Do we really need this many sub-forums?

[gwgs]

I'm a member of a couple of forums and this one is far and away the most prolific with the subforums, the result being that there is only one or two active topics in each, which is naff, and many have no active topics.

I'd have the following (or something similar):
Top Tier Rugby general
Grassroots Rugby General
Rugby League General
Fitness & Nutrition
Rugby Laws
The Forum/Articles
The Public Rugby Referee Forum

You'd have 5-10 active topics in each, so you could see what other members are talking about and would invite wider participation by not hiding away the threads. As the website grows you can subdivide forums, but you shouldn't start with many as you don't promote an organic growth. I don't know the numbers but it seems to me that there isn't the userbase to support so many sub-forums.

 

[OB..]

I don't see a problem. I start from New Posts, so I automatically see what users are talking about, wherever they post it. Having multiple sub-forums can help in finding threads. Very occasionally I lose my place in New Posts, so I go down the list of forums to see which are active.

 

[gwgs]

The fact that you use New Posts because the overall layout is too fragmented is not a defence for keeping it as it is.

Point is, all the forums should be active, there shouldn't be any dormant ones because if they are dormant then they shouldn't exist.

Obviously I'm not a very active user myself, but this is what I've observed on other forums. You need a large userbase to have many different forums which I don't think this site has yet... possibly because it's tricky to navigate.

 

[OB..]

The fact that you use New Posts because the overall layout is too fragmented is not a defence for keeping it as it is.

Wrong. I use it because it makes most sense and gives me exactly what I want.

As I said, I occasionally find myself needing to go through the forums. I can see which ones have recent activity, but I have to check each of those to see if there has been more than one recent message.

Point is, all the forums should be active, there shouldn't be any dormant ones because if they are dormant then they shouldn't exist.

Why? What harm are they doing?

Obviously I'm not a very active user myself, but this is what I've observed on other forums. You need a large userbase to have many different forums which I don't think this site has yet... possibly because it's tricky to navigate.

The casual user will get a whole lot of items under New Posts,but I don't see how that reducing the number of sub-forums would be any great improvement.

What is it you find tricky about navigation?

 

[gwgs]

Because there are lots of subforums so you don't know what is being discussed. If you want to encourage discussion that is a big barrier. New posts is OK, but it suggests to me that the structure is broken if you have to rely on using something that breaks down that structure for it to be usable. The idea of a forum is that the threads are about individual topics which are broadly categorised. The 'topic' is done at the Thread level, not at the subforum level which is what happens on here.

Like I say, this is based on experience in other forums where they have reduced the number of subforums to increase activity (which is the only metric upon which you can base usability/usefulness) and sometimes increased them to keep clarity. But you shouldn't start off with loads.

A forum which does have loads of subforums is Bike Radar, but their forums are populated by thousands so the division is needed, else it'd be chaos. In a forum with a couple of hundred active users (which is what I guess for here), you're killing off discussion by splittin gthe topics into 50 subforums. Again, I stress I have no idea on the actual usage - but seeing as there is actually one subforum with zero topics (Moodle - whatever that is) - it would seem there are too many.

That said, this is a forum where I'm not very active so it's not my place to complain too much about it.

Edit
Further to that post, my specific concern for inhibiting discussion is that New Posts only shows what is being discussed right now. Were the active and recently active threads all in one place then (say, in a Rugby Laws subforum) you would encourage people to post in subjects they weren't specifically looking for. At the moment if you want to look at threads about scrums you will only see and post in threads about scrums. In a broader subforum you might see something about lineouts, or tackle law, which you otherwise would not see and contribute to. Currently I have to trawl through multiple subforums to see the discussions on Rugby Law.

 

[OB..]

Because there are lots of subforums so you don't know what is being discussed.

Simply not true. New Posts tells you what is being discussed.

If you want to encourage discussion that is a big barrier.

Why? You can either join a discussion, or start a new thread. Where’s the barrier?

Like I say, this is based on experience in other forums where they have reduced the number of subforums to increase activity (which is the only metric upon which you can base usability/usefulness) and sometimes increased them to keep clarity. But you shouldn't start off with loads.

I too have used many different forums, and unlike you, I like this one. I have no idea how or why the number of sub-forums affects activity – it certainly does not affect me. Anyway this is a specialist forum, not a commercial money-maker. As it happens the level of activity suits me nicely – enough to cover a wide range of people and ideas, but not too much to keep up with.


I won’t go on to the other parts of your post since I clearly do not understand how you want the forum to work. You want a Law Sub-Forum to contain all threads on the Laws? Presumably you would therefore expect playing aspects of scrum, lineouts etc to be in their own sub-forum(s)? I think it would be a mistake to separate them. They are not independent.

 

[gwgs]

The barrier is there because the threads are squirrelled away and anything not being discussed recently very quickly disappears from the New Posts option. My vision would be a few subforums (which I very quickly sketched laid out earlier) filled with many active threads, but which cover a wider range of topics (I mean, why have a separate nutrition and fitness subforums - the threads in both could happily sit side by side).

No I wouldn't want a separate law and playing subforum - I would want the opposite. The idea is to merge subforums so you don't scatter active threads about too much.

I don't think there are many forums which are money makers particularly. They exist to provide a discussion board for a community, but in my view the current set up is a bit confusing to navigate (it takes an age to scroll through all the options) and would benefit from a 'go here to discuss law, go here to discuss latest matches' etc. And merging some subforums wouldn't take away your ability to use the 'New Posts' feature, which would continue to work as it does currently.

I like this forum too, I just see better structures on other forums. Basically, i agree with the OP.

 

[Dixie]

I agree with OB here. New users with a particular question on, for example, how to tell which team is responsible for scrum collapses would naturally look in the scrum forum. If they have to look in Grassroots Rugby General, they are sifting through utterly irrelevant stuff (for their need) like lineouts, offsides, whether or not bloody jerseys should be replaced.

Like OB, my first click is New Posts. On the few occasions I get lost in that, I go to the Forum section on the green bar and go to Today's Posts - which means I never need to actually review activity in each sub-forum. I view those sub-forums as filing cabinets for threads on the topics they cover. Of course, if you access infrequently this is less of an option, but you still find the active stuff.

It works for me - I like it this way.

 

[OB..]

The barrier is there because the threads are squirrelled away and anything not being discussed recently very quickly disappears from the New Posts option. My vision would be a few subforums (which I very quickly sketched laid out earlier) filled with many active threads, but which cover a wider range of topics

What is an active forum? If it has posts you have not read, then New Posts will find it. There are also facilities for finding posts in the last 24 hours etc.

As far as I am concerned the sub-forums are simply a sort of filing system. They are not the way I usually use the site. Perhaps you could give us an example of the sort of thing you want to do but can't (or only with difficulty)

 

[crossref]

I think gwgs is right we have too many forums.

all responses along the lines of "who cares - it doesn't matter how many forums we have, I use [some other trick] to navigate" I think actually support gwgs' point: we have so many forums they are not useful to navigation any more -- hence everyone using [some other method]

but, hey, its probably not the biggest in the world.

 

[OB..]

all responses along the lines of "who cares - it doesn't matter how many forums we have, I use [some other trick] to navigate" I think actually support gwgs' point: we have so many forums they are not useful to navigation any more -- hence everyone using [some other method]

So how would you use the sub-forums to navigate? By going to each one to see which has new posts?

 

[damo]

I started this thread so perhaps I should say that now that I have switched to using the "New Posts" view I don't think there is much of an issue anymore. I do think that a few rationalisations could be made; I would merge the NH and SH and Elite forums to create just the one professional forum for example

Perhaps a notice could be put which indicates that the best way to use the site is through the "New Posts" system rather than the conventional forum view.