I'd like to give a hearty thanks for this forum. I'm just beginning my path with piano, and have found much exceptional information here. And the forum members are extremely helpful!

In reading the forums, I've come across many instances where I think subforums, a feature built in to this forum's software, would help users find information and discussion topics much more easily. While I'm somewhat partial to other forum software, this is something that wouldn't require a wholesale conversion to a new platform (though other considerations may make that a good idea, as mentioned in a recent post).

Old topics would of course be allowed to bubble down on the topics list within those subforums, and continuing discussions that merit a subtopic would no longer be endless pages of posts in a single thread. This might also be something that could help with what appears to be a continuing discussion about what to do with the Adult Beginners Forum.

For example, I'm an adult most interested in learning piano for playing old standards and jazz. Until it bubbled up today, I had no idea there was a Jazz Study Group (OMG one topic with 111 pages!) and Jazz Study Group 2 (76 pages) in the ABF! Granted I've only just joined, and only recently started reading this forum as a guest.

So here's an partial idea of how it could work, just pulled out of the air, that might make sense:

• Beginners Forum
  • General Beginner Discussion
  • Adult Beginners
    • General Adult Discussion (maybe omit this in lieu of the above General Beginner Discussion, so adults and young people mingle more!)
    • Theory and Practice
      • Piano Theory
      • Fundamentals of Practice
      • Practice Drills
      • etc!
    • Recitals (with stickies for tips on recording performances, etc, and new topics for each new recital date, so old recitals move down the page as they become less frequently updated with new posts.)
    • Study Groups
      • Chopin
      • Joplin
      • Mozart
      • Jazz
      • Hymns
      • etc!
  • Young Beginners
    • (replicate as above, and customize for young learners!)

I've based the layout above on the Important Topics on the Adult Beginners Forum sticky post, but of course it could be laid out any way that makes the most sense. This would bring young beginners and adult beginners together, but allowing them to discuss what I imagine are some of their unique needs separately.

Of course, this could be applied to all areas of the forum, with, for example, a main "Pianist Corner" forum, with subforums for classical and non-classical.

Web application development is my profession, and I have experience administering and moderating discussion forums, including installing and customizing forum software and integrating it with third party and custom software. If there's any assistance I can give, I gladly offer it!

I'd love to hear what others think! And I apologize for coming off as the new guy that wants to come in and change everything. Please consider this as just an idea that might help new forum members. Again, thanks everyone for the valuable information you share!

I am one obsessed with folders and subfolders and order and I would really welcome your suggestion, but I wonder if all members would indeed post in the right subforum or if more confusion would arise...
I would welcome in particular a subforum for the study of particular pieces, like we had one for Chopin's Fantaisie Impromptu... (I know there have been more in the past.)

The piano forum should be renamed the acoustic piano form, we get way to many digital threads, music threads, etc that belong in other areas. And because they are never moved they do a dis service to those posters.

It would also be nice to have an intermediate forum. The adult forum after a while gets stale from basic type info and questions.