I’ve highlighted orphan sub-forums already in existence on MR forums but are scattered from one another
Right, and my core thesis is that there's too many of those. My original thinking was that we could:
- Close the subforums for OS X 10.3 – 10.5. Those topics should go in the PPC subforum, where they will be seen by more people!
- Combine the subforums for OS X 10.6 – 10.9 into some kind of "Early Intel OS" subforum, ideally with a better name if someone can come up with one.
Putting similar subforums closer together in the hierarchy doesn't actually help much if they're still separate sections. I want be able to go to one place to see relevant topics, and I want a place to
make topics that are broadly relevant to a range of old versions.
Personally,
I still think the above is the best and simplest course of action. It doesn't make any sweeping changes to the forum, and it would neatly resolve the primary issue.
I will however recognize that I have my own biases here—for example, I don't tend to think about hardware that much, because in truth I'm primarily a Hackintosh user. I can see how someone with a 2006 Macbook would have different priorities for an "Early-Intel" section, and that's valid!
Over on the OS X Snow Leopard 10.6 sub-forum, there has been a months-long project of
getting an early build of Snow Leopard running on PPC systems. There have been moderator requests to either have that active thread moved over to this sub-forum or at least pinned. There remain PPC forum users who may not be very familiar with that PPC-related project.
I actually think that topic belongs over here in the PPC sub-forum, under both the current structure and under the scenario where we combined 10.6 – 10.9 into an early-Intel section.
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Now,
if (!) we were going to go with this larger restructuring, I would be quite strongly against splitting 10.6 and 10.7. Aside from a few iOS visuals, those versions are really quite similar in most respects, and so there are lots of conversations that would be hampered by such a divide.
I originally spent half an hour writing about why a split point between 10.4 & 10.5 is more correct philosophically (which I do believe), but I've deleted it for now, because I think there may be an easier way to do this:
Legacy Apple
• Legacy OS X (10.0 – 10.9)
Legacy Macs
• PowerPC Macs
• Early Intel Macs (2006 – 2012)
Legacy Accessories
• ...
(macOS Server is still a supported product despite its pitiful state, I don't think it belongs in a legacy section.)
Problem solved. The reason
not to do this would be if we think discussions about later versions risk drowning out earlier ones, or vice versa, which is also why I would
really want a cap at 10.9. But, I don't think that's such a huge risk, especially if we have seperate areas for hardware-specific discussions.
If we decided pushing 10.0 – 10.9 all together was too much, I also think the Snow Leopard on PPC project would fit right at home in a 10.5 – 10.9 section! If 10.5 is included, then the subforum is inherently architecture-agnostic.
