new forum suggestion - general logic

i just got dissed by a moderator for identical posts to both 8 and 9 forums. browsers of either forum could probably help answer my question. the mod locked the post in the 8 forum. i didn't even say what version i had.

move all the 8 and 9 posts into a single general "logic" forum, trash the old ones, then make a new one - "new features in logic 9".

this would be super easy to do. it would lead to more/better answers. aint this the key to a successful forum with lots of posters? probably one of the best suggestions you'll ever get.

either way, thanks for running it. folks who run forums should be proud of all the people they are helping.
 
i just got dissed by a moderator for identical posts to both 8 and 9 forums. browsers of either forum could probably help answer my question. ... move all the 8 and 9 posts into a single general "logic" forum...then make a new one - "new features in logic 9".

Hi Cowboy,

Just one "Logic" forum is the way it was until recently. There are basically two philosophies of how to split discussions into specific fora. One philosophy is to have as few separate fora as possible, so more discussions end up in the same place and everyone knows where to find them. The other is to have as many fora as possible, so that no matter what you want to discuss, there's a forum for it. Obviously, these are the extremes. There's always discussions among administrators over how to strike the right balance and offer both the right number of fora and fora subjects.

We try to keep it stable, but at the same time it's definitely fluid, and what members post becomes a major part in our discussions. In other words, thanks for letting us know what you'd like, and we're definitely listening. :)

Orren
 
number of forums, i guess that's up for debate. no matter 2 or 20, topic overlap is bad. that's what you got right now, baaad. bet most of the questions in either forum have the same answer, whether using logic 8 or 9.
 
I am on the fence about different fora... I always have been.
The more specialized fora are, the more confusing browsing becomes, IMO...
I disagree with Mr Cowboy though when it comes to overlap. Yes, there are some issues with Logic 9 that can be answered in Logic 8, but I prefer having an area where I am clear that what I read pertains to the version I am using...

That being said, I'm just on the fence with the general layout of things.
I still get confused sometimes trying to remember where I found a forum thread and having to wade thru Topics to get back to it...
Sometimes less is more.
 
We could tell a lot about this subject because we read every single post. Dividing the former general Logic forum into 8 and 9 was a terrible job and we didn't do it just for fun. There were really communication problems and they would have gone worse.

But at the moment I don't understand the basic problem. If you have Logic 9, write in the Logic 9 forum. If you have 8, write in the 8 forum. Then everybody knows what you are talking about.

If you use both versions and have a common question I would suggest to choose the forum of the newer version because that's also yours and finally most people will end up there until the next major upgrade starts the cycle again. However, you will get heard in any case.

Discussions about forum structures are interesting but tend to become endless. Not even the makers of a webforum do always all agree to a solution but this must be solved or the forum would never run. We are aware of the problems because most of us admins moderate or run other webfora where the circumstances are quite different.

There is always room for improvement and right now we are actually discussing which LUG forums can or should be removed. Working in the Musik Industry for example was a good idea, it should deal with management, booking, prices, copyright and so on but it does not come alive. Maybe a subject to lose, right? Mastering could be merged with ... well ... what? In reality there is a lot of hardware involved and some Hi-tech problems but not typically in a DAW forum. Maybe we should just close it.

Musicians Wanted
is sleeping but we don't want to take that away because there might come the time when musicians get the crazy idea to make music together ;)

We will not change anything in a hurry, the LUG was always a flowing project. And we must not forget the fact that in relation to the number of users a few people are actively writing in a forum - but many listen. Currently we deliver an average of nearly 15,000 pages daily and approximately 14 Terabytes per month. Not bad for a young web platform even if it has a long history in various other formats.

What I find amazing is that we have short threads. There comes a question and looks complicated but two posts later some guy steps by and nails it. Gentlemen, can't you take a little longer to solve problems and let us have nice long threads with some tears if possible? (This was a joke. A lame one.)

Ok, I'm losing the subject. It's 5 AM here in Austria, I am tired and have to work today. May please an admin on the other side of the globe take over? Thanks, Good Night!
 
But at the moment I don't understand the basic problem. If you have Logic 9, write in the Logic 9 forum. If you have 8, write in the 8 forum. Then everybody knows what you are talking about.

If you use both versions and have a common question I would suggest to choose the forum of the newer version because that's also yours and finally most people will end up there until the next major upgrade starts the cycle again. However, you will get heard in any case.

Well, I can't speak for the original poster, but any forum users primary focus is to communicate their thoughts/questions/ideas quickly & simply, to the group. That's the reason for having a streamlined interface. You don't really 'want to stop & figure out' everytime which heading to put your post under.
Is that lazy? You could say that, but when you are a fora "user," your POV is way different than you, the Admins... I would think you guys are always weighing things with the bigger picture in mind.
Regular fora users just need help, quickly.
The nugget I reacted to from the original poster was over the confusion and redundancies inherent in any fora with more than one category.

I think your idea to "downsize" or consolidate some of the topics is a great idea, Peter.
Perhaps Mastering & Techniques should be under one banner. Creation & Media Sharing could also be unified... maybe Classifieds & Services should be one banner as well...
I think simple changes like these would make interfacing here easier for people with short attention spans, like me.
...Speaking of short attention spans, did I mention I'm New Yorker? --I'm exhausted just typing this much. ;)
 
i just got dissed by a moderator

Cowboy, perhaps my understanding of the word "dissed" is different to yours, but let me assure you, there was nothing aggressive, disrespectful or dismissive in my closing one of the duplicate posts. In order to have streamlined discussions where everyone who is interested in contributing to a subject can discuss it with everyone else, it is pretty logical that such a discussion has to take place in one thread. Otherwise, it would be like having all parties to a discussion sitting in two houses, not able to hear each other, having to flick back and forth and ultimately diluting the whole thing and probably missing a lot of points. That is the reason why, like most any other fora out there, we have a "Please do not post the same message more than once - duplicated posts may be deleted, or the thread they are in locked. " rule. That incidently applies across all the sub fora we have, not just between Logic 8 and Logic 9. Feel free to read more about that and the other rules here.

i didn't even say what version i had.

So tell us which logic version you use! Apart from it also being one of the rules, it is generally helpful and seen as good manners, when asking for help, to provide information about your system. BTW, an easy way to do that is to just include it in your sig. As well as that, as Peter mentioned:

you will get heard in any case.

move all the 8 and 9 posts into a single general "logic" forum, trash the old ones, then make a new one - "new features in logic 9".

Some weeks ago, following the release of logic 9, and as Peter and Orren already mentioned, after a lot of soul searching and discussion, we spent a lot of time doing exactly the opposite, seperating posts out of the general logic forum that had been in existence at the time to create two new fora, logic 8 and logic 9. More about that below ..



Just one "Logic" forum is the way it was until recently.

I know what you mean, but strictly speaking, until recently there were in fact two logic fora, a general forum, and one dealing with older versions of logic: 7, 6, 5, windows etc. As well as that, in the "apple logic" area we have the wishlist, studio applications, TDM and so on.

As the forum started when Logic 8 was the current version, it was, for those few months, quite sufficient to have a "general" area dealing with the current version, as well as a legacy area dealing with older versions.

But that was in a sense short term thinking, because Logic 9 came out, making Logic 8 no longer current. Worse, there may at some stage even be a logic 10 :errr:

So, rather than being faced with the awful task of at some stage being confronted with something like:

"OK, it is now 2020, Logic 2x is out, the general forum has loads of posts in it about Logic 8, 9, 10, 11 .... all of which are now definitely legacy. Who is going to volunteer to move all that old stuff into the legacy area? Nobody? C'mon guys, it is a straightforward task - just read each and every thread written from 2009 - 2019, then move each one to its new home, it shouldn't take more than, uh, let's say a month" :eeek::brkwl:,

- it made sense to leave the legacy forum as it is, indeed marking the start of the new LUG forum as being in the logic 8 era, and after that, for each new logic version, we simply create a new sub forum. That way, we have a better, over a long period of time relevant archive structure, it is easier, by browsing through individual sub fora to find topics relevant to the version you use and so on.

Coming back to the suggestion to
make a new one - "new features in logic 9".
I hope that it is clear from what I have written that this would first of all be of very short term benefit, would again require all the threads to be moved at some stage, and, really, would result in there being an extra forum anyway, so why not make that a permanent feature by having a logic 8 forum for logic 8, logic 9 forum for logic 9 and so on?

One more thing - permit me to mention some tools which I find are extremely helpful in keeping up to date with new traffic and posts in the Forum. One is (no surprise) the "new posts" button, the other is not quite as visible, under "quick links" there is a function "today's posts". FWIW, I use these all the time, and find them to be the most efficient way to keep up with what is new. Just a couple of suggestions that are worth trying, alongside the search function which I find gives very good results.

Hope that helps clear things up, and thanks very much for showing such interest in the LUG - it is great to get feedback like that. As Peter and Orren already mentioned, we are continuously looking at how we can improve things, even if it will never be possible to accomodate each and every individual wish.

kind regards

Mark
 
One more thing - permit me to mention some tools which I find are extremely helpful in keeping up to date with new traffic and posts in the Forum. One is (no surprise) the "new posts" button,

Just this feature alone makes vBulletin (much as I hate them for other reasons), I use this almost exclusively for checking posts here. A chronological lists of all posts with a RH column showing which forum.

As long as people use the recommended system of *descriptive subject headers (instead of something like "a newbie question") it is a great way to view what's going on.
 
i was just pointing out one (major) problem with this setup. say i make a post in logic 9 looking for a quick easy answer. an answer that is the exact same for both versions. 5 minutes later, somebody who has my answer is looking through new posts in logic 8. then that person signs out and goes off to work for the day...

making the question/answer thing as efficient as possible is how you build a forum.

putting the logic version in the signature is right on, just did it. if that could be required at signup somehow, my suggestion would be perfect. logic 10 comes out, just make a new forum "new features in logic 10". moving general posts dated older than X into the legacy forum can't be that tough.
 
I think it makes sense to have a separate forums when there is a major release like LP9, but after a while, it should just become a Logic forum IMHO.

Less is more.
 
I think it makes sense to have a separate forums when there is a major release like LP9, but after a while, it should just become a Logic forum IMHO.
You mean, after a major upgrade the posts of the previous version (in this case Logic 8) should go to "Legacy versions"? That's technically easy but when? Certainly not from the first day on. How do we know when, let's say, 2 thirds of all Logic users have upgraded?
 
yeah... that's an even better idea. right now it would be "new features in logic 9". when logic 10 comes out, move all those to the "general logic" forum, then change the name to "new features in logic 10".

now if you could make everybody put down their logic version when they sign up, that would be sweet. at least a message at signup to suggest it in the sig. be best if you could upgrade the version in yer sig, and the sig on yer old posts stays the same.
 
right now it would be "new features in logic 9".
The name is "Logic 9" because it is not about new features, it is the main forum of the current version and that - if Apple keeps their update pace - for about two years. But this is only a sidenote, I get your point.

In case you mean that there is a separate forum for only new features and another single Logic forum, this is not practicable. In a couple of weeks the features are no longer new. And the common Logic forum would need versioning which is not trivial, see below.

now if you could make everybody put down their logic version when they sign up, that would be sweet. at least a message at signup to suggest it in the sig. be best if you could upgrade the version in yer sig, and the sig on yer old posts stays the same.
We cannot force people to put certain information into the signature. And we don't know if a new user will only read the forum (and don't need a signature) or if he will get active. In relation to registered users only a few write contributions. And 5 new users arrive each day (4.9/day in November, to be exact).

Regarding your other thoughts: Yes we can change signatures but don't do that because the signature is personal information. And no, signatures cannot be changed from a certain date on. If you change yours, all your old posts will show the new signature. This is sometimes good and sometimes not. I personally don't like it but this is how forum software works.

The latter introduces a problem that was not mentioned yet: Today you have "logic pro 9" in your signature and you post in the Logic 9 forum and everything is fine. When you switch to Logic 9.1 and 9.5 and Logic 10 and 11 your old posts will show the wrong signature which is bad for users who search in a flat non-versioned archive. We could suggest over and over to add the version number to the initial post. But we cannot successfully suggest to quote the version number when posts get answered. This information goes lost in the thread. The users aren't software programmers depending on versioning all the time, they are musicians and audio engineers.

If every Logic version stays in its own forum, this is theoretically the ideal state because nothing gets ever mangled. Practically this would make a long list of subfora that nobody likes. But some web platforms keep versioned sections down to Logic 7 for a good reason.
 
... long list of subfora that nobody likes.
... "that not everybody likes" ;)
True. And since many people seem to have lost the Shift keys of their keyboards, the phrase "that nobody likes" could even imply that there is a Mr. Nobody who likes it. :rolleyes:

I think for a main Logic web platform a forum list with Logic 9, 8, 7 and "Legacy" is ok although the 7 can be abandoned today because users who stick to this version don't usually have version-specific questions after this many years using it.
 
I agree with the Admins here. It becomes a can of worms to go down the path of one big LOGIC FORUM with the management in a way, up to the posters signatures to ID what their version of Logic they are writing about...
But I maintain that some of the other fora should be combined & simplified somehow as I described elsewhere in this thread.
It's not as dramatic as what you guys are talking about, but I think it would streamline the look and feel of the main fora page.

Right now I still find the main page a bit daunting (with amount of categories) to look thru.
 
Right now I still find the main page a bit daunting (with amount of categories) to look thru.

Here's a tip:

If you click on the double arrow chevron thingy at the right of each section, it will hide all the subforums, so e.g. if you don't need "developer Forums" click on the arrow for Developer Forums and it closes. Just leave open the sections that are useful to you. It should then save this as the way it presents to you each time you log in.

This way you customise the index page to suit you.
 
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