New forum areas

Technical problems, questions, comments, and suggestions for the forum and wiki.

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Vincent Berraud
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New forum areas

Post by Vincent Berraud »

I find that the different sections of the forum are too vague and too restrictive at the same time. I have had plenty of things to share recently which I decided not to post because the forum seemed too restrictive.

Welcome + New members = seems like the same section x 2

Vegan Support forum - so if I don't need support because I understand veganism and feel fine with what I do, I can skip it.

Vegan vs Non-Vegan Debates - If I don't feel like debating meat eaters, I'll just skip this altogether

Metaphysics: Atheist vs Theist, etc. Debates - I don't care about this one, I'm comfortable with my atheism. I have been an atheist since birth and my family has been atheist for several generations. I don't particularly come to a vegan forum to tell someone they should be an atheist.

Off-Topic Discussion - Serious - Ok so that's all sorts of political issues. I am here because of the animal advocacy perspectives so I might not partake so much here as I would rather not be looking for reasons to disagree with fellow animal advocates.

Off-Topic Discussion - Fun - OK, off topic fun is great. BTW I posted something about what is animalism in this section by accident. I meant to post it in Vegan Support forum (I think? Totally not sure where to post anything here, to be honest. I don't understand this board).

Forum Support - Here - where I hope we can suggest revamping it a bit?
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brimstoneSalad
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Re: New forum areas

Post by brimstoneSalad »

I agree, I've been struggling with the ambiguity of the sections for a while now.

One thing I'm thinking is:

Vegan support = HOW to be vegan / HOW to do vegan activism discussion
Vegan vs non-vegan = WHY to be vegan

(Tobias posted a good article to this end recently)
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miniboes
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Re: New forum areas

Post by miniboes »

I agree the forum categories are a bit weird now. They made sense back in the day when we where still 'TheVeganAtheist' Forum.

Maybe we should just group it by the most common subjects of discussion such as veganism, politics and sustainability. I don't think we need to distinguish between how to be vegan and why given the fact we don't have enough activity to flood a subforum.
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brimstoneSalad
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Re: New forum areas

Post by brimstoneSalad »

miniboes wrote: Fri Feb 10, 2017 6:45 am I agree the forum categories are a bit weird now. They made sense back in the day when we where still 'TheVeganAtheist' Forum.

Maybe we should just group it by the most common subjects of discussion such as veganism, politics and sustainability. I don't think we need to distinguish between how to be vegan and why given the fact we don't have enough activity to flood a subforum.
We could just merge them, true.

I see a useful distinction between things like food, recipes, and nutrition topics and more philosophical/activism related topics though.
We get a lot of both.

Maybe:

Welcome
Vegan food/nutrition (Recipes, health questions, etc.)
Vegan philosophy discussion (Debates, effective activism, etc)
Off topic serious (Religion/Atheism, metaphysics, politics, not directly related to veganism)
Off topic fun
Forum support.
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miniboes
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Re: New forum areas

Post by miniboes »

brimstoneSalad wrote: Fri Feb 10, 2017 4:02 pmfood, recipes, and nutrition topics
How about ''(Vegan) Health"?

I did some tallying for the first two pages of the off-topic subforum, and many posts could be categorized pretty neatly:
Politics & Policy - 11 threads (out of 50)
Environment - 7 threads
Effective activism and altruism - 7 threads
Health -3 threads

Given that, I'd add make the lay-out as follows:
- Welcome
- (Vegan) Health
- Vegan Philosophy
- Politics
- Environment
- Activism
- Serious off-topic
- Fun off-topic
- Forum Support

I think all of these subjects are all strongly connected to veganism, which justifies them not being labelled off-topic.
"I advocate infinite effort on behalf of very finite goals, for example correcting this guy's grammar."
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Red
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Re: New forum areas

Post by Red »

How about a section for general science and science related to veganism? Or would the general science just fall under the general discussion forums? And the vegan science will relate to health?

I don't want too many sub forums, since I fear that some will go pretty much unused (like the atheism subforum before).
Learning never exhausts the mind.
-Leonardo da Vinci
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brimstoneSalad
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Re: New forum areas

Post by brimstoneSalad »

Yes, I think we should make sure we have the same number as or fewer sections than we do now if we refactor.
It's very tricky to divide many of the topics that occur here.
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brimstoneSalad
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Re: New forum areas

Post by brimstoneSalad »

OK, how about this:

We just merge the Vegan forums (both together)
and merge the off-topic serious and metaphysics

So we have:
Introductions
Vegan Discussion (debates, activism, health, etc.)
Off-Topic Philosophy (Metaphysics, atheist vs. theist, politics, science, etc.)
Off-Topic Fun
Forum Support
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brimstoneSalad
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Re: New forum areas

Post by brimstoneSalad »

This would be a relatively big change. I'd love to get other forum members thoughts on this.
EquALLity wrote:...
RedAppleGP wrote:...
miniboes wrote:...
Jebus wrote:...
TheVeganAtheist wrote:...
Cirion Spellbinder wrote:...
Volenta wrote:...
PsYcHo wrote:...
knot wrote:...
Lightningman_42 wrote:...
thebestofenergy wrote:...
Dream Sphere wrote:...
inator wrote:...
(I don't know of an easier way to give a bunch of members notifications for this topic)
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EquALLity
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Re: New forum areas

Post by EquALLity »

brimstoneSalad wrote: Sat Feb 11, 2017 2:36 am OK, how about this:

We just merge the Vegan forums (both together)
and merge the off-topic serious and metaphysics

So we have:
Introductions
Vegan Discussion (debates, activism, health, etc.)
Off-Topic Philosophy (Metaphysics, atheist vs. theist, politics, science, etc.)
Off-Topic Fun
Forum Support
I think it's a good idea to merge the vegan forums. I'm not sure why there would be off topic philosophy though, because philosophy is in the name of the forum, so it's not really off topic.
Also, are politics and science really philosophy?
And what's metaphysics anyway? o_O
"I am not a Marxist." -Karl Marx
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