The idea is that most talking gets done in Discussion. Talk about the space, the tools, our projects, ourselves etc.
Regular meetups or special-interest groups get their own subcat in Groups & Events for coordination and record-keeping. I hope the list of subcats will grow.
Event announcements get their own topics in Groups & Events. This includes things like induction sessions and coordinating open evenings
Is it a good idea to put some further sub categories below discussion.
For example 3dprinting as theres no official group or other special interests so people can get alerts on there interests.
At the moment, only 3D printing has its own channel on slack. It seems well used. But what other interests deserve their own subcat, and how do we decide that?
I know from experience that sub-fora can proliferate like mad if you let them, resulting in a dense tree of sub-sub-sub-fora each ending in a single lonely topic.
I exaggerate. But it’s worth asking ourselves what are categories for, before creating too many of them.
You can apply arbitrary tags to a topic, at creation or later on. Once tags are created, they auto-suggest as you type in future ones, and are available from a drop down. There’s a page where you can see all tags and therefore view all topics tagged with a particular tag.
My experience with tagging is that most people don’t use it. Unless you have some full time taggers, most topics go untagged.
I find myself staring at the main page and going “hmmm” a lot. What categories do we actually need? Which have I created just because the filing demon in my brain needs feeding?
I have decided to apply science. I am going to go through hundreds of LHS mailing list threads and make a tally of their most obvious category. Pity me.
Sure, but then I think: Are there separate subgroups for interests, groups and tools?
Someone is offering induction for the Ultimaker 2. Does that go in 3DPrinting (general interest) or 3DPrinters (regular meetup group) or SLMS-Tools (for discussion of the tools that belong to the space)?
Does the top level division of Discussion, Events and Docs even make sense?
It goes in 3Dprinting, which everyone who is interested in 3D printing subscribes to. It doesn’t go in Tools because that’s for all tools except those with their own discussion groups. Easy!
That exact fact is making me think that the Groups top-level category is unnecessary. Just have Discussion and Documentation at the top. Subcats of Discussion for the large interests, and leave it at that.
Subcats for Documentation make more sense, because that content is more structured.
So no “Microcontrollers” forum over here and a “uMeet” forum over there.
ie.
Discussion
Infrastructure (basically covers things that aren’t tools)
I think we need an ‘everything else’ category - I like ‘random’ on Slack, I think it encourages people to post things that aren’t necessarily directly relevant to the space, which in turn encourages the community feel
Only “leader” or contact for μMeet, the 3d printing stuff as member apart from suggesting a get together.
The μMeet under groups is ideal for discussing the μMeet group evenings and what we get up to in those but there are other members who might want to ask questions on electronics or microcontrollers but arnt interested in the group so having a few sub categories under discussion so they can post there is ideal.
Theres no 3dPrinting group as such so having a sub category in discussion makes sense for those who might be asking for something to be printed or a 3dprinter discussing there prints or machines.
This could apply to a number of classes of persuits within the makerspace not just 3d printing.
Also theres a case for a further split under 3d printing or other subjects
Discussion
3d printing
general discussion
I want something printed
im offering my print service
the groups ultimaker 2
woodworking
But then it could get vey over nested. We could just get by with the one sub category for 3d printing.
Maybe this is where the tagging comes in.
So im all for adding a few sub categories under discussion that you can follow.
I’m more inclined now to ditch the Groups top-level categroy.
Reason: It effectively creates a two-tier system.
If we have similarly named subcats in Discussion and Groups then to a newbie it feels like there’s a “special experts” room, where the greybeards hold secret knowledge.
It seems better to me to have everything in one room.
Being more specific, Let’s say there’s a Microcontrollers subcat. It has two pinned topics - “About the Microcontrollers Category” and “uMeet Group - Thursday Evenings”
That second pinned topic functions more like a chat channel - it’s general day-to-day chat for people who attend the group.
New topic for each week’s meetup if it’s warranted
They key thing is that the uMeet stuff is intermingled with regular topics about microcontrollers. The greybeards are right there in the room to welcome newbies and answer Qs. And there’s less ambiguity about where to go when staring at the main category list.
