HereComeDatB'y
Member
- Joined
- May 28, 2017
- Messages
- 7
- Reaction score
- 3
New member here, been lurking for a bit because I've been looking for menswear information and this place seems to be where the menswear nerds are at (and I mean that in the most charitable sense - you lot know your stuff!)
The articles and member profiles are a great face for the community here, but actually accessing, or more accurately, parsing the contributed knowledge of the community seems to be more difficult than it should be?
There are technical things, like the search pane popping up offscreen on mobile, but it's more that the division of the forums seems too broad? I understand that a repository-dump style of forum can greatly build a sense of community as those who can best follow it are the ones that check and communicate everyday, but it's not so great for new people IMO.
My first obvious thought is why is there no subforum for "footwear", for example? I want to browse, but there is just too much.
My charitable defense of this is that there may not be enough traffic to warrant further subdivisions, as to not have a bunch of dead subforums.. But then I see threads with 5k+ replies? I also see that there are sponsorships from established corporations and active interactions on their behalf in the forums themselves, so this forum is obviously something lively enough to attract not only their attention, but also their involvement. As a member of other hobby communities I find this particularly impressive (even when I consider that this is an expensive hobby).
I hope I'm not out of line with this suggestion (I'm not familiar with the history here) but as a noob I must say it's a bit confusing - you have terrific articles and a terrific forum full of knowledgeable members.. so why are the forums so hard to navigate to find a particular area of information? As an average Joe I'm googling and it leads me here. When I try to narrow the search and delve into the specifics (after learning terms from here), it REALLY leads me to posts from here, because again, you people know your stuff! So then I'm inclined to dig in and see what the members think, because blogs can often be ads in disguise, and especially because fashion and style is an individual expression, but it's hard to get away from Google search results because the forum itself is basically a dump for threads only separated by classic and streetwear. I would rather not rely on Google and instead delve into the forums themselves and get to know what the people involved think, but the overly broad nature of the forum divisions makes it very difficult.
For example, I searched for a "suggestions" thread to post this in (because there isn't an forum admin area), and I couldn't find a suitable one so I'm posting here.
Again, this isn't a knock on anyone reading this (because this community seems great), just more of an observation from an outsider trying to navigate this wealth of knowledge. I hope this doesn't rub anyone the wrong way, and I'd just like to thank all of you for providing your opinions and info because I've already learned a great deal.
The articles and member profiles are a great face for the community here, but actually accessing, or more accurately, parsing the contributed knowledge of the community seems to be more difficult than it should be?
There are technical things, like the search pane popping up offscreen on mobile, but it's more that the division of the forums seems too broad? I understand that a repository-dump style of forum can greatly build a sense of community as those who can best follow it are the ones that check and communicate everyday, but it's not so great for new people IMO.
My first obvious thought is why is there no subforum for "footwear", for example? I want to browse, but there is just too much.
My charitable defense of this is that there may not be enough traffic to warrant further subdivisions, as to not have a bunch of dead subforums.. But then I see threads with 5k+ replies? I also see that there are sponsorships from established corporations and active interactions on their behalf in the forums themselves, so this forum is obviously something lively enough to attract not only their attention, but also their involvement. As a member of other hobby communities I find this particularly impressive (even when I consider that this is an expensive hobby).
I hope I'm not out of line with this suggestion (I'm not familiar with the history here) but as a noob I must say it's a bit confusing - you have terrific articles and a terrific forum full of knowledgeable members.. so why are the forums so hard to navigate to find a particular area of information? As an average Joe I'm googling and it leads me here. When I try to narrow the search and delve into the specifics (after learning terms from here), it REALLY leads me to posts from here, because again, you people know your stuff! So then I'm inclined to dig in and see what the members think, because blogs can often be ads in disguise, and especially because fashion and style is an individual expression, but it's hard to get away from Google search results because the forum itself is basically a dump for threads only separated by classic and streetwear. I would rather not rely on Google and instead delve into the forums themselves and get to know what the people involved think, but the overly broad nature of the forum divisions makes it very difficult.
For example, I searched for a "suggestions" thread to post this in (because there isn't an forum admin area), and I couldn't find a suitable one so I'm posting here.
Again, this isn't a knock on anyone reading this (because this community seems great), just more of an observation from an outsider trying to navigate this wealth of knowledge. I hope this doesn't rub anyone the wrong way, and I'd just like to thank all of you for providing your opinions and info because I've already learned a great deal.
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