This is something I've been mulling over for a little while. I see a lot of questions cropping up in the various sub-forums that are very specific to the reserves. I frequently find myself referring people to this site (often when asked about the military on Facebook), and again a lot of those questions deal specifically with the reserves.
So I was wondering if we could get a discussion going about the possible merits of having a PRes subforum here, kind of a clearing house for all PRes related questions. This site, for someone who's new to it, can be difficult to 'get' at first. There are a lot of smaller areas within army.ca, and one who is new to it might have a lot of difficulty finding what they're looking for. Search is fine, but let's face it, it's no Google, and isn't often very good at finding exactly what you're looking for unless you excel at your search-fu.
I know there are an increasing number of us here with a fair bit of time in the reserves, and the breadth and depth of experience of the reservists here could probably make it worthwhile to concentrate reserve questions into one smaller area. It might make a few people wince to see a thread about the reserve pension sandwiched between a thread about the coming summer's area concentration and a question about going out for a tour as reserve infantry. Nonetheless, it would make it much easier on both the new user and on those of us more familiar with the PRes to both ask and answer questions. Moreover, those of us who've participated in previous conversations on a subject could more easily refer people to those threads in other areas of army.ca, or major reserve threads could be moved into the consolidated forum. A bit of tweaking over a couple months could probably have it running rather smoothly, whether it ended up being a single reserve board, or a reserves board with one sub forum for each element. However it were to work.
This is a great site, but it's a little bit daunting for a potential new member, and a lot of current or potential reservists could probably find it much more user friendly to have one part of the site to go to. Plus, those members from the reg force who would prefer not to be bothered by discussions particular to the reserves could be free of them in other parts of the site.
Anyway, I'll throw this out for discussion, whether people here think it's worth it or whether the forum administrators just give me a slap on the dick. Let's figure out if the idea would have some merit, and if so, maybe the admins could take a closer look at it. I know I would use such a forum on a regular basis, and I expect a number of others would as well. We have our own, screwed up little world that I think is easily capable of generating its own viable part of this site.
So I was wondering if we could get a discussion going about the possible merits of having a PRes subforum here, kind of a clearing house for all PRes related questions. This site, for someone who's new to it, can be difficult to 'get' at first. There are a lot of smaller areas within army.ca, and one who is new to it might have a lot of difficulty finding what they're looking for. Search is fine, but let's face it, it's no Google, and isn't often very good at finding exactly what you're looking for unless you excel at your search-fu.
I know there are an increasing number of us here with a fair bit of time in the reserves, and the breadth and depth of experience of the reservists here could probably make it worthwhile to concentrate reserve questions into one smaller area. It might make a few people wince to see a thread about the reserve pension sandwiched between a thread about the coming summer's area concentration and a question about going out for a tour as reserve infantry. Nonetheless, it would make it much easier on both the new user and on those of us more familiar with the PRes to both ask and answer questions. Moreover, those of us who've participated in previous conversations on a subject could more easily refer people to those threads in other areas of army.ca, or major reserve threads could be moved into the consolidated forum. A bit of tweaking over a couple months could probably have it running rather smoothly, whether it ended up being a single reserve board, or a reserves board with one sub forum for each element. However it were to work.
This is a great site, but it's a little bit daunting for a potential new member, and a lot of current or potential reservists could probably find it much more user friendly to have one part of the site to go to. Plus, those members from the reg force who would prefer not to be bothered by discussions particular to the reserves could be free of them in other parts of the site.
Anyway, I'll throw this out for discussion, whether people here think it's worth it or whether the forum administrators just give me a slap on the dick. Let's figure out if the idea would have some merit, and if so, maybe the admins could take a closer look at it. I know I would use such a forum on a regular basis, and I expect a number of others would as well. We have our own, screwed up little world that I think is easily capable of generating its own viable part of this site.
