Good ideas from Axman88 circa 2021. We'll need to find out what the new 450 liquid cooled single letter designator is. It seems more logical to base around the engine type than model. That's what RE does, many models based on one powerplant.
I'd balance the desire for "simple" against useful, and carefully consider a few things:
- More than a dozen or so headings, is daunting. It's quite observable how few visitors we get to those sections of the forum that require scrolling, vs those that are up at the top of the forum. This is likely why we see general topic postings in the specific model areas now. Folks access in all sorts of ways, including on their phones. Less is more.
- Newcomers, and those who are less knowledgeable, don't know which heading is appropriate, more headings will make this worse. This is why we already see postings regarding 650 Conti. GT appearing in 535 Conti GT area, postings for India Electra models appearing in AVL / Electra X, postings for IB models appearing in UCE, and so on. More headings will result in more mistakes. Better, in my opinion, to have fewer headings, and include fuller descriptions of what that heading includes. For example, the subtext for "Bullet Iron Barrel" could say, "Includes Bullet, Electra, 65 and other models, 350 and 500 cc, prior to 2007, with Cast Iron cylinder", instead of "Forum for the discussion of Iron Barrel Bullet Models"
- The forum was previously explicitly USA focused, but that was given up several years ago. We have members worldwide, including in India, and should anticipate and provide for their participation.
My suggestion would be to:
- Fold the 535 Continental GT into the 500 UCE, and expand the heading of that folder to also include 350 UCE models, for those of you, not in the USA, who have had access to those machines all along.
- Rename "350 Meteor" to something like "J platform OHC engine", to include the Meteor, the new Classic, and others that will emerge, including, quite possibly, some 500 cc variants.
- Rename "650 Twin - Interceptor/GT " to something like "P platform 650 twin engine", to include the Interceptors, the 650 Continental GTs, the upcoming 650 twin Cruiser, and not unlikely a 650 cc Classic and Roadster.
- Arguably the AVL / Electra X could be combined with the Iron Barrel, since the action on these topics is likely to be limited going forward, but, from an engineering perspective, they are unique models.
With what RE is doing, (which makes good sense from an engineering cost management perspective), focusing on the engine design/ size and following RE's disclosed "platform codes" to create new Forum headings, in my opinion, will give good service over the long run, keep things simple, and keep future changes to a minimum.
Topic: Bike Category Revision? (Read 1757 times)