JonPB
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Upload & Sell: Off
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I think my experience on FM has been diminished by the creation of the Sony forum. My primary interest here is in technical imaging qualities, regardless of brand or system. I already miss out on a lot of great stuff in the Canon and Nikon forums; I've come to miss out on stuff in the Sony forum; I'd probably miss out on more if the Fuji topics were culled out of Alt. For whatever reason, I mostly just look at Alt and see if there's anything particularly appealing in B&S, but never have really taken to viewing multiple forums. So, adding a Fuji board would take away from what I look at.
I understand the appeal, though. Especially as a new member, being able to tell, "oh, this is definitely the section of the website where I'm most likely to find what I'm looking for" is invaluable. And I'm all for doing what it takes to continue growing the FM community.
So my vote would be for taking the cross-posting mechanism up a notch. Make each forum a "tag." Not the organic, come-what-may tag system a lot of places use but which I've never seen to be useful. The list of tags should be controlled. New/traditional users would see a list of forums, just like they do today, but those forums would be created dynamically based on how threads are tagged. But more data-minded folk like me could combine tags as they please. So, if I wanted to completely geek out on information overload, I could view the Canon, Nikon, Sony, Fuji, and alt forums in the same list. Or, I could tailor my normal "forum" to include alt, Sony, Fuji, and the Trips forum. But, at the same time, Fuji-oriented folks could just view Fuji and cut out the rest.
In the long-run, perhaps other tags or subtags could be added, like "technical test shots & discussion," "gear-based image threads," "problem solving," "cine," or "product announcements." Being able to quickly see what has been announced so far for Photokina would be fun, and being able to see all technical test shots for wide angle lenses regardless of camera or brand would be exceptionally useful. Hard to get there, I know, but a tag-based foundation could be the first step.
I have no idea whether that'd be possible or realistic with the existing system, though. :-)
Cheers,
Jon
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