Amy, how hard would it be to break up the General Knitting into a couple of different forums?
I’m thinking of ‘pattern help,’ ‘needles & notions,’ ‘organinzing it all,’ etc.
It might make it easier to find threads. But, then, I’m an organization fanatic (not that you’d notice at home right now!)
I like that idea! All of a sudden the site is booming! Great, but it makes it hard to sift through all the posts.
It might be more organized, but I wonder how much time it would save the folks who like to read the whole forum every day? That’s a lot of clicking back and forth to get to several different categories.
I’d also wonder if there’s enough traffic on this forum day to day yet for that to be feasible… once the categories are made, then someone would most likely have to sort through each thread and decide which cateogory to put it and and then move all of the threads. And then we’d have to find them all.
I personally have some threads bookmarked, so I’d also have to to rebookmark too.
Well, it WOULD be a lot of work. I’d be willing to help with that, though, if Amy is interested.
I already find it difficult to find things. If I could keep up with it every day it might not be so difficult, but I only get to check it every couple of days and topics go by fast!
It does go by fast, because it’s such a great forum to visit!
It’s an important issue you’ve brought up Kathy!
Now that the forum is getting hopping, it makes more sense to consider other forum categories that previously felt unecessary. I won’t move existing threads, but I think you’re right that it’s time to consider more categories.
It’s a tough call, because too many categories will feel like we’re scattered and divided up. And it makes for more work to go through the posts, as Foldedbird said. But I think you’re right, Nuno, in that it’s starting to get difficult to keep track of all the posts!
I think I will introduce just a couple of new categories for now. The ones I’m leaning towards are:
–Knitting Questions (help with patterns, etc.)
–Knit-alongs (to provide a special home for future knit-alongs!)
Sorting out the “Knitting Questions” into their own forum will definitely reduce the bulk of posts in the main knitting category. If it gets overwhelming again in that category, I’ll consider adding more categories then.
How does that sound? I appreciate everyone’s input on this!..
Amy
Sorting out the “Knitting Questions” into their own forum will definitely reduce the bulk of posts in the main knitting category. If it gets overwhelming again in that category, I’ll consider adding more categories then.
I think that would be awesome! Sorting out the “need help” posts from the general knitting would help a TON! I love the knit-a-long idea. Maybe if you are feeling froggy… a “completed” section that we can just ooo and ahhh over projects 
Aren’t most of the posts here knitting questions anyway? I don’t know that it would divide the posts that much. Just my 2 cents.
adding my 2 cents here. What attracted me most to this forum was it’s simplicity. I think the first forum I found was the Knitter’s Review. While it is a very good forum I find it so broken down into categories that it’s a pain to go through…then I have to try and remember in which board a particular thread is if I want to keep up with additional posts.
I can understand the need for a few more boards, but my preference would be to keep them to a minimum.
Happy Knitting! 
Amy, my vote is add a knit a long.
People can use the search button. I keep reading questions for help and remembering that I just saw the answer in a previous post recently. And I don’t know that there is a real cure for that.
One day I thought I saw a button that said “read all new messages since last visit” - which I thought was great. But I can’t seem to find it anymore. Probably operator error!
Whatever you do, Amy, is really fine. You have the best site and should be really proud of yourself.
Jouf
I think a “knitting questions” and a “general knitting/knit-a-long/knitting chatter” would be wonderful.
I agree that too many forums would get tiring, and I think having one place special for questions/help and one place for all the rest of the news, updates, stories, project pictures, rants, and successes would be nice. The knit a long idea I think would well fit under a more general forum heading for stories and pictures, and all those things I already listed off.
Whatever you do will of course be fine; it’s the people, not the forum form, that makes this worth reading.
I agree. Too many forums would be a pain. I like the minimilist idea of just adding a couple more.
One thing that I like about this site is that it has fewer forums than some other sites. Sometimes I’m looking for something, and who knows what forum it’s in. People are not always consistent about where they put topics, and IMHO we should leave this to just a few topics.
Carie
Amy, I thought you said this in another post, but maybe I read it somewhere else. Anyway, the idea was to NOT have forums that were divided up too much, especially a forum asking for help. The logic behind the idea was that the “pros” didn’t go to those forums as much as others.
Now here is a unique idea for a new forum that I think would be really cool. Make a forum where people with a certain number of posts can post. For example, if you make a forum for people with a hundred posts or more, then I get a forum with just the two of us in it :lol: Just kidding! I like to chat to anyone who will talk to me.
Jouf~
There is something to mark new posts read. The icon changes colour after you’ve read it. Definitely worthwhile finding if it’s not automatic.
Oh, btw, Amy, if you ever decide to change the titles for the number of posts we have, can I have a special title called, “The Knitters’ Cheerleader”? 8)
Hmm, good idea… I wouldn’t have thought of the “pros” avoiding a forum asking for help… too many nice people here, but I guess I can see that happening. Nah, I like the K.I.S.S. method… less is more and all that.
i really like your idea, amy, of having knitting questions and knit-a-longs separate from general knitting. if people aren’t getting their questions answered in a separate forum then you could ask a couple of the regular experienced knitters to help mod for you… but that would probably be down the road. i do want to say about this site, that i love the fact that you can have some trouble with a pattern and someone will pipe up to help out pretty fast.
i think your intuition is right on amy. that’s my .02