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How about a thread/ category of threads

nelliott

Cowboyatheart
With the purpose of sharing maps, navigation and GPS tracks for various on road and off-road routes in North America (Canada, USA, Mexico) and the rest of the world.

Each thread could be a different province or state or location indicating on the road or off-road.


And why don't we call it "mapping and navigation"
 
What does " bump it" mean?
Generally a "bump" in the world of threads is when the original poster/thread starter posts again to bring the thread "to the top" and re-establish it's position at the top recent posts.
OM
 
A bump is just a post added to a thread primarily to create activity and draw attention to the thread. It usually does not add any new information. Sometimes it's a post that just says "bump". It gets annoying if done too many times or too quickly.

So start your thread and post a few routes as examples. Maybe it would go well in the Just Ridin' section for now? I think the paper clip icon in the editor will let you attach a .gpx file if you have one.

If others like the idea, they can contribute routes of their own.

If the idea becomes popular the moderators can decide if the posts need to be categorized by state or region or however.

If the idea isn't popular, the thread will just unravel and disappear.
 
I think what the OP was asking is more about if there could be a "category" set for "mapping and navigation" or something along that line. If I am reading his intent correctly it is basically asking for a Sub-Category that would contain threads pertaining to "mapping and navigation" that would have a sub-category for "Maps/Routes/Tracks".

This would require an administrative action. It isn't about writing another post that gets shuffled into any of a dozen+ Categories and Sub-Categories to be fragmented and accessible only through the luck/whim of one's search abilities. I believe the question is about something that I have requested several times, but constantly gotten push-back on. The lack of interest could easily be that others have had the same desire in the past, as me and the OP, but run into the same inertia that I have and like me, given up trying to have the Forum evolve and improve it's usefulness.

The idea being that posts and their threads about specific categories of discussion/interest have no home other than a general catch-all and make it extremely difficult for anyone without a good depth of knowledge of this Forum to find things relating to specific topics, even very broad and general ones like Navigation, other than by searching by specific key words and hoping that they somehow catch those that have mispelled things etc. There has been a great deal of interest about the new Nav-VI, but where does one go here to find the threads on that?

I suggested here, before the Nav-VI was released, that there be a sub-category setup under "Gear" for Navigation with it having a Nav-VI sub-category. That would have meant that:
  1. it would have been a great "ground-zero" testing sub-category
  2. moderators would know to direct all Nav-VI post to that section rather than have to deliberate if it was in the correct category, and most important,
  3. members would have a central place to read the pertinent posts regarding the Nav-VI and those new to the Forum would be able to "navigate" with far more ease, than the current situation.
I do a seach for "Nav-VI" or "Nav VI" in the window on the right and get 0 results!!! I search for "navigator" or "navigator VI" and get 24 pages with post/threads in virtually everyone of the dozen plus categories that cover tons of stuff that has nothing to do with the Nav-VI. If I do an advanced search for "navigator" under just "Gear" than I get 9 pages. So that means there are 2.5x+ more results outside the "Gear" category than there are in it. Yes, there are ways of narrowing this down if one knows and implements some additional search techniques, but isn't this Forum meant to be inclusive and not to be placing barriers to potential new members?
How does anyone here think any of this is okay???

The Forum itself has six Categories:

  • Welcome Aboard
  • The Garage
  • The Road
  • The Lighter Side
  • The Club
  • Off-Topic

Of those six, only two are really about bikes/gear/etc.:

  • The Garage
  • The Road

The category "The Garage" has 16 sub-categories for the overall groupings of BMW models (Airhead/Oilhead/F/G/K/etc.) plus

  • Motorrad
  • Gear
  • Links and References

The category "The Road" has 7 sub-categories:

  • Just Ridin'
  • Off the Beaten Path
  • Commuter's Corner
  • Ride Reports
  • Women of the MOA
  • MOA Getaways and Events
  • Rally Forum

There are no sub-categories below these IIRC.

So, where does one place/look for/search for threads on Navigation/Mapping?

There is only one "slightly / sort of" logical place and that would be "Gear". Unfortunately, threads on Navigation/Mapping find their way into at least a dozen+ categories and sub-categories and become lost in those (as my search identified). Those that do get placed in "Gear" find themselves amoungst 6,000+ other threads with 70,000+ posts. This leads to the proverbial needle in a haystack situation and if one wishes to search for something on the BMW Navigator V you must include that description, plus all possible variations (Nav-V, Nav V, Navigator V, etc) to have any chance of capturing most of the threads.

I am not saying that the existing categories shouldn't be there, simply that there really should be a sub-category for Navigation/Mapping.

Afterall, it does represent a significant component to any "Touring" motorcyclist's activity, doesn't it? There are hundreds and hundreds of threads with thousands of posts on the topic.

How is there a sub-category for "Commuter's Corner" (which is good and I'm not saying should be removed) that has just 22 threads with a total of 884 posts. One of which is actually on riding gear and represents 4% of the total activity. Shouldn't that be in the "Gear" sub-category? Well, perhaps not, as it would get lost in there, like throwing something into the ocean.
 
{snip} There has been a great deal of interest about the new Nav-VI, but where does one go here to find the threads on that?


I do a seach for "Nav-VI" or "Nav VI" in the window on the right and get 0 results!!! I search for "navigator" or "navigator VI" and get 24 pages with post/threads in virtually everyone of the dozen plus categories that cover tons of stuff that has nothing to do with the Nav-VI. If I do an advanced search for "navigator" under just "Gear" than I get 9 pages. So that means there are 2.5x+ more results outside the "Gear" category than there are in it. Yes, there are ways of narrowing this down if one knows and implements some additional search techniques, but isn't this Forum meant to be inclusive and not to be placing barriers to potential new members?
How does anyone here think any of this is okay???{snip}

Have a look at the Tag Cloud
Might give you what you are looking for.
OM
 
Have a look at the Tag Cloud
Might give you what you are looking for.
OM
Thanks for the suggestion. While it is helpful and a good addition to the usefulness of the Forum, I don't think it really addresses the issue for the OP or for me.

First (could be wrong here as I don't know this much at all), one must navigate to a thread as Tag Cloud doesn't exist on the Forum Home Page nor the sub-category pages, just in the thread views.

Second, if I am in an area where I can use the Tag Cloud functionality, clicking on "Tag: navigator vi" only returns two threads, when there are actually dozens more, so it is not helpful for someone new trying to learn everything they can about the new Nav-VI. My first BMW was a 2004 R1150RT. I used extensive searches on the internet to learn as much about Oilheads as possible and came to the conclusion that the 2004 R1150RT suited me best. This Forum played a significant role in that and in my becoming an MOA member. The structure of the Forum for someone wanting to learn about the 2004 R1150RT is fairly good, you go to Forum / The Garage / Oilheads and there are 3-pages of threads that at least are specific to Oilheads. Try that for the Nav-VI. There is no primary spot, and if you search you get 8-times as many thread pages (24) with much of it not being useful at all.

Third, this is something that one must know about to benefit from - designed for those already using the Forum on a regular basis and who wish to avail themselves of that feature.

What I would like to see is simply a solid and logical basic structure that has sufficient organization to actually provide meaningful categories. Too many becomes confusing and fragmented, too few is also confusing because it is like using the floor as a filing system. Good Forums work at striking a reasonable balance between these two extremes so that there is a strong structure to the storage of information. The idea is to create a structure/road-map of categories, sub-categories and yes, sub-sub-categories such that someone who has never been to the Forum before has a reasonable chance of finding the general area of their interest within 1-2 minutes tops. Most will agrue that it needs to be much quicker than that and the younger one is the more likely that is to be true. What that means is that we may be completely unattractive to younger generations who have less patience than us old floks.

Resistance to change (inertia) does have it's benefits (goes a long way to creating stability on a bike), but there is also a need to recognize some very simple realities.

I would agrue that a sub-category for something like "Navigation and Mapping" should be considered at least as basic and necessary as sub-categories for "The Road / Commuter's Corner" or "The Lighter Side / The Games We Play (word association)".

As I've said before, this type of status-quo inertia really makes me scratch my head.

Again, I am not saying get rid of either of these, or am I saying anything about these specific sub-categories, other than, please tell me the logic behind saying that there is a broader need / interest / traffic for the sub-categories "The Road / Commuter's Corner" and "The Lighter Side / The Games We Play" than for a sub-category for "Navigation and Mapping".
 
While too much to quote....If you would like to start a thread that has a particular reference to "navigation and mapping", I would be happy to add it to The Best of GPS. Selections should include "complete" threads.....that is the post should have a beginning, middle and end so as they are as intelligible as possible to someone that may want to try one of the routes.
As for a separate forum area, until there was a definitive need shown, probably not.......After all, as sad as it is, The Best of GPS isn't receiving many Member views.....but the Guests are loving it :wave
OM
 
How about sub dividing the Gear forum into sections focused on specific classes of gear? For example; GPSs, bike protection, clothing, luggage....... etc.
 
I think what the OP was asking is more about if there could be a "category" set for "mapping and navigation" or something along that line. If I am reading his intent correctly it is basically asking for a Sub-Category that would contain threads pertaining to "mapping and navigation" that would have a sub-category for "Maps/Routes/Tracks".

...

Well said.

Example...http://advrider.com/index.php?forums/mapping-navigation.37/

The only issue with ADVRider thread is all off- road focus. I would like to see Regional on and off-road.

What does it cost ( time, energy, effort) to add a thread vs value?

Why judge "not worthwhile" and don't it, vs do it, give it time then assess its' value?

Is this a member focussed forum or a moderator focussed forum?

Not sure why the push back.
 
While too much to quote....
OM, I do apologise for my long-windedness, just one of my many bad traits. :) I know it can make for frustratingly long posts at times.

... If you would like to start a thread that has a particular reference to "navigation and mapping", I would be happy to add it to The Best of GPS. Selections should include "complete" threads.....that is the post should have a beginning, middle and end so as they are as intelligible as possible to someone that may want to try one of the routes...
While I appreciate the invitation, it really does miss the entire point.

Please don't take this wrong, I have a small sense of the significant work that you, Kurt, and many, many others put into running, maintaining and moderating this Forum, and I appreciate it, but, I believe that we are thinking about the same thing in entirely different ways and I think it may be time to re-evaluate the current Forum approach.

This is the "Best of the Forum" Mission Statement, so to speak:
The BMW MOA forum has been running for ages now and there's a huge amount of accumulated knowledge, friendship and goodwill that has been shared. We wanted to highlight those threads in particular that are great examples of sharing and fun here. So, we're trying to comb through and find examples.

Some will be moved here completely. It would be nice to do that to all of them, but we have made this area read only, so that would effectively close them. As a result, many of the topics we will be highlighting will just be links back to those threads.

If there's a thread that you think is a great example, you can PM any of the moderators or the Forum Admin (20774) or Forum Liaison (darrylri), or you can just click on the report post button (the triangle with the exclamation point) in the lower left of any posting and just say that this is Best Of material. Thanks in advance!

While I like and am grateful for the "Best of the Forum" sub-category, it actually illustrates part of my issue. Here is a sub-category that has 121 threads over 5 pages with nothing pulling them together, or directing anyone to them within the actual Forum structure as each of the 121 threads deals with a different area and is listed not by subject nor alphabetically, but by chronical order of when they were posted - that means one has to combe through all five pages, or do a search, in an effort to see if what they are looking for might be there at all. I would much prefer to see as a "Sticky" at the beginning of the actual sub-category that had an index. Also, the idea of actually removing content from a category because it is considered an excellent piece for that category and placing it soley in an area that has no direct attachment to that topic is completely counter-intuitive to me, and I would think/hope, to most, fortunately, that part of things does not appear to have occurred.

... As for a separate forum area, until there was a definitive need shown, probably not.......After all, as sad as it is, The Best of GPS isn't receiving many Member views.....but the Guests are loving it :wave
OM
Shouldn't that tell us something? Do we know what percentage of those guests are non-persons (bots, etc.)?

As for needing to wait "until there was a definitive need shown", again, I think we are talking about inertia. Was there actually "a definitive need shown" for the two sub-categories I referenced earlier, prior to their being created? Perhaps so and I just don't see/get it.

To me, I would think that the evidence points to there being no more "need" for either the sub-category of "Commuter's Corner" (it has just 22 threads with a total of 884 posts in it's entire lifespan) nor the "The Lighter Side / The Games We Play (word association)" sub-category than for one on Navigation/Routing/Maps/etc. Is there an interest for the first two? Certainly in the word association there is good activity, and I have no problem to have both of those and all the other sub-categories present. However, to suggest that a topic that has gathered just 22 threads (and at least 25% of which have nothing at all to do with the category) in it's 3.5 years of existence presents a greater need for it's own sub-category than Navigation/Routing/Maps which likely has 50-100 times that much activity and certainly as much meaningful application to Forum members.

Why not have both under "The Road" and see where it leads?
 
I have been away from the Forum since late March...life sometimes overrides being a volunteer here as a moderator

We are discussing options, but it is the riding season and at times that gets in way of administrative tasks...not making excuses...just a reality. Let us work on this and see what is what.
 
I have been away from the Forum since late March...life sometimes overrides being a volunteer here as a moderator

We are discussing options, but it is the riding season and at times that gets in way of administrative tasks...not making excuses...just a reality. Let us work on this and see what is what.

thank you. enjoy the riding, that is important for all of us!
 
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