search within results), or search posts by member. Google search within the domain can be handy.

Here's another...Make the members list useful, by either making it searchable, sortable, or at least alpha order. What is it now, by letter and then chronological?

Sort by clicking the header - like any spreadsheet or table.

[Drunkskunk]

Any comments on this re-wording?

E-Bike General Discussion
General Discussion about electric bicycles, tricycles & velomobiles.

Hub motor Drives Technical
Get all your technical information about hub-motors and controllers, here.

Non-hub Motor Drives Technical
Get all your technical information about Non-hub motor drives, here.

Meh. I think the Electric Bicycles section works the way it is. Hub motors don't really their own section, they just aren't that complicated. A large part of hub posts would end up in general chat anyway, as they are explinations to noobs who wouldn't know enough to look for a specific motor section. Non hubs motors do need their own section as they are that complicated, and have it.
It may not follow logic, but it has worked well this way for years. there would probably be a lot of broken links if those sections got changed.


And I like the idea of a controller section with the battery section and the motor section.
Who reads descriptions? The headder says Motor tech, so someone skimming through may not notice it covers controlelrs too.

[Miles]

there would probably be a lot of broken links if those sections got changed.

Nope. No broken links at all. Just steering things in a slightly more logical direction for people that haven't been here for years.

[Miles]

The headder says Motor tech, so someone skimming through may not notice it covers controlelrs too.

Ok. We can change the header if that's your only argument.

[marty]

I say do nothing. Forum is fine exactly the way it is now. Less categories is better. Look here for a bad example of too many categories:
http://visforvoltage.org/

"Materials, techniques, processes, tools, mechanical & electrical parts, etc." can go in the category that they relate to. I am building a jig to hold battery cells while I assemble large battery packs. I will show pictures of my jig in the [Battery Technology] section.

Even though I have a obsession with electric bicycles, I don't have time to be looking in too many different categories. Also a category with a few posts will not get my attention.

[neptronix]

Sounds like we have a perfect consensus as always

[NeilP]

So what are you suggesting? Merge hub drives and non hub drives? I think they should be seperate, as should controller based subjects

You haven't given a reason.

No reason, sorry. I did try and reply but it did not appear it would seem. .I posted from the iPhone from bed last night and does not seem to have appeared. Bloody iphones

[Kingfish]

Miles/OP: I like the reorg with the following suggestions…

• There definitely needs to be a section for noobs; it doesn’t have to be large – just easily found and near the tippy-top: The 10 (or 20) most-frequently asked topics. Actually, this could be a running poll that self-updates. What are people talking about on ES? What’s most popular? The thing that bothers me is someone that shows up and plops a common question onto the forum without searching. I don’t know if other people get miffed hearing the same questions asked, (“what’s the best saddle?”, “tires?”, "strongest motor?") To me that’s being lazy. If we had a section for noobs guiding them to answers for the most basic common requests – that would in my mind go far to reduce the transient pedestrian traffic. The Wiki is a good start.
• Forums “incorporated” should become sub-forums; I think that concept works well.
• E-Bike General Discussion is too large and general. Suggest as an idea to creating subcategories, perhaps called “Frames & Forks”, and another called “Gears & Components”. This would divide the daily mucilage in half and make the forum more readable.

Slightly OT – two requests:

• Please upgrade the Search feature, or add an advanced search option. This to me is the weakest part of the ES. And actually, if we could check off tags during authoring/posting that might help refine searches by keyword & category.
• Clean up the character corruption. I provided the SQL code to fix these issues; for me it’s a no-brainer to resolve: It’s part of doing Business with a database. How else can I help?

OK - that’s enough from me. I thank you humbly for asking and I am honored that you are listening.

Going back to bowl of oatmeal now… KF <scarf!>

[advancedelectricbikes]

Subcategories may facilitate navigation and search.

[Miles]

No reason, sorry. I did try and reply but it did not appear it would seem.

Ok. Thanks Neil.

I've always been a bit anti having separate motor and controller forums because the two areas are so inter-related. When I requested the Motor Technology forum, I always envisaged it as a place for motors & drives. Anyway, we'll re-consider this.

It's probably worth emphasising that the Motor Technology section is more for discussions of theory, new developments, self-builds and significant modifications than "Should I get a Crystalyte 53xx or a 53yy"? It's better that this kind of post goes in one of the Ebike sections, I think.

[Njay]

I would still like to see a controller section. Controller section is all electronics talk, motor section is all mechanics talk. A controller marries a motor, but they are very different things. Can't see why split motor into hub and non-hub (all mechanics) and not controllers and motors.

From 9 votes, 8 were in favor of a Controller only section: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=31802

[Miles]

Controller section is all electronics talk, motor section is all mechanics talk

I really don't think it's that simple.

[Miles]

Thanks for your thoughts KF

[*]Forums “incorporated” should become sub-forums; I think that concept works well.

Except that the idea is to cut out some of the categories that are mostly there for historic reasons and are no longer needed. Polls can now be run in any forum, so we don't need a separate Poll section, etc.

[Miles]

[*]E-Bike General Discussion is too large and general. Suggest as an idea to creating subcategories, perhaps called “Frames & Forks”, and another called “Gears & Components”. This would divide the daily mucilage in half and make the forum more readable.[/list]

Relieving the flow on E-Bike General Discussion is definitely the most urgent need.