Add Apple Studio Display and Pro Display sub-forums to a renamed "Display and Accessories" forum

[tenthousandthings]

Hi — I work in the visual arts and I post a lot in the Apple Silicon Macs forum and on news stories about Mac hardware, TSMC, and Apple (and other) displays.

Despite all this activity, I only very recently discovered that discussion about Apple displays and other displays is located in the Mac Accessories forum. I think of “accessories” as docks, keyboards, mice, storage, drawing tablets, and the like.

Note that Apple itself is of two minds about this. In the online store, Displays have their own Mac product heading as well as being featured under the Accessories heading.

I think it’s okay to not have a dedicated Displays forum, I’m not questioning that decision. But I think the forum should be renamed "Displays and Accessories" and it should have two visible sub-forums for the Studio Display and the Pro Display XDR. They would fit in well with all the other Apple product sub-forums.

Finally, I would also love to see a sticky post about displays, maybe with some public discussion beforehand about what it should talk about…

I realize this is a lot of work for someone to move the appropriate threads into the new sub-forums, but I think in the end it would increase participation and understanding in a active area of discussion.

[Edited to incorporate ideas from the discussion below.]

 

[macOScurious]

Absolutely agree with your suggestion. There are lots of Apple display users and a sub-forum for those devices would help users to find information much more easy.

 

[M4th]

Something that would look kind of like this...?

 

[tenthousandthings]

Something that would look kind of like this...?

View attachment 2522635

Yes! Also, the little forum descriptions in lowercase don’t appear in Safari on iOS, but the bold product sub-forums do. I mostly read MR on my iPhone, so I rarely see the descriptions. It wasn’t until I saw a comment in a news thread about a particular Pro Display thread in Mac Accessories that I discovered that’s where all the display discussion and expertise is…

 

[macOScurious]

Yes, that exactly how I would like to see it in the forum list. More visible and prominent. @M4th Thanks for the nice draft.

 

[maflynn]

I don't know if there's enough activity to justify a sub forum. Obviously this is an admin decision but in the last 6 months there's been on average 4.6 threads created. In searching for the word "studio" in the title we get 28 threads broken down as follows:

• June - 6 threads
• May - 4 threads
• Apr - 6 threads
• Mar - 4 threads
• Feb - 5 threads
• Jan - 3 threads

With a handful of exceptions, most of the threads have fewer then 4 replies and only 1 thread went to 2 pages.

Now I understand by just searching for the word studio, this may not be 100% comprehensive, but I think it does provide a general guide of how active a sub forum may or may not be. Its up to the admin to determine if adding another sub-forum (and possibly causing forum bloat), is worth the level activity

Maybe an alternative solution is to use prefixes, which will help organize and filter the accessories forum, thus providing a similar result.

 

[M4th]

I don't know if there's enough activity to justify a sub forum. Obviously this is an admin decision but in the last 6 months there's been on average 4.6 threads created. In searching for the word "studio" in the title we get 28 threads broken down as follows:

• June - 6 threads
• May - 4 threads
• Apr - 6 threads
• Mar - 4 threads
• Feb - 5 threads
• Jan - 3 threads

With a handful of exceptions, most of the threads have fewer then 4 replies and only 1 thread went to 2 pages.

Now I understand by just searching for the word studio, this may not be 100% comprehensive, but I think it does provide a general guide of how active a sub forum may or may not be. Its up to the admin to determine if adding another sub-forum (and possibly causing forum bloat), is worth the level activity

Maybe an alternative solution is to use prefixes, which will help organize and filter the accessories forum, thus providing a similar result.

Have to agree with this, and yet I do wonder if it could be one of those "build it and they will come" kind of things that might could bring those numbers up some?

I wouldn't mind keeping status quo since like you say, searching is definitely a thing. This probably sounds biased and I suppose it is but it would be neat to see Apple displays (both modern and vintage, maybe do the subforums in that way instead of specific panels?) have their "own home", as it were.

Or, have all Apple accessories in a subforum separate from the alternatives? More walled gardens! 🤪

 

[tenthousandthings]

I don't know if there's enough activity to justify a sub forum. Obviously this is an admin decision but in the last 6 months there's been on average 4.6 threads created. In searching for the word "studio" in the title we get 28 threads broken down as follows:

• June - 6 threads
• May - 4 threads
• Apr - 6 threads
• Mar - 4 threads
• Feb - 5 threads
• Jan - 3 threads

With a handful of exceptions, most of the threads have fewer then 4 replies and only 1 thread went to 2 pages.

Now I understand by just searching for the word studio, this may not be 100% comprehensive, but I think it does provide a general guide of how active a sub forum may or may not be. Its up to the admin to determine if adding another sub-forum (and possibly causing forum bloat), is worth the level activity

Maybe an alternative solution is to use prefixes, which will help organize and filter the accessories forum, thus providing a similar result.

I suppose most of my problem with it could be solved by changing the name of the forum to “Displays and Accessories” — the “Mac” is redundant because it’s already inside the larger “Macs” category! I'm going to update the thread title to reflect this idea...

I wonder if @M4th would be willing to use their skills to mock that up?

I think I’d still vote for the Apple product sub-forums — the stickies at the top of them could be helpful for owners and potential buyers. The current "owners" threads may be too broad and could be broken down. They could host speculation threads about what people want in the next edition. They could contain comparison threads about new competing products.

Displays are a hot topic, there is a lot of movement lately. HDMI 2.2 (96Gbps, “Ultra 96” cable) and Thunderbolt 5 (80Gbps) make things like the dual-mode 8K 120Hz 4K 240Hz display BOE announced last week viable. Retina 5K (after a false start ca. 2014-2016) is finally making inroads, and Retina 6K is proving that Apple knew what it was doing when it settled on that for the first Pro Display back in 2019.

 

[macOScurious]

I am quite sure it would (like @M4th did say) be one of those "build it and they will come" kind of things.

Also users would be able to browse a specific sup-forum and don’t need to scroll through all kind of stuff not important at that moment. Both devices are quite expensive, compared to other brands, before I bought my ASD I did lots of reading and it was quite tough to pick good information between all the other stuff.

One more also … right now there is a bug with the ASD and the thread just got lost between some keyboard ans charger threads (not saying those threads are not important). To get attention to a thread (problem, solution, information) you need traffic, to get traffic it must be visible.

The Apple Displays for sure deserve a more visible presentation in the list. Yes, a good search will do it, but you need to know the problem first.

 

[M4th]

I suppose most of my problem with it could be solved by changing the name of the forum to “Displays and Accessories” — the “Mac” is redundant because it’s already inside the larger “Macs” category! I'm going to update the thread title to reflect this idea...

I wonder if @M4th would be willing to use their skills to mock that up?

I think I’d still vote for the Apple product sub-forums — the stickies at the top of them could be helpful for owners and potential buyers. The current "owners" threads may be too broad and could be broken down. They could host speculation threads about what people want in the next edition. They could contain comparison threads about new competing products.

Displays are a hot topic, there is a lot of movement lately. HDMI 2.2 (96Gbps, “Ultra 96” cable) and Thunderbolt 5 (80Gbps) make things like the dual-mode 8K 120Hz 4K 240Hz display BOE announced last week viable. Retina 5K (after a false start ca. 2014-2016) is finally making inroads, and Retina 6K is proving that Apple knew what it was doing when it settled on that for the first Pro Display back in 2019.

While I do salute and support your ideas that would make a "Displays and Accessories" subforum easier to use, the existing structure does have it's own logic that the site owner(s) seem to be happy enough with (for now?). You know, the whole "if it ain't broke..." catch phrase could still very much apply?

So, before we get too far into the deep stuff with a mock "Extreme Makeover Edition" of the Mac Accessories subforum, let's see if more momentum on this issue can be generated? I don't know if it warrants conducting a poll? With the somewhat minimal response so far in this thread, I have a feeling most folks are good with things as they are... even if they possibly would find a different arrangement better suited to this important and interesting topic.

Also, any simple pixel pushing of mine to mirror your excellent ideas may not be all that easy to immediately snapfinger or magic wandwave into the subforum framework... and while @maflynn did mention bloat as another deterrent to change hopefully it would be more of a re-allocation than simple addition although not sure if it even works that way.

Finally, it wouldn't surprise me if just keeping things as they are is already a bit of a task as far as cyber security goes, let alone undertaking any reconstruction project? (Certainly hope not and if I just jinxed us, I take it all back!)

 

[tenthousandthings]

While I do salute and support your ideas that would make a "Displays and Accessories" subforum easier to use, the existing structure does have it's own logic that the site owner(s) seem to be happy enough with (for now?). You know, the whole "if it ain't broke..." catch phrase could still very much apply?

So, before we get too far into the deep stuff with a mock "Extreme Makeover Edition" of the Mac Accessories subforum, let's see if more momentum on this issue can be generated? I don't know if it warrants conducting a poll? With the somewhat minimal response so far in this thread, I have a feeling most folks are good with things as they are... even if they possibly would find a different arrangement better suited to this important and interesting topic.

Also, any simple pixel pushing of mine to mirror your excellent ideas may not be all that easy to immediately snapfinger or magic wandwave into the subforum framework... and while @maflynn did mention bloat as another deterrent to change hopefully it would be more of a re-allocation than simple addition although not sure if it even works that way.

Finally, it wouldn't surprise me if just keeping things as they are is already a bit of a task as far as cyber security goes, let alone undertaking any reconstruction project? (Certainly hope not and if I just jinxed us, I take it all back!)

I think MacRumors is a WordPress site, albeit a complex one, so changing the wording of the section heading from "Mac Accessories" to "Displays and Accessories" should be trivial. Adding two Apple display product sub-forums would be more work and maybe not worth the effort (and expense) for the moderators to do, but I don't buy the bloat argument.

 

[maflynn]

I think MacRumors is a WordPress site,

The forum software is xenforo not wordpress
btw, the complexity of renaming the forum isn't the issue, its rather how the site owner set it up, and whether renaming the forum makes sense to admins and/or the site owner

 

[tenthousandthings]

The forum software is xenforo not wordpress
btw, the complexity of renaming the forum isn't the issue, its rather how the site owner set it up, and whether renaming the forum makes sense to admins and/or the site owner

Yes, it’s a given that the powers that be would have to agree that it’s a good idea. I didn’t mean to sound like I was making a demand or anything like that. It’s their site, and the forums are likely a labor of love — traffic to the forums is probably a small percentage of traffic overall, and a huge pain to maintain.