Time to split up the T&M categories?

[Specmaster]

Test Equipment has about 340 pages. And due to the massive amount of posts per day, one would need to search a few pages each day to see discussions about devices one is interested in. Why bother to scan through 1 million scopes-posts, when youre only interested in high quality bench DMMs, vintage stuff or interesting specialized stuff from the 70ies. In the end i mostly dont bother to visit TM-Section because of its fast pace and the necessary combing to get interesting stuff and thats sad because theres gold buried somewhere in between.

Unlike when I was young, the key skill nowadays is quickly determining what to ignore.

Splitting into curated categories was the USP of Yahoo! when it started.

Searching uncurated content was the USP of Google when it started.

There are good reasons why the Yahoo! concept failed and the Google concept succeeded, and they are valid in this case too.

Consider: having many categories can only help you define where stuff isn't: most interesting stuff could be equally well be placed into many categories. Example: if you have a problem with a graphing 6.5digit DVM, which single category would you put it in? Repair, metrology, DMM, etc.

Quite right and as Dave told me in a reply, Google is your friend as it searches through our forum and finds key words, so the best way of locating anything within our forum is to use Google and restrict Google to just look at our forum (quite how to do that, I'm not sure, but there must be a way hence Daves reply).

If anyone knows how to do that perhaps they might share it here for all to see and if it is made a "sticky" everyone can see it and then there is zero need to do anything, but leave the forum exactly as it is. If it isn't broken, leave it alone.

[Fungus]

the best way of locating anything within our forum is to use Google and restrict Google to just look at our forum (quite how to do that, I'm not sure, but there must be a way hence Daves reply).

Just add "site:eevblog.com" to the query.

(without quotes, obviously)

[beanflying]

the best way of locating anything within our forum is to use Google and restrict Google to just look at our forum (quite how to do that, I'm not sure, but there must be a way hence Daves reply).

Just add "site:eevblog.com" to the query.

(without quotes, obviously)

Just be lazy and have the new search box in the top right type that for you 

[xrunner]

If the best way is to use Google then why were all the extra computing boards just added? I'm still confused ... 

[Specmaster]

If the best way is to use Google then why were all the extra computing boards just added? I'm still confused ... 

Maybe I misunderstood what Dave actually meant then because I suggested that we just needed a better search facility, and he replied the best way is to use Google and tell it to just search the forum 

[bitseeker]

If the best way is to use Google then why were all the extra computing boards just added? I'm still confused ... 

I don't know. When were all those added? Recently? I usually start from the "new replies" page, so I rarely look at the forum home page.

I concur that for "the largest test equipment forum on the internet," the forum home page doesn't represent it well.

[xrunner]

I don't know. When were all those added? Recently? I usually start from the "new replies" page, so I rarely look at the forum home page.

Only yesterday as far as I can tell. 

I concur that for "the largest test equipment forum on the internet," the forum home page doesn't represent it well.

I guess I'll quit while I'm ahead. I just do not understand all of this. If Googling is the answer why add more forum boards. And if we are adding more forum boards, then why not more categories for Test Equipment?

Or - why not both? Just because there are more boards doesn't mean people can't still search for topics.

Like I said, Greater Minds than mine are at work on this, I will defer to their wisdom and go back to where I belong. 

[bitseeker]

It may be better to wait for the dust to settle as speculating during construction may not be optimum for understanding.

[Specmaster]

the best way of locating anything within our forum is to use Google and restrict Google to just look at our forum (quite how to do that, I'm not sure, but there must be a way hence Daves reply).

Just add "site:eevblog.com" to the query.

(without quotes, obviously)

Just be lazy and have the new search box in the top right type that for you 

Oops I hadn't noticed that, good tip, thanks bean.