A leetle redundancy is good. A LOT is...

[nicholascrawford]

Well, rehashing the same topics over and over gets old. If you're pretty familiar with dress shirts, Levis, and what it means to hem your pants, it's pretty easy to get board on this bored. Being able to help people is one of my favorite things in life, and I can tell a bunch of others here feel the same way. It's a defining characteristic of the membership.


So - any suggestions for ways to serve all interests? We could have a subforum for questions about where to find white v-necks (every.single.store) with stickies that could be written by some seasoned members covering what to look for in a navy blazer (two sleeves, etc). But I bet you've seen other forums handle a broad range of readers well, so I'm curious to see what you suggest.

[greg_s]

@NC, I've been thinking about this same thing as we are getting closer to the big change-over here. There does need to be more useful reference tools so the same questions don't get asked over and over. That may improve with a better search function and appropriate tags.


It's hard to say what is best. The SF way where 1500 people argue back and forth over the welt on a specific pair of RTW EG shoes for 2 years isn't necessarily better. But that's what happens when redundancy is eliminated and specificity takes over.


Some sort of where to find subforum might be a good idea. Have threads for basic items that people can just talk about navy blazers and where to get them forever and ever. Some of the issue always comes with attracting new folks. They tend to post rather than search. It's great to get new people, however.

[bruschetta]

nicholascrawford, I think that this will be alleviated once we move to the new platform and posts are placed in relevant subforums. Personally, I think that we should err on the side of accessibility. It's better to be too kind and welcoming to new members who ask frequently asked questions than too strict.

[jordan]

If you get too strict, you end up like Styleforum. While there is insane amounts of good information over there, I won't darken their "door" because of their attitude.

[zerostyle]

I've been wanting to put together a suggested wardrobe diagram with recommended brand names and price levels.


Anyone interested? We could possibly even write a small data scraper to check the current price at existing sites.

[trash]

Maybe a Dappered wiki where answers to common questions can be aggregated?

[Cannon]

I don't think this question can really be answered until we understand the new forum software and how well it works.

[thmage]

I think that a more organized subforum structure, with proper search tools, will likely be the best approach. I agree, a lot of those come from new people, and I think we want that to continue, even if there is redundancy.


That said, some of the suggestions above like a wardrobe diagram would be so awesome.

[nicholascrawford]

Cannon - Now is a good time to float suggestions, and we can have a basic framework that will be a good starting point. I think some FAQ-style subforum or stickies would be an avenue to do that.


zerostyle - Can you share a little more about what that would look like and how it would work? Sounds great!

[Bulldoggery]

I agree -- either an FAQ subforum or stickies on "Top 20"-type topics/questions would be a good happy medium.


I'd be happy to contribute heavily to a jeans/denim FAQ, and I'm quite certain that there are "experts" in other men's style niches here who would be willing to do the same on other subjects.

[Cannon]

Well, I would hope the new forum software simply has a more advanced search system. By post or by thread, ascending/descending post date, search within thread section (Clothing, Other, etc.).


I also prefer when the forum home page lists all the thread sections, where you don't see the threads until you pick a section. So if I want to see clothing info, I'd like to go to Dappered Threads, see a list of thread sections, and click on Clothing to see all the threads that were posted under that section. For the off-topic threads, I'd like to have to click Other to see them. I don't want to see threads from all categories at all times on the Threads page. They should be sorted and accessed by their section like most forums.


But this all might be in the new software, so who knows?

[bremersm]

When we move over to vBulletins these are the subforums I would like to see based on the most popular topics


1. Clothes

2. Shoes

3. Accessories

4. Deals

5. Store Reviews

6. Ask a Holiday Inn Expert Guest (LOL)

7. Off Topic (avoid religion and politics) A place to discuss your job, car, schooling, etc.

[nicholascrawford]

I'd like to see one for companies to have open threads for their brands too. I'm sure Eric at Ratio and his respective counterparts at other companies would be receptive to that. Perhaps even for a few hours as a scheduled chat before locking the thread at the end of the evening to encourage interaction for a brief period instead of requiring the company to check the thread several times daily.

[bremersm]

It would be great if the Bonobos guys can do something like they do on Facebook; Ninja Q&A.