I'm not opposed to the idea, but it needs more thought.
This Tech Issues forums doesn't have any other sub-forums (or "categories", as they're technically called).
You can't really have a Category A though without having Categories B through X. The way the forum software works, any of the forums that allow categories don't just
allow them, they actually
require them. This also means there's an extra step to creating a new post, because you would need to create the topic title, pick a category, and then write the post.
So at its most basic level, to create a Solar category, we would have to have this minimum organization:
1. Solar
2. Not-Solar (or "Everything Else")
That's obviously a lame solution and wouldn't be workable. It's a bad solution just to add a Solar sub-forum.
This means that to add a Solar category, we'll need to figure out what the rest of the categories should be, which is a ball of yarn I'm not looking forward to.
The more I think about this, the more I'm going to drag my feet. Not that I'm opposed to categories in principle, but my experience shows that nobody really uses them.
In the Toy Hauler forum where I got my start as a moderator, we've had six different categories for the past 10-15 years (I can't recall when we started them). The categories were kind of popular for a year or so, and then people quit using them and went back to browsing the "Show All" version and ignored the categories.
Think about how you'll browse Tech Issues and ask yourself which type of visitor you'll be:
- "Man oh man do I love me some Solar posts. I love Solar and hate everything else, so I'll only look at the Solar sub-forum."
- "Man oh man do I hate me some Solar posts. I hate Solar and love everything else, so I'll click through each of the other sub-forums to read those posts and skip Solar."
- "Don't care. Seriously don't care. I'll never click into any of the sub-forums because it's a waste of my time. It's easy enough to look at the 'Show All' list and see which threads seem interesting enough for me to open and read."
You get the picture. The value of the sub-forums/categories, in my opinion, is negligible and they're actually more trouble than they're worth.
But by all means, please keep the conversation going. If there's enough demand for it and if y'all can propose enough meaningful Category topics, then we'll make the change.
The only other caveat is that this forum software is so old and busted that there's no guarantee that we'll even be able to make this particular dream come true. But please share your thoughts. Even though I'm personally biased against it, I'm still all ears.
