Hopefully, manufacturer categories can be further broken down... for example, "Samsung" could be cut into Galaxy A, Galaxy M, Galaxy S, and Galaxy Z subcategories. Even if we never get back to individual model fora (the proper Latin plural for "forum", prove me wrong), at least people could look at their model types for help.
I've been thinking about this a lot...
Now that we're rethinking channels, does it make more sense to:
- Have "Channels" for specific products?
- Have "Channels" for models?
It depends a lot on the product category, different companies, etc... but it'd be very helpful for a hierarchy that included:
Smartphones > Samsung > Galaxy Z > Product Name Here (ex: Samsung Galaxy Z Fold5)
But how do we best organize that? Our current "tools":
- Categories
- Forums
- Prefixes
- Tags
- Channels
- Custom Fields
Sadly, I'm not 100% confident we'll get Channels back and Custom Fields in XF aren't powerful enough to do much with... so if we were planning this today, maybe:
- Categories for Type (ex: Smartphones)
- Prefix for Manufacturer (ex: Samsung)
- Forums for Product Line (ex: Galaxy Z)
- Tags for Model (ex: Galaxy Z Fold5)
- Custom Fields for Variants if necessary
Using prefixes for Manufacturers would allow us to repurpose them regardless of Product Type (the same prefix set would be used for Smartphones, Tablets, Computers, etc...)
If we're able to revive Channels, we'd use Channels for Models instead of Tags, at which point that would open up Tags for a different use case. Potentially to include Product Lines?
The problem with this is that our list of Forums will likely again become so expansive that it slows down the site, especially on the admin end when doing anything relating to forum permissions.
I'm partially thinking out loud here but curious if anyone has any bright ideas or strong opinions!
My thinking is that if you've got the Google Pixel 7 and you're looking for a new phone, you might feel more compelled to look for the "Google Pixel" section and chat it up rather than "Google" or "Google Pixel 8 Pro" specifically...