That or there's a weird forum glitch, because I'm only seeing three Guitars and Gear forums...?

some merges, yes

The glitch is somebody actually thinks Jemsite is better without a JEM forum...... [or JS, or Prestige, or......]

I like this better, although I still think that maybe this isn't the finished product yet. With the amount of activity, having the forum parsed so many ways seemed unnecessary. The obvious con to this is searching for old info becomes more difficult (although the forum search seems to work less well than Google).

I still have this feeling that the structure needs to do a better job calling out the stuff that people actually buy and want to talk about. Here are some semi-formed thoughts to discuss

- The site is called Jemsite so maybe Jem/Universe should always be segregated, rather than having other signature models blended in there?

- The most common current Ibanez buyer is most likely looking at a Prestige, Premium or Iron Label. Is there a good way to capture that? Is it necessary to segregate MIJ from MII any longer?

- It seems inconsistent that JS got blended in with Jem but Prestige is still a sub-forum.

^ J good feedback... it's definitely unfinished & feedback is welcome. I believe the Prestige subforum will be merged into the other guitar forum as you hit the nail on the head that google search changes things greatly vs the past (at any traffic level). Having more active topics over a wider range in one area certainly improves discoverability and someone seeing something of interest with less clicks.

I was looking to make an announcement on this before it went live but it's still a "work in progress", so hopefully the site regulars will help shape things here.

I think folks were finding traffic in individual sub forums to be rather light and that this was liekly contributing to lower conversation rates, the idea of merging things together in this way is to try and get a bit more "cross talk" going, using one new post to drive other new posts.

Steve's not helping with the current slow release schedule of the JEM, so we had to take it upon ourselves to try and do something

In the last 6 years there have been 18+ new JEM and UV's introduced. I seriously doubt the issue is how many new models there have been.

And yet I can only one that sticks in my mind in recent times is the new Premium BFP and before that the SFG (as it was the first premium) and then the Japanese FP2 before that

let's refresh then since the SFG was 2012
JEMEVO
JEM70SFG
JEM77PBFP
JEM77WDP
JEM777LG
JEM777SK
JEM777DY
JEM777LSK
JEM777LDY
JEM JR Full Vine
JEM whatever PK
JEM whatever YE
JEM7V7WH
UV70PBK
UV71PWH
UV77SVR
UV77WFR
UV77PSN

The Jem and JS are certainly not lacking for new models in recent years. Not counting finishes as different models I get 14 distinct models this decade.

UV77RE (2010)
JEM505 (2010)
JEM77FP2 (2011)
JEMEVO (2012)
JEM70V (2012)
JEM7V7 (2013)
UV70P (2013)
UV71P (2015)
JEMJR (2015)
UV77 (2016)
JEM77P (2016)
JEM777 (2017)
JEM77WDP (2017)
JEMJRSP (2018 )

I think it would be pretty tough to say that they're not constantly offering new things in the Jem line. There's something new pretty much every year. Most of the signature models offer far less variety than the Jem.

Back to the topic at hand, I guess the main question that needs to get answered is what is the purpose of this forum? Is it a forum about Jems as the name implies or is it more of a general Ibanez forum? The answer to that question kind of dictates how the forum "should" be structured.

I've always thought of this as being more of a general Ibanez forum, which if you look at the official Ibanez forum, I think you would quickly decide that it is. The Jem is the halo model that brings people in. It's an aspirational model. A vast majority of people will never own one and will instead have some kind of RG or possibly some other model.

So to a typical person, it's cool to think about a Jem but really what they'll want to discuss is the RG. If you go look at Sweetwater of something, you'll find a bewildering array of those: Prestige, Genesis, Premium, Iron Label. What is the difference between those? Which one should I buy? That's the kind of question I see most people interested in. The largest and most active Facebook groups are structured around that concept: discussion about the RG and anything that is based on an RG, which would include the Jem and Universe (I realize the the RG is derived from the Jem, not the other way around...just go with me). In these groups, discussion about all those varieties of guitar peacefully coexist without too much MIJ snobbery.

One thing that I think is extremely poorly served in Facebook groups is tech. As soon as someone asks a tech question, it's effectively gone within a day or two. The nature of Facebook does not lend itself to permanence. To me that's the real potential draw to this place: people come for the tech and stay for the discussion. I think it will be hard to revitalize this place on guitar discussion alone. When I can point my phone at my guitar, take a picture and seconds later be having a discussion about it, that's a big draw. The mobile interface to this forum is just never going to be as good as Facebook.

By focusing on tech, there would be a real reason to come to this page. I see tons of references to Rich's site for this reason. But those are static documents. Plus there's really nothing there about wiring, which comes up constantly.

Different finishes make a different model. They take the VWH and make it BK and you're not going to count it? Although I do get your point. And it's not that there's any lack of new releases to talk about.

Thanks for getting back on topic & the feedback. You've hit the nail right on the head. Guitars are unspecific now in that the Ibanez stuff is a blur. More MIC/MII less MIJ sold too. For example when I was posting an AZ master thread... which "forum" did it belong? How about the RG550 (MIJ but not Prestige)? Times change as do the categories so making it easier to see more topics of discussion is good. OTOH pickup/wiring advice is served well in a separate forum. There is no harm in someone coming to post, ask a question & leave for a while.

The value of "jemsite forum" is the informed & helpful replies you get now & visible for reference. Sure you can look up a model quickly on the web and get static specs from a wiki and some pictures but that gives you an incomplete picture and generic/static info... sometimes it's enough sometimes people want more. When they want more these inquires just don't invite 5-page follow up discussion. Which is fine.

Interesting, thanks.

For purely historical reasons, I'm sorry to see the seven string forum go - Ibanez was the first company to offer a production seven string, the 7620 was, after they got blown out for pocket change, the de-facto starter seven for countless players, and that forum eventually led to the split-off to sevenstring.org... But, at the same time, I'll be the first to admit it doesn't get a ton of traffic these days, so I understand why it was consolidated.

I was reinforcing your earlier point. Even if you don't count the three swirls or neons as distinct models, the Jem has been extremely prolific compared with almost anything Ibanez has done.
It seems like people generally consider it a mature RG if that means anything.
I wasn't implying merging the tech section into the rest of the forum. Not sure if it seemed like I was implying that? What I meant was to feature the tech section more prominently. I feel that its underserved within the Ibanez community.