Hi forum mods / GF staff, is it possible to split Everything Else up so that posts about scheduling / delays / why Dan is the best and/or the most terrible person on Earth and posts that are tips and tricks that aren’t in Tips and Tricks or discussions on running a business with a GF, etc. are in different categories?
Wading through Everything Else is depressing and negative but I don’t want to mute the category because there are some really cool posts that end up in here as well.
Thanks.
Alternatively Everything Else can stay as the “anything goes” forum, but they could create a new area for some of the most common discussions–things like laserable materials, other tools, techniques which are complementary to what the GF does. Those are the best parts of Everything Else anyway.
Yeah that sounds awesome.
That’s a description of the Beyond the Manual category. The Regulars will periodically move discussions on techniques, tips and settings there so people can find them later. 
Huh I thought Beyond the Manual was about using the GF in non-warranty situations. Stuff like cutting crepes or whatever.
I appreciate the desire to group topics together, especially to keep all the posts about shipping, feature roll out, and discussion of the Glowforge business model in a tidier bundle. Six months from now I hope that there is less horse flesh lying around and the design and technique posts will be much easier to find. It will calm down here soon until the next delay is announced…
How to handle Proofgrade materials and Default QRCode settings distinctly needs something besides Made on a Glowforge. There isn’t a handy way to figure out design challenges and the workflow, plus having a place to showcase work. I think having a Gallery feature would really be helpful for folks to more efficiently showcase work without getting bogged down in the Proofgrade/Default/Beyond the Manual chaos.
Good suggestion. Forum categories have evolved over time and as more and more folks get their lasers, the next step will become clearer.
Chuckle! Yeah that too! 
I’ve thought about doing this - I’m just not sure the people who are frustrated are the best at categorizing their posts in the midst of their frustration, and finger-wagging at them or moving their posts might be frustrating. I’ll give it more consideration.
Thanks @dan. I agree with @GrooveStranger that this category should be “anything goes”, but discussions on materials, tools, etc. maybe could go into another category. This way we’re not moving posts from frustrated folks and more casual conversations can still happen here.
I would like to see a feature request category to split that off from the problems and support we’ve been using it for. Won’t clog up with more tickets and might cut down on me thinking my great idea is fresh and new when I have a smaller space to look in.
What is really needed are mods that are sanctioned to do the finger-wagging/post-moivng.
Some have become self-appointed mods but they are doing it as they read through the forum regularly, as opposed to being an assigned mod to a particular forum. This is the first time I’ve ever seen a forum that has only a single moderator, and it’s the company’s CEO 
! If there were five or six mods spread out so each covers a couple of categories (ideally enough to ensure that each forum section has at least two mods), and they were regularly reading the forums and moving posts to their correct categories, then it wouldn’t be a big deal to add more categories.
Sadly, the population of a forum is almost never up to the task of policing their own categorization.
Honestly, I usually look at things based on “New” and “Unread” filters, so I rarely even pay attention to which category I’m looking at. It would be pretty easy for me to post something new and not know which category it is going into… though I make it a point to verify which category I’m in before I post.
Anyone who has met the Discourse requirements for the “Regular” status can move (as well as rename) topics. I’m pretty sure that at least 90% of the topics that have ever been moved were moved by Regulars, not @dan.
I’m not certain why this is relevant to the OPs suggestion of adding more categories or to my idea which was to create official moderators?
You are correct, and I am sure that more threads have been renamed and moved by forum users than by Dan.
This doesn’t change the fact that Dan is one of the very few who has the ability to act on flags, outright delete posts, restrict or remove users’ accounts, etc… Adding official moderators would relieve some of that burden off of him as well because they would be given some level of ability to reprimand abusive users.
I was responding to this:
(relevant section bolded this time)
Ah. My point was merely that official moderators would be better able to organize, spread out duties by assigning specific categories, etc… which in turn would make adding more categories less difficult.