Forum re-organisation for the 47th time ...

Second Summer

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When posting a new thread, I realise it can sometimes be difficult to find the "right" forum for it.

So in an effort to make this easier, I'd like to make further changes to the forum layout, naming and organisation.

I have a couple of basic principles:
- A smaller number of forums will make it easier to navigate and post new threads
- Forum names should be relatively short, but long enough to convey the true meaning
- We should try to avoid "sub-forums", i.e. forums within forums, such as e.g. the New Vegetarians' Help Desk forum within The Vegetarian Forum.

These are some of my current more concrete thoughts on the changes I'd like to make:

- New Vegetarians' Help Desk gets merged into Ask Us A Question!
- Food & Drink is renamed to The Kitchen. (Which makes sense since we also have The Lounge.)
- The Recipes sub-forums are merged into Recipes, and thread prefixes are used to replace the old forum names. This makes it possible to have a recipe in multiple "categories" since a thread can have multiple prefixes. (I'm not 100% sure I want to do this, but maybe.)
- Vegan Package Exchanges is merged into The Vegan Forum, gets a thread prefix called Package Exchange.
- Festivities & Special Occasions is merged into another forum (not sure which yet ...), gets a thread prefix.
- Home & Garden is renamed to Garden & DIY
- Arts & Crafts
are renamed to The Hobby Room. (Maybe. Or maybe not?)
- All the forums in the Animals category are merged, thread prefixes are used instead of the old forum names.
- The Globetrotting category is removed, and the forums within it are merged into one called Local & Travel or something like that. Thread prefixes will be used instead of the old forum names. France gets a "FR" thread prefix.

Please let me know what you think!
 
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We have so many different what are you eating/cookin/ eating for various meals/cooking for various meals threads. Would it be possible to organize them?

ETA: There's so much duplication, for instance these two threads (ahd there are quite a few more):
Super/Dinner/What's on the Menu?

What are You Having For (Vegetarian) Lunch/Dinner/Snack?





 
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We have so many different what are you eating/cookin/ eating for various meals/cooking for various meals threads. Would it be possible to organize them?

ETA: There's so much duplication, for instance these two threads (ahd there are quite a few more):
Super/Dinner/What's on the Menu?

What are You Having For (Vegetarian) Lunch/Dinner/Snack?





This is not a duplicate thread. The second one is in the Vegetarian support area and not in the F&D forum.
The purpose of having a separate one was decided so that vegetarians could post any food that was not vegan.

We discussed this some time ago with the Mod team and found that vegetarians were reluctant to talk
about certain foods that were not a 100 % vegan. This is the reason for the above thread.

With regard to duplicate threads, we have also been doing a lot of cleaning up. Some old threads have also been
bumped up recently which have similar titles. Some have been deleted whilst others are still around due to some recent
activity.
If you find other duplicate threads, don't hesitate to send a pm to one of the Mods.
 
Ah, I see. I almost always access threads through the "Recent Posts" feature, so I see what appears to be duplicative threads.

ETA: I don't consider myself vegan, but the meals I prepare are vegan. In which threads am I supposed to post- the vegan or the vegetarian ones?
 
Ah, I see. I almost always access threads through the "Recent Posts" feature, so I see what appears to be duplicative threads.

ETA: I don't consider myself vegan, but the meals I prepare are vegan. In which threads am I supposed to post- the vegan or the vegetarian ones?

I'm also a strict vegetarian but most of my meals are plant based.

It's not a rule but it would seem more logical that if you are posting or wishing to discuss a vegetarian meal/snack to discuss it in the Vegetarian support forum. This thread was creating as we didn't want vegetarians to feel uncomfortable when posts contained ingredients or dishes that were not 100% plant based.

This also doesn't mean that members cannot post or discuss vegetarian food in the F&D section.
 
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No, I'm not a strict vegetarian, nor am I a vegan. The meals I prepare are vegan, but on the rare occasions when I eat out, I don't ask, for instance, whether there is a bit of dairy product in the bread, or if the veggie burger contains egg, which means I don't qualify as vegan. In other matters, such as the position of humans versus other animals, I'm probably more toward the side of nonhuman animals than most vegans.

But what I hear you saying is that, unless I qualify as vegan, I should post the meals I prepare in the vegetarian, and not vegan, threads, right?
 
No, I'm not a strict vegetarian, nor am I a vegan. The meals I prepare are vegan, but on the rare occasions when I eat out, I don't ask, for instance, whether there is a bit of dairy product in the bread, or if the veggie burger contains egg, which means I don't qualify as vegan. In other matters, such as the position of humans versus other animals, I'm probably more toward the side of nonhuman animals than most vegans.

But what I hear you saying is that, unless I qualify as vegan, I should post the meals I prepare in the vegetarian, and not vegan, threads, right?

That's incorrect. The thread in the Vegetarian support area is a place for posting non plant based meals/food etc. We are not requesting that a members states whether they are a vegetarian or vegan.

However, it would seem logical that if a member posts a meal that contains cheese or eggs, that the former is a vegetarian.
The one and only purpose for this given thread is that a member should feel comfortable discussing non plant based food.
 
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That's incorrect. The thread in the Vegetarian support area is a place for posting non plant based meals/food etc. We are not requesting that a members states whether they are a vegetarian or vegan.

However, it would seem logical that if a member posts a meal that contains cheese or eggs, that the former is a vegetarian.
The one and only purpose for this given thread is that a member should feel comfortable discussing non plant based food.

O.K., that makes sense. Thanks!
 
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Now I'm confused again.

A third thread has shown up in "Recent Posts":
Supper/Dinner Time ! What's on the menu
 
All the previous S/D threads have been locked. We have decided to start a new one at the beginning of each year.
Ahhh...so that would explain, what appears to be, a “Can Ayone Help” thread. :)
 
Ahhh...so that would explain, what appears to be, a “Can Ayone Help” thread. :)

This thread like the other 'what did you eat whatever' threads contain far to many contents and are never-ending. That's the reason why we have decided to have one for each year. You can still click onto the contents but no longer post in any of the old one.
I hope that makes sense as it was not our intention to confuse you.:)

You can see that a thread has been locked when a padlock (yellow) when you click onto the section of the forum. Perhaps this is not obvious to members who are not part of the mod team.

Our apologies for any confusion.;)
 
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All the previous S/D threads have been locked. We have decided to start a new one at the beginning of each year.
So the vegetarian one is in the vegetarian forum, and the vegan one is in the food and drink forum?

ETA: So, the Food and Drink forum has three threads that deal with what one is eating on a given day:

Supper/Dinner Time! What's on the Menu?
Watcha Eating?
What Did You Cook or Bake Today?

And the Vegetarian forum has:

What are you having for (Vegetarian) lunch/dinner/snack?


This brings me full circle back to my original comment that we seem to have a lot of overlapping/duplicative food threads, but it's no skin off my nose - you guys are the ones doing the work. The only reason I mentioned it was because IS started this thread asking for suggestions.
 
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So the vegetarian one is in the vegetarian forum, and the vegan one is in the food and drink forum?

Whilst there is only one thread for S/D/S in the vegetarian forum, there are no rules for discussing non plant based food or topics in the F&D forum.
The one and only reason why we created a S/D/S thread in the vegetarian forum, is because some members received some
unpleasant remarks when they mentioned that they ate eggs and dairy.

If you click onto the Vegetarian forum, you will notice that all the threads are related to vegetarian topics. The same goes for the vegan forum.
 
Whilst there is only one thread for S/D/S in the vegetarian forum, there are no rules for discussing non plant based food or topics in the F&D forum.
The one and only reason why we created a S/D/S thread in the vegetarian forum, is because some members received some
unpleasant remarks when they mentioned that they ate eggs and dairy.

If you click onto the Vegetarian forum, you will notice that all the threads are related to vegetarian topics. The same goes for the vegan forum.
I understand that from your previous post. I was just pointing out that there are three threads in the F&D forum that all deal with what we are eating today, and that seems repetitive and redundant.

As I also said, I wouldn't have mentioned it, except that IS specifically asked for input.

If you all are happy with it, that's great.
 
I understand that from your previous post. I was just pointing out that there are three threads in the F&D forum that all deal with what we are eating today, and that seems repetitive and redundant.

As I also said, I wouldn't have mentioned it, except that IS specifically asked for input.

If you all are happy with it, that's great.

They were all originally posted by different members. Initially there were far more 'eating' threads and I have locked most of the ones that seemed duplicate or received few posts.

You can't please all members on a forum and we can't stop members posting new threads. Some may think that they are repetitive and others don't. We aim to get the balance right.
 
As discussed, I've added global thread prefixes 'FR' and 'EU'. I've also added a prefix 'Package Exchange' which is only available in the 'Vegan Forum', and have moved all the package exchange threads into that forum and given them that prefix. And then deleted the 'Package Exchanges' sub-forum.