I hate subcategories. I hate having to appropriately categorize a thread I'm making and I hate having to go through categories. All on one page pls (and make it the default, I have enough trouble finding things on this site...) rofl.

New emoticons are cute.

And I think you should ACTUALLY have awesomeface as an emoticon... False advertising, you had me so excited, lol. I use it enough. >_<

And I like the below the avatar thing. xD

As mentioned earlier you can click the link below the sub-categories to view it like it was before showing new unread threads within the entire general discussion forum. Or click here and bookmark this.

The categories are pretty broad, movies.. music.. etc. While it does suck having to do a bit more thinking when posting something off-topic, I think it'll help get your topic noticed more and responded to... it's going into a sub-forum that users who are interested in that topic will read, vs. going into a huge unorganized section where your thread can quickly get buried onto the next page, etc.

Plus keep in mind that all threads no matter what sub-forum they go into, will appear on the homepage in the 'recent' tab, as well as in the 'general' tab for quick access and to keep ontop of what's newly been posted and what's hot.

We'll see how the sub-forums work out for now, and if they end up not getting a lot of activity or negative feedback then we'll make changes... it was actually user-suggestion that brought about the sub-forums and more 'organized' general discussion section in the first place.

Newly added:

#5. Email subscribe/unsubscribe buttons
Now when you go into a thread you'll see beside the reply button a button that lets you quickly access e-mail subscription options. This allows you to set it up so MacInsiders e-mails you when new replies are posted in that specific thread, or you can set it up to give you a daily update of all the new replies to that topic. Once subscribed, you can also easily unsubscribe yourself with 1 click.

Originally Posted by Chad

Newly added:

#5. Email subscribe/unsubscribe buttons
Now when you go into a thread you'll see beside the reply button a button that lets you quickly access e-mail subscription options. This allows you to set it up so MacInsiders e-mails you when new replies are posted in that specific thread, or you can set it up to give you a daily update of all the new replies to that topic. Once subscribed, you can also easily unsubscribe yourself with 1 click.

I turned off the e-mail notices but because I'm still subscribed to the thread is still says "Turn off e-mail notices"... but they're off!

Have you turned them off completed by deleting the subscriptions in your control panel?

Originally Posted by Chad

Have you turned them off completed by deleting the subscriptions in your control panel?

The thing is that I don't mind having the subscriptions in case I miss a thread I posted in, since it shows up in my settings. It's not a big deal, just wondering why it still said to turn e-mail notification off since it already is off

Oh, the button just shows that if you're subscribed... not if email is actually turned on or not. I just replaced the subscription button with that new button. People got confused what 'subscribe' meant and thought they had to pay for stuff.

Most users don't subscribe to forums just to list them in their control panel, they do it to get the email updates, so I made the button say email notifications instead, which makes it clearer what you can do with that feature

Now, I voice the same concerns of those who are saying subcategories are bad but allow me to elaborate why.

Allowing subcategories is good in that it allows huge amount of users to quickly seek what they are looking for very quickly IF they already had a desire to look for that one particular category. However, most users on mac insiders go to "general discussion" because they know that it is the one place where "every thing else except for academics is".

Having said that, allowing all the posts about "everything else" in one forum allows the input of everyone because it reaches out to a wider audience, not just that one person who's a fan of anime and just always clicking on that anime subcategory. The general form was like a cluttered restaurant and each table was a different topic and occasionally a new table pops up, except this restaurant was special in that you were able to just randomly sit at any of the table and start talking to another and it is encouraged to do that by the restaurant owners. Now, imagine that it was the same setting, except each table was surrounded by a non transparent room, but its doors were wide open.

Conclusion: subcategory ruins a wider audience input and input from a more wider audience is what makes posts interesting.

Solution: Change it back, and if there is a trend of posts going into one particular category, then make a subcategory of that.

Nice analogy killza. We'll definitely take it into account, possible a site-wide vote on the homepage? Again, it comes down to what the users what, so if the majority of you all want the general forum to be merged into a massive bin to talk about anything and everything non-academic then it will get changed back I think a vote on the homepage could work for that.

Update for Jhan, good feedback. I've changed the unsubscribe button so it now reads "Turn off subscription" to keep it neutral to the fact that it could be just to subscribe to have the threads show up in your control panel only or could be for email alerts, but since I can't distinguish if they subscribed for email alerts or just to track the thread via the control panel I switched the wording. The wording on the subscribe button i've still left as turn on email updates simply because that is what the feature is most popularly used for and we want to bring attention to that useful feature

Im having a hard time of finding a link to the "Introduce yourself" forum... am I blind? Can someone point out the obvious for me

Originally Posted by Chad

Nice analogy killza. We'll definitely take it into account, possible a site-wide vote on the homepage? Again, it comes down to what the users what, so if the majority of you all want the general forum to be merged into a massive bin to talk about anything and everything non-academic then it will get changed back I think a vote on the homepage could work for that.

Update for Jhan, good feedback. I've changed the unsubscribe button so it now reads "Turn off subscription" to keep it neutral to the fact that it could be just to subscribe to have the threads show up in your control panel only or could be for email alerts, but since I can't distinguish if they subscribed for email alerts or just to track the thread via the control panel I switched the wording. The wording on the subscribe button i've still left as turn on email updates simply because that is what the feature is most popularly used for and we want to bring attention to that useful feature

That sounds good Chad

Originally Posted by Melanieee

Im having a hard time of finding a link to the "Introduce yourself" forum... am I blind? Can someone point out the obvious for me

Forums-->Browse Discussion Boards and it's the first category.

On an unrelated note, since there seems to be an emphasis on discussion of media now, would it be possible to integrate BBCode for spoiler tags into the forums? I like the ones where you have to click "show" to view the spoilers, but the kind where you have to highlight the text works too. Or both, I guess. I suspect they'll be appreciated in one form or another.

So if it was user suggestion, where's the dislike button?

Seriously, it'd be perfect for situations like "what do you think about this article" and you can just hit dislike instead of posting "I don't like this."

The biggest feedback we got was wanting more organization in the forums and more categories of off-topic stuff so that the forums weren't all about mcmaster and school stuff.

Dislike button is coming, just haven't gotten around to it yet.

Originally Posted by Melanieee

Im having a hard time of finding a link to the "Introduce yourself" forum... am I blind? Can someone point out the obvious for me

At the top click FORUMS > INTRODUCE YOURSELF.