We need to talk about organizing our forum, please

jburgh

BV ~ Ferragamo ~ TODs
Moderator
O.G.
Aug 17, 2007
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BV friends,
I asked Swanky Mama of Three (our lovely mod) if she could make a sticky out of the BV outlets thread. She answered me and asked if we realized we had 9 stickies already? Sheesh, she is absolutely right. We don't want to have too many stickies, because people will skip right over them.

Which leads me to this thread...can we talk about streamlining, consolidation and organization of our forum. I want us to review what we have and then what we want. Please make suggestions.

FIRST:
Right now we have 3 Subforums:
A. Shop BV at NAP - which is just a link to NAP. I am not sure how that one got it started or if it is something related to their sponsorship of tPF...any ideas? Vlad? Megs?
B. Color Reference library
...Color threads
C. Style Reference Library
...Style threads

9 stickies
Individual threads


The first thing to address it the amount of stickies.
1.) I believe that the Colors sticky could be moved to the Color reference subforum as an individual thread, like the red, blue, etc are now, but then closed. I know some of the information in that color sticky is now also placed in the individual color reference threads and is a little redundant. But, it is still valuable and I would never want to lose it.

2.) Authentication stickies. Do we truly need a separate BlueFly sticky? Couldn't it be merged into the general authentication thread?

3.)Bottega Veneta Collections and Bottega Veneta in Action stickies. Both of these stickies are for us to publish pictures of our own bags. Is there any reason these should not be merged? Perhaps a new thread titled "Bottega Veneta Collections: Still Life and In Action" could be created and both merged in there?

4.) The other stickies are unrelated and can stand alone.


NEXT:
What we want:
D. BV Shopping reference subforum (the fourth subforum)?

Earlier last month we talked about having a Shopping subforum like Hermes or Balenciaga has. Please take a look at these two forums to see how they are set up. What do you envision would go in this Shopping subforum?
This are the threads that I envision:
1.Authenticate this Bottega Veneta (moved from the sticky area)
2.BV Boutique Reference - Locations and SAs
3.BV Outlets - Current Selection
4.BV on eBay - Good and Bad Experiences
5.List of Reputable Stores and E-tailers Carrying BV
6.BV Special Deals and Finds
7.How to Spot a Fake BV and the Hall of Shame
8.Care and Maintenance of your BV

We could merge some existing threads into some of these above threads such as the Splurge thread in to a Deals and Finds thread. And merge the Woodbury outlet thread into a general Outlets thread.

Please, please, please think about our forum set-up and comment. Thanks! :smooch:
 
I stumbled over those too many stickies as well, jburgh, so it`s great of you to bring that up.

I totally agree with you that it would be a good thing to merge the two Authenticate stickies, since the BF one doesn`t get too many questions anyways.

Also, I think it`s a good idea to move the Colours thread to the Colours sub.

But somehow I think we should keep both the Collections and the In Action thread, because somehow the In Action thread is more useful if you`re deciding whether or not to get this or that bag and want to know how it might look worn when you don`have a BV boutique around and the Collection thread is more for ogling-purposes.

As fun as I think the BV Sightings thread is, do we really need that as a sticky? What`s it worth to know that in some places, there are tons of BVs when we don`t even get to see pics?

As to the Shopping sub: I´m sorry to have to admit that I don`t visit subs too often. I would forget about the Authenticate thread if I`m honest. Plus, are there really that many E-Tailers carrying BV (we wouldn`t need a real "thread", wouldn`t a list be enough?) and is the stock of the outlets updated so often?

The rest seems pretty reasonable and thoughful to me, but maybe this info could be gathered someway else than in a sub?

Sorry if i sounded so negative, didn`t mean to!
 
Great work, jburgh! My only comment is that perhaps we don't identify what makes a fake a fake - because that ultimately makes it easier for the fakers to improve their counterfeits. I know this is what's done on other forums and though it may be initially frustrating to the person asking, eventually you do learn the distinguishing characteristics of a real vs. a fake, without giving the game away to the opposing team!
 
Hmmmm, lots to think about. How about....

For Subforums:
1. ONE link to NAP (I think it's a sponsor deal)
2. ONE BV Reference Library Subforum, which includes current Color and Style Reference libraries, Color sticky, and What's IN your BV? sticky
3. ONE Shopping Subforum like you describe (could we maybe have a sticky on the main BV page that has only one post that links to the Authenticate This thread in Shopping too? :shrugs: so it doesn't get buried, or visa versa just so it has a strong presence). For other shopping stickies:
  • I don't feel we need one for boutiques since they're all listed on the BV website, nor outlet inventory - how 'bout just: "Current Inventory" and it can include sightings at boutiques, dept stores, outlets, etc. Then people can just list SA's to contact when they post about inventory.
  • "Fake BV Postings/Hall of Shame" can include eBay listings and other bad etailers.
  • Sure, a list of reputable etailers, stores, and eBayers who have a good track record for selling auth BV.
  • I think a strictly eBay thread combining good and bad doesn't get that much action - people can just use the 'Reputable' sticky or do a Shout Out or Whine in its own thread.
For Stickies:
YES merge Authenticate This and BF Authentication Thread - I think the Bluefly thread was only resurrected recently as BF has been established as an authentic seller for sometime now.

Keep COLLECTIONS and IN ACTION separate as they are in most other forums - action shots are really unique!

I agree with Claus on the BV Sightings sticky... same for What's In Your BV? which veers OT more often than not - unless you just stick that in the reference library.

Worldwide BV Articles sticky? I know we were all excited about the recent articles but I can see that sticky not being utilized, and whenever there's a new one someone will just post a new thread, soooo...... nix? :shame:

I might like to see CARE & MAINTENANCE of YOUR BV as a main page sticky rather than tucked in the Shopping subforum.

The other stickies seem appropriate.

And I totally agree with mistikat about not getting too specific about fake details in a Shopping Subforum thread - I don't like giving fakers advice which is why I disagree with listing too many specifics in the Style Reference threads too.

Whoa, sorry so long - I'm obviously bored with American Idol tonight, lol! Keep up the good work!
 
My shot at trying to organise all the information in here would be somewhat like that-

Subs
1. NAP
2. Reference Library
  • Colour
    - Colour Sticky
  • Style
3.Shopping
- Authenticate This
- Bluefly Authenticate This


Stickies
1. Celebs and BV Bags
2. Collections
3. In Action
4. What's IN your BV Bag
5. Worldwide Articles


Personally, I really like reading articles re BV and Tomas Maier, and I feel a Sticky for this makes it easier for me to go back to re-read past articles, when I'm not too sure which publication it was from. And yes, I admit. I'm lazy. I just want everything filed nicely for me to read :P

I guess we could move down the "Sightings" Sticky to a regular thread? Then it'll get bumped everytime someone saw another BV :shrugs:
 
This is way more fun than working this afternoon! Here is my two cents' worth:

Three Subforums:

1. BV Reference Library - consisting of the following:
- BV Color Reference (move here as a sub-sub forum rather than have as a separate subforum all on its own, and as jburgh suggests, add the existing Color sticky then close that thread)
- BV Style Reference (ditto)
- BV articles (move the current sticky here)
- BV care and maintenance
- anything else that we think up as a BV reference topic

2. BV Shopping - consisting of the following:
- Buy BV on NAP (very few other forums have this as a separate forum, presumably if we HAVE to have it it could be included as part of a BV Shopping subforum?)
- BV Contact Information - boutiques, outlets, SAs
- BV Outlets - Current Selection
- Reputable BV retailers
- BV Deals and Steals
- anything else that we think up about BV shopping

3. TPFers and our BVs - consisting of the following:
- BV Collections (move current sticky here)
- BV in Action (move current sticky here)
- What is in your BV (move current sticky here)
- anything else we think up about our BVs

Three Stickies:

1. Authenticate this BV - suggest leaving as a sticky as it seems that authentication is very often the reason new arrivals come to the BV forum and so it shouldn't be too hard for people to find who are not familiar with the site (and I know that I find sub-forums less obvious to find things in than stickies)

2. BV sightings

3. Celebs and their BVs

So if I ran the world that is what I would do!
 
When we first got the ref library, oodles of people wrote to ask if the style and color parts could be separated. I'd like to keep it that way. So, I copied BMs post and rearranged some stuff.

How is this???

Four Subforums:

1. BV Color Reference (add the existing Color sticky, unstick then close that thread)

2. BV Style Reference

3. BV Shopping Reference consisting of these threads: (when other threads need to be added we can ask Vlad to open it up)
- Buy BV on NAP (very few other forums have this as a separate forum, presumably if we HAVE to have it it could be included as part of a BV Shopping subforum?)
- BV Contact Information - boutiques, outlets, SAs
- BV Outlets - Current Selection
- Reputable BV retailers
- BV Deals and Steals
- anything else that we think up as a BV reference topic

4. TPFers and our BVs - consisting of the following threads:
- BV Collections (move current sticky here and unstick)
- BV in Action (move current sticky here and unstick)
- What is in your BV (move current sticky here and unstick)
- BV care and maintenance
- BV articles we want to share
- anything else we think up about our BVs

Note: there will probably have to be some rules stickies in subforums 3 and 4.

Three Stickies in the regular forum:

1. Authenticate this BV - suggest leaving as a sticky as it seems that authentication is very often the reason new arrivals come to the BV forum and so it shouldn't be too hard for people to find who are not familiar with the site (and I know that I find sub-forums less obvious to find things in than stickies)

2. BV sightings

3. Celebs and their BVs
 
I like the general idea, except

1. I don't think a subforum for tsfer and their BVs is really necessary
2. BV sighting sticky is also not that necessary
3.. Instead I think we can stick some of the topics under tsfers and their BV on the sticky and remove the BV sighting sticky

So the new stickies would be:
1.Celebs and their BV
2.BV in action
3.Your BV collection
4.Care and Maintenance
5.BV articles
6.Authenticate this BV
 
Please do not remove these 2 stickies: BV SIGHTINGS and tPFRS and THEIR BV'S..These are 2 of my favorite ..The sightings around the world makes me feel almost like I am there too..and it gives you a beat on what styles people wear..And I love to see what the others wear! Everyone's suggestions seem fine...the best is to combine the color sticky into the color reference library
 
First off, thanks again jburgh for being so proactive to improve BV forum.:flowers: I think it's forming up really nicely and am fine with jburgh's suggestion in #9 so far.

However, I have a feeling that the NAP link, being a sponsor deal, has to be on the top page of each designer forum. Vlad/Megs/Mods should be able to advise but we might have to have it as one of the subforums.

I suggested to have the BV World Article stickied and really want to keep it somewhere permanent. I was going to add all the links from the past posts to the thread once it got sticked but haven't had time to work on it yet, sorry.

I agree with keeping the Auth thread stickied on the top page.

I used to frequent LV forum, where there are 6 subforums with 2 subforums within them and 6-8 stickies (both temp and perm). So I'm OK with having the threads for TPFers and our BVs in either subforums or stickies.
 
When we first got the ref library, oodles of people wrote to ask if the style and color parts could be separated. I'd like to keep it that way. So, I copied BMs post and rearranged some stuff.

I guess I don't get this point. Every other designer subforum has just a (Brand) Reference Library (example here) BV is the only one with separate Color and Style Reference Libraries. If you put both Color and Style within one Reference Library with lots of other topical stickies or sub-sub-forums, then you've got all references within one home without having to bounce back to the main BV page to find a different reference topic. Color and Style would still have their separate subs within the sub.... :shrugs: maybe that's all the separation necessary?
 
^ I definitely agree with not needing 2 reference subs. I check out the Balenciaga reference sub quite often, and it's easy for me to follow through, even though they have a HUGE reference library as compared to us.
 
^ I definitely agree with not needing 2 reference subs. I check out the Balenciaga reference sub quite often, and it's easy for me to follow through, even though they have a HUGE reference library as compared to us.

What ever everyone want is fine by me. We should vote on the consolidation of the color and style as subs of the Reference subforum. That is how it was when the ref library was introduced.