the "Excel Questions" forum

[CalvinTy]

Moderators:

I'm only a new member of several days (did register in March but didn't visit/post until this month), so my suggestion may have been heard before. It may just be my moderator/founder mentality (of a couple of forums via ZetaBoards platform but very aware of vBulletin).

I am noticing that the Excel Questions forum is quite busy -- with the setup of 20 topics per page -- that means that posts in this forum can go into later pages within a matter of a half hour.

I noticed the description is:

"All Excel/VBA questions - formulas, macros, pivot tables, general help, etc. Please post to this forum in English only."

Perhaps it's best if there are new child forums with this structure:

• General Help
• Formulas
• Macros
• Pivot Tables

Some people just want feedback to troubleshoot macros but it would be in the same exact forum with a new member asking for a general question. Other people want to understand how pivot tables work (like I would), and it would be easier for me to review topics about pivot tables only. The search function can do so much, but yet not enough when all you want to do is to review existing topics about an area of interest.

Also, this may reduce the possibility of people bumping their topics up because the topics gets so backlogged very quickly.

I for one am seeking an answer in my formula question from a couple of days ago (so this was a slightly-biased post).

Just giving a suggestion.

Cheers,

* CalvinTy

 

[shg]

I post on other boards that subdivide forums by category; people broadly ignore it, so it just makes more work for mods.

We also ask people for descriptive thread titles, and you can see how well that works ...

 

[Norie]

I've also posted on boards that have different categories, the majority of posts tend to end up in the General category.

 

[CalvinTy]

shg,

I can understand that if people end up still posting in the "General Help" forum despite having "Formulas" or "Macros" forums next to it -- I'm not sure how that would be more work for mods "other than reading more forums" (but -- ultimately -- same number of topics?).

Even with descriptive titles and people posting in right forum (heck, right now, it's just "literally everything Excel" in one single forum, though) -- the situation right now is that the 20 most recent topics on the first page were just posted within 13 minutes of each other.

That's quite a bit of traffic in one specific spot -- almost like a bottleneck in traffic, if you follow.

Cheers,

* CalvinTy

 

[CalvinTy]

I've also posted on boards that have different categories, the majority of posts tend to end up in the General category.

Just saw this. Very true. I wonder.... perhaps no "General" category then? Drastic thought but perhaps that makes someone to try and put in the right category then?

* CalvinTy

 

[shg]

It creates more work if they are inclined to moved the threads to the correct forum.

 

[CalvinTy]

It creates more work if they are inclined to moved the threads to the correct forum.

That's fair. Maybe the threshold for that "necessity of the work" would have to be high -- if someone obviously meant to post in macro area, but posted in pivot table area instead -- then a mod can do the move per request.

Otherwise, if someone was not sure if a formula or a macro would be the answer, they can post wherever they want. Or if the respondents feel that OP didn't post in the right place, the respondents can be the ones to tell the OP "where to post the next time". Less work on mods.

Especially -- as pointed out -- without having a general area, something like:

• Formulas
• Macros
• Pivot Tables

True, most of the "public" would end up using Formulas if that ended up as the setup. Just a thought nonetheless.

My immediate concern is that new posters or even veteran posters may be frustrated with so many topics are coming in one single forum -- and it can only get worse in the future, I imagine?

* CalvinTy

 

[Jon von der Heyden]

This question has been asked a number of times, each time the points raised and general consensus is as follows:

1. Categorising the forum into sub-forums will create a lot more work for the mods.
2. Some questions include multiple categories.
3. Their has always been strong suggestion that the forum regulars like having the Excel Questions catch-all
4. MrExcel is a very, very popular forum and has one of the largest online Excel community populations. And the population is not aging. New-comers are not put off by the current set-up.

My suggestion to those who struggle with the fast pace and struggle to find posts that interest them, learn how to search the forum.

 

[Joe4]

One of the main reasons why we do not have multiple sub-forums (like Formulas, Macros, Pivot Tables, etc), is because many times, people do not know what section they should put it in. I can't tell you how many times people have asked for Macro solutions when there is already a formula that does it that they are not aware of. Or a person asks a question that is a classic Pivot Table question, but they didn't know that a Pivot Table would solve their issue. Or often times there are multiple solutions to a problem.

So since people are often asking questions that they have no idea what the solution might be, it is not realistic to expect that they know which forum it should be posted in. And it would create a lot of extra work for our "all volunteer" Moderator staff to monitor every thread and move them around.

 

[xenou]

I prefer the "one" forum for excel questions. My reason is that I very much enjoy just coming to the forum and viewing the questions across many categories - my interest in Excel is varied and so are the questions, so it's a good fit. Conversely, when I visit other forums that have forums by topic, it seems a lot of work to me to try to visit the different forums, and I don't find that it's easier for me to either ask or answer questions.

As far as searching for solutions go, the categorization helps not at all. You can't actually search for solutions by just browsing questions in the forum - you use search tools, keywords, google, and so on.

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