Software forums - why no "General" category?

[Lifted]

While I've given up any hope of seeing just a single IT (or Enterprise IT) forum, I do have another observation and request, which has actually bothered me for some time, but I'm bored now, so...

Software contains 9 forums, with topics as specific as distributed computing and security. Then there are the OS specific forums, and then some random OS forum which doesn't make sense to me as questions regarding an OS are almost always specific to one of the 3 forums that already exist for Windows, Apple, and *nix.

It's obvious all of these forums were just added to fill a need at a time, and there wasn't any thought was put into this at the start, which is understandable, but why is there no general software forum to accommodate software questions that aren't OS specific? Somebody had the foresight to create a general forum for hardware, but apparently this person was crucified before they could create the general software forum.

IMO, the OS forum could just go, console gaming moved to Consumer Electronics (Does xbox and ps3 chat really belong in software? Do people never discuss the hardware in there?), the 3 OS specific forums could be renamed to Windows, Apple, and *nix, where OS and OS specific software issues can be discussed in one place, and then a General forum can be added for talk that is not OS specific, for instance, anything to do with the internet and websites.

If there is something I'm missing here then please let me know, but I usually end up taking such questions and posts to other sites as I know the audience in any one of the segregated software forums will be too disparate to get any real discussion going. You can sometimes find threads started around these topics (web hosting, html, web services and software packages, etc.) in Off Topic, but that is the last place I would go to for any real discussion or help.

 

[olds]

I believe it is like it is because you have to have an OS to run the software. Tying the software to a specific OS may give more specific answers/info for that combo.

 

[ViRGE]

Oldsmoboat is fundamentally correct. When the software subforums were created the decision was to split it up by OS, since you had to be running some OS to be able to run software.

A few extra forums were created based on perceived need: Distributed Computing was a legacy forum, Programming was created to get programming out of OT, OS is legacy (and is the de-facto Windows OS forum, as opposed to Windows Software), and Security was busy enough at the time to warrant its own forum.

Console and PC Gaming were created to get gaming out of OT too and into a more focused location. Why 2 gaming forums? PC and Console gamers are very different people, and there were some legitimate concerns about whether they'd get along. Coupled with the very different games (and experiences) of the platforms, and 2 forums was considered the best decision. Certainly there was enough traffic to justify it.

Speaking as the self-proclaimed general overlord for our Software subforums, we really don't want a "general" software forum. We want all software discussions to be in a forum related to the OS. For example Firefox is "general" software, but there are few meaningful questions that don't also involve the OS.

Technically we can create as many (or as few) forums as we want, but as you correctly noted the person who went crazy creating forums was crucified; creating all of those forums was a mistake, and we lost some good posters in the shuffle which is why we're hesitant to make any further changes.

Anyhow it seems to me what you really want is a web hosting forum. We could do that, but I really don't see there being enough traffic to justify such a forum. It's a bit of a catch-22 of course, but the need for subforums is largely based on whether there's a need to spin-off a subject from an existing forum. Web hosting may just be a topic this forum doesn't have the right audience for.

 

[Lifted]

Anyhow it seems to me what you really want is a web hosting forum. We could do that, but I really don't see there being enough traffic to justify such a forum. It's a bit of a catch-22 of course, but the need for subforums is largely based on whether there's a need to spin-off a subject from an existing forum. Web hosting may just be a topic this forum doesn't have the right audience for.

I understand and/or agree with everything you said, but what I'm looking for is not a web hosting forum. There have been many times where I've been tasked to find solutions for projects and didn't have the slightest idea of what was available out there to satisfy the requirements. This is something I'm sure an Enterprise/IT/Business forum would work well for, but that forum might even scare away people who are looking for software for personal use, even if they don't have an OS requirement or are willing to run something in the cloud.

In most of my cases, it doesn't matter which OS the software runs on, or even if it's cloud based, I just need to know what is available and if people have any experience or opinions on a particular solution. The world of software is moving to the cloud rather quickly, yet the existing forums leave us to pick an OS the software should run under.

Suppose I'm looking for a document management system, or digital asset management system, or an accounting and requisition package specific to a certain field such as ship construction, or POS solutions, or ...

I'm sure there would be plenty of threads around web hosting, cloud services and apps, etc., but I only mentioned those categories as those are the ones I see the most of in OT, and if you look at the software forums there is simply no place for them.

I'm not expecting anything to actually happen with this request, just thought I'd add another to list of things that will never be implemented. ^_^