As a new member and user of this foru i have to say that its really hard to find specific topics.

Lets say that i want to find a topic about how to solve video problems.

The most natural thing is to use the search function in the forum but its known that the search function in phpbb isnt perfekt and accurate you get a lot of hits that dont have anything to do with your problem and what you searched for.

My suggestion besides changing forumscript is to devide the support part into topics like:

Mythtv
Myth gallery
Myth movie
Myth general

and so on.

That would help a lot to find what you want

Hey mats,
I'm in much the same boat as yourself. Have been doing a lot of reading the past few days, and search function just isnt good enough some times. That said, i have found everything i've been after, and so far so good so cheers guys, just specific forums would make it easier again!

Possibly plitting the hardware section into different categories aswell (ie tuner cards, graphics cards, etc).

What do you guys think?

Cecil can't even get folks to file their posts under the existing categories properly, and picking good subject lines is apparently even harder. Slicing and dicing it finer isn't going to change that basic fact. In the end were more or less at the mercy of the newbie posters who all too often don't read the sticky postings telling them what goes where...

Yeah true.
Maybe its just me, but i find that on this particular board there arent enough categories, considering there are so many reoccuring topics. Possibly get a few more mods with access to only move threads into their correct category... Could be an option.

That is easy to control.

You just need to add a group of great supportminded members and let them get the power to keep order in the forum by moving wrongly placed posts.

I am a member of a supportforum that have this arrengement and we only get a few wrongly placed posts every week.

As long as users dont get an easy way to figure out where to post or see that other also post wrong they wont care about where they put the posts.

It also give others a fair chance to keep track of questions.

Lets say that i am really good at mythgallery then i know where to put my time if i want to help others with their problem.
As it is now you will find questions about mythgallery everywhere on the board.
That also helps the members to get faster answers to their questions

no comment from Admin???

I thought that i could get an interesting discussion here

Most likely not. Cecil has other priorities on his mind even under normal circumstances, but between a 14 hour day at work (*) and the new MythTV 0.20 release he's busier than a one legged man in a butt kicking competition. As a result telling you he likes it just fine the way it is somewhere below his 10,000th priority.

(*) http://mysettopbox.tv/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=11558

Another reason to involve more people to help him administrate the forum.

I am afraid that some users will get tired of not finding answers and moves on to another system doing almost the same.

Someone posted this link for a google search a while back might help you out.
Remember this is free and you get what you pay for!
I think this is Cecils baby and we really have to let him do it his way.
http://www.google.com/advanced_search?q ... as_qdr=all

i know that it is free.

I am a member of the supportteam on a free forumscript and we
now that if it is easy to find solutions and if you get fast support you can be more popular than other similar products.

Yes it is his baby and he does whatever he wants to do with this program and forum, i dont have any problem with that.

I just wanted to give him a little of my knowledge of how to setup the forum the best way.

Sorry if i was to kind and wanted to help out.

Tried your suggestion about searching.

Google search mythtv+xine gave me no hits

But in the forum search itself it gave me 208 hits.

Mats, I think you are reading it the wrong way. Your suggestions are most welcome and please don't stop bringing them forward. tjc is simply letting you know that Cecil/Cesman is more focused on the product itself and whilst I have had similar problems to yours I simply find it a minor inconvenience.

A lot of how this forum works is reliant upon the poster and in saying that, even if you did break it up into the plug ins, you will still either have to read through all the headers to find what your after or again do a search.

So whilst I appreciate your prespective I personally don't feel that changing the structure will help find what you are after. It comes down to two things, 1. Good structured and worded posts and 2. Good search technique.

Edit:

Also don't forget you have the wiki as well for specifics and on reflection, you could break up the wiki into what you have suggested and this way when you are looking for a particular solution, you know which section to look.

Yeah, as Girkers said my response was intended as more predictive than opinion, or rather the opinion expressed was guessing what Cecil would say.

For the most part Cecil seems to be adverse to messing with either the organization or management of the forums. Since things generally seem to run OK, who's to say he's not right. I've certainly seen forums/lists/groups with a far higher S/N ratio, especially given the number of newbies who are using this as a support resource, not to mention horrors like moderator feuds.

As far as topics for discussions go it's pretty much a dry well. <shrug>

I dont find the current sub folders much use....more wouldn't add any value to me.

I NEVER limit my searches to a single folder. even the best posters have several reasonably correct forums to post any given issue. with out better boolean search operators, in my opinion....it is what it is.

The best cure is a clear subject line that states what is in the post.

_________________
R5F1 - Dell P4 2.4Ghz 500MB - PVR250 x 2 - GeForce FX 5200 - Onboard sound/NIC 80GB ATA/250GB ATA/400GB SATA

Could the pamphlet at least be updated to cover the most common problem areas.

I had many problems with the manual install while trying to partition my second hdd. It says, "Select partition and create 3 partitions using cfdisk. The first will be /, the second swap, the third /cache and fourth /myth". It is condradicting itself and threw me a little, causing me to look elsewhere on the Web. I later found that R5D1 doesn't require the /cache partition.

The second problem I had was with the /etc/lilo.conf file. Granted, after searching this forum for the answer, I did find others who'd run into the same situation, but it would have shaved two days off the installation had the problem been recognised and covered.

My third problem is with the nVidia driver - I don't think it has been installed using the manual installation, and nowhere in the pamphlet does it show you how to install the driver manually.

These aren't criticisms at all. I've just started using Linux and am keen to learn, and KnoppMyth is an absolutely fantastic end product and am really proud of myself to get it working satisfactorily. I've even told my mates at work abot it and everyone I mentioned it to was really impressed.

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Athlon XP 1800+ Asus A7V333
1GB DDR333 (1 x 512 & 2 x 256)
Prim: 60GB (master), 80GB (slave)
Sec: DVD-RW (master), CD-RW/DVD (slave)
GeForce 6600GT 128MB
Creative Soundblaster Live! Value
DVB-T 100 tuner
IBM 10/100 & D-Link Gigabit NICs