First of all (since I've been silent for quite some time): Hi everybody!

I don't have a suggestion (yet), but I'd like to bring up a few points that I think deserve some discussion in this context:

1. FAQ

Obviously lots of questions are asked over and over again and frankly I'm a bit surprised that there is no FAQ to address that. A Q&D (but effective) way of implementing a FAQ (sort of) is to collect links to threads that are likely to be particularly useful for newbies in a sticky thread per sub-forum. An examle of this is available here: http://www.talkbass.com/forum/showthread.php?t=43093

2. Technical Documentation Project

As implied by the subject definition ("Discussions pertaining to the development of a comprehensive web application that documents technical data related to Lansing products") a forum is not the ideal medium for reference type of information. Clearly, lots of goodies that surface within the various threads deserve to be collected (or not put in the forum in the first place) and structured for easier access.

IMHO a wiki is a strong candidate as a supplement to the forum. For a modest example check out my wiki about Acoustic Control Corp. amplifiers: http://acoustic.homeunix.net/ It's very easy to create a framework such that various lists are generated automatically, e.g. products with 15 in drivers or generation 3 products. Every product has a page of its own and new pages are easily created by means of a template. A very useful feature of the particular wiki used (TWiki) is that it has built in revision control, so it's easy to see who added what and when. I'd be glad to elaborate on this further, should the forumites be interested.

3. Examples of what goes where

IME (when restructuring the intraweb at the company I work for - by chance it's a wiki ), supplementing topic definitions with examples of what should go under a specific heading ("inclusive: ...") as well as what doesn't belong there ("exclusive: ...") help reducing erroneous posting a lot.

4. Number of forums and hierarchical levels

Too much structure (in terms of number of forums and sub-forums) should be avoided. I've seen examples of forums that went downhill after being chopped up into way too many specialized areas. 5-7 top level categories seem to be the optimum, and two levels should be enough. Anything more than that, and it gets hard to get an overview as well as cumbersome to navigate.

5. OT vs OT

According to the current definitions OT is basically everything non-JBL (et al). Perhaps it would be beneficial to split it into e.g. 'General Audio' (for discussions on RTAs, room correction, vintage tube amps, ...) and 'The Pub' or similar, where we can bash politicians, discuss Chevy trucks or whatever? In the pub its okay to rant after a couple of beers

Just my EUR 0.02

Fredrik

(Disclaimer: Maybe one or all of the above topics have been discussed to death already (I've been away ya know). If so, I apologise for my lenthy post.)