Changes, maybe

[roddy]

I'm considering doing the following:

1) Closing the links section to new submissions and removing the 'latest links' section from the home page. It does attract submissions now and then, but not as often as I'd like and it gets very little use compared to the rest of the site. It also attracts considerable amount of spam / commercial posting.

2) Similarly the Sport, Business and Economy and Photography don't see a great deal of use, and I think it would be wise to merge them with other forums - posts on the topics will obviously still be welcome, but under a different heading - ie, B&E stuff would probably fit under either News or Society, etc.

[imron]

I think sometimes there are quite useful links that get added though. Maybe you could keep it around, but just restrict adding new links to people who have been members longer than a given time period (i.e. > 6 months), and/or a certain number of posts?

[gougou]

I'm considering doing the following:

So you don't have Google today, either...

For me personally, it doesn't matter into what forums the post are divided, as I access the site over the "New Posts" page.

[roddy]

I agree there are useful links added sometimes, but to be honest I think they'd get more attention if they were posted on the forums proper - I'm quite happy for this to happen, as long as it's a case of 'Hey, this site on XYZ is pretty cool because ABC, it also compares well with PQR as it has EDF.' rather than 'Hey, click here!'

Perhaps a central 'Cool Links' topic somewhere? The trouble with the links section is that it sits outside the main forums, and people who navigate via the new posts page - which I think many people do - just don't see it.

[adrianlondon]

I'd also prefer it if the links appeared in the relevant forum thread, as until just now I'd never noticed that this site had a links section worth looking at.

[imron]

I guess the thing about having a separate thread with the link, is that it gets buried rather quickly, and can be more difficult to find several months down the track when you get to wondering which thread the link was posted in. Yes I know there's always search, but sometimes it's not the easiest of things to find a link, especially if other threads also touch upon the same keywords as the thread with the link you're looking for.

I'm not really fussed either way, just thought I'd put forward reasons as to why a separate links thing could be useful.

[johnmck]

Time and time again newbies to the site ask for resources that one can find in the links section. Why not put a banner on the home page telling people to check the links pages before posting, or put it in the "terms and conditoins" sticky so that newbies will see it?

[nipponman]

I have to admit that in my 2 yrs on this forum, i've only been on the links page maybe twice. I think putting it on a more visible page/spot would be wise.

[roddy]

Ok, while upgrading the site this afternoon, I . . .

Moved all Photography posts into Chat and Language Exchange

Moved all Sports and Business & Economy posts into Society

Put the links section into stasis, closing it to new entries and removing most of its links on the rest of the site. It is still there though if anyone wants to go and look for some cool site they saw six months ago and can't remember the url for - chinese-forums.com/links