Forum layout changes following Corral's untimely demise

[diskdiddler]

The one major positive thing about FreeNAS Corral was the single forum thread to post in about (what was) the next version of FreeNAS and have engagement with others testing it with you.

Now that this OS is to die, where should people post? I feel like the main forums have too many sbuforums
There's at least 5 places where discussion of future FreeNAS stuff might be applicable, if not 6.

Will it FreeNAS? - FreeNAS Build Discussion
Help & Support
Development
Performance
FreeNAS Nightlies

I think the key issue here (for me at least) is the 3 ones I've bolded.
(Plus these 2 forums for Corral are still alive! on top of those 5!)

Listen the community is large but it's not that large, if you include these 2 corral forums there's 7 places people could actively be discussing elements of FreeNAS
PLEASE can we reduce this somehow? The discussion /specifically/ in FreeNAS Corral Testing & Development was great. Everyone knew *this* was the place to be, to get fast help, everyone was on the same page, developers were posting in it, bugs AND suggestions came in - the whole lot, you knew if you posted here about FreeNAS or FreeNAS's future - it'd be seen.

Anyone else? I want to be able to contribute with suggestions and ideas and know they are going to be seen by the right eyes.

 

[diskdiddler]

(On an almost entirely different, but mildly related note, can SOMEONE on this entire forum, please help with the Qbittorrent thread? It's been virtually deceased for a year but with FN10 being virtually scrapped, the need for this thread has kicked back up again)
https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/how-to-install-qbittorrent-in-a-jail.22380/

 

[Ericloewe]

We're working on a new forum layout. The turn of events did not mesh well with our plans for the forum, so we're figuring out how to best organize things, then it'll be a day or two to make sure it goes smoothly.

 

[diskdiddler]

Thank you - please keep my comments above in mind, because my will to test and engage in this community has seriously diminished since my bug reports were dismissed as being too picky "it's a beta" (yeah and now it's been rightfully flushed,....... maybe I was right after all,.....)
That combined with the loss of "one nice spot to discuss" really makes me want to just log out (as I've done the past month, mostly) and let other people sort it out. That's not good if too many people take that line of thought.

Thanks.

 

[Ericloewe]

FWIW, this is what we're currently considering:

FreeNAS Announcements

• Forum Guidelines
• Announcements

FreeNAS

• Will it FreeNAS?
• Help and Support
  • New to FreeNAS?
  • Hardware
  • User Authentication
  • Sharing
  • Storage
  • Networking
  • General Questions and Help
  • Jails, Plugins and bhyve
  • Docker
• Development
  • FreeNAS Feature Discussion
  • FreeNAS Corral Help and Discussion
  • Bug Report Discussion
  • Pre-RELEASE testing

Community Forum

• Introductions
• Forum Suggestions
• Off-topic

International

• bleh

Archived Sections

• Old stuff goes here

 

[diskdiddler]

There's far, far too many there, why so many? I don't understand. I just ...... this isn't a forum with 250,000 active users.
What's the point of Will it FreeNAS? That's part oof hardware or a tutorial / FAQ - not an entire forum...
New to FreeNAS = general help
Networking = general help
Storage = general help (or in the LEAST combine it with sharing for goodness sakes)
User authentication (are you kidding? Sorry eric but seriously? ........ SERIOUSLY?)
Jails I understand taking from general help - but why is docker seperate? it's the same functionality - keep it with jails and plugins
Community introductions = new to FreeNAS...
Bug report and pre-release? same thing

I want less places to discuss, not more chances of my posts not being visible.

 

[Ericloewe]

Will it FreeNAS is for users to verify their builds.

New to FreeNAS = general help

Possibly.

Storage = general help (or in the LEAST combine it with sharing for goodness sakes)

It's completely different from sharing, they're two different layers.

User authentication (are you kidding? Sorry eric but seriously? ........ SERIOUSLY?)

Active Directory and such things. It could use a new name.

Jails I understand taking from general help - but why is docker seperate? it's the same functionality - keep it with jails and plugins

Completely different ecosystem. They serve similar purposes, but are very different.

I want less places to discuss, not more chances of my posts not being visible.

Several old sections would be retired and we can certainly discuss some mergers, but I don't think there's widespread interest in merging most sections into one.

 

[danb35]

I did not and do not see the point of "will it FreeNAS". Even aside from the dorky name, we already have a hardware forum, which is the natural home for such discussions. And even if it deserves its own forum, it belongs under Help&Support.

 

[diskdiddler]

Eric, your active directory response makes a lot more sense put that way, since that's a very specific thing.
I disagree entirely with you on jails and docker, regardless of the backend technology, the end users see them both as methods to deploy software to the system.
Storage / sharing are obviously different technologies, they are also immensly closely related from a usability / needs / wants standpoint

Look at the end of the day though, my primary goal here is a single place I can post about the following thing(s)

• Future versions (features)
• Existing alpha / nightly / beta versions (features / bugs / testing)

That's it, as my op said, when Corral was in beta, ALL discussion was in "FreeNAS Corral Testing & Development", it was fantastic.
In the very least, I think "Pre-RELEASE testing" and "FreeNAS Feature Discussion" could be merged - they are all part of the 'new stuff coming up' umbrella


Have you considered a 'grouping and tagging' system like this? (is it possible for the board?)
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum/82
(Notice that forum is the general forum for Modems / Routers, but there's a #tag / group identifier at the right of each thread) - you can delve into each direct group (only) by clicking the white group box at the top)
It's a much better system, you can see an overview of all modem / router discussion if needed, or delve deeper into a particular subtopic via group.
Example:
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum/82?g=295
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum/82?g=55

Thanks for your replies.

 

[Ericloewe]

Have you considered a 'grouping and tagging' system like this? (is it possible for the board?)
http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum/82

Yeah, tags are easy. Not sure about filtering, but it's bound to be possible.

I'll move this discussion and ping the rest of the staff.

 

[diskdiddler]

Thanks Eric.

 

[Ericloewe]

New layout is in place and we consolidated some stuff over the additional plan. Please see the announcement: https://forums.freenas.org/index.php?threads/april-2017-forum-layout-changes.53655/

ook at the end of the day though, my primary goal here is a single place I can post about the following thing(s)

• Future versions (features)
• Existing alpha / nightly / beta versions (features / bugs / testing)

We did just that.