Jan 2, 2008 3:52 PM kellie in response to: lilxkid24

Yes, I've heard you loud and clear on this issue. However, I'm looking for input on graphical layouts and organization at this time.

Jan 2, 2008 4:05 PM kellie in response to: Flashorn

Please PM or email me the stack trace. Yes, Jive is the maker of Clearspace. I'm not aware of any issues but that doesn't mean we aren't having them.

Jan 2, 2008 4:47 PM kellie in response to: Adama

Thanks. There are some tricky things in how it's set up that prevented me from doing it before. I'm open to re-naming things or moving things up/down the list if you think something needs to change there. We're going to be changing out those little globe icons for something else soon.

I haven't, but I'll go track it down. As you can imagine, it's been a very busy day here with everyone getting back from vacation and all.

Jan 3, 2008 9:45 AM kellie in response to: Flashorn

Thank you -- I have reported it.

Jan 3, 2008 9:47 AM kellie in response to: TechyGuy

That is not really a content area that PC World focuses on, so I'm not sure how large it would be... but I'm willing to give it a try. Let's start with one (is there some way we could combine the two) and see where it goes. Where do you think it would go in the current setup -- can we put it in Software and Services, or does it need its own space?

I want to have enough communities to help people easily find information and topics they need, but I don't want the list to be so long that it scares people away or has the opposite effect -- there is so much that they can't find what they need.

Jan 3, 2008 9:48 AM kellie in response to: mphenterprises

MPH -- Well, that's kind of why I put it up there on the top. It seems like that's what most people come here for -- troubleshooting and help. So I put that on top because you're right -- new people will go for the first heading they see.

What is a better alternative to be on top? Should we put the PC World stuff (news discussion, etc) on top?

Jan 3, 2008 2:48 PM kellie in response to: mphenterprises

I see what you are saying about the heading, but I don't think Miscellaneous is the answer. That's not at all descriptive. I tried several different names and although I'm not in love with Troubleshooting, it's the best one I came up with.

The differentiator in Answer Line is that Lincoln Spector is active there. We have a similar thing on Macworld with Mac911 and Chris Breen. Theirs isn't on top (they put their Macworld-centric stuff on top) but it's close to it.

I agree that having all the posts go into one community isn't great, but ultimately I'd rather have that than have people not post because they can't figure out where to do it.

Jan 3, 2008 2:51 PM kellie in response to: TechyGuy

Hey Techy,

I saw in the email that you wanted to change Web Browsing & Email. That forum is meant to be about web browsers (example: I'm having this particular problem with Firefox, how do I change it) and email programs (gmail is acting up, how do I fix it). So it's not quite what you are looking for.

It's generally better to start with one forum and branch out. If there's some sort of turf war between programmers and web developers and they really need their own place, then that's fine. But I'd rather start them off in one place.

We really don't have a category that this easily fits into, but I'd like to avoid having a bunch of categories with only one thing in them. I'm open to doing this, we just need to figure out a smart way to do it.

Jan 4, 2008 12:45 PM kellie in response to: Flashorn

I of course love and welcome that you post all your info here. However, I think that to be useful to others, it needs to be organized in a logical way. So if it's a new utility, you can post it in Utilities. If it's a new security app, post it in Security. I think if we had one place where all information was posted to, nobody would ever find anything. I also can't make one place where there are no points -- it's an all or nothing thing for the whole community.

I think Techy was saying he wanted a new place to discuss programming and web development. Like I said, I'm totally willing to try this, I just want to make sure that we find the right place in the organizational structure of the forums to make sure it is easily found and used.

Jan 4, 2008 12:50 PM kellie in response to: Adama

Answer Line is not the right place for news discussion. That community is meant for troubleshooting and help with computer issues. Yes, generally articles should go in the community that the article is about -- security in security forum, etc. You can also use the General Talk forum for this as it was meant to be a catch-all of everything else. Even if your story is non-tech (but please no political stories), it can go there. When in doubt, post your thread there.

I understand that you are interested in more news than what we post on our site, and I want to encourage you all to discuss those stories. However, our News Discussions forum is strictly for stuff posted by PC World. It makes it easier to find comment threads for particular stories, and helps keep those areas clean for those who are only looking for comments on PCW stories. I am, however, open to re-naming that forum, although now that it is under the PC World category, it should be more clear that it is about PC World news.

I haven't seen a huge amount of news stories from other places getting posted here, but if there is a lot of them and high demand, I could add a new forum under Hangout. I want to avoid adding a lot of new forums that are little used, and fragment the community. A busy forum is a better forum.

Jan 4, 2008 1:59 PM kellie in response to: Adama

The simple answer is that it's different. Blogs and documents don't have read tracking on them, and thus don't show up when they are updated.

Jan 7, 2008 9:46 AM kellie in response to: snorg

You can actually do this already.

Go to Your Stuff > Preferences and you can set Yes or No when you want email notifications.

Then go to Your Stuff > Email Notifications to delete notifications that are set for you that you don't want.

If you turned all to No and then deleted all your notifications, you will never get another notification. Then you could select next to the particular thread to get email notifications for it. And you can manage/delete your notifications at any time by going back to Your Stuff > Email Notifications.

Mar 5, 2008 9:29 AM kellie in response to: onetechbuyer

We're working on expanding the options, but in the meantime please follow my instructions to snorg (above) that make your system opt-in only for notifications from now on.