In order to help that SB-I is being constantly improved I thought what Sb-I would need is a better structure of the start page. For a longer period of time I was thinking about a way to make browsing there more comfortable. I came up with the following ideas and hopefully there will be some feedback from the staff and the members.
My first point, maybe a bit too much for some of you, would be to cut down the amount of information shown on the start page. See, I think, there are far too many forum sections shown than really used, especially in the german section. As the majority of the board is using the english-speaking part of the board (myself included), I think, a good first step would be to cut down/ integrate those forum sections in order to have the same amount of sections as in the english section at most.
As the role model I take the english section because it looks quite better structured.
Starting with the community part of the german section.
Community
I think it would be a good start just to have:
- Offtopic (maybe including "CHill and Fun Section")
- Politik
- Umfragen
- Entertainment (including "Kino, DVD, TV und Serien", "Musik", "Handy & Mobilfiunk" )
- Sport & Fitness
Technik
A possible improvment could look like this: (again, reference is the english section)
- Software
- Hardware
- Grafik
- Computer, Internet und Netzwerk (either integrating OS or leaving it since the majority of threads there could be easily imported into the news section)
Filesharing
Same procedure as used above:
First, I would apply the same order as it is used in the english filesharing section.
- Talk
- Tracker Reviews
- FAQ's & Tutorials
- BitTorrent Tracker Account & Invite Trading
- BitTorrent Mods & Tools
- eMule Mods & Tools
- OCH Mods & Tools
Since the german is now completely described I coming to the only change in the english section that, in my eyes, would be good.
Information
There I would only remove the Arcade Gameshall, since there hasn't been posted anybody yet. (If a group of people wishes the opposite later, it could be reconsidered)
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Another point that I would like to mention is the thing about the news sections in both parts.
I find them really useful since I can read nearly about everything that happens in world from one place. The only thing what I don't like though is the fact that the other sections are used for that intention. For example, when the german Games Talk/ Konsolen & Spiele section and the german Game Newes are commpared. If so many news are posted there too, I think we don't really another news section. The other possibility would be to abandon the entire german Games section and integrate the few post that aren't news into the above mentioned Entertainment section. That way the news wouldn't go to two places and we save up some space on the start page.
The same can actually be done with several other sections too, for example with the Betriebssysteme section and even with the "Computer, Internet und Netzwerk" that I want to exclude from that list because of the importace. the Betriebssysteme section nearly consisting of news only could be imported to the Computer news.
But don't get me wrong, I don't want to offend the posters there! I appreciate erveryones work in keeping SB-I up-to-date with the latest news. I just want that everything goes in the proper channels, thats's why those news sections were originally created, I suppose.
As I just wanted to give an impulse and a help to that change I didn't look up all the other threads. There may be some further interferences/overlaps. If these possible changes met some of the users/staff members approval here, they could help in discovering more of those overlaps.
A last thing I wanted to bring up is the right on the start page the "latest releases" I don't know if only I experience it too big or if others do so too?
I appreciate that feature very much cause it helps to see the latest releases right after opening the start page. But couldn't be done there something about its size as it uses up a lot of space there. Maybe arranging the links another way?
I would clearly understand if you don't want to apply all of them, but I htink, those are good ideas of how to improve the broswing here and how to get rid of rarly used or unused sections. As I am a member here too, I wanted to seize my opportunity as a member to improve the site and the browsing experience. Hopefully nobody sees that as negative critisism as this should only be thing that would make the page even better!
I know the staff has to do a lot of work, but if they would need some helping handy, I bet they could count on us, the (advanced) users/ elite users/ vips.
greetz vDD
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