Meridian Unplugged - Powered by MrTechGuy.co.uk Forums Discussion Meridian - Systems Meridian Unplugged - New Forums

Hi all,

The Meridian Unplugged - Forums have been restructured and there are now several new forums to acquaint one�s self with.

To get the best from this site do take time out to explore all of them and note the use that each forum is intended for; I�ve put a sticky on each one to help.

Ongoing housekeeping; I've started migrating posts to the new forums, my priorities are:
- All 2012 threads
- 2011 Sooloos related thread
- 2011 Dealer Restaurant threads

Then over a long period of time the Historical threads will be migrated to their respective Meridian, Sooloos, General and Off Topic forums. This will take some time

I hope you like and enjoy the new structure and please help us all by posting in the correct forum.
As always I and the other moderator are open to constructive comment.

Regards,
Carl

PS Expanding this site brings the potential for more moderation effect so please bear with us or if you keen �step up to the plate� and volunteer to help, even if it just with the migration task. PM if interested.

Hi Carl, Just one thought, a lot more click throughs are required; is this needed given the number of new posts if one looks daily?

Regards Ian

Hope you'll consider some input. In Restaurant, primary sort has been on the product under offer. Now splitting dealers and members means more clicks and perhaps more missed opportunities for buyers and sellers.

Hi Carl, very happy to help with some migration tasks but can I ask why the changes? It all seemed to work quite well as it was.
Whilst I do not have Sooloos, I really liked reading about that platform in the context of other Meridian gear - without having to go to another place to read about it.

Hi Marcus (et al),

In contrast to your view, we had others, from folk with a traditional CDP setup, who requested that we separate out the Sooloos posts as they found them too distracting. Also we had comments from Sooloos owners that felt that the Sooloos posts where being swamped with the 'Meridian' posts.

We could also see (from the number of OT posts) that the Hitchhiker community likes to chat about a) Other HiFi marques with some being less relevant to Meridian setups than others; and b) Topics that were not related to HiFi but where still of interest albeit to a smaller audience.

I know that increasing the number of sub-forums means there is more navigation, this was taken in to account with the new structure I hope we have go the balance right - only time will tell.

The format is not set in stone and can be reviewed and adjusted based on any constructive feedback we get.

Trust this helps to clarify why the changes were made.

Regards,
Carl

Hi all,

The significant housekeeping work is now complete. What's left is to trawl the Meridian forum for remaining "General" and "Off Topic" threads.

Regards,
Carl

I am not happy with the additional layering but is there a button to just give me all the new posts in all the forums since my last visit? If not, that is a problem.

Kal

Kal, under "Active Topics", Active Topics.

Cheers Tintin

The prime motivator for the restructuring was the number of PMs, received by the moderators, requesting change.

Meridian and Sooloos two prime most view forums hence the shortcuts. As I said in another thread it may have been better not to have these two direct links and just to have link to the four main areas.

I don�t think colour would work markers maybe if it could be done; however there are only two major categories Discussion and Restaurant each with four forums.
See Forum Overview

It's impossible to please everyone [that path leads to madness] there has to be some compromise. However, as stated earlier nothing is set in stone and I�m sure this site will continue to evolve offer time.

Regards,
Carl

I agree that things have become over complicated (especially when viewing on a small format device) but do appreciate that some change was necessary and I welcome the separate hifi chat and off topic threads as these are quite distinct from Meridian (including Sooloos chit chat).

How about merging Meridian and Sooloos? Often things highly overlap and I do enjoy reading some of the Sooloos items even though I don't have any. We don't have separate threads for DSP speakers or 800 series etc etc so I don't really see any reason why (other than it being originally a separate company) Sooloos is anything different. It may also do Meridian some favours by opening up other Meridian products to other Sooloos users who have stumbled on the site via a search.

Instead of having Meridian, Sooloos and Restaurant in the header, how about moving them up a level so it simply becomes Forums, Discussion and Restaurant which allow unread posts to be seen at a glance which is an issue that others and myself miss - BTW - active topics does not give this information as all options bring up read posts. For us clumsy fingered small touch screen users, if discussion [as it is likely to be the most used option] could be first in the list it would mean that I would not have to aim at one of two lines Or maybe instead of Forums, simply have home which takes us to a list of forums and the wiki page, making the Wiki more prominent.

Steve,

Let me add my tuppence.

1) I do not appreciate your re-posting the paragraph that Carl edited out. I'm going to let that lie for the time being, but the other moderators might not.

2) It is both. Frankly and IMHO, it provides customer support that Meridian should be providing itself. I have wondered on more than one occasion whether Meridian - a company that had to be bought out on more than one occasion because it wasn't a good *business* - would have survived without the brand publicity and support of the used market that the forum gave it.

3a) This is a privately owned forum, based in the UK and subject to UK laws. The forum is not collectively owned; it was created and owned by George Mills and the ownership passed to Duncan Rolfe when George decided to give it up. In other words Duncan can do what he likes with the forum. Having said that, and as Carl has posted, these changes did not come about purely from private discussions: they are a solution to a combination of (i) requests from forum members and (ii) problems faced by the moderators (such as how to allow off-topic posts without cluttering up the main forum).

3b) Discussion (and the promotion of the sale) of third party DSP algorithms which make use of reverse engineering has effectively been banned on this forum because part of the process through which these algorithms have been developed almost certainly involve breaches of Meridian's intellectual property (under UK law at the least) and because the forum owner (Duncan) *could* be liable for permitting such open discussion. This is a horribly grey area. Some individuals are more "liberal-minded" than UK law permits (Consider attitudes to file-sharing, DVD/Blu-Ray ripping, reverse engineering for profit).

4) You might be surprised at the amount of time and effort that the forum administrators (Duncan and Carl) put in. It dwarfs the time I spend as a moderator.

5) Time will tell. I hope not, but it is a possibility.

...and to drift gently back onto topic again...

One issue with the present split is that some gear incorporates both Meridian and Sooloos (861v6, 818, MS600, 808.3 etc)

There is ambiguity as to where to post a thread concerning one of these pieces of equipment.

If we simply divided the top level threads as "Tech Support" and "Chit chat" would that make it easier?

The next level down could then subdivide, particularly for my pet DIY subject which I know only appeals to a small audience.

Maybe "Sooloos" could be better defined as software issues rather than hardware, ie tech support for how to utilise the Control:PC software effectively etc.

Just ideas, but in my opinion, best out in the open rather than by PM.