Do you like our Ride, Race, Lead WCC themed catagories or would you like to see this changed?How so?
The two categories that I kinda see as useful are:
Tech
Lounge/Off Topic
But another part of me feels we already have too many categories and should not add more.
Hmmmā¦I am the architect of Ride Race Lead.
Butā¦it may not be everything for the best Website Nav?
I like your suggestions above. 
So Iām fairly new to the club ( new two years ago and didnāt ride last year due to COVID / Illness) but have a few thoughts.
I quite like the structure of Ride, Race, Lead but maybe we can have more categories / sub categories?
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Could we have a ānew to the clubā area that new member could ask questions and have a FAQ to answer most of the new questions that keep coming up
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Iām wondering if there is some way to either add to the Ride structure or have a new set of categories to separate the levels / serious of cyclists involved. e.g. we have rec and intermediate rides but not anywhere for rec riders to talk about rec riding. Maybe have rec riding then sub catagories for the types of riding e.g. road, CX?
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We donāt have anything on training / technique which might be useful both for seasoned riders but also new riders
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Maybe a kids / family section on how to get kids and other family members involved
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How about an events area for races, charity rides other community events?
Not sure if all these are good ideas but ideas none the less!
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Some very valid points @Oliver_Smith and we need to add some of these.
I think a question and answer section is a really good idea and Rec & Family are a plus. Another thought ā do we want to add a KWCA category? ( KWCA is the KW Cycling Academy, which is a group for kids/teens cycling and we are associated with them ).
I would keep the number of categories small especially to start, otherwise you end up with cluttered UI and too much dilution. A āGeneral/Loungeā category and a āTraining and Nutritionā category are good ideas. A womenās category would be good too. (Carolyn suggested a womenās category in another thread)
Agreed, we donāt want too many categories but at the same time want the structure to make sense. Not sure how well the search function works yet but sometimes having the structure in place makes the need to search less important. Also much easier having the structure set right upfront than adding / moving things after launch and dealing with the āwhere did that goā questions.
Unrelated (and not sure even allowed!) but I wonder if either in the Ride section or elsewhere we can have something to discuss unofficial rides (post COVID). Often there are times I canāt make official rides (either with scheduling or time constraints). As a newish member to the club I donāt know many folk. It would be great to be able to throw out a request saying something like āwant to go for a road ride Sunday at 2pm, for 2 1/2 hours at about 32 kph starting in Waterloo, anyone interested?ā. Not sure about the liabilities to the club if we allow this. I would personally find it useful.
The ride category has sub categories for the type of riding (road, mtb, gravel, etc.)
Theyāre not necessarily dedicated to official rides only. So I would argue we donāt need a separate place for unofficial rides, either put it in the top level Ride category, or pick the sub category it belongs to and use topic title to note an unofficial ride. (i.e., āHawkesville Hill Repeats on Saturday [Unofficial]ā)
We donāt need to over think things. Keep it simple and post where it makes sense. I donāt think we need to specialize the categories too deeply. Any type of ride, official or not, should go under Ride, and if you want to be more specific, pick the sub category discipline that most aligns.
Want to talk about something thatās not a ride? Use the members lounge and post a topic. Want to talk about tech? Is it geared towards a discipline? I would argue that should go in the ride subcategory of the discipline it relates to. (i.e., A topic about disc wheels could go under TT or Track depending where you were riding them. A topic about road tyres, put it in the road category.)
The Ride, Race, Lead categories where set up to go along with the club slogan, but perhaps we need to broaden the top level descriptions to mean ārides and ride related thingsā. A topic about tyres or wheels is there to benefit the quality of a ride, so itās ride related (at least thatās what I would argue.)
That is fair. Just playing devils advocate a little here. We donāt want it too deep that there are sub categories with nothing in but at the same time make it easy to find items. Having unofficial rides just posted in the right subcategory will probably work.
Maybe we can have some forum guidelines / suggestions pinned to the top of each category to help users understand what each categories is for (and maybe help with topic naming conventions)too? That might help with forum moderation especially making sure items stay in the right place.
The problem with this will be when we open things up to the public. It is very likely that official rides are not going to be viewable to non-members, but unofficial rides clearly can be. So then these will need to be in different categories
The problem with writing guidelines is that theyāre never perfect enough for everyone. There is always another edge case that isnāt covered and people will gladly point that out at every opportunity. Iām not necessarily saying we donāt try to make something very general, but lets not get into the trap of being the category police. Moderators have the ability to move a topic along with a quick comment if something is out of place.
I think one of the responsibilities of being a beta tester is to start seeding categories with content and that will guide future users on where they should post based on what they see already posted.
@Steven_Stillaway I'm very disappointed that we'll be making official rides private. Having our rides public actually promotes our club and allows potential future members to get a feel for what the experience will be like. I don't see non members showing up to an official ride, we still do the membership check at official rides. So what is the threat of having everything under ride publicly viewable? We already have a private 'members only' category for things we want to keep from the public.
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There are people who are worried that if there is a public listing that they will be at a certain location or out of their home for a certain number of hours that could be taken advantage of by unscrupulous people.
It is unlikely, but it is a privacy concern. And if some members feel this way I donāt know what else we can do about it. Any suggestions?
Hereās my proposal:
Create an additional sub-category in the Members Only section for Ride Organizing.
- Ride organization happens in the private category. Members will be encouraged to utilize this category most often for scheduling meetups.
- Ride organization can still happen in the public category (especially unofficial), we wonāt snuff them out if they happen.
- Ride summaries, reactions, and photos are encouraged to be posted in the public Ride categories after the ride is complete. This allows the public to see the awesome result of what our club is about.
We can monitor the use of both Ride categories and based on what happens we can make further recommendations and moderate as appropriate.
That is possible and I agree after ride stuff public is good as promotion.
Possibly something could be done via moving topics or linking topics combined with editing and blackout of certain things. I donāt know if there are technical capabilities that can help. Need to investigate more.
Ride signup and details could possibly be a members only and read only thing but somehow linked to a comments topic.
Dunno. This needs to be investigated. If it is complex though that wonāt work.
Possibly just do ride signup and info somewhere else but link to a discussion thread? Just brainstorming here 
Interesting.
Tom, you are conceding the point on privacy? I think it is a good point (sadly). And it will let us make full use of the siteās event signup stuff.
The ride leader could seed the public ride followup discussion if desired?
For all its brilliance, for me, Ride Race Lead certainly does not automatically translate to forum categories 
I thought about it for a bit and couldnāt come up with an argument against providing a private space for ride organization. So, yes Iām conceding the point on privacy. I think it is a legit concern. I donāt think we should lock down everything, but providing a members only area away from public view is a decent compromise that gives privacy focused users a place to comfortably participate.
I will also concede that Ride Race Lead may not translate to the best possible forum category setup. But at the same time I also donāt want to have a large number of top level categories.
Ride isnāt saying āa Rideā, itās Ride as a verb. The act of riding and all the things that lead up to being able to ride. The fitness, the skills, the tech and equipment, the route and planning, itās everything to do with Riding.
Race is just that. All things racing. Training, tactics, equipment, route recon, advice, post race reports.
Lead is place to discuss how we as a club lead in various ways. Ride leaders sharing tips and advice, volunteers organizing an adopt-a-road, big ride for charity, or getting involved in trail day, community advocacy and events like Cycle for Angels, city or regional counsel meetings that concern cycling policy where our voice needs to be heard and represented. You get the idea.
These were my thoughts, and I envisioned using sub-categories under the various top levels to split out these kinds of topics.
Lead is the only one I have trouble parsing 
But I think your structure is quite defensible!
I think thatās all goodā¦weād just need to have those descriptions under the categories so people have an idea where to post.
This makes some sense.
I was thinking another category for Tech, Training and such. They could fit in to Ride and Race though. I want to keep the main categories small. But I think we need more sub-categories.
Iām not sure training and tech for Racing / Riding is sufficiently different to have them as sub categories of the main Race / Ride categories. I feel like it would just split the conversation between them. I agree with the point of trying to limit the number of main categories but these might be better as main ones. If we did feel there was sufficient differences e.g. racing tech then we could add a sub category later once we see how the posts look?
