I'm about 4 hours into an 18 hour job of splitting the discussions in the Technical Forums into sub-categories. Those subs are: Engines Electronics Generators Stabs, Tabs & Gyros Props, Shafts & Seals HVAC https://www.yachtforums.com/superyacht/technical-discussion.5/ For newcomers, I think it's a lot easier to search for relevant discussions. Hope you guys agree, because it's eye-crossing, mind-numbing work. There's a reason I put this off for years! Before I get too deep into this, please view the sub-forums and let me know if we're going in the right direction? Thanks!
Oh man ... Having been kind of where you are on this in the past, I can only offer you words of encouragement - but since you asked, maybe hydraulics might be included with engines, what do you think about H&C water (to include water makers) and sanitation? There are also many technical posts about AC and DC power. Just my 2 cents. Thanks.
Once we have enough threads to properly populate a sub-forum, we can add more titles such as: Watermakers Hydraulics Paint / Gelcoat Transmissions / Gears Controls SatCom Exhaust Batteries
It will make research into specific subjects more targeted, iow less to shovel through trying to find something. Cool.
My two cents, keep it broad with a search device. Not narrow corridors you're killing yourself. Look how desperate we are now in selecting sub forums!
And look how much more work you're creating after the change in constantly having to move even more things than you do now.
+1. I follow several technical forums, and too many new posts begin "I searched for this but couldn't find it". You have one of the few very good search capabilities on the web here, and that's the key. I've always had good search results on here, but on other forums, many are near useless. For them, I use the Google plug-in for Chrome browsers. Just click the icon, a search box appears, and Google searches just that site. As it stands, you do a bit of housekeeping for posting relocations, and it will just get ugly for you if sub-categorized too much. Sit back and relax, Carl, things are great!
If you have a good search engine we have a great experience. And you do. I'd continue to improve that. Sometimes when I jump on with a thought, I'm not sure what forum I should be on, more will just give me more chances to be wrong. When you see an outsized cluster around an issue, that might be your signal? Dunno….
Is there any software available to run on YFs server end that could resize any size photo sent from a cell phones or PCs down to the YF standard ? Or would it need to be written ? I know YF would soar to unimaginable numbers of new users & views if more pictures are posted. I believe having to resize prevents many/most from posting pictures. I know if it was only that simple it would already have been done !
Yeah that's a big one. I never know whether I did it correctly. Understand the concern about the sat guys. But if there was a quick way to do it, or you "invented" an auto resizer for us, uh, technically clumsy folk....
Gents, the option your requesting is already a feature-set of Xenforo. It's one of the many reasons we migrated to this platform in November of 2014. You can upload pics of any size and the software will automatically reduce the 'visible area' of the image (see attached pic as an example). When you click the pic, it displays the entire image. The problem isn't image size, it's bandwidth. We have a ton of Satcom users, probably more than any other forum. Here's an example at 3024 x 4032, about the average size smartphone pic in portrait orientation...
For historic pics of yachts that may be grainy in nature, we encourage full-size photos because it may be the only way to see certain details, but in the case of a widget inside a bilge, or in this case a YF chocolate cookie, we don't want chew up a ton of data just to see a cookie. Or a widget in a bilge!
I agree with Walt and others, when you include pics as reference in a thread, it's a more engaging user experience.