Changes and the structure of the "Discussion area" - an overview

  • Hi everbody :)


    As the one or the other regular visitor of cls-design has surely noted, the former area of "Presentations" from the WBB 3 forum has been completely revised by me. No worries here, nothing was unlawfully stolen and will be offered on eBay starting from today. ;)


    The reasons for such a change were the following:


    1. Not all presentations were real presentations with regard to a wished for communal constructive exchange.


    2. There were content duplications, which therefore unnecessarily had "bloated" the area.


    3. Many projects were already offline.



    Thus, already before transfering on to WBB 4, there was an internal discussion about how to do it differently in the future and that we should at least test whether it caues its/an effect. What I've done now is this:


    • First of all I've manually looked through all the contents and removed all the projects no longer existing.
    • Then I've split the remaining contents into two basic groups, which are:


    1 "Presentation area" (http://www.cls-design.com/comm…p/Board/92-Presentations/)


    2. "Advertising links" (http://www.cls-design.com/comm…rd/204-Advertising-links/)



    This distinction already indicates what content can be deployed where and where interested people can get involved via contribution or where it is (not) desired.



    1. The "Presentation area" is the forum where each administrator of a project can present his/her project and wants to receive feedback. So the presentation is seen as form of invitation that interested members can or should constructively contribute.


    2. In contrast to that, the "Advertising links" are the subforum for administrators only wanting to introduce their project within one thread or providing a link to it. No substantive discussions take place beyond.



    Due to this dichotomy, the respective administrator should get the opportunity to decide beforhand what he/she is prefering: A further discussion to the project or the pure naming without further discussing. Moreover, the respective decision signales the readers and members where they can/should get involved and where not, so there's no feedback that wasn't actually desired.


    • From here I've transfered the contents, so not the administrators themselves have to do that.
    • Furthermore I've ventured to formulate certain human regulations for the use of the two subforums, these are located here:


    "Presentation area": The presentation area: Using and Guidelines
    "Advertising links": Guidelines for using the advertising area



    Now, these rules aren't to be considered as a kind of elitist tight rein, it is not therefore an artificial ideal, featured for example by me, that people should apply. Rather my concern is the appeal to all administartors, members and especially users of these areas to express themselves and contribute as precisely as possible.
    If e.g. presentations don't convey what the author wants, even after multiple reading, that is less than optimal for all readers and will result in more requests or even resentment, maybe people are simply at cross purposes.
    The "advertising links" in turn will have a certain shelf life, which leads at the end to the situation that the team will remove this content. This is due to the fact that cls-design isn't to turn to an unofficial collection of links, eventually bursting at the seams one day.


    Other relevant aspects, well-intentioned advice and basic rules were also noted in the guidelines, in the future I'm going to offer non-binding concrete tips&Co.for administrators within in the cls-design blog .



    I hope that communications can be improved by these measures, but later improvements can be carried out if unexpected difficulties or still better options should arise after a certain time.



    Should there be any questions, should there be something not quite understandable or the like, you can contact me or one of the other team members any time or note it here. We're at your disposal and want to make everyone feel informed and listened to. :)


    Regards by
    Gabbid: :coffee: