Attn: Re structure of R.S.U.

General
1

I think its time that we have outgrown 2 forums (rsu, and product review) for talking about unicycling. The current RSU has been cluttered with alot of crap lately and topics that are only a day or so old get lost in the mix, and you have people asking the same redundant questions over and over because there are so many posts about different issues that could easily be broken into smaller sub categories.

I think this Unicyclist.com should take on a new look and attempt to expand into a site more like other popular forums with more organized message boards, in depth articles relating to unicycling and a specific part for well put together video’s and teasers to videos, outside of the gallery.

A site that I think has it right is Pinkbike.com and yes I my suggestions are modeled after their success. Because our community is a subculture within other genre’s of cycling, I think we should take this into consideration and not expand beyond our abilities, yet offer an easier format for all to view and post.

I suggest we break down RSU into 7, add pictures and articles to the front page instead of just future events, and have a part for video’s and upcoming DVD’s

– XC/Muni/Trials
– Distance/road
– Freestyle
– Events/Gatherings
– JC (already there)
– Product Reviews (re name to include New Equipment perhaps)
and General Bullshit and questions: about unicycling (the current RSU)

I know that these changes will affect people who currently get RSU via usernet and email. But clearly vBulletin is here to stay and is accessible to user’s world wide.

Comments, Additions, Counter arguments, and all other thoughts are encouraged.

Mike aka Chex

2

I very much like the idea, and I will do whatever I can to help further this movement of organization, and removal of unnessescary posts. I personally would like to see the forums broken up more like this:

Muni/Trials
Street(maybe its own category)
Freestyle/Skills
Distance/Big Wheel
Upcoming Events/Upcoming Products
Product reviews
Questions thread
Misc. Stuff(doesnt fit anywhere stuff)
JC

Then all the tech threads.
Mine isn’t really refined either but I feel that the more categories the better. Also to alieve the problem of “Which does this go in?” make a misc group so that cross categorized things and odd/ irrelevant stuff can chill without being slaughtered by flamers…

Good Idea Chex,
Eric P. for a Better Newsgroup…

3

I agree with Mike totally. If you miss a day, you’re way out of the loop, and you have to sift through so much stuff to find relevant postings. I think pinkbike is an awesome site and we should definitely look into Mike’s suggestions. Please:)

-Dylan Wallbanga

4

Might as well label one somewhere in the range of ‘n00bs-r-us’ in an attempt to contain some of the repetative clutter.

5

Like make a newb thread that is for stuff like “Ask questions on what unicycle to buy, how to ride, and introduce yourself…” etc??

6

a couple more catagorys i think would be ok, but what we really need is a moderator who has more time to “moderate” or isnt afraid to let others help.

Gilby seems to be hit or miss with moderating. whats wrong one day goes without discipline for the next 3 weeks? i was banned for a short time last year for rapid fire posting in a spam thread. BANNED? that happens all the time now…and also in the good threads without action from anyone except the posters themselves coming out to say knock it off.

we also need a limit on the attached picture size limit. im so tired of loading a page with multiple huge images because the post was to lazy to resize them.

getting everyone to move from here to another site doesnt seem very likly but i wish it could happen. this place is just to neglected for everyday readers.

i think the phrase “out grown” is spot on.

7

I think having a crew of moderators are key, people that use the forum often and contribute meaningful posts. All mods dont need complete control just the ability to sort stuff and limit users who have blatent disregard for civil discussion.

Having mods in specific forums for Muni, Freestyle, exe to help cut down on how much each mod is responceble for. We shouldnt make mods read every new post in each section of the site to check and make sure there arnt problems.
[B]

Agreed. Also pix in siglines need to be checked, 56k users should not be forced out because they have to wait for pix to load all the time.
[B]

That is why I suggest that we revamp Unicyclist.com and do what is needed to spruce up the place ourself to make the Unicyclist.com forums easier and more efficent for all.

8

I like all these ideas.

I do think we need more mods too just so that the junk that shows up gets taken care of quickly.

9

Maybe if we had 10 mods. 3 with super athority(ultimate). 2 with semi-athority(referalls and threadlocking), and 5 with selective athority(Spam removal and threadlocking of only their subject(s)).

I think Gilby deserves to appoint these mods, alone. No matter what choice he makes, I would stand by him in the decision. Bull on the election process. Gilby should appoint whoever he feels responsible.
But basically(as far as the complete rennovation goes) we should create and revise a group of ideas, that we can all suggest/compile on and deliver them to Gilby. He can make his own final revisons, and I am sure he will choose things that will better the newsgroup.

Sounds like a plan???

But first we have to come up with a cool name, like

Operation: Anti-Clutter, or U.B.N.T.
Unicyclists for the Betterment of the Newsgroups of Tomorrow.

But if nobody likes my idea :(… I guess we can come up with something different…:stuck_out_tongue:

10

So far nobody’s said anything I disagree with.

From the point of view of a poster, I think the forums would benefit from being split up into several seperate boards. All the hot topics I was looking at at 5.00 last night have disappeared into the void by now.

From the point of view of a mod(i’m a mod on a different forum-see sig) I agree that we need more mods, and more boards, If your average poster can’t read all the posts then your average mod isn’t likely to be able to either.

We’re about to try the mod-spreading idea on Random Forums, although I don’t think we’re big enough to need it yet, and I don’t think it will really work because 2 of our mods havent been n for weeks and havent done anything useful for months.
Anyway, what we’re gonna do is give all mods power over the two main boards (kinda like RSU and JC) and then split up all the smaller boards between the mods. The admin still has control over the whole lot, and maybe on Unicyclist.com another mod should as well, seeing as it’s got so big.

That way a mod doesn’t feel they have to read every post on the site, they’ll only have one board which they have to read all the time.

If more mods are going to be appointed, they should be as wide a cross-section of the unicycling community as possible, and if they are spread out across boards, it’s a good idea to give each person a board they’re interested in to look after… There’s nearly 9,000 users on here, admittedly a lot of them don’t post, but there must be 10 or so people who are suitable as mods.

I don’t know how all this would affect newsgroup readers, but somebody must know how to sort that out.

and, finally, who’s to say that Gilby wants to restructure all by himself, or at all? There must be some of you who have the skills to help with this if needed. Well, get volunteering!

11

Personally, I hate the idea of splitting up into multiple categories.

I’ve used two bike sites, singletrack and bikemagic, one is split into categories, the other is just everything in one and I find the all in one view is much better.

Categories are okay for people who are only interested in one type of riding, but if you do multiple types, you spend all your time checking multiple categories.

Joe

12

I can agree with you on that, but it’s impossible to read everything that gets posted, now that unicyclist.com has grown so much

13

If it has multiple categories then it’ll need a ‘view new posts’ button. Most multi thread fora have these. Just press it and the forum will look exactly like the current one.

14

Re: Attn: Re structure of R.S.U.

i prefer the suggestion u made on a simmilar thread not so long ago

that strikes me as a kewl idea as it won’t mess with the basic newsgroup gateway (ref john foss’s post on this thread) but will add the categorised searchabillity that should see off the problem of threads dissapearing too soon
pete’s suggestions also seemed quite workable
this discussion’s popped up a couple of time in the recent past
i just can’t for the life of me remember what killed the idea before
anyone?

15

Can we have an “Old Farts on One Wheel” category??? :smiley:

16

Only if we can subdivide it to include “Increasingly Fat Old Farts on One Wheel Sidelined Temporarily by Knee Problems.”

That is only partly a joke.

Raphael Lasar
Matawan, NJ

17

Re: Re: Attn: Re structure of R.S.U.

Usually it’s been the resistance to change, people wanting to see it all and the possible loss of contributers that may only be active in one topic… the loss of unity in the forums.

In any case, the number of posts has been getting more overwhelming and it’ll have to be broken down here.

Keep the ideas coming.

18

I believe that creating additional topical forums is an exercise in futility. I speak, again ad nauseum, as an information professional (librarian, content manager, knowledge management expert, a**hole, you pick the label). In the absence of paid staff to manage the content of this site or deeply committed volunteers (and even often with such staff) only a few people will pay attention to where they post. And even then posts will go way off topic.

That said, one step that can be taken is an interim preview page forced on anyone creating a new thread that has the following elements:

a) The statement of the intent of the forum in which the post is being created
b) A direct instruction/request to evaluate whether the new thread fits that intent
c) Links to the other forums, ideally, which when clicked on shift the entire new message to a similar preview page for the forum so that the message need not be retyped. (Otherwise, of course, this mechanism will be largely ignored).

This, at least, forces those creating new threads to consider what they’re doing.

Raphael Lasar
Matawan, NJ

19

my only reservations are where there are cross-over topics - where should I look for offroad Cokering being a good example. I guess it would be down to the thread starter’s viewpoint.

Also some poor soul should perhaps go back through all 19434 (as of a few moments ago) and move them into the new categories. So many times have I wanted to start threads asking questions or giving ideas, only to find them comprehensively covered before.

These excellent resources do not want to be placed in some hidden/forgotten archive. Although leaving this forum as is & starting afresh would be alot easier administratively!

20

I agree that we should only have these in sub-catagorys. If we had totally new catagorys a lot of posts would be missed by people who either don’t know where to go (which catagory to pick) or by people that decide to stick with just one catagory.

I only kinda agree with the Noobs-R-us catagory. Its not a bad idea, but a possible problem is that I think most non-noobs/experts/good-uniists would not go to this seperate catagory. Meaning that we would get a lot less unicyclers coming to this new sport because they either gave up trying (without your guys support, look at the unifarmer threads you guys were a great support to him, telling him not to quit) or because they did not know what uni to get and got a total crap one that they can’t learn on.

And also, with different catagorys, I wonder if we would get problems with misplaced posts from people who really don’t know whats what (like me and other noobs) and where the limit to these subjects are.

Juggling_Arcs

ps: If unifarmer has learned to ride I would like to congratulate him and also thank him for posting the quistion about the gravity unicycle which helped me to decide what uni to get.