Was thinking about the growth in the number of community members building Gadgeteer modules, and I’m wondering whether it would make sense to have a separate forum for discussions around designing and building modules, and developing drivers. Given the volume in the Gadgeteer forum, it might make it easier to keep track of discussions that are more specific to module design and development.
Thoughts?
+1
Good idea!
What would the forum title be?
Gadgeteer Module Lab
.NET Gadgeteer Community Modules
Or
.NET Gadgeteer Community Hardware
What if the offer is not a module…
*Edit - haha, maybe i should open my eyes before i open my mouth…
Community Offers
Community Offers is good but i guess it’s really a hangout before they are offered…
My suggestions would be:
.NET Gadgeteer Module Builders
to be consistent with the Gadgeteer nomenclature over on Codeplex:
http://gadgeteer.codeplex.com/releases
“NET Gadgeteer Module Builder’s Guide”
Personally, I’ve always found “Community Offers” a pretty generic way of referring to these. How many community offers are there that aren’t Gadgeteer modules, or Gadgeteer accessories?
Also, I wouldn’t necessarily want to use “community” in this context. Not to exclude community, mind you, but because to me, it’s somewhat implied. And tagging the forum with “community” might discourage commercial module builders from participating in the discussion.
@ devhammer - What about .NET Gadgeteer Hardware Builders - just in case it’s not a module 
I think we need this not as a place to discuss designs but as a replacement to the hidden Wiki page.
I think that might work, too. Thing is that modules are likely to be the most common category of hardware that people need to discuss. I’m fairly skeptical that any of us are going to be taking on a mainboard design. 
I disagree. Different purposes.
I agree that the discoverability of the “Community Offers” section of the wiki is poor, but my desire is specifically for a place for module (and other hardware) developers to discuss their designs, driver issues, etc., separate from the discussions of using Gadgeteer modules.
Makes sense to me…
Perhaps just “Hardware Builders”? The idea behind the SoMs is that people will build their own mainboards Although, I like the idea of having a thread dedicated just to module building because of the standards and discussions that go with adhering to them.
Sorry, I wasn’t clear. I meant that we do need a forum called “Community Offers” as a place to replace the Wiki page in addition to the new “builders” forum proposed in this thread.
This ^
There’s a lot that goes into creating a Gadgeteer module that’s pretty specific to that process. Having a dedicated forum for this would have the benefit of a strong focus, and I think might even encourage more folks to dip their toes in the waters of hardware design, because they’ll see the help that’s available from their peers.