I wanted to give you all advance notice of some changes we’re making to the forums categories.
The main aims of these changes are:
To focus more exclusively on what Nameberry does best: names!
To better reflect the current naming climate and the main groups looking for name advice;
To make the site easier to navigate for new visitors;
To make things simpler and fairer from a moderation perspective.
Most categories will remain the same, but the key changes will be:
The existing #baby-names will be replaced with two new categories: Name Advice and [name_m]General[/name_m] Name Discussion.
Name Advice will be mainly aimed at those with real-life naming questions or who want advice on specific names or combos. This will go right at the top to give casual visitors a simple and obvious place to post about any naming dilemma, without having to navigate through all the more general name chatter.
[name_m]General[/name_m] Name Discussion will be for more abstract or hypothetical conversations about names in general. This might include name sightings/name of the day type posts, data analysis, discussion around cultural appropriation, or #baby-names:bandwagon trends.
A new Gender Neutral Names category will be added to reflect the increasing interest in unisex baby names, as well as for discussions about non-conventionally gendered names or name changes in the context of gender identity (also welcome in the other gendered categories, of course).
#sibling-names will be removed as a category, since these posts can be dealt with in any of the gendered categories, the new Name Advice category, or Writers’ Corner instead.
#everything-but-names will be removed. We understand that some of you will be dismayed to see it go, but the existence of a category specifically not about names is difficult to moderate fairly and effectively, and is really outside the remit of the Nameberry forums.
All being well, the changes should go live next weekend. In the meantime, please feel free to leave your comments and questions about these updates below
Thanks for the input! Existing #baby-names posts will be recategorized. Most will go into General Name Discussion. If there are some appropriate recent posts, I will pop them into Name Advice to get things started
This is a very fair decision! I imagine the long-lived Teenberry thread made to give a more direct space for younger namenerds would be included in this removal? I don’t mean to challenge it if that’s the case! Just wanted to know if that’s in the cards so that we might be prepared for that change and possibly plan a better way to continue general discussions outside of the forums, as many friendships have been maintained through those threads.
I absolutely understand. Yes, unfortunately the category will be removed wholesale. It will be a shame to lose those long-running communities but we have to be fair and equal with how this is implemented.
Replacement threads with a strong name focus would of course be welcome in any of the remaining categories, where that makes sense.
Completely understood! I agree, non-name specific threads can be difficult to moderate and eliminating them would solve that problem. Hopefully these changes will encourage more name-centric activity and make the site more accessible to casual and regular users alike!
Very excited about some of these changes! I’ve always found the sibling names category to be a little redundant and confusing, and I think splitting baby names in 2 categories will be very helpful to both new users and regular users who want to filter what posts they interact with! And the unisex names category idea is lovely
A little saddened about everything but names, as I feel like it helped create a sense of community and brought people together as name fans, beyond the names but still in that scope. I would’ve loved to see a reform instead of a deletion, if I’m being honest, though I understand that that kind of thing would take time. Is the parentberries thread also being removed for not being name-related?
Thank you for all the time you and the team have put into these changes! x
No, we debated this but decided that it was a finite and closely related topic that often goes hand in hand with discussions around baby names and the naming process.
I’m a bit bummed about some of these but I think my time being active on this site is coming to an end soon anyway. There’s been a lot of hatefulness and a change of tone from when I first joined. A lot of this is around names, so that’s why I’ve been spending time in the Everything But Names category, where there’s SUCH a break from it. I’m saddened by how it can get sometimes because, as someone who is actively TTC and received so much wonderful help with my son’s name, this site has been valuable to me.
I am curious to see how things go once these changes take place. I think splitting some categories is a great idea. I like the idea of making the site easier to use!
Thanks for sharing your thoughts and I’m sorry to hear about your recent experience
Were hoping that with simplifying, streamlining and focusing more explicitly on names there will be less drama and division. In our experience, the #everything-but-names category was more prone to this at times than others.
But of course, we will certainly keep a close eye on how things go, especially with your feedback in mind.
[name_u]Will[/name_u] discussions about cultural appropriation only be allowed in the [name_m]General[/name_m] Name Discussions then? [name_u]Or[/name_u] do I misunderstand that?
