Is It Helpful to Have Separate General and Q&A Forums?

[henkejs 44]

Just wondering what other people think. It looks like people are posting Cakewalk questions in the "General" forum as well as in the "Q&A" forum. Personally, I'd be fine with combining both forums rather than forcing people to decide which of the two is the right place for their Cakewalk-related posts.

[John 443]

I agree with you.  The Q&A forum should be rolled into this forum. The Frequently ask Questions should be read only.

[Craig Anderton 948]

I understand the rationale behind separating discussions and something that's more like support, but the possibility that questions and answers will turn into discussions is always present.

Maybe Q&A should be turned into "Support." That forum could be about how to fix things, while "General" could be more about applications and getting the most out of CbB.

if CbB support posted threads in support on common issues, that could help speed up response time. A query to support could be answered with "here's the link regarding a solution to your issue, if problems persist contact support again and we'll look into it further."

[gmp 78]

I agree, combine into 1 forum

[mdiemer 138]

I agree with Craig.

[John 443]

It seems to me that a forum of this sort is all about asking questions.  It is Q&A.

[chris.r 1,326]

I understand that general is more for a discussion and q&a for quick answers that can be later searched and found easily (when marked 'answered').

[paulo 3,606]

I quite like the distinction.

One is for no nonsense straightforward answers if you actually know the answer No discussion required. You either know the answer or you don't.  I think of it as the scook section.  Saves wading through pages of conjecture when all you want is a simple answer.

The other is more of a  discussion/suggestion/opinion place for those who choose to participate in that.

[InstrEd 3,901]

19 minutes ago, paulo said:

I quite like the distinction.

One is for no nonsense straightforward answers if you actually know the answer No discussion required. You either know the answer or you don't.  I think of it as the scook section.  Saves wading through pages of conjecture when all you want is a simple answer.

The other is more of a  discussion/suggestion/opinion place for those who choose to participate in that.

Agreed.Plus I do believe we will have an influx of new forum members that got CbB after the cakewalk forum was closed to new members and the separation might be good to have.

[chuckebaby 772]

I was under the assumption that "Q+A" is all about Bandlab software (Not debate opinions/just answer questions) And "general" for everything else (Hardware/Bandlab, Computers/Bandlab, exc) because we did lose a couple sub forums (compared to our old forum).

However, I have wondered if they probably should be combined into one sub-forum. I could go either way really.

[pwalpwal 2,889]

looks like those forums' intentions aren't so clear to forum users, see above, so something needs to change

me? i'd have 2 forums: "cwb/sonar" and "other", and then use tags for the whole categorising thing

[Gswitz 460]

I've only been reading general. This thread brought my attention to the other spot. 🙂 Makes no difference to me.

[HMusikk 1]

I "vote" for combining the two into one 🙂

[John 443]

My view is it will most likely be two competing places to view much the same stuff. 

[Bapu 5,121]

10 minutes ago, John said:

My view is it will most likely be two competing places to view much the same stuff. 

Now, pleasse go over to the Q&A forum and state that. 🤪

[Larry Jones 170]

The grocery store where I get my fresh fruit and vegetables has rolls of green plastic bags for organic produce (which are a bit more expensive), and transparent plastic bags for conventionally grown produce. Customers ignore the color-coding, and the checkers have to look inside the bags to figure out what you're buying. I vote for one kind of bag at the supermarket, and one CbB forum for questions, answers and discussions. Same principle: No one will pay attention to this arbitrary "rule," so why complicate things if it won't make life better?

How about dumping the Q&A board and adding one for hardware and third party software?

Edited December 30, 2018 by Larry Jones
clarification

[marled 563]

I wonder why I can post here in this forum as I am no general at all! And if we have a general forum, why is there not a soldier forum?

[bitflipper 2,402]

I'd strongly favor a separate Q&A subforum, but only if users were to exercise some self-discipline when using it.  We all know that ain't gonna happen.

[lossmentality 3]

I, too, like the idea of these forums staying distinct. The only issue is that said distinction is difficult to define exactly, which will lead to people (probably me) posting in the wrong forum (which would also happen even if the distinction was perfect and obvious). Forum moderators can ride herd on that sort of thing by moving posts to the correct forum, of course. 

Still, as I said, I like the idea and think it should be tried for a while. The two can always be merged later (which would be a lot easier to do than going in the other direction once there are many posts).

[Larry Jones 170]

25 minutes ago, bitflipper said:

I'd strongly favor a separate Q&A subforum, but only if users were to exercise some self-discipline when using it.  We all know that ain't gonna happen.

You succinctly addressed the problem. Unless a moderator imposes order by moving things around, restricting access, maybe deleting "irrelevant" posts, etc., "General" and Q&A" might as well be collapsed into one. Why debate something that "ain't gonna happen?" The people at Bandlab are smarter than that.