Seriously... we need a CP forum.

[GGKoul]

I'm trying to help out where ever possible by answering some questions that get posted over and over again.

[mmb]

excellent idea

I'm in the planning stages for a stand-up 4 player (gauntlet is my favorite game, ever) and after submitting searches for control panel issues, the sheer amount of noise in a searches results makes it almost impossible to find the actual good info your looking for.  I know that many won't even search before posting, but some may just not be able to filter the results to find an answer they were seeking.

mmb

[quarterback]

I'll repost part of my comments from another thread where CrazyCooter and I were discussing such things

I'm just a newbie here, but one of my thoughts when I first started reading these forums was that a single "Main Forum" seemed too generic.

I mean, software has their own forum, but "hardware" & "cabs" & "controllers" & "layouts" are all just lumped into a forum called "Main"?

[Minwah]

I agree it would be good to have a CP board...

But this should be posted in the Board, um, board

[subzero23]

Um
isn't this the Build Your Own Arcade Controls website?
Wouldn't the "main" forum be pretty much associated with control panels?

[Witchboard]

What's the difference?  You'll still have all the same questions, just in another forum.  If you don't like the "How's my CP" questions, just move past them.  It's not like they are pushing any other important threads to the bottom of the page.  If they aren't using the search function now, then they won't use it even if there's a dedicated CP forum.

[subzero23]

I agree and I think it's just too easy to just not read a topic, do you HAVE to click on every topic? No. I think some people don't realize that and yell "it's so annoying to see this etc" but come on, they're just words.

As far as searching things go you should all tolerate people who post questions that are very specific because you can't search for someone else's topic about your control panel that you designed specifically for yourself, and sometimes it's just so much easier having a topic active than searching for an old one only half related to the one you want.

[quarterback]

Um
isn't this the Build Your Own Arcade Controls website?
Wouldn't the "main" forum be pretty much associated with control panels?

Following that logic, the "main" forum should be about how to fashion your own joysticks and buttons.  Perhaps out of chocolate.   MMmmmmmmm... chocolate....

[GGKoul]

What's the difference?

[zaphod]

Link a reply to one of your previous answers.  Serves two purposes: answers their question and also is a subtle reminder to use the search function.

[Witchboard]

What's the difference?

[olsteve]

I agree that the main forum may need to be divided up a little. The main section should be more about the big picture...putting it all together sort or questions and such.
One thing that I have noticed is that there is an overwhelming amount of information in the forums. It would be great if some of this knowledge could be extracted and put on the main web site under the different headings. There is a ton of stuff on the website that is out of date, bad links, missing important stuff.
I think the reason that the forums keep seeing the same questions over and over is because noobs look on the website and don't find anything and if they try to search the forums they could be reading for days.
This is just my opinion and some of what I went through when I first started looking at this site.
Please understand that I think this site is a great resource and the people are wonderful. I think we need to somehow organize the collective knowledge that we have.

[Shape D.]

I've noticed a lot of posts from newer people seems like they don't post it in the right forum anyways.

And I'd have to agree with subzero here, It is the build your own arcade controls website. But I'm still new here myself and you guys I'm shure have answered way more questions than I have. And read these way more often as well.

[GGKoul]

What's the difference?

[GGKoul]

Your missing the point.

[Bones]

I would support having a CP forum. As a newbie it would be beneficial to have this topic all in the one place. There is so much information here I often find it difficult to narrow my searches down to find the answer I am looking for and I guess all newbies or even veterans have experienced the same.

Which brings me to another suggestion, standardizing key words in the message topics for searching purposes. Having a standard system when posting a message would make retrieval at a later stage a breeze.

In most cases the message topic is self explanatory but not always, when it's not, I think a lot of good information is flushed away as it can

[SirPeale]

I think a CP forum as an offshoot of the main forum would be cool.  Not it's own main forum.

[sirwoogie]

Firstly, I can understand from the newer members point of view that a CP forum could be beneficial. However, you have to keep in mind that creating this "sub-forum" would only populate it with threads that start after its creation, not the wealth of knowledge already contained within the Main Forum section. The sticky topics are there exclusively for the major pointers on this subject. Creating a CP forum may loose most of our existing users as they all expect to find them in the Main Forum section.

Secondly, the search function does tend to give decent results if the search keywords are picked appropriately. Even the newer members can find a specific topic relatively fast by going through a few iterations and playing around with the search order results options in the advanced search link.

Lastly, it's a well known fact the items on the main site are becoming a bit dated with respect to their content. The Project Arcade book was an effort to collect that disjointed information on the site and the forums into a collective unit. John (saint) recognizes the benefit of putting some of that content organized back as sections in the main site with references to the forum. The reason for it not happening yet has simply been allocation of time. With the holidays and other items this year, it's been difficult for him and other members to update the information. There is a concerted effort to examine how the main site should be redesigned, and I'm sure we'll be putting those efforts into motion sometime early next year. We want our new members and our seasoned members to have an easier way to gain or pass along respectively this knowledge. All we can recommend in the meantime is for the community to be patient as we get the house back in order.