Megathread discussion, revisited

[Fweeb (Jason van Gumster)]

This conversation came up again as a result of the giant Geometry Nodes thread where there was a request to keep the discussion there about the development of Geometry Nodes and all other posts of examples, tests, assets, or support questions be made in their own threads in the relevant category, tagged with the geometry-nodes tag.

Some snippets from the end of that conversation:

@Hadriscus

I don’t know, is this problematic ? I think all these ideas and proof of concepts are intimately tied to development, I don’t mind having a single thread where all these are available. If some specific setup gets a lot of traction and generates a lot of discussion then sure let’s split it into its own thread but right now I think it works well that way.

@Fweeb

Without getting into it too heavily and derailing the thread (if we do, we can make a new discussion elsewhere), but it is problematic because it makes things difficult to search and find. People often try to use an active thread to post this kind of thing because they feel that it gives them more exposure… but what it really does is make the discussion difficult to follow in the moment and it makes their specific thing difficult to find later.

@Hadriscus

I’m not sure about the assumption that people post in the “main” thread because it gives them exposure ? What I feel from taking part in the geometry nodes discussion is that activity is concentrated in a single place because then things don’t even need to be found -they’re just there, in the thread that you’re checking out every day or so. I wouldn’t like all these little gems being scattered in their own threads…, then I would have to actively search for them to even know that they exist. Maybe I’m assuming wrong but this doesn’t sound good to me. We have that bookmark functionality, we can use it to keep certain particular messages around if we find them to be valuable, that’s what I’ve been doing

In response to the last comment, it’s not an assumption. It’s observed behavior and something that people have explicitly said that they do. They also do it because it’s slightly easier to hit Reply than to start a new thread.

But things do get lost, or at least more difficult to find. Sifting through thousands of posts, even with the benefit of search, is not a great experience. Ultimately, you can get the same utility with added benefit of context (from category names and thread titles) by visiting the geometry-nodes tag just like you visit this thread.

[SterlingRoth]

I can understand this, and recognize that it is part of a transition. We have these subforums as carryover from the vbulletin days, but now we are trying to take advantage of the new hotness available with modern forums.

It is still a little perplexing that we can have a subforum for a feature that hasn’t been in blender for over 4 years, but we cannot have one that is in active development and making some some big waves for blender’s profile.

[Fweeb (Jason van Gumster)]

@SterlingRoth

It is still a little perplexing that we can have a subforum for a feature that hasn’t been in blender for over 4 years, but we cannot have one that is in active development and making some some big waves for blender’s profile.

This is certainly something I’d like to remedy. It’s really about finding the time to do it. We’ve already discussed merging the Game Engine categories back into the rest of our categories here at BA. It takes time, though. But maybe it’s time for us to just bite the bullet and do that.

[RPaladin]

@Fweeb

But maybe it’s time for us to just bite the bullet and do that.

Does this mean the Game Engine category will disappear as well by chance?
Since the game-engine was removed officially over 4 years ago from Blender source.

[Ace_Dragon]

When it comes to the case of finding things in long threads, I wonder if the Discourse guys ever considered allowing mods or users to set breakpoints in the thread navigator and call them ‘chapters’. It might be something to ask them if the staff remains dead set on avoiding the reintroduction of thread pages.

A lot of Youtube videos that are long use chapters now and it really helps with navigation.

[sozap]

Hey !
I also agree that even if that mega-thread is awesome, full of energy, with great ideas, problems solved etc… Many useful information is kind of lost here. I answered different people having some issue by pointing to great solutions find in this thread, but it’s always complicated to recover them.
And furthermost, they may have find it by themselves if that was easier to access, but I don’t blame them for not taking the time to read everything this thread as to offer.

I think this thread could be split in different subjects, is that something possible ? and do you think it will break the good energy of what’s happening here ?

Here is how I would have spit it into different subjects :
1/ some development related information, new features, general discussion, the story of geo-nodes.
2/ some personal experiments, people showing what they do with it. / Tutorials.
3/ some great answer to a particular issue, a kind of FAQ / cookbook ( using the current field system)
4/ some snippets, utility node groups meant for reuse. ( using the current field system)
5/ Someone looking for specific feedback on a specific project. (less general than the 3) May be split in their own thread.
What do you think ?

I think every new geo-node users may find interest in all these subject separately, and having them in separated thread could help a lot IMO to make that knowledge more useful by being more accessible.

This thread is a goldmine of information/tips and tricks, but very hard to access unless you take the time to read everything… And that could only get worse, leading to some point were people will start to ask and answer things multiple time.

What do you think ?

Another solution, could be to leave that thread as it is, and cherry pick some informational posts and copy-paste it in other dedicated thread, is that something possible ?

Bear with me and I apologize in advance if some things that I propose doesn’t fit the general usage of a forum.

Anyway, I’m willing to help do some triage, fell free to ask me if that’s needed !

[Fweeb (Jason van Gumster)]

@RPaladin

Does this mean the Game Engine category will disappear as well by chance?

Not really disappear, so much as be integrated back into the rest of the forum. There’s an outline for what the future state should look like, but I don’t have the time at the moment to track down the link to it.

[Fweeb (Jason van Gumster)]

I’m not inclined to break up that thread… quite frankly, that’s more effort that I’d want to put in. I’d rather keep the thread in its current state focused on development stuff, but perhaps create new threads with the focus you’ve mentioned.

I don’t necessarily mind a giant “GN experiments” thread in #artwork:blender-tests, but if that starts delving into support questions, then those bits would need to be split out.

[sozap]

Ok I see !
Indeed maybe splitting that actual thread is a bit too much work, and if things starts to get better organized people will find their way into that !

[Hadriscus]

On the subject of categories vs tags, do you intend to just keep tags by any chance ? It seems they overlap quite a bit in the end. The homepage could show a selection of most frequently used tags, or tags corresponding to the current list of categories (the typical lighting, modeling, etc).

[Hadriscus]

I like your idea of splitting the discussion by “aspect”, but then I’m not sure it’s possible to respect those boundaries without some tremendous effort. To me, a conversation is a living thing that frequently goes from “see what Hans impemented today” (development news) to “here’s how it can be used” (tutorial) to “here’s how I abused it to make an alien city planner” (personal experiment) and finally “why doesn’t it work in this case?” (support). These are all tied together and that’s why I am not completely sold on the idea. But I say let’s try it and see?

@Fweeb

I don’t necessarily mind a giant “GN experiments” thread in Blender Tests, but if that starts delving into support questions, then those bits would need to be split out.

I like that, and we’d save you as much splitting work as possible by starting new threads when it makes sense to do so

Ultimately, what’s needed is an extensive user manual for geometry nodes. I don’t mean just a list of nodes and their description, but a manual akin to the 3dsmax one, back in the day, when it had example scenes and explanations as to what’s going on. That would be a big documentation effort.

[sozap]

Yes indeed it’s part of the DNA of a forum to have things slide out of topic.
The giant conversation with all subject mixed together is interesting and makes sense, as you said everything is connected, but quite hard to refer to later. Kind of like a chat. Who goes into Discord to read all what as been said on a particular channel. But maybe that’s where chat and forums ends and we shouldn’t force them too much into something else.
I think it’s worth trying to split things a bit and see how that goes… even if that won’t be perfect either.

Similarly to code, a good documentation is helpful but limited. Cookbooks, snippets, or something like stackexange is where you should look when working on a particular piece of code.
Something along the line of NukePedia would be awesome to have too, where people share node groups for latter reuse.
But indeed these are more specific than a forum.

[thinsoldier]

Might be best to rename current “Geometry Nodes” thread to “Geometry Nodes Open Exploration” or something like that and start a new thread for “Geometry Nodes Development News & Feedback ONLY”

@Fweeb

but if that starts delving into support questions, then those bits would need to be split out.

What if the support question is directly related to the experiment/discoveries discussed in the previous 20 posts in the thread?

[Hadriscus]

I reckon when a thread is split off it shows a message both on the original thread and on the new one, so users have a link to go from one to the other

[Fweeb (Jason van Gumster)]

Apologies for the delayed response. My current location isn’t great when it comes to network connectivity (and technically, I’m on vacation).

@Hadriscus

On the subject of categories vs tags, do you intend to just keep tags by any chance ? It seems they overlap quite a bit in the end. The homepage could show a selection of most frequently used tags, or tags corresponding to the current list of categories (the typical lighting, modeling, etc).

There are quite a few Discourse-based forums that are almost exclusively tag based. Personally, I don’t see us going that route since categories (or sub-forums) have been part of this forum’s core since it’s beginning. That said, I’d love to have an elegant way to make the use of tags more visible here.

Categories are great for forming context and are best used (IMHO) for general topics that don’t change frequently whereas tags are more specific and arguably somewhat more fleeting. Categories are great for general workflow steps whereas tags tend to be better for things that are specific to a particular feature (especially if that feature can be used at multiple steps in a production.

@thinsoldier

Might be best to rename current “Geometry Nodes” thread to “Geometry Nodes Open Exploration” or something like that and start a new thread for “Geometry Nodes Development News & Feedback ONLY”

I understand the logic, but if I were to go that route, I’d simply close the current thread and make two new ones with that kind of separation (the former would be in Blender Tests). But I think the community is mature enough at this point to take the current thread and keep it on task.

[Charles_Weaver (Chuck)]

I’d like to remind everyone that you can follow first post of any tag. Everything doesn’t need to be in a jumbled megathread for us to stay up to date with the latest geometry nodes topics.

I recommend this to everyone who is willing to help out with support questions. This will help build up an actually reliable support group, so new users won’t have to post in the megathread to receive attention.

[Fweeb (Jason van Gumster)]

Continuing with this from the Geometry Nodes megathread:

@moshus

It seems that the community decided that this is the official support, showcase and everything else about Geometry Nodes thread. And no one can stop us. Old habits are really hard to break.

Yup. I noticed. Quite frankly, although I check the thread regularly, I can’t keep up with the volume of posts that are going on there on my own and there aren’t enough users flagging posts that need to be moved.

However, I’m not prepared to give up and just let that thread continue being a general GN dumping ground.

So in the next few hours, I’ll be teasing apart the most recent various of discussion to their own threads in the correct categories, properly tagged. Then, I’ll close the mega thread and make a new one that’s specific to discussion of development only.

It’s a drastic (and time-consuming) move, but I fear it’s the only way to get this to happen correctly.

[Fweeb (Jason van Gumster)]

Annnnnd done. I’ve split or moved testing or support posts as far back as 10 days ago (when I last posted to keep the discussion limited to just development).

A new thread for discussing GN development can be found here:

Geometry Nodes Development Discussion

Continuing the discussion from this megathread. Please limit the conversation here to just being about the development of the Geometry Nodes feature. Experiments with GN should be posted in #artwork:blender-tests Support questions for using GN should be posted in the appropriate #support category In all cases, take advantage of the #geometry-nodes tag to other GN enthusiasts can follow along

[moshus]

Now i feel a bit bad. My intention was not to kill everyone’s beloved thread (Even if i agree, that the forum has better ways to organize all the information inside it) and to cause extra work for the BA Crew.

Many thanks to the BA Crew for this great invaluable forum!
(And to the community for filling it with many gems)

[Hadriscus]

Why not just rename the current thread?