Don't see LabVIEW Fans of LEGO on Forum list

[jaustin_UF]

I've found the board for those intersted in LEGO's Mindstorms NXT at  NI Discussion Forums : Special Interest Boards : LabVIEW Fans of LEGO :

Interestingly, if you look at the list of forums you don't see it; if you go up the chain above, when you get to special interest boards you don't see it.

Comments?

[Laura F.]

Hi Jim,

Thanks for the question.  The fact that you cannot find this board on the main forum page (forums.ni.com) is by design.  We reserve the main page for boards designed for technical support of our products. 

There are a number of forums not found on this page, the most popular of which is the LabVIEW Fans of LEGO forum.  These forums are intended to foster a community of users and to be a place where people can discuss their applications.  The boards are not monitored by our applications engineers, but sometimes by some of our R&D engineers.   The boards are also not necessarily focused on an NI product, although the LabVIEW Fans of LEGO forum is now somewhat focused on the LabVIEW NXT Toolkit.

The boards not listed on the main page can be found linked somewhere else on our website and are sometimes advertised from different places.  For example, the LabVIEW Fans of LEGO board is found off of our academic pages. 

I hope this clears up the confusion!

Thanks,
Laura
Web Support & Operations

[tst]

How about the features board or, god forbid, the ETF board?

[Laura F.]

Hi tst,

I'm not sure what you are asking.  If you are asking where are the links to these boards, the LabVIEW Developers Feature Brainstorming is linked off of a page in LabVIEW Zone.  The ETF board is a pilot to see how well it works out, so it is not linked off of the site right now.  If it is successful you may find it linked somewhere, perhaps also in LabVIEW Zone.

Thanks,
Laura

[tst]

I can understand the reasoning behind the ETF board, but I don't see how the features board is different from the LabVIEW board or the BreakPoint, which do appear in the list. Personally, I rarely go into the LV zone, but I will occasionally get the opportunity to go over the boards page. In such cases, I can notice new boards.

[Laura F.]

Hi tst,

We keep the LabVIEW Features board separate also to minimize the number of technical support questions that are asked on that board because it is purely for discussing features with R&D.  The Special Interest boards get technical support questions posted to them often, even though they are not monitored for support questions by our engineers. 

I think you are right that it is not advertised very well.  Perhaps I can start adding these other forums not linked from the main page occasionally to the announcements. 

Thanks for the feedback,
Laura

[tst]

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@Laura F. wrote:

The Special Interest boards get technical support questions posted to them often, even though they are not monitored for support questions by our engineers. 

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As far as I know, this is a bug and not is not caused by the users. See here for example.
In any case, only blue users can start threads in the features board, so I don't think that would happen there.

The basic point is that if someone is looking for an NI forum, the most likely place to look is the main page, where the board might not necessarily be. If you don't know where to look for it, you simply won't find it.

It's the same story with the beta board, for instance. It does not appear in the board list, and the beta program itself has no link to it anywhere, as far as I could tell. I would expect that any private board available to the user would be in the main page (maybe under a private boards section?).

[Laura F.]

Hi tst,

I've not seen the problem where you try to post to one board and end up in another. 

If you are in the beta program, and have been granted access to the forum, you will see a link to it under Special Interest Boards on the forum main page.

Perhaps in the future, we will rethink the categorization of the boards and at that point change which ones can be seen from the main page.  I will make a note of your suggestion.

Thanks,
Laura

[tst]

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@Laura F. wrote:

I've not seen the problem where you try to post to one board and end up in another. 

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It happens a lot. Just look how many technical questions the BreakPoint and the feedback board get. I'm pretty sure almost all of these (if not all) are the forum's fault and not the user's fault.

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If you are in the beta program, and have been granted access to the forum, you will see a link to it under Special Interest Boards on the forum main page.

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Yes, I can see it now. I didn't notice it before because when I did look for it in the list I was not yet authorized to view it, so I got the link from somewhere else. Once I had the link, I simply floated it.