When are we finally getting a dedicated Geometry Nodes sub-forum?
Also tagging @fweeb on this. 3000 post topics get a little unwieldy. I know there are tags that can be used for this, but if we can have a game engine subforum, is it that much of a stretch to ask for one for GN?
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I totally agree that a geometry nodes subforum is needed, I try to keep up reading this thread but it has a big problem.
There are many specific questions and answers that are very useful, but finding them in a thread this long is getting to be a real pain.
Pilling up so much information in one conversation is not easy to navigate, a Geometry Nodes section with separate questions and subtopics would make things much easier to follow.
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We could, but I fear that’s when we’ll start getting posts with zero responses. I think maybe only 1 thing I’ve asked in here went unanswered.
A dedicated forum is still needed though.
Everything does get answered here, but at the cost of expecting people to wade through 3000+ posts just to see if their question was answered (that is unless you have hours to burn to actually read everything). Q&A sections are at least highly searchable.
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Apart from answering people’s questions, it’s a much better way for people to share their GN stuff. If each setup gets its own thread, it’s much more likely to get discussed, without the next, completely different thing, cutting it off.
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I think what’s actually needed is some kind “virtual topic” functionality where someone could take a post and all its replies for a single question about GN and break those into their own topic but they still appear within this thread chronologically. Then we get the live and single thread for people to follow who just want to help and see it chronologically but they’re broken out into individual topics that can be pointed at if someone asks the same question.
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I agree a dedicated forum would be great. I have tried to read through all the posts but it is quite a lot to read through + trying to keep to fields posts only and not older posts.
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So here’s the deal—and one of the main reasons why I’m resistant to a GN-specific subforum—geometry nodes have so many ways that they can be applied: modeling, rigging, motion graphics, simulation. We had this same discussion when Grease Pencil was promoted to a first-class citizen in Blender.
The categories that we have here on BA are task-oriented, not feature-oriented. I strongly encourage you to use the #geometry-nodes tag and put your posts in the relevant support category. Dumping all of this stuff in one place was fun when the feature was released, but it’s really not suitable to put all of this all in one thread… or even one subforum. It’s time that we see geometry nodes in all the relevant places of this site.
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What about a “procedural art” subform? That could apply to many things, and not just one tool. Cycles shaders support could be there too.
Plus, when we get nodes for rigging, collections, simulations, and other procedural tools, it would be a great place to share support and tips.
Not to mention 3rd party addons such as animation nodes or rigging nodes.
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Your resistance makes sense and the tag helps.
Something which will change the landscape tho: From Blender 3.1 Node-Groups will become something you can mark as an “asset”, so by that point it makes sense to have a catch-all category for the future of “everything nodes”.
So, something like a “Node-Groups” category so it will be future proof for whatever sharable node-groups may come down the line, not just geometry nodes.
I think in that case, I may prefer to expand the definition of the #coding:released-scripts-and-themes (and maybe move it to a different parent category) so that it would include assets like node groups.
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My suggestion:
Rename “Coding” to “Coding/Procedural”
Rename “Released scripts and themes” to “Scripts, themes and node-groups”
Maybe also its own “Nodes Support” subcategory like “Python Support”?
Solid 
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what about split in the resources section and Q&A sections?
like
resources
[geonodes]
[python]
[shaders]
[textures]
etc?
help
[geonodes]
[python]
[textures]
[shaders]
showcase
[geonodes]
[python]
[textures]
[shaders]
Maybe this could be streamlined in some way? Users (myself included) can be super lazy and spoiled, so maybe a set of proposed hashtags (based on the category and wording) to click on when composing the post could help.
Also, it’d be neat to be able to spot a problem which has these hashtags right away, to distinguish “I wanna make some rocks” from “I wanna make some rocks #shadernodes” and “I wanna make some rocks” #geometrynodes".
Mostly because interest differ, and we could have a sculptor interested in answering only the first, a lookdev artist in answering only the second, and a node guy in answering only the third question.
Could save everyone time, plus I’m sure there are people nowadays looking specifically for geo nodes problems to solve.
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Again, the main thrust here is to keep the categories task-based. If we focus on features, then the forum risks losing sync with Blender as features are added/modified/removed. This choice in organization has helped the forum last as long as it has without many major restructures, despite all of the changes that have come to Blender over the years.
Secondarily, we generally want to avoid adding new categories (in fact, we want to reduce them), because one forums, in general, have a tendency to be extremely overwhelming with a glut of subcategories… many of which end up having little to no discussion.
It’s possible to search the forum by tag. The biggest challenge is getting people to actually make use of tags in their posts. Having the forum software smart enough to make suggestions would be great, but that feature isn’t built-in and would require custom development (also, I suspect it would be pretty computationally heavy on the server). Ultimately, the best way is to have a lot of us set the example. If you see a post that, for example, uses geometry nodes, make a comment in the thread or DM the original poster with the suggestion that they should add the tag to their post.
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I also noticed that you can follow a tag, so you can see every time a topic is created with this tag. I suggest everyone who is willing to give geometry nodes support should do this.
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I understand your reasoning, I still find threads where many different questions are dumped in a never ending scroll get out of hand. The sculpt mode thread has the same problem.
Maybe we could actively encourage people to ask new questions in new threads and leave the main GN/Sculpt mode threads for development issues, like “hey there is this new node”
In the line of what you have mentioned already.
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This is a great suggestion.
In fact, I might go so far as to say that you should flag these posts (choose “Other”) and tell the moderation team that you’d like us to split that post (and replies to it) to its own support thread.