[All] [Generic] ***Dividing "Mechanical" Into subsections???***

[vodkaprince]

Morning all... Mechanical is HUGE there is a vast and helpfull bank of information here and its in-valuable to us all...

What do you all think to the idea of arranging/introducing sub categories such as:

Chassis
Suspension
Brakes
Tubo
Engine
Cooling
General
Etc

I missed a few but you ge the idea..

[Driftlimits Performance]

Don't think so.

Make too many sections and people aren't gonna view as many posts IMO.

[vodkaprince]

I was thinking more for answered/old posts to try and colate teh information in a more usefull and well organised format.

[C50]

That'll be too much. I suppose you could just split into another two categories-

Engine & transmission covering gearbox, turbo, cooling, breathing, etc..

Chassis covering the suspension, brakes, steering, wheels..

There's already General and Electrical categories.


Like luke said, if too many categories people aren't gonna view as much threads but.. mechanical section is quite big though!

I think maybe depends on how many sub-categories.. i like this site as it's not cluttered with many sub-categories and is quicker to navigate compared to mr2oc.

[SwissHeavy]

The fact u didn't post this in the suggestions section shows that subdividing makes things too complicated!

Though I think they may have amalgamated suggestions with announcements now.

[Ian Geary]

The mechanical section is pretty big - but how much of that is repetition?

It's a guaranteed fact that every other week will be a post asking what engine oil is best for a rev "x" turbo.

Or people asking what is making their suspension clonk. Or what's the best way to take an engine out.

Why is this so?


The search function isn't particularly usable - it's a crude tool that I find hard to refine and produces either nothing or 6 pages of posts.

And I guess a lot of people either don't search, or do a cursory quick search, come up with the above and just decide a new thread is in order.


So, I think there is a need to capture some generic information about the post topic, so that searching for information later on can be more targeted.

A bit like the "Mk1/2/3", or "turbo/na/generic" drop downs.

So something like engine, suspension, interior, turbo, bodywork etc.

Care would have to be taken to make them relevant (e.g. modification forum would want things like inter/charge cooling, EBC/MBC, bodykits, wheels and so on)

In fact I recall another mr2 board does this - mr2dc perhaps?

The alternative would be some sort of knowledge base, but made up of relevant discussion threads rather than specific articles.

This in my mind would resemble existing stickies, but would need to be gathered out of the way somewhere rather than at the top of mechanical. Such threads would need moderator input to determine if they are a genuine source of info, or are just ramblings of various people (like this one).


These are my ideas - I've no idea how workable they are in IT terms.

I can happily live with the existing system of course, I just don't think it realises it's full potential in terms of being able to extract the knowledge quickly and easily.

hth

Ian

[RyanRs]

amalgamated

WOWWW what does that huge word mean?!

[iblis]

I spend some time on here just looking to see if I can help people with anything (I get quite bored in work at the mo lol). I generally will check for new posts in Mech, Elec and General (occasional security) 10-15 times per day. If it gets split up and I have to check another 6 forums I won't be so pushed

[SwissHeavy]

Just in case you don't know as sarcasm translates badly over the net...

amalgamate
verb
to join or unite to form a larger organization or group, or to make separate organizations do this:
The electricians' union is planning to amalgamate with the technicians' union.
The different offices will be amalgamated as/into employment advice centres.

[LimeyMk1]

We have enough trouble getting people to post in the right forum as it is!

Seriously tho I've seen it on other forums and it does work, but with all the posts we have already in the Mech section having to move them all into the appropriate forum is not a task I'd like to take on.

Some sources of standard info/often occuring problems on our cars would, I agree, be useful. Any volunteers want to write something?

The search function isn't too bad if you use the Boolean search system.

Moving to suggestions/site announcements

[monkeymax]

Some sources of standard info/often occuring problems on our cars would, I agree, be useful. Any volunteers want to write something?

Yup - that's the thing. A lot of information could be gathered from posts and put into the Knowledge base for the common questions - such as which oil is best, etc, etc... However, it requires someone to volunteer to do these. It's not particularly difficult, just time consuming... I'm currently half-way through a couple of these for the Mk1 but have too much else on at the moment for it to be high priority...

However, There's still plenty of topics that come up commonly but have different answers each time they come up for one reason or another...
Anyway, I am possibly digressing from the original point a bit...

Unfortunately there is no way to bulk move posts and so moving 181 pages worth of posts into new sections would take the mods a heck of a loooooong time...! So while a nice idea, definitely not the easiest to put into practice.

[Speedy]

Yup - that's the thing. A lot of information could be gathered from posts and put into the Knowledge base for the common questions - such as which oil is best, etc, etc... However, it requires someone to volunteer to do these. It's not particularly difficult, just time consuming... I'm currently half-way through a couple of these for the Mk1 but have too much else on at the moment for it to be high priority...

The KB is the answer to the problems. If you find something which is particularly useful, flag it up to a moderator, and we might include it as a KB article.

[vodkaprince]

KB would be a good way round it.

All I was thinking was that moving older posts with very usefull information into more logically ordered easy to find locations. I have tried using the search functions many times and more often than not cant find anything, so end up trawling 30 or 40 pages back to see what I can find.

[RyanRs]

dammit! totally forgot about the KB.. i have just over 1000 pics of my engine removal and strip down and progress, but nothing that would be of any use to making a KB How To.. if only i had remembered, i could have made some! Darn!

[BenF]

Just on the KB - anyone can submit an article, you just need to PM one of the Committee to get it approved and so 'visible' to everyone else once sorted.