I don’t really care too much one way or the other, but I think if the forums are combined @neo’s idea of keeping the dev topics off the main page would be a good idea to minimize non-technical chatter in dev topics. Mods would also need to be diligent in splitting off topic comments into separate threads etc
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One is not always more efficient, or convenient than two. Bilateral symmetry anyone? Try to tie your shoes with one hand to see if it is a simpler process. The human brain is partitioned into two major sections for a reason…
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Is there an objective way to test these and measure results?
Perhaps taking the data we already have from the dev forum, like number of posts, questions, repos that began from it, etc, and then closing it and starting the combined forum, and track it for a few months to compare the activity results?
Then we would have unbiased answers on which is objectively better, towards the goal of creating an active community that converses and creates things
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As an alternative, why not just have a thread here that describes/advertises the dev forum to newcomers and encourages them to visit. Its only a click away. This would be far less disruptive.
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Also we are pre-launch, we must consider the situation where there are many more interested non techie people and many more techie people.
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I think it can easily be done.
Not sure how many options Discourse offers, but I am pretty sure for the forums it is only categories and tag options which seems limiting until you consider design.
With a good design you can make the developer section POP but not take too much away and not force it down non-developers throats.
Check out the way some of these other discourse forums designed their category links:
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Maybe good for the main forum, I’m not sure about for a developer forum - less is more works for me. Interesting though.
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I think I’ll draw my, unwittingly devisive, poll to a close at 17:00 (UTC) on Wednesday so that it doesn’t drag on forever.
Two more days to get your votes in!
David.
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Is the current system of two forums really broken? If not, don’t fix it. It sounds like both the pros and cons aren’t much more than minor inconveniences. So unless running the separate DEV forum costs MaidSafe a lot of money I’d say keep things the way they are. As @dirvine said there’s a good chance things will get a bit messier once more people start finding this forum (assuming that is what he meant 
).
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We can now have our say on the Dev forum, this poll is open until Monday evening GMT:
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ok we all signup now and vote 
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This is not a good analogy because we are one community united by the delivery of safe network.
Imagine reaction of people in your analogy with this:
This means that people from UK could just travel to Iceland to participate in the poll. Clearly this analogy is wrong.
Let us hope results will be the same on both forums (otherwise I pity @DGeddes on how to manage this).
Is not a wrong analogy, or a right one, it was a way of illustrating why I think it was not a good way to make the decision.
To play it safe
keep both forums
even if they are merged…
Some minds will always prefer
a clutter-free & focussed thread
without rehashing of concepts
due to lack of knowledge.
No, I was doing a regular update
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Coolness for twenty…
Thanks to everyone that took the time to contribute to the poll.
Looking at the results, I personally don’t think that we’ve got a clear enough mandate to merge the devforum in with the main SAFE Network forum. So, my suggestion would be to leave things as they are for the time being. Perhaps we can re-visit the concept again in the future.
I’ll change the title on the forum topic to show that the poll is no longer live but keep the thread open in case anyone wants to continue commenting.
Thanks again,
David.
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wait, 74% is not clear enough? were you expecting 100%?
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It was 50% on dev forum though.
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