Tech Help's gone

[alms]

Hey @Graham

So Tech Help has been silently rebranded as Hardware for a while and I haven’t seen any sign of it being reverted…

I personally don’t think this is a great change, because of how the scope of the topics that can be discussed there are restricted.

For instance, if someone has problems with their Steam client, or perhaps their WIndows, or Linux, am I supposed to send them over to a competing platform?

I can’t see how that would be a change for the better.

[BillButNotBen]

I guess it’s to match the fact that the main site now has Hardware coverage from Katherine.

A quick look over the thread titles there seems to show that it’s about 30% asking for hardware recommendations, and then the rest is split between hardware and software issues… with most issues being more solvable through software.

I wonder if they’re planning to link up the forums and the site posts/comments a bit more closely?

Otherwise, I’d agree that Hardware is a bit too limiting. Maybe ‘Hardware and Tech Advice’?

While we’re at it, I’d rebrand ‘PC Gaming Discussion’ as just ‘Gaming Discussion’ and change the ‘Other Stuff’ subtitle to something like ‘Non-gaming discussion’.

I’m undecided on this, but I’m wondering if it’s worth an experiment of setting the default forum view back to ‘Latest’ instead of ‘Categories’. Given the low volume of posts, it might make things seem a bit more alive. Or not. Might be worth a spin for a month or so though.