[Dan Crowther]

First let me say that myArmoury is a treasure trove of information. That said, I must admit I seldom use or participate in the forum because most of the postings are lumped into one big area which makes locating posts of interest very difficult.

Is there any consideration to dividing it up into more manageable topic specific areas? Perhaps, by era or weapon type?

[Nathan Robinson]

Thank you for your note and suggestion.

Creating a plethora of forums would be absolutely counter to the purpose of this site: the bringing together of different people to discuss the common topic of arms and armour. The more we all learn about the subject of arms and armour, the more we realize that the subject is defined by the relationships between objects, their use, and their context in art, culture, warfare, etc. It's the discussion of the minutia in the greater context that leads to the most interesting revelations.

The problem with sites that attempt to divide topics into their own forums it that they bring a "community" together and then quickly separate each person into their own room. Members often do not cross-over and, unfortunately, do not tend to learn about subjects with which they were not already familiar. There ends up being limits on the learning potential at this point and it can limit the diversity of knowledge found across the site's members.

It also causes a moderation nightmare and confusion to users as to the proper location to post their topics.

I once wrote these words and they seem to hit the nail on the head:

[Gabriel Lebec]

Hi Dan,

It's a good thought and on a hypothetical level I once would have agreed with you. However, I will in this case back up Nathan's well-expressed reasoning with a small personal note: in years of lurking or participating in online A&A-related forums, I've witnessed a number become highly fractured concurrent with a perceived drop in quality. Correlation is not causation, but I personally think myArmoury's forum section hits a sweet spot of separating only as much as is necessary.

Cheers,
-GLL