With the release of the Rio Karma coming up in the near future, there are a lot of Karma threads popping up. These are, of course, somewhat on topic on the empeg/riocar BBS, since the Cambridge team was involved with the Karma, and many of us who own empegs are also going to have interest in a portable player. However, I am starting to think that it might be a good idea to create two or three Karma-specific forums on the BBS to help people get to the information they want more easily.

The Rio Central and Receiver actually have their own BBS, so I guess Tom could create a Karma-only BBS... But I never really liked the idea of having separate logins, separate UI, etc. for the forums when there is going to be a lot of overlap between users. So I propose that the Forum Gods (Tom, Tony, etc.) put their heads together and come up with a new way of organizing the forums on this BBS. Something like this, maybe:

General
-- Announcements
-- Off Topic
-- For Sale
-- ICE
-- Reviews
empeg/riocar
-- General
-- Technical
-- Programming
-- Wish List
-- Bug Reports
-- Installation Notes
-- Projects
Rio Karma
-- General
-- Technical
-- Wish List
-- Bug Reports

If there is a way to bring over the Rio Central/Receiver messages and user accounts to this BBS, we could create a heading for that as well, and move those forums over. I don't know how much of a hassle that is, though, and I know Tom is kinda busy these days.

The Karma, since it's not quite as "geek-friendly" as the empeg, probably won't need as many forums. I don't see the need for a "Programming" forum for a device that doesn't run user applications, for instance. It'd also be good to get the forums set up prior to the Karma release, so that all the pre-release discussions are already in the right place.

This isn't a no-brainer, I'm afraid. Expanding the scope of these forums has some other consequences, which includes drawing a potentially large number of new users to the forums, including the "off topic" area that we treasure so much. I see this as a potentially good thing, but I just wanted to bring it up so that people don't blame me for coming up with a great idea that ruins the "culture" of the BBS. That being said, I think the net effect of expanding the BBS to include the Karma and the Receiver/Central would be positive.

So, comments?

Oh yeah, and we need a Rio Karma FAQ Master... But something tells me we won't have to look very far for a candidate with the proper credentials...