Jason,
Can I assume you are the owner of this site, this is your baby? I gladly contribute to me the small amount of funding to this great site and appreciate all that I have learned and what has been shared here. I can completely understand Neil's frustration with where to place some of the threads that are ending up in multi-way speakers. I started a new thread on unification of the electronics and active loudspeakers and was afraid if not enough people reacted to it immediately it would soon be lost in the fast paced category of multi-way. So far it is attracting enough attention that I hope it becomes a major thread. One thing I find hard is just the thread titles which so poorly describe what they are about. Perhaps some should just have the thread title renamed after the subject becomes clear and enough people are following along so it is easily found by a member or a casual visitor looking for a specific subject?
Steven
Can I assume you are the owner of this site, this is your baby? I gladly contribute to me the small amount of funding to this great site and appreciate all that I have learned and what has been shared here. I can completely understand Neil's frustration with where to place some of the threads that are ending up in multi-way speakers. I started a new thread on unification of the electronics and active loudspeakers and was afraid if not enough people reacted to it immediately it would soon be lost in the fast paced category of multi-way. So far it is attracting enough attention that I hope it becomes a major thread. One thing I find hard is just the thread titles which so poorly describe what they are about. Perhaps some should just have the thread title renamed after the subject becomes clear and enough people are following along so it is easily found by a member or a casual visitor looking for a specific subject?
Steven
Hi Steven,
Yep, I'm the site Administrator - but tend to stay quiet and out of discussions so I can focus on other things. The Mods do a great job so I'm not really needed much "up front" these days, I mainly spend time keeping the engines running and planning for upgrades. I'm sure everyone here is well aware of how easy it is to spend all day responding to discussions so currently I try to keep out of them as much as I can, so I can focus on the biggest issues, but I'm very happy to comment when things are brought to my attention. There's going to be some great updates to the site this year so you'll be hearing a lot more from me as time goes on.
I hear you about having high quality threads lost in the noise. Having promoted content (like editor's picks) is perhaps one way to help that, and something the next generation of community software will support.
I also agree about the thread titles - they are often pretty lazy and deserve to be made more useful. I'm actually not sure what the Moderation policy is on that, but it's something I definitely agree with you on and I'd personally like to see threads retitled a bit more aggressively when it's appropriate.
We used to have a feature request section back in the old days, maybe I can start a sub-forum in the "Site" for suggestions and can feed on that during the implementation of the new platform.
Thanks for your contributions Steven 🙂
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Rapidly evolving technology...
Hi Jason,
I agree with Neil and share his frustration at not being able to effectively "network" emerging technology and new concepts via the existing listings and headings.
There is a vast reserve of knowledge locked up in the forums servers.
As owners & administrators, your ongoing challenge is to curate the database and make it as efficient and accurate as possible for members to search, post and network in order to advance their knowledge and enjoy their hobby / increase sales.
I also understand that the DIY forum is a business with a business model and structure in order to maintain revenue, so changes must be made carefully.
I have just donated £ as a supporter of this forum and I have plans to greatly expand my activity and sponsorship to further support this site, so I too have a vested interest in seeing increased traffic and happy members....!
But the bottom line is that over the last few years there has been a raft of cutting edge disruptive technology made available to DIY loudspeaker and electronics community and any forum lives or dies by its ability to inform / educate / and entertain its members with the best solutions and latest technology.
Currently this forum is not able to showcase the new disruptive DSP technology which can be combined in a myriad of new and exciting ways to advance the art of DIY audio systems.
Please note the word "systems"....
Its no good posting in the digital source / class D / active crossover or PC forums where DAC's / USB / streamers / blu tooth and motherboards abound...The proliferation of "usual suspects" threads ensures that anything new that is not instantly recognised drops of the radar and gets buried fast!
Its no good posting in any of the the loudspeaker forums where a host of conventional / ancient tech is endlessly debated and the inevitable conclusion that there is "no best way" is simply repeated endlessly....
This new tech is all about a "system solution" which crosses many traditional borders and removes long standing barriers to entry for the audio sector.
From a forum business model stand point:
For every one of the old die hard members living in the world of 120 year old "ported wooden box with 8 inch bass mid / passive crossover and dome tweeter" there are 1,000 hungry new music and movie fans who would love to be able to DIY a cool Sonus & B&W busting system if there was a forum which showed them how....
With all due respect to the traditionalists, more "Ikea meets Ice Power" and less " Garden shed meets Blue Peter"!😀
Hope this helps and is taken in the right spirit: The better the forum content and search / networking service, the better for us all....Just look at LinkedIn for a great example of a vast knowledge base with superb search / network / sales forum services.....
Cheers
Derek.
Hi Jason,
I agree with Neil and share his frustration at not being able to effectively "network" emerging technology and new concepts via the existing listings and headings.
There is a vast reserve of knowledge locked up in the forums servers.
As owners & administrators, your ongoing challenge is to curate the database and make it as efficient and accurate as possible for members to search, post and network in order to advance their knowledge and enjoy their hobby / increase sales.
I also understand that the DIY forum is a business with a business model and structure in order to maintain revenue, so changes must be made carefully.
I have just donated £ as a supporter of this forum and I have plans to greatly expand my activity and sponsorship to further support this site, so I too have a vested interest in seeing increased traffic and happy members....!
But the bottom line is that over the last few years there has been a raft of cutting edge disruptive technology made available to DIY loudspeaker and electronics community and any forum lives or dies by its ability to inform / educate / and entertain its members with the best solutions and latest technology.
Currently this forum is not able to showcase the new disruptive DSP technology which can be combined in a myriad of new and exciting ways to advance the art of DIY audio systems.
Please note the word "systems"....
Its no good posting in the digital source / class D / active crossover or PC forums where DAC's / USB / streamers / blu tooth and motherboards abound...The proliferation of "usual suspects" threads ensures that anything new that is not instantly recognised drops of the radar and gets buried fast!
Its no good posting in any of the the loudspeaker forums where a host of conventional / ancient tech is endlessly debated and the inevitable conclusion that there is "no best way" is simply repeated endlessly....
This new tech is all about a "system solution" which crosses many traditional borders and removes long standing barriers to entry for the audio sector.
From a forum business model stand point:
For every one of the old die hard members living in the world of 120 year old "ported wooden box with 8 inch bass mid / passive crossover and dome tweeter" there are 1,000 hungry new music and movie fans who would love to be able to DIY a cool Sonus & B&W busting system if there was a forum which showed them how....
With all due respect to the traditionalists, more "Ikea meets Ice Power" and less " Garden shed meets Blue Peter"!😀
Hope this helps and is taken in the right spirit: The better the forum content and search / networking service, the better for us all....Just look at LinkedIn for a great example of a vast knowledge base with superb search / network / sales forum services.....
Cheers
Derek.
A good example. But remember, they didn't get there overnight. There was a lot of struggle to get it working right. (I had some insider knowledge).
One of the things a lot of people LIKE about this forum is its stability and simplicity of form. I'm not against progress, just want to see it go in the right direction. 🙂
Why don't we have one forum, i.e., no subforums? That would certainly increase traffic, right?
It seems that the logic you provided excludes all other considerations, some of which were commented on above, but no comment on those were given, other than "no other considerations will be made...".
Do you really think that by adding a high efficiency forum that the traffic to multiway would decrease, or that traffic to the new forum would be insignificant, pulling in few new contributors?
I don't...rather just the opposite in this particular case.
If the measure of merit is postings per unit of time only, then thrashing is good.
If your measure of merit, however, involves something like "quality or usefulness of postings for DIYers" then I believe there are other considerations.
Chris
It seems that the logic you provided excludes all other considerations, some of which were commented on above, but no comment on those were given, other than "no other considerations will be made...".
Do you really think that by adding a high efficiency forum that the traffic to multiway would decrease, or that traffic to the new forum would be insignificant, pulling in few new contributors?
I don't...rather just the opposite in this particular case.
If the measure of merit is postings per unit of time only, then thrashing is good.
If your measure of merit, however, involves something like "quality or usefulness of postings for DIYers" then I believe there are other considerations.
Chris
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Overkill you may be right in dispatching a lot of us over to AK. Or you may need to create your own narrowly focused forum. It's the Big Tent that keeps a lot of us here though.
I'm voting for a HE sub forum just because the discussion jumps back and forth between multi-way and full range, with pro sound lurking as well.
I'm voting for a HE sub forum just because the discussion jumps back and forth between multi-way and full range, with pro sound lurking as well.
Definitely taken with the right spirit! I'm a technology geek who happens to also be an audiophile. I've grown up with the web and am used to rapid change, but have purposely left the brakes on for diyAudio to date as there is a lot of merit in not messing with something that is already working - if it aint broke don't fix it.
That said, sometimes you have to grow up. I would personally love to see more "disruptive" technologies have their rightful space on diyAudio. I can't wait until I have the time to have fun figuring out how to squeeze a raspberry pi into my next case. I certainly would love to learn more about how new technology can be a part of getting as you say a "high end killing system" using modern technology that represents real value for money. I agree there are lots of people looking out for just that, and they are the future.
At the moment the platform the forum is running on is an old and creaking mess (that still works!), and will soon be renovated and have much love poured into it. I hope the result is that it will allow new technologies to really flourish on here, and especially make navigation and searching and collaboration MUCH simpler and more effective.
The next month or two I'm going to be focused on the diyAudio store and splitting it off from the forum which is something that just needs to be done for various reasons, and then I'll be focusing on the community platform itself. I'm totally open to any and all ideas, though as Pano said "The simplicity and stability is important and we all want to see it go in the right direction". I'll create a space and encourage discussion as part of that process.
If there is one "model" of a large and complex forum that works well IMHO it is this:
All Sites - Stack Exchange
There are many interwoven topics that can be labeled with tags (I think someone mentioned this earlier in the thread) and I believe that new tags can be created by users if existing ones are not sufficient.
In that way the topic thread can easily fit into several existing categories that are currently falling into multiple categories in the current forum here. A theoretical example in DIY AUDIO: a multiway, active, satellite-plus-multiple-subwoofer loudspeaker system using DSP crossover and streamed audio (wireless) setup. That really could go in any one of: digital line level, pc based, multiway, and subwoofer forums but could go in all of them just as well.
Charlie,
Come on over and join the thread. It is under multi-way, nowhere to really place it but it is going to be directed at what you are talking about.
An Active loudspeaker UNIFICATION thread
Come on over and join the thread. It is under multi-way, nowhere to really place it but it is going to be directed at what you are talking about.
An Active loudspeaker UNIFICATION thread
Yes, that kind of tagging and searching for threads is what we'll be getting and I think it will work really well.
As a separate item and definitely not wanting to get into discussing specific platform technology in this thread, I've wanted to do a stack exchange style section on the forum for years. There is a decent open source solution that will be a bit of effort to integrate, and IPB v4 now supports this kind of discussion natively but doesn't support "comments on comments" which renders it pretty flawed IMO.
If the tagging works out, that could be the cat's meow. I can take a bit of getting used to - I had an email client like that and hated it at first.
But tags do allow a thread (or even post) to show up in several categories, which is very nice.
But tags do allow a thread (or even post) to show up in several categories, which is very nice.
Ah, the opportunity for a whinge. Actually search isn't too bad except for a few things.
1. A search on a forum like this may need the small words or the simple words that search removes.
2. The default of search posts, show threads seems aimed at volume of results. I only use search posts, show posts.. or search titles, show threads.
3. Explicit boolean operators (if they are working, can someone please show me the syntax).
P.S. I'm not sure if tags would help or complicate things. I like a good simple search and nothing that tries to think for me.
Thats good enough for me Jason!
You have done a great job so far with this forum and I have full confidence that now you are looking into the issues raised and you will find the solutions.
Opening up a thread to allow everyone to throw in their 10 cents worth is a great start....Long live democracy!
All the best
Derek.
I think it's much easier to just use google to search this forum, for now. Just put in site:diyaudio.com thesearchterm. No more boolean on google, but for trickier things turning on the "verbatim" option at the top of the results, using the "-" for NOT, quotes for multi-word terms, and the time/date options are all the tools you need.
I'd be into tags.
I just want to mention how much I love this DIYAudio site. Kudos to Jason and the Mod team for making it what it is. I haven't contributed much recently however I hope that will change soon with summer and economics 😀
As for threads, well there are dead threads and threads which live forever. It simply reflects the interest of the community at the given time. Happens all the time. Remember "Beyond the Ariel"? Loved it although I could not contribute.
My 2c worth if you want a long-living threads is this... put pictures. Nice pictures as visual cues makes the discussion interesting 🙂. These are not our day job and long theory/rambling really does not help.
As for threads, well there are dead threads and threads which live forever. It simply reflects the interest of the community at the given time. Happens all the time. Remember "Beyond the Ariel"? Loved it although I could not contribute.
My 2c worth if you want a long-living threads is this... put pictures. Nice pictures as visual cues makes the discussion interesting 🙂. These are not our day job and long theory/rambling really does not help.
Member
Joined 2003
Last time sub-forums were added I simply ignored them...and no doubt missed some interesting threads. I cruise through Multi-Way once a day and it is neither difficult to find something interesting, nor does it take too long.
My vote is no split. (More descriptive thread titles would save a lot of time.)
My vote is no split. (More descriptive thread titles would save a lot of time.)
The Multiway forum is too congested with users. It's like any other limited supply resource like open lanes of traffic on a freeway, or rooms in a hotel. There is an optimal number of users in any forum at a given time. Too little and the hotel is dead and goes out of business. To many and people who need a place to sleep have to go to another hotel or wait trying to get a room. The Full Range forum has about the optimal amount of users at present. That way, new threads get sufficient air time on the first page to appear to readers so they can check it out. As a result, ideas get feedback, feedback builds interest, and interest breeds more interest and you have a good chance of kicking off a lively thread. On an oversubscribed forum like Multiways, a new thread lasts maybe 7hrs before its pushed into obscurity by other new threads or old threads getting bumped or interest. The number of users is too high for the available "top shelf space" to use a retail analogy. Just look at the stats of how many are currently viewing the forum. If the ratio of viewers to shelf space (about 10 threads per page) is much greater than 5, you have a problem. So this would say that adding enough sub forums to divide the current user base to keep below the magic ratio (whatever that may be) but make sure the new sub forum encompasses a broad enough topic already of interest - then I think you are in to something.
I think some good choices have been mentioned: arrays of any kind, horns and high efficiency systems, active DSP systems including DRC, I think 3d printed speakers will be the next rage in DIY audio.
Hope that helps. My experience with having long surviving active threads in full range vs having little known threads in multi way is my experience.
I think some good choices have been mentioned: arrays of any kind, horns and high efficiency systems, active DSP systems including DRC, I think 3d printed speakers will be the next rage in DIY audio.
Hope that helps. My experience with having long surviving active threads in full range vs having little known threads in multi way is my experience.
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