Reduce the number of subforums?

[bigmaddrongo]

Based on my experience administrating the GV forums, we found that having loads of sub forums makes navigating the forums tricky.

Looking over the sub forums here I think that, since many of them have not even been used yet, there is scope to reduce the number of sub forums about. (Edit: To follow up on this point - if it is found that a certain type of discussion is dominating, this is the time to add a sub-forum.)

The first thing I would consider doing would be to consolidate the "This Week at X" boards into one "Upcoming Events" board, with instructions to include the name of the club in the thread title.

Since this forum is designed to promote inter-club interaction, it would be easier if there was simply a list of events to look at, rather than having to click into and out of six or so different forums to see what might be happening at any of the clubs.

[Pockets]

I'll have to do this at home tonight and we'd need feedback from other users as to what they thought would be best

Let the discussion begin!

[toxygenie]

There are 30 members and around 60 forum boards with most of the recent posts just being topics moved... yeah just a tad excessive.

You only need to expand the boards once the demand is there for an extra board.

[Pockets]

Ok, my current thinking is as follows

1. Merge all of the separate 'Competitions' boards into one; people will just need to make it clear who can enter or where the competition is being held

2. Merge all of the 'This week at X...' boards into a single 'Upcoming Events' board - I will still send out a digest to all of the forum users on a Sunday

3. Removal of the subforums in the Club boards - each club will have a single board to make announcements and chat in

Does anyone have anything else they would like changed?

The forum will be reformatted on Sunday afternoon

[bigmaddrongo]

OK, I've had more of a chance to take an objective look at the existing boards and would suggest the following structure in the first instance. This can obviously have addiitional boards/sections/subboards/subsections down the line if it becomes clear that segregation of a hot topic becomes necessary in the long term.

• What is this forum about?
  
  • The Rules
    
  • Suggestions
    
  • The Hub
    
  
  
• Interclub Stuff
  
  • General Chat
    
  • What's On
    
  • Trading
    
  • Creative Stuff
    
  • Minibus
    
  
  
• The Clubs
  • DDGC
    
  • HGC
    
  • BGC
    
  • BCRP
    
  • SWC
    
  • NMGC
    
  • TGV
    
  
  
• Industry Talk
  
  • Industry News
    
  • Praise & Shame
    
  • Useful Links
    
  
  

Details

Incorporate the full What's On category, Interclub Tournaments and Industry Competitions into the new Interclub > What's On board

Integrate the full Other Media category into Interclub > General Chat

Merge the Great Buys and Wall of Shame into one Forum to Praise and Shame companies

Ditch all the sub-forums for each club to give them a single space for club-specific chat

Merge all of the Creative Stuff! forums into one Creative Stuff forum under Interclub Stuff

Remove the specific Reviews thread - this will find it's feet in the General Chat area but if it takes off may subsequently require a designated area

Dissolve the General category and split it out into Interclub (General Chat) and What is this forum? (Suggestions)

This reduces the number of forums to 19 (which is still quite a lotk, but seven of those are club specific sections) down from 37. This makes my scrolling finger far happier

[paul]

Pete - you realise your organisationalnessness is a disease right?! Anyway, bigmaddrongo's idea looks good to me, definitely streamlined is better.
Given that most clubs will be chatting on their forums for internal organisation, one forum per club to highlight going ons should be fine, rest can be differentiated by threads.
Nice idea for a site by the way.

[bigmaddrongo]

Jul 30, 2010 21:24:20 GMT 1 paul said:

Pete - you realise your organisationalnessness is a disease right?!

A saner man than me might take offence at that remark.

Nice to see you on here though

[Pockets]

Forum was streamlined on 31/7/2010