Idea about the forums.

[Feech]

Just a thought but I'm wondering if it might be beneficial to the site to start breaking down the Network Forums into the Sprint Markets. I can only speak for myself of course but it gets confusing trying to sort thru everyones questions about "When is city X getting LTE?" when the rollout schedule is clearly listed on the site.

[4GHoward]

That may be a good idea. I am seeing a lot of new topics that talks about the same city from another topic that has been started already. It kind of does get confusing once in a while.

[S4GRU]

I would like to hear a lot of feedback from members about this. I used to have a lot more subforums in the past and had a lot of member complaints. So I rolled them up into the current hierarchy.

 

Robert

[boomerbubba]

I like things the way they are.

 

Sponsors do have one dedicated thread per market in the Interactive S4GRU Maps Forum, and Premier Sponsors have dedicated market threads in their forum. Each forum has convenient meta threads indexed with links to those geography-specific threads. In fact, I think sponsors should be using these threads more because they sometimes post privileged details from Sponsor maps in the other general forums.

 

In the general Network forum, there are ad hoc threads about specific areas created by members themselves on demand. I would not like to see them fragmented further. It would make it even more difficult to use apps such as Forum Runner to keep up.

 

In practice, I like reading the threads that don't even pertain to my own parochial geographic area, because there often is rich detail in comments, especially by core members, that is educational and generally applicable.

[Feech]

This is my opinion only obviously, but what I think will happen is as the LTE markets start to roll out and people's LTE icons come on, those same people will come back to the forum and start with a topic name of LTE in Tupelo, MS or some other obscure place. Honestly, I read a lot from other cities and enjoy it but can you imagine a forum where you will have 100 topics over the next few months based on a LTE icon on the phone? It also pushes important stuff off the front page that otherwise could have been helpful or educational.

 

I had no idea at some point it used to be like that on the site and people complained. I just think that there are days that I have where I just need to get to the info I need and not scroll thru 2 or 3 pages.

 

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[pyroscott]

I had actually suggested something similar. Is this similar to what you were thinking Feech?

Should we look at creating some kind of "official" discussion thread for each market? I just merged 3 different threads that all dealt with San Francisco. The root post could have links to any blog posts related to the article as well as links to maps that are available to sponsors. Then, once people have that information, they can discuss the progress. It just seems like people are having a tough time locating information.

 

What I am envisioning is to have the markets have a forum, or a section within the network forum, possibly lock the forum to prevent people from posting new threads, have one pinned topic that is a directory with a link to all the markets. Then the first post of each market has the pertinent links.

 

For example, Minnesota would have:

 

Brief Summary: Minnesota is a Samsung market, beginning in the second round...

Market Announcement: The Sprint markets of Memphis & Minnesota are slated to begin Network Vision/LTE in the 2nd Half of 2012

Schedule Update: Minnesota Network Vision/LTE Deployment schedule update

Interactive Market Map (for Sponsors): Network Vision Site Map - Minnesota, Dakotas, Milwaukee and North Wisconsin Markets

Schedule Map (for Premier Sponsors): Network Vision Site Schedule Map - Minnesota

 

And members could suggest that mods add links to the root post.

[Feech]

I had actually suggested something similar. Is this similar to what you were thinking Feech?

That is exactly what I was thinking sorry I didn't see you suggested it..I would still need a place to talk to others about general network stuff too though.

[boomerbubba]

I had actually suggested something similar. Is this similar to what you were thinking Feech?

That is exactly what I was thinking sorry I didn't see you suggested it..I would still need a place to talk to others about general network stuff too though.

 

Hmm. Dedicated, official threads per market in the Network forum. That's a different proposition from what I thought the OP was suggesting, which was dedicated forums per market. Such threads do exist in the sponsor forums, and I do like them.

 

But I have to think the downside is that it would be a significant work on Robert's part and a lot of activist work on the part of the mods to police all that, if the intent is to prevent fragmented and duplicative new threads by the general membership from cropping up. That would take a lot more activist Whack-a-Mole policing than what you guys are doing now. (For example, the moderators generally don't even move to enforce clear existing rules against posting privileged sponsor-level detail in the general forums.) So it is mostly a question of what level of disciplinary editing work you want to take on. I'm agnostic on that, because I have no skin in the game (nor do I wish to).

 

EDIT: I have to remind myself that there also already are dedicated market threads in the main Network forum, too, and that the highly visible Running List thead links to them. But it obviously is too labor-intensive already for Robert and the staff to keep those threads updated as facts on the ground change. These threads mostly retain their original boilerplate. Even the Running List thread itself -- which is probably the most frequently linked thread in the external blogosphere -- is not kept up to date because the manual work is apparently not feasible on a timely basis. I don't mean this as a criticism, just an observation about reality. I think the S4GRU staff should think twice about any ambitious new structured format requiring even more work.

[Feech]

Well Robert wants a lot of feedback on this so it may not matter if its only a few people discussing it. I guess I'm looking for something a little more organized going forward. I'm predicting that this site will be the go to site for geeks all over when 4G starts lighting up over the country and well know sites start to link back to what Robert reporting here. I actually found this site myself months before I actually signed up. The reason I didnt become a sponser right away and register is because the site was not typically what I was used to. I think somehow on my first visit I got directed to the wall but didn't understand what I was looking at, then to the forums where there was a lot of "noise". This isn't anyones fault and its not a knock on anyone. It was just my first impression coming to the site. Obviously that has changed since I have learned the site more but even I feel funny when I post in the network forum about possible tower work being done in "Gulfport, FL"

 

I'm not sure about the work part of it, but I would be a Mod if asked. I'm not trying to argue one way or another and it may be a horrible idea. What I am doing though is looking forward and trying to envision this site in the next few months when cities and towns start lighting up and what it may look like. I think being proactive is better than being reactive.

[MacinJosh]

Hmm. Dedicated, official threads per market in the Network forum. That's a different proposition from what I thought the OP was suggesting, which was dedicated forums per market. Such threads do exist in the sponsor forums, and I do like them.

 

But I have to think the downside is that it would be a significant work on Robert's part and a lot of activist work on the part of the mods to police all that, if the intent is to prevent fragmented and duplicative new threads by the general membership from cropping up. That would take a lot more activist Whack-a-Mole policing than what you guys are doing now. (For example, the moderators generally don't even move to enforce clear existing rules against posting privileged sponsor-level detail in the general forums.) So it is mostly a question of what level of disciplinary editing work you want to take on. I'm agnostic on that, because I have no skin in the game (nor do I wish to).

 

EDIT: I have to remind myself that there also already are dedicated market threads in the main Network forum, too, and that the highly visible Running List thead links to them. But it obviously is too labor-intensive already for Robert and the staff to keep those threads updated as facts on the ground change. These threads mostly retain their original boilerplate. Even the Running List thread itself -- which is probably the most frequently linked thread in the external blogosphere -- is not kept up to date because the manual work is apparently not feasible on a timely basis. I don't mean this as a criticism, just an observation about reality. I think the S4GRU staff should think twice about any ambitious new structured format requiring even more work.

 

Actually, Robert has been updating the running list every 2 weeks with status updates, which is plenty more than enough work. I would sure have a hard time keeping up with all this stuff on a regular basis.

[boomerbubba]

Actually, Robert has been updating the running list every 2 weeks with status updates, which is plenty more than enough work. I would sure have a hard time keeping up with all this stuff on a regular basis.

 

I know it is plenty more than enough work. That is my point. I am not criticizing Robert, and I understand that there is really one main actor behind the curtain. I am suggesting that others' ideas for even more ambitious, structured threads for each market, heaping even more work on him, may be misplaced when the existing structure can't be maintained consistently on schedule.

[pyroscott]

That is exactly what I was thinking sorry I didn't see you suggested it..I would still need a place to talk to others about general network stuff too though.

 

My suggestion was in the staff forum, so naturally you wouldn't have seen it.

[jefbal99]

I would like to see a sub forum called "Markets" with an official thread for each market. Mods can then move questions relating to a market into that thread. The first few posts would be mod controlled and updated as the market progresses with NV. I think it would tidy up the main NV forums.

[jefbal99]

Glad to see that this was implemented today

[4ginnc]

Glad to see that this was implemented today

 

Me too, think it's a good idea. But it was confusing for a minute or two when I kept hitting "Next Unread Topic" and getting things I knew I'd already seen. Thought I was going nuts. Just had to mark everything as read and now I'm back to normal.

[Feech]

This has made a huge difference..

 

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