What do members think of the new web site & forum structure?

Street at this point is still operating as a genre. It should shortly (this week I think) become a Weekly thread.

I strongly advocate that we do not rebuild/encourage the genres. We finish up with what we had before, lots of boxes with little activity in them and people making posts that are rarely responded to. Because everyone else uses genres or camera brands as categories, new arrivals here will pick up on that kind of organization if it is seen to be easily available here. What we are trying to do here is create plenty of activity with a relatively small number of members, to engage newcomers.
If anyone wants to post on, say, architecture, there is plenty of opportunity still to do it and get responses back from those interested. Some of the smaller genres are likely to be catered for in the under development "Abstract and Experimental" Weekly thread.
If anyone thinks they see enough interest in a particular subject to support a weekly thread, talk to us about it and we can help to set it up. If there isn't enough traffic to support a "weekly" it is probably better dealt with through the other posting avenues rather than as a genre.

You can make it that way if that's what you (plural) want.

But you are shoehorning the site down a somewhat narrow path.

One of the issues we discussed was the large page with many dormant forums. I agree that it is better to group them.

But there are and always will be people who don't want to post in managed threads. I believe there should still be the opportunity for individual forums.

I like the managed threads. But I don't always want to post in them. Case in point - it doesn't feel correct to me to post Yet Another Dragonfly in the weekly C&C - so where do I post them?

Yes, there has to be the option to post in a share thread or post solo.

Wouldn’t it work to post any image or image set of anything at all under Image Showcase? I’ve been a member in a forum that was genre-less and there was a section like this called Photo Gallery.

I have said this over and over and everyone misses it.

I am NOT suggesting more on the front page. PLEASE read what I say.

I am saying that there could still be genre specific forums listed under Showcase your Photos (I think that would be the best upper level category).

Maybe I am missing something about the Misago setup?

So I will ask - is it possible to have forums under one of the upper level ones?

Otherwise I will just prepend the title with Fauna, Flora, etc.

More dragonflies could go under Weekly Collegial, or This week through your eyes, or Image showcase. Or, if Bryan thinks there is enough interest, start a repeating thread on the subject. or think of a broader category for a repeating thread that might include Dragonflies. "Nature" could include BIF, macro, dragon flies, general ecology.
I think we need a descriptor with each of the Weekly Thread titles so people get an idea of what is inside it.

This is an interesting idea. Could you demonstrate how it would work in a dev model that won't affect the working version of the forum?

Tags would be a good long term solution. Hope we can get to that point!

I have lots of doubts about this. Big doubts.

1. We need descriptors on the forum headings so people know what will be within.
2. The issue seems to me to be overstated. For example, I find it hard to envisage why anyone who wants to post a landscape image, or look at landscape images, wouldn't go to, say, the landscape weekly. This presupposes that we have headings that enable them to find The Landscape weekly. If they post to that thread they will get a lot more response than they will get from a stand alone landscape. I can envisage as a hypothetcal, someone saying they would like to have stand alone posting. But in practice? I don't know about y'all, but when I post I want the best chance of it being seen and people responding. It is crystal clear from looking at the posting on our site that the shepherded weekly thread model is the most effective way to do this.
3. If someone really, really don't want to post to a shepherded thread, there is plenty of opportunity still on the site for them to do it. All they need to do is, as Bryan suggests, use a heading that gives readers a clue as to what they are posting about.
4. If they strike gold with a subject, maybe astro photography, and they get a volume of responses that indicates a groundswell of enthusiasts, a new Weekly, or perhaps Monthly, shepherded thread can be started if they wish.
5. What is being proposed at the moment very much bothers me. I'd want to see what it looked like and at this point I can't envisage it.
   I agree that most people expect photo sites to be arranged in genres and gear labels. If that is what people see, and especially if it is high up on what they see when they arrive, that is what they will reach for. The tag searches will, I suspect, become the same as genres in how they are used. How many of those little genre labels/boxes do you think we will have to have? It goes on forever. Even DPR with a vastly bigger membership has problems keeping all those boxes filled and active.
   Meanwhile, can anyone see a significant topic area that we are missing with the Weekly threads? Note that Street and "Abstract/Experimental" appear to be on the way. I think we need "Nature" but we don't seem to have enough interest from the current members. I'd hope that with more members this might become possible.
   I'd also like to see something with some political bite, like ecology and social issues.

If it's not a big deal, let's not bother Martin with it and please forget my comment.

Yes, as Arvo says.
David if you compare the two pages, what they do is quite different.
The Forum/Index page, dprevived.com/ is the machinery page that every thing runs from.
The web/landing page www.the-photo.org/ is designed to introduce what we do. It's where we want new arrivals to be directed so they can see what we are about, what we want to offer that is different and be guided to areas that hopefully will engage them.
What is being done on www.the-photo.org/ couldn't also be done on or combined with dprevived.com/
They need different kinds of presentation and it would result in a page that was much too big and complex.

Sorry Arvo, I still haven't got my head around the quote systenm and I don't have the time at the moment to go back to work it out. I'll just cut and past and add my new comments in italics..
@MikeFewster has written:
I have lots of doubts about this. Big doubts.

Don't worry - this is only little brainstorming here, nothing will be lost or reworked :)

OK

1 We need descriptors on the forum headings so people know what will be within.

For single genre forums we don't need descriptions, short label is enough - if you see "Macro", what other description do you need?

I'm looking at The Forum Index. dprevived.com/ Check the descriptors on Image Discussions and Showcase your Images. How would someone new to the place understand these, or where they should be looking to see images or to post? Have your photos critiqued is self explanatory enough. Challenges? What is this about? What is inside? Weekly and Topical image threads. Needs a list of what is inside- Landscape, B&W, Street, Sunday Cat etc.
If you start new single issue forums, we will be back where we started from with masses of little forums with very little in them. You can start a new thread though on any subject you care to start and it can be placed in Showcase Your Photos or Image Discussions or Technical discussion or Open discussion - wherever you thought most appropriate.

2 The issue seems to me to be overstated. For example, I find it hard to envisage why anyone who wants to post a landscape image, or look at landscape images, wouldn't go to, say, the landscape weekly. Have your photos critiqued is self explanatory enough. Challenges? What is this about? What is inside? Weekly and Topical image threads. Needs a list of what is inside- Landscape, B&W, Street, Sunday Cat etc.

I can name a few, also if I had bunch of good images (what I don't have), I would prefer to post them NOT in weekly threads. I do not like crowded places and I think I'm not alone.
Well, I'm not sure why you'd be posting at all if you don't want as many people as possible to see it - but OK, let's assume that is what you want to do. It's easy. Do what I said in the last paragraph here. Make your post with whatever heading you choose to Showcase Your Photos. or if Tecnical or Open discussion is more suitable for your subject matter, choose one of them.

This presupposes that we have headings that enable them to find The Landscape weekly. If they post to that thread they will get a lot more response than they will get from a stand alone landscape. I can envisage as a hypothetcal, someone saying they would like to have stand alone posting. But in practice? I don't know about y'all, but when I post I want the best chance of it being seen and people responding. It is crystal clear from looking at the posting on our site that the shepherded weekly thread model is the most effective way to do this.

It is efficient, this no-one will dispute. But I think we should not kill other opportunities; we would not advertise them - but they should be present.
But they are, as I've explained above.

3 If someone really, really don't want to post to a shepherded thread, there is plenty of opportunity still on the site for them to do it. All they need to do is, as Bryan suggests, use a heading that gives readers a clue as to what they are posting about.

Heading is good, but hard to find or filter by it. Adding semi-hidden catgeory to it makes filtering possible - click on the Street label on the some doctor's thread heading and you can see, what I mean.
I've been looking at this. I can see evidence of the search facility only being used in relation to users. I can see no evidence that anyone goes and hunts out a post that is more than a month or two old. If they find such a post and respond to it, I don't like their chances of having the reply seen. The search facility is very useful with Users. It enables us to find everyone and we can locate specific posts. Again, I can't imagine that we are likely to be trying to find posts that aren't relatively recent. What I'm concerned about is the moment you start applying genre tags, you will mhave to have lots os them and a list of them. how many are you envisaging there will be? We will then have a default return to the kind of genre based model we had previously.

5 What is being proposed at the moment very much bothers me. I'd want to see what it looked like and at this point I can't envisage it.

You likely won't see anything different. Alan's page does not change, forum home page does not change, thread starter will have more options to post his image, usres can find related images by clicking more informative label.

I agree that most people expect photo sites to be arranged in genres and gear labels. If that is what people see, and especially if it is high up on what they see when they arrive, that is what they will reach for. The tag searches will, I suspect, become the same as genres in how they are used. How many of those little genre labels/boxes do you think we will have to have? It goes on forever.

So? As long we don't have tags this is the only non-intrusive way to at least somehow classify images. When we get tags, then visuals almost do not change - we just can have more than single tag for thread - and we can have tags for single posts.