2016-06-16, 03:33
Before I thought it was simply unnecessary, but now it's having the effect of hiding important threads from the people who need to read them and/or can help out, among other issues.
There are a few problems with the logic of a video-specific help forum, but the biggest is that "video" is far more likely to be OS-specific than music, pictures, and other fairly-universal features. Music is music, regardless of if it's Android, OS X, Ubuntu, Windows, etc. It makes sense to have a specific forum for that, because you won't miss a Mac OS X music issue if you only keep an eye out on the Mac OS X sub-forum (because there are virtually no OS X-specific issues). Same with pictures. Those are fine, and it makes sense to give them their own areas. For videos, not so much.
For people answering questions, it's an easy sub-category to miss, or even avoid because it has become too catch-all. For someone who only wants to answer Windows questions, do they check a catch-all forum? Probably not. For someone who wants to answer general questions, but knows nothing about linux, will they go in a forum where everything is heavily mixed (and often OS-specific), having to weed through posts? Probably not.
The other issue is about defining "video". Are we talking about universal video library topics (same for all platforms, more or less), or are we talking about video playback, or even just system-level video output stuff (GUI resolution, font corruption, etc)? From the viewpoint of a new user, the word "video" can easily be a catch-all for almost any Kodi issue that involves what they see. Visualizations, screensavers, file shares in the video library, the list goes on.
Given what most people use Kodi for (to watch video), it makes sense that video issues (however defined) are the default topic. It makes sense to handle them in a general forum that also has per-OS sub-forums. At this point it's not a big deal, and I won't lose any sleep over it, but it is a step in the wrong direction. The forum layout should focus more on getting posts to the right eyeballs rather than uniformity.
There are a few problems with the logic of a video-specific help forum, but the biggest is that "video" is far more likely to be OS-specific than music, pictures, and other fairly-universal features. Music is music, regardless of if it's Android, OS X, Ubuntu, Windows, etc. It makes sense to have a specific forum for that, because you won't miss a Mac OS X music issue if you only keep an eye out on the Mac OS X sub-forum (because there are virtually no OS X-specific issues). Same with pictures. Those are fine, and it makes sense to give them their own areas. For videos, not so much.
For people answering questions, it's an easy sub-category to miss, or even avoid because it has become too catch-all. For someone who only wants to answer Windows questions, do they check a catch-all forum? Probably not. For someone who wants to answer general questions, but knows nothing about linux, will they go in a forum where everything is heavily mixed (and often OS-specific), having to weed through posts? Probably not.
The other issue is about defining "video". Are we talking about universal video library topics (same for all platforms, more or less), or are we talking about video playback, or even just system-level video output stuff (GUI resolution, font corruption, etc)? From the viewpoint of a new user, the word "video" can easily be a catch-all for almost any Kodi issue that involves what they see. Visualizations, screensavers, file shares in the video library, the list goes on.
Given what most people use Kodi for (to watch video), it makes sense that video issues (however defined) are the default topic. It makes sense to handle them in a general forum that also has per-OS sub-forums. At this point it's not a big deal, and I won't lose any sleep over it, but it is a step in the wrong direction. The forum layout should focus more on getting posts to the right eyeballs rather than uniformity.