Why so seperate forums?

[R C-R]

2 hours ago, jmwellborn said:

Surely the written forums should be a place where new users are not equally unsure where their questions belong.   After all, isn’t the ultimate goal to see that Affinity users are up to speed with, and very happy about, their move to Affinity?

Please do not forget that it is also for non-users trying to decide if any of the Affinity apps would meet their needs. Remarkably, it has also become a good source for a lot of very useful general information about things like color management, raster vs. vector objects,  the nuances of typography, the characteristics of various graphic file formats, & more.

IOW, it is not just for those who have already moved to Affinity but also for those who might.

[Granddaddy]

Obviously it is the opinion of some that APhoto, APub, and ADesign are so similar in purpose and use that they cannot be separated into separate forums. Yet APhoto on Mac and APhoto on Windows are deemed so dissimilar that the first response to any question about APhoto is: Are you using Mac or Windows?

The impassioned arguments in favor of maintaining a single forum for everything could best be handled by simply pointing newcomers to one of the many previous discussions of the topic rather than repeating everything all over again with ever more passionate intensity. Many other questions are handled that way. Pointers to the standard replies would make it much easier for newcomers to wade through the old controversy. 

When this topic pops up every so often I am reminded of the movie "Amadeus:"  Perhaps you remember the scene where Mozart is defending his high opinion about his own work. Emperor Joseph II responds calmly to Mozart's passionate intensity: "You are passionate, Mozart, but you do not persuade..."

[walt.farrell]

9 minutes ago, Granddaddy said:

Yet APhoto on Mac and APhoto on Windows are deemed so dissimilar that the first response to any question about APhoto is: Are you using Mac or Windows?

It's not always the first question. It's generally, in my experience, the first question only when the responder knows there is some significant difference in the area of the question.

 

12 minutes ago, Granddaddy said:

The impassioned arguments in favor of maintaining a single forum for everything could best be handled by simply pointing newcomers to one of the many previous discussions of the topic

Some of us do that, when we know where that previous discussion is, and when we're sure we understand the question enough to be sure we're pointing them to the right place.

 

[jmwellborn]

@Granddaddy And who is the designated indexer of all topics in the forums so that somebody can "simply point newcomers?"   And what about topics that include more than one issue?   As someone who has generated many a reference index I definitely would not volunteer for the job.  

[R C-R]

1 hour ago, Granddaddy said:

Obviously it is the opinion of some that APhoto, APub, and ADesign are so similar in purpose and use that they cannot be separated into separate forums. Yet APhoto on Mac and APhoto on Windows are deemed so dissimilar that the first response to any question about APhoto is: Are you using Mac or Windows?

I cannot speak for anyone else but my opinion is that there is so much overlap in function & features among the three apps that splitting them into separate forums would end up just making it more complicated than it already is to find topics most relevant to any particular one of them.

Also, keep in mind that some features like the Assets panel were once unique to one of the apps but no longer are. So if say someone just followed the AD forum they would miss any of the discussions about Assets in the others. The same is true for many APub functions provided in its Designer & Photo personas, so users just looking in an APub forum for help with them would miss the many topics that already cover those things quite well.

[Patrick Connor]

1 hour ago, R C-R said:

I cannot speak for anyone else but my opinion is that there is so much overlap in function & features...etc

Although you are speaking for yourself, this is precisely the reason Serif staff have chosen not to split the questions forum, also it simplifies the process of asking for support as a newbie who may not be sure where to ask something if there was more granularity.

The problem with forced tagging is it limits tags to ONLY those on the predetermined list, meaning you cannot add your own tags, and would mean deleting all the other tags currently in use. Just not worth it for the loss in functionality. 

We will make changes to these forums when 2.0 is launched and if we can find a better way to get bugs reported more consistently with enough information that will happen too