Some computer forums have dozens of sections. Have a look at Expert Sexchange and you'll see the 19 "Zones" are split into dozens of "Areas". Well, that's great for them because they have many thousands of active members who may specialise in single products.

If you look at CPCFF, they also have lots of areas. Some of them haven't been posted in since January...

If you look at PCpro, they only have 1 help area. It would be pointless breaking it down, because they only get 5 posts a day.

We only have a couple of hundred members. Some of them are more interested in the social side, or perhaps the photography and HiFi. Some of us have lots of technical experience and like to help. I'm curious to get a good idea of exactly which areas "we" think we know about, which may give a good indication of how best to break down the forums.

So, what do you think you're good at? By which, I mean which kind of thread are you likely to reply to helpfully?

I made a poll of what I think might be the biggest topics, from having been on the PCpro forum for years. I've grouped together a few which I think go together, and I've left out loads for various reasons. ARGHH I have to delete and merge yet more; stupid poll limits... OK I've had to delete all the Mac related questions, no offence but I didn't really know what to ask anyway. ARGHJHHH!H!H!H! still too many. OK I've deleted so many options the poll is now pretty much meaningless. Please vote for like, whatever, and post your actual thoughts. I'll use a pencil and paper to add them up later.

You can vote for as many options as you like.

'flash/graphics' or 'flash graphics' is the closest that any of them come to what I do...

I'm studying games design at uni... though i'm concentrating on 3D modelling and animation....

i can use microsoft OSes with some proficiency... i don;t know them inside out like some but i know more than your typical user...

passing acquaintances with OSX... some of you swear by it... i just swear at it...

I know my way around debian-flavoured linux [ubuntu mainly]... Red Hat/fedora does my bloody head in...

and coding wise... [X]HTML/CSS is about as far as I go... programming just isn't my thing...

my main pc related knowledge is related to building and tweaking them... over clocking and whatnot...

Probably Mac stuff.
I dunno, of course some of that translates across, but I'm not the most techy person. Compared to like, 90% of you guys.

A year ago, I would have said Mac related stuff, and Java as an application language, not a web language.
I write a fair amount of shell scripts, and will happily write in LaTeX2e (though it's been a while).

During the last year I have (as many of your will be sick to hear yet again) learnt more about UNIX, specifically under-the-hood Solaris 10 and OpenSolaris, though a lot of this is transferable to Linux too (bash commands, CLI tools such as Vi[m], grep, sed, regex, etc, GNOME desktop, etc).
Administration is also a strength, though it's still a little dodgy as our production servers are bleeding edge (in terms of software) so our users expect them to disappear from time to time, and they do...Hopefully, if new management allow, I will learn how to analyse crash dumps given by Solaris, which could be handy from time to time

I have Windows echoing in the back of my head from time to time I learnt on Windows, but I wouldn't like to offer advice as the gospel truth...

Now that's what I'm trying to establish. I suspect it's not that high

I voted Networking stuff, Microsoft OS general stuff, and "stuff I missed out". I couldn't help with your Network account, but I could probably sort out the network itself. "Other" for my telecoms side: Mitel, Siemens and Avaya PBXs have been my main thing for years.

As for the other topics, I know "a little about a lot"... which means I rarely know the answer without Googling it, but I do at least understand the question. Provided the question isn't just plain messed up, which it quite often is on the other place

I'm now waiting for bigD to come along tomorrow and tick everything, complain about the illogical groupings and come up with 50 different topics I never hear of

It's funny because it's (probably) true.

Windows, bit of networking, C++/C#, .net, XML, bit of video encoding, web site stuff, Direct X, XNA and a fair bit of testing experience from this year and some experience on sql injection attacks/xml injection, int overflow, string manipulation etc

"Security" was one of the topics I had to delete.

The problem is; most people don't even realise that they should be asking the question in the first place...

Not an expert in anything, I know enough to get by.

"

</Iain>

Mark

For me it's:
Servers
MS operating systems
Networking
Exchange
Network Security
Policies and network adminstration
Turning a mac on
Media Centres
Webhosting & DNS
folding
mild overclocking
pie

Mark

Large Web sites
Web Portals
Information architecture
Look and Feel
Accessibility
usability
Content Management Systems
Complex web applications
Web Infrastructure Architecture
Security of above
Optimisation of above
Taxonomy
Project / Programme Management
Office automation
SharePoint
Covers most of it I guess

Oh yes and Pie of course

My web site covers anything I forgot

Programming is my thing.

Java is my first language.
Progress is what I use at work.
I'm teaching myself objective C (iPhone) in my free time.

But, as you may have seen in the PC Software board, I can put together a fairly simple program in most languages given the right tools and references.

I don't do web sites though.

I don't even know about pie

I used to be vaguely knowledgeable until I joined here. I've built several PCs, but just about everyone here can do that. I've used Windows since 3.11 but no Vista experience and can't really remember 95 or 98 or Dos for that matter. I'm ok at Excel. I try to help, but invariably, I am a mere simpleton amongst the company I keep here.

I have therefore not voted.