Splitting forums?

[VHOJT 177]

Personally I think the split/tiered forums make it more more difficult/effort to find out information. The thing I like about the PMDG forum is that all the users come together in the one place, and you can "happen" along interesting topics that you may not otherwise come across. One would probably notice that a lot of topics end up with a quite a bit of related/unrelated, but interesting, information in them. Tiered forums would make it more difficult/time consuming to read the latest postings. + the forum isn't the world's most busy either.Just putting it out there. Cheers from a wet and windy Australia (well my part if it anyway)Rudy

[Chaos81 110]

>Personally I think the split/tiered forums make it more more>difficult/effort to find out information. The thing I like>about the PMDG forum is that all the users come together in>the one place, and you can "happen" along interesting topics>that you may not otherwise come across. One would probably>notice that a lot of topics end up with a quite a bit of>related/unrelated, but interesting, information in them. >Tiered forums would make it more difficult/time consuming to>read the latest postings. + the forum isn't the world's most>busy either.My thoughts as well Rudy. :)

[mcbellette 145]

I have to disagree with this. Look at this scenario...You have a problem with your PMDG 747-400 (FS9) and come onto the AVSIM PMDG forum as it exists today. You've seen that someone has posted a fix to this ages ago but as other posts have been made since then, it's been pushed down the list and back 5, 6, 8 or more pages. You now have to use the search engine to find it and it spits out any match with the string of words you used.Instead of the above, you open the tiered forum and go straight to the "PMDG 747-400 (FS9)" thread and look in the "Support" section of that thread. There's the sticky put there by the forum moderators right at the top. No confusion either over whether it's the FS9 or FSX version. Ahhh, wasn't that easy!

[Banks 0]

>I have to disagree with this. Look at this scenario...>>You have a problem with your PMDG 747-400 (FS9) and come onto>the AVSIM PMDG forum as it exists today. You've seen that>someone has posted a fix to this ages ago but as other posts>have been made since then, it's been pushed down the list and>back 5, 6, 8 or more pages. You now have to use the search>engine to find it and it spits out any match with the string>of words you used.>>Instead of the above, you open the tiered forum and go>straight to the "PMDG 747-400 (FS9)" thread and look in the>"Support" section of that thread. There's the sticky put there>by the forum moderators right at the top. No confusion either>over whether it's the FS9 or FSX version. Ahhh, wasn't that>easy!I agree.

[Check_Airman 3]

I'm also in support of split forums.It's WAY too hard to quickly find relevant information. How many times have you seen the post "My AP will not follow the FMS plan after I takeoff. What am I doing wrong?" you then have to go through the whole "what plane are you flying?" deal. That wastes time.I only fly the 747, and it's really annoying to come here and have to wade through several discussions about other planes before I find 747 information.On the topic of moderation, I don't think it would be that difficult at all. Other FS forums rarely require moderation for inappropriate material, and from what I've seen, moderators rarely have to move posts. In any event, moderation would be easy if there were 1 or 2 people per aircraft type."I don't really need support for the 747-400, I very family with its systems, procedures, etc. this would mean I and other experienced 744 flyers would not visit the 747 section of the forum often at all, and that would be undesirable. Myself and others such as Carl (lasnubes, I'm sure he won't mind me mentioning him) who I know is also an avid 744 flyer for example would miss posted questions and queries that we could answer easily.. such as FMC programming, SOPs, and other issues.. This puts those new sim pilots at a disadvantage."I disagree. I spend time on other FS forums where I'm fairly comfortable with the plane, and I visit them ALL the time. I go there to learn from other users, and to help out the newer users. Many others do that too. That way, we're always sharing information. I see where you're coming from, but I think you'll find that you don't have to worry about that.I completely understand that PMDG balks at the idea of having to sort through all those posts and categorize them- a valid concern. However, as PMDG adds new planes, it will become increasingly difficult to find information, and we WILL need to change forums. I say put in the effort now and get it out of the way, because it will only be harder in the future. It needn't be hard though. If we had a team of people working on it, I'm sure the project would be done in a few months. I'd certainly volunteer to help.How about this format:PMDG General-News and announcements-General discussion744-General discussion-Procedures and techniques-FS9 Support-FSX Support-FAQ & Updates-ScreenshotsMD11-General discussion-Procedures and techniques-FS9 Support-FSX Support-FAQ & Updates-ScreenshotsEach sub-forum can have sticky posts with the most important information.In addition to all that, I'm not a terribly big fan of AVSIM's forum software. It's ok, but there's much better out there in terms of formatting, active topics, new posts etc.