Are there too many forums/sub forums on RBoT?

[Gazza]

Following on from this topic:
http://railbotforum.org/mbs/index.php?topic=4892.0

I guess my main gist is that so many PT issues are interrelated there is not much point dividing it up, just look at the way a topic can start on one thing like pensioners, and end up about city bus stop locations.

Or think of the way we can be talking about inner city rail capacity, yet a freight bottleneck 100km north is actually influencing this...is this an infrastructure topic? or a "Sunshine Coast" topic, or a "Timetabling topic".
Well, its all of them isn't it? But there are forums covering all 3. But if 'within' each topic the content is moving about like this going over the issues, then whats the point of putting it in a dedicated forum?
And when you get talking about trains, you're naturally thinking the buses that get people there, and the way people ride their bikes and park their cars, and these are all related too.

Note: boards for archive purposes would stay as they are, because in that case dividing up by year or whatever makes sense.

[ozbob]

Threads drift, fact of life. It is very logical to have fares, separate from timetables, separate from infrastructure etc..  Works for me!

Of course it is all inter-related, but to have it as a massive jumble is just confusing.   The forum has boards, sub topics.  Some of the different states can be grouped for sure, but I have deliberately left some boards open in the hope that discussion might begin in them, and will keep them as is for a while yet.

[Gazza]

In all honestly, you could group the discussion of Qld related stuff into 3 categories.

-PT in Qld
-Fares & Go Card
-Freight in Qld

separate from timetables, separate from infrastructure etc..

But this is what I'm getting at...When we discuss say 15 minute trains on the Beenleigh line, the first thing that comes up is __________ ?

[ozbob]

You could, but I wouldn't.  As I said I will be playing around with SMF2 down the track, but for now happy to continue as is.

It is very handy having the different topics eg. Sunshine Coast, LIght rail.  It makes it easy for someone to review content on that topic, particularly guests.  We have a very large number of guests at this site.   It is more than just the whims of members, as I said there a lot of factors to consider.

Members have full use of the tools supported by SMF.  This makes navigation a breeze.  For those not used to using the jump to and other functions give it a go!

[somebody]

FWIW, I'd prefer one bus forum and one timetable forum. I'm not too sure about Gold Coast+Sunshine Coast either, but they may be useful for occasional users from those regions.

I can live with it the way it is now though.

[Fares_Fair]

For my Go card's worth ...

Public Transport is indeed complex and inter-related (overlapped) with many other areas.
I appreciate the fact that this is a huge site that has naturally grown to now covers all aspects of PT, not just Rail.

It would have been much easier for ozbob to say no and keep it to rail issues only - but he didn't do that.
If it was me, I would have limited it to rail for the sake of all the work involved.
But then, where do you draw the line (pun intended) ?   

The 3 major forums suggested would very soon become very large and cumbersome.
It is only because this site has been expanded to cover all aspects of PT and not just Rail - that this issue has been suggested.

Well done Bob, keep up the great work.
It's a great site.

Regards,
Fares_Fair.