administration  

The creation of sub...
The creation of sub categories in the forum has already been discussed before. If we remember well, it did not meet the consent of the majority of the participants. Maybe, the growth of the forum and of the number of participants would justify that we consider again this possibility. Your propositions are very interesting.
We must specify that Design Addict is an extremely complex website technically speaking. If we want to do some changes, we can't just press on a button and modify a code line. We have to call on professional developpers and of course, they don't work for nothing.
Concerning the moderation of the discussions. We are sorry not to be able to react all the time. We sleep when most of you are awake and we need to sleep sometime 🙂
We think that there are enough nice people here in order that the excesses are spontaneously limited or quickly moderated. As we said many times, we don't have the vocation to maintain law and order. But of course it doesn't prevent us from wishing that the discussions are pleasant and that the newcomers are welcomed with courtesy.

vBulletin
Implementing a bulletin board type software would be a great start, imho. However, I understand that the size of the active membership on this forum may make the effort/cost not so worthwhile.
I am a member of other rather small forums that do use vBulletin though.

Even some simpler
Even some simpler divisions might work:
What is this? (unidentified designs)
Historic Design Discussions (what the forum is now)
Contemporary & Personal Designs
I think also a big welcome sign that offers a little more direction might be a lotta help with minimal effort. I imagine something along the lines of:
Welcome to Design Addict.
>Forum - a place for questions and discussions
>Design Index - a comprehensive and expanding archive/reference tool
>Design Blog - whats going on in the world of design
>Search function - ALWAYS CHECK HERE FIRST - the design forum has covered hundreds of topics...maybe your question has already been answered.

Honestly, I've grown fond of ...
Honestly, I've grown fond of the current format. I agree with Patrick/Alex that there's not enough traffic to justify sub categorizing. This smaller community is far more preferential to a larger community where new threads are produced every 5 minutes... unlikely in this case, but not a pleasant forecast for any type of forum IMO. Those forums that have large communities I rarely visit anymore. Far too much effort keeping up with things.
less is more folks
Patrick and Alex do a great hands off approach to moderating. Reinging control in extreme of circumstances....something I think we could all find appreciation in.

I think the forum does a fabulous job of self-moderating.
For the most part it seems that if somebody gets out of line they are called on it pretty quickly and the offending poster tends to apologize or just fades away. A few years back it was a particularly nasty place with perhaps not a lot, but a bit of mean spirited back and forth. Some forums I've been on are downright toxic and watching two or three people go at it hammer and tong gets old quickly.
I like Lucifersum's 4 section suggestion though as a way to help newcomers as to how things happen here.

The only thing I'd like to see
is:
posted by barrympls
Minnesota USA
State, and Country would be so helpful when people are posting about their own personal experiences.....or if they have a question about an issue that's country-specific.
How about it,Patrick and Alix?

I tend to agree with BigTV...
I tend to agree with BigTV and WoofWoof, and even though I acknowledged the aggravation of boring posts elsewhere on the forum recently, I want to clarify that boring trumps just plain ugly any day in my estimation. The occasional person wanting to know what his or her table might be worth honestly doesn't trouble me a great deal, not as much as thinking a new format might mean I could possibly miss a very good post, or, at worst, just another table price inquiry.
One thing I have wondered about though is the new 'edit' function, which I find is a very nice touch in general for those of us prone to typos or not very good at immediately getting our words right, but can sometimes become a problem when an individual significantly edits their initial post after the fact of a response or several responses from followup posters.
On one site where I participate, the edit function is limited to one hour following the initial post, which tends, I think, to foster a more conscious and careful approach before clicking the 'POST THIS MESSAGE' box.
Just a quick thought without much thought. Thanks Patrick and Alix for all you do.

This forum takes on a lif...
This forum takes on a life of its own several times a year, for us Veterans, and we all know who we are, sometimes for a few seconds it becomes a little irrateing when we see a old question asked again and again, but then we realize that might of been us, not so long ago, so my friends patience, i have said this for a very long time nothing wrong asking a question, no question is a stupid question, cause we are all never to old to learn something .

Some quick answers:
- vBulletin is a PHP solution and designaddict is written in coldfusion. The compatibility is not optimal.
- Welcome sign and directions for newcomers: Great idea! We will add that quickly.
- To show the country and state: We agree that it would be interesting to know where people come from. The problem is that we will have to ask everybody (more than 3000 members) to enter this information because we don't have it now. We will think of a solution.
- To limit the edit function to 1 hour: Yes, it's a good idea, we will add it to the list of modifications to be done very soon.
Thanks to all for your advices and comments.

KEEP IT SIMPLE& O P E N
if it aint broke dont fix it...azurechicken/austin texas /U.S.A...We have a number of well read, involved people here:)

Don't touch my DA!
I have been here a long time. Every site has its ups and downs, and while this one is no exception to that rule I think it is quite special. In general, this site attracts intelligent people who tend to stay within the realm of good taste. This site has always been pretty well self moderated.
The only site I joined as early as DA was Dwell's online message board, which went belly up. They tried to revamp it and the long time participants lost interest with the changes.
I don't want that for DA. I don't think Patrick and Alix should have to monitor every last post here. It's been more of a group effort and it has worked well that way.
I also don't like the idea of categories. Inevitably, some sections go unnoticed ... and worthy topics go unread because people tend to frequent certain sections.
Keeping it open and multi-use promotes more opportunity for interesting discussion that is sometimes even only abstractly related - because there is no certain expectation of what is and what is not to be discussed.
I look at the "newbie" posts in a few different ways: An opportunity to share with someone and teach them, or (when it is obviously spam) as no different from unwanted emails ... just ignore and go about you day. Geez, is it that big of a deal?

It seems that the main compla...
It seems that the main complaint is the constant threads wanting to identify pieces. If there was one separate section (which I am not necessarily promoting) it could be a section dedicated to identifying pieces. In the end, identification is not really design discussion per se ... usually just an attempt to feel better about a purchase or an attempt to make money for resale.
It's the small changes that count. For instance, the addition of the "associated web link" and "associated web images" sections were great. It improves the interaction without alienating long time users with changes to how the site functions as a whole.

Patrick & Alix
Isn't the members' country of origin in their original signing-up information?
IKf it is, when you put in your email and password, the pre-filled-in country of origin can be pulled from the signed-up members' information....couldn't it?