General House Cleaning at the FOG

[Peter Halle]

Good Afternoon:

Over the last few weeks Forrest, Shane, and I have been discussing ways to clean up some of the old posts in the Forum.  Although this is a huge database of useful information, sometimes there are some Boards that really need to be tidied up for various reasons.

One of those Boards is the Classified Board.  Most items advertised there tend to sell relatively quickly and the threads never get closed out.  So, please visit this link to see a proposed change to the rules of that board:  Classified Ads

As always, we are open to feedback regarding that change.  If you have any comments, please post them here.

Peter

[Rey Johnson]

I hope that there is not a need ever to archive old posts...the posts are my Festool encyclopedia.
Rey

[Peter Halle]

Rey,

There haven't been any discussions regarding archiving or deleting.  I believe the intent is to leave information around except in the classified section as per the suggested rule change regarding that Board. 

Peter

[John Langevin]

Peter,

One suggestion I have contemplated for some time concerns the structure of the posts. Since the FOG is essentially a somewhat loosely structured relational database, its archival value lies in how well its structure meets the needs of the user. Oftentimes I will remember a topic or post but am unsuccesful in locating it because I can't remember exactly what its heading was.

What I would like to suggest for discussion is that we develop some sort of simple "index card form" with pulldown selection boxes; this is how most relational databases are structured in order to ensure the integrity of the data they contain. It need not be applied to all subjects but would be most useful when discussing specific tools and techniques or problems and enhancements. For example if your creating a post in Tools and Enhancements and you are referring to a specific sander you would get a pulldown list of all the official Festool Model designations. This way all references to a RTS400 would be easily accessed by simply selecting that model in a pulldown box in the query form.

I relize it would be a huge (and not necessarily useful task) to attempt to edit old posts to conform to a new structure but perhaps for the most popular topics as they recur and reference older posts they could be enhanced through the new system.

I would love to get other members' feedback on this idea as to whether they would find it useful and worthwhile.

Regards,

John Langevin

[Alex]

This way all references to a RTS400 would be easily accessed by simply selecting that model in a pulldown box in the query form.

I simply select all references to the RTS400 by entering that string in the search form of this site ....... and there you are.