We are getting ready to launch the new version on our forum software. One major change will be that the landing will list the categories which currently are:
General
Engineering
Jobs
gCaptain
Photos
Industry News
International
Video
Scuttlebutt
Navy
Offbeat
Questions
What are your thoughts on these categories? Any changes you suggest?
Do photos and videos need to be separated out from the others? I like having the relevant videos/photos as part of the thread discussion.
What about USCG Licensing and/or training as it’s own category?
Hello John
My thoughts:
please add a category for licensing/MMD/TWIC and possibly a Washington DC/USCG cat
add education
also, would you consider a Gulf of Mexico or offshore category? possibly also towing, deepsea, under 100grt industry?
I’d drop engineering and international as not getting enough potential use based on the posts that I read (we are almost entirely American deckies here)
not sure what the gCaptain category if for?
knot
Hey if you are going to have a Navy category, it is only fair to have a Coast Guard one as well! 
Combine the Photos and Video into one category: “Multimedia” or some such.
Change Navy to Military.
"please add a category for licensing/MMD/TWIC and possibly a Washington DC/USCG cat"
I like the above suggestion, maybe call it “NMC Issues” or something similar.
Good points! We will certainly incorporate a Licensing and/or education category as well as something for the Coast Guard. Offshore is also clearly needed.
We separated out photos and video after seeing many searches for video posts… maybe they can be combined into one and we will continue to encourage people to include relevant videos into posts but I like the fact there is one place to go to watch videos that may or may not fit into the other categories.
The gCaptain category is for posts like these plus bug reports, site notices, contests, etc. Good points on the Navy category, I’m not sure why it’s there in the first place.
I continue to be hopefull that engineers as well as foreign mates will eventualy join the forum. One problem is the already have ones (Engineering Link - UK mariner Link)
How about Weather and/or Marine Environment ?
Just like to point out that the UK link has a casino. Just a thought 
How about a section for posting things like Nautical Institute MARS Reports, and other casualty reports?
I am also thinking a category about the National and International politics effecting seafarers and the maritime industry as a whole, (but separate from the NMC category)
ie proposed legislation in Congress
rulemakings by the new Administration
MarAd’s continued lack of stewardship of the US Merchant Marine
IMO Resolutions
etc…
Ok, the update is that we are ahead of schedule for the update and I don’t want this issue to delay progress. So we will probably stick with the original caterogies for a bit and make the category changes over the next few weeks.
Thanks for the input!!
Looking forward to the Grand Unveiling John !
Like a teenager peeking in the back door at a strip club (well, on secound thought maybe not quite that eager, but eager nonetheless), we’re looking forward to seeing “the goods”. 
John, With the the exception of few syntax bugs, I like what I see! Nice move, and I look forward to watching this forum as it starts to blossom…
My congratulations, and thank Daniel for the seemingly seamless transition…
Well the importation of old posts seems to have screwed up royally with all sorts of crap in it.
And man, how did a spammer get posting so fast!
But I do think this is going to be a nice system.
Keep up the good work.
Love the new format. To me it now seems much easier to few new posts than the old system. The new organization will take a little getting used to, but I definitely like it. Keep up the excellent work.
Yeah, some of the HTML from the old forums was/is broken and causes display issues. If you see posts with these issues you can PM/email me the URLs and I’ll fix them ASAP.
[quote=El Capitan;7181]John, With the the exception of few syntax bugs, I like what I see! Nice move, and I look forward to watching this forum as it starts to blossom…
My congratulations, and thank Daniel for the seemingly seamless transition…[/quote]
Thanks! 