On the haiku-web mailing list it was wondered what features the web forums lack. To that end everyone’s invited to post their ideas. So, bain-storming… I start:
International forums
I'd suggest to go with German, French, Italian, Japanese, Russian, Spanish subforums first, all other languages go into the main "International" forum. If there's much traffic of one language in the main forum, we can offer to open its own subforum.
Equally, if there's no traffic in those default languages, move the threads to the main forum and close it down.
Move some forums to "Old & Closed"
Some forums almost not used at all. To keep their posts without cluttering, let's put them under "Old & Closed"
I propose thes forums:
General Haiku Discussion
Here you can talk about anything relating to Haiku.
User Support Forum
Questions/problems with Haiku? Post here and get help from the community.
Suggestion Box
Suggestions about something related to Haiku? Post here.
International Forum
-- subforums: German, French, Italian, Japanese, Russian, Spanish
Off-Topic
Old & Closed
Move Marketing, Team Haiku Distributed Computing, Creative Design, Newbie Developer Forum here. Those have been very low-traffic, people can post these topics in the general forum, for example.
Avatars
To make posts better recognizable and the whole thing more personal. I'd opt for one fixed size, like 96x96, to have it all nice and tidy.
Roles/Badges
To make e.g. Haiku developers better recognizable, add some special image/rolename to their postings.
Polls
Sticky threads
Admins can set a thread to "stick" to the top in a forum.
Optional flat hierarchy
Have the option to see all threads chronologically instead of sorted into subforums.
Uploading and showing images in a post
(Or is this already possible?)
What are your ideas.
Note, however, that this is just a wishlist without any promises of eventual implementation.
That sounds nice. I’d like any changes that make the Haiku forum more similar to the wonderful Arch Linux forums. (http://bbs.archlinux.org) Maybe then I’ll stop talking about Haiku so much over there.
How about a list of supposed supported devices… I know we have a list at But this list will only be direkt from the Haiku source. Perhaps a list like this on? One fore each grafic and so on
edit:
now I see the title “Improved forum” oh well
Probably the most important thing is some decent forum software. I also thought it was a real shame when the old MediaWiki Haiku wiki closed. Feels like there’s less community engagement now.
I think that the subforums for every language will have a “dispersive” approach: for example if i open a thread in Italian, with a solution for a problem, non italian people will be excluded due the lack of comprension…
It’s true, but if you’re going to conduct a discussion in Italian somewhere else anyway, then I’m excluded even if I can understand a word or two. (Same with Portuguese language discussions.) But you’re right, community works much better if we can all manage in a common language!
Italian was just an example Is the same if someone leads a discussion in German or in every other language: not everyone can understand (even a word or two) another language different from the its own.
This is an international forum, so the common language should be “default” language. In anyway for those who do not understand English, could be useful without any doubt, a localized subforum!
Italian was just an example Is the same if someone leads a discussion in German or in every other language: not everyone can understand (even a word or two) another language different from the its own.
This is an international forum, so the common language should be “default” language. In anyway for those who do not understand English, could be useful without any doubt, a localized subforum![/quote]
Of course, there could be some dispersing effect. I could imagine that the benefit of giving people without enough English skills a forum might be greater. At least international forums are requested from time to time, so there seems to be a need. We’ll see.
Also, another idea:
Mark threads as "Unsolved / Solved"
(At least in the User Support Forum) threads could be marked as "Unsolved" and switshed to "Solved" when a solution to the problem has been found.
People from an international forum can summarize a solved thread and post it into the English forum. That way the gained knowledge is spread. This of course relies on the motivation of the international users, but in the end that’s always the crux. Every international forum should have an admin, who might take that task on (no obligation!) or delegate if possible to his deputies.
“Improved forum” oh well 
Is the same if someone leads a discussion in German or in every other language: not everyone can understand (even a word or two) another language different from the its own.