how about a new years resolution: 2012, the forum/LEX audit and update?

[jigsaw]

there's a lot of dead, unnecessary and now irrelevant topics and pinned content that's been around on the forums for years. there is also a lot of small simple, and heavily repeated questions etc. that have been started and have been answered a million times over that are in the forums.

also, how about an audit of content on the LEX? making sure all hyperlinks work, all dependancies are checked, all read me's are audited so that it is all up to date?

i propose 2012 be of auditing, updating and stocktake. we've been here for years and now and then a clean out is healthy.

just like at home; is it not normal to go the garage and throw out unused, unwanted and obsolete things? is it not normal to spring clean the house, re-arrange things and re-assess things?

it's just my 10c, i love this place, it works as it is but i see some nip and tuck, refreshing and things that could keep the place running more productively.

have a good xmas

[FrankU]

I think you are in principle completely right, but it's just like with the garage clean up: who is going to do it at what day? Who is supposed to decide what is rubbish, what can be sold and what can be thrown away? Is it you, is it your wife, are you going to ask your childeren too?

But I guess this is in the first place a question for jeronij.

[Tarkus]

While I can't speak for jeronij, being part of the site's staff, and having a fairly good idea of the community's pulse right now and the level of effort needed, I think going through sticky threads, FAQs, etc. would definitely be worth considering, particularly in "strategically-important" areas. 

The LEX, however, is a different story.  There's over 2500 files up there, many of which (at least 1000+) belong to folks who, nowadays, are inactive or barely active now in the community, and it'd be quite a large undertaking to go through and update readmes for all of those files.  Speaking as the current "custodian" of the NAM Team account, it's tricky enough keeping up with the 46 files we have.  It's a nice idea, but the feasibility has to be considered.

-Alex

[mattb325]

...there's a lot of dead, unnecessary and now irrelevant topics...

It is what it is. While some topics may appear unnecessary to one person, they may not be to others.

I know I have stumbled on old posts during searches and really gleaned a thing or two from them. I would hate for this to disappear because of a clean up.

As for links with dependencies in read-me files this is always going to be difficult to update. I have over 100 files here and on ST: when the STEX went through an upgrade recently, all links were broken. Rather than re-creating the read-me files and the subsequent installer packages which for me is a tedious job, I chose to update the html links in the LEX description: many creators are no longer active so to adopt even this approach would be an impossible ask.

If the dependency issue bothers you, perhaps you could create an updated list like diggis did? 

[catty]

...I know I have stumbled on old posts during searches and really gleaned a thing or two from them. I would hate for this to disappear because of a clean up...

Yes there have been times when doing a search for something else, I've found myself reading an old topic and finding it very enlightening   

there's a lot of dead, unnecessary and now irrelevant topics and pinned content that's been around on the forums for years. there is also a lot of small simple, and heavily repeated questions etc. that have been started and have been answered a million times over that are in the forums...

Hi jigsaw

You can always report topics to the moderators if they need tiding up, or if you prefer PM me a list and I'll take a look after the holidays, but as mattb325 says one person's idea of junk is another person's treasure 

Catty (Moderator)

[FrankU]

It might be a huge, but effective task if information that is spread out through several posts and threads could be condensed into tutorials. Because tutorials can be found on a dedicated place, it makes it easy for everyone to find things. But I know as good as you do that this will not really happen. Who has the time to read through an enormous amount of posts just to put all useful information of one certain subject together into a nice and easy tutorial?
It might be rewarding though....

[catty]

It might be a huge, but effective task if information that is spread out through several posts and threads could be condensed into tutorials. Because tutorials can be found on a dedicated place...

We do have the SC4 Encyclopaedia

http://www.wiki.sc4devotion.com/index.php?title=Main_Page

Which could be used for this type of thing and it isn't used as much as it should be, but as you say its finding the time to do it, and there simply aren't enough hours in the day as it is for most of us, much as we might think its a really good idea and should be done.