When you scroll through a forum do you prefer to see categories condensed and then you click through to get to where you want to be within the site or do you like to have a long list laid out in front of you.
Category preference...long or condensed?
- Thread starter Katrina
- Start date
I tend to read what category there are and straight to the unread page 😛 or if on the new site and looking for topics then I look in the search or browse the category.
Seems that longer the boards are the less than traffic/members scroll down as they loss interests
Seems that longer the boards are the less than traffic/members scroll down as they loss interests
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Deleted member 49125
Not too long of a list. Some forums have tons of boards where you have to scroll constantly. I don't mind sub-boards. I think it makes it look a bit neater & easier to navigate while having organization.
My site was like that, then members suggested, and over time I agree and made the boards far less and merged boards together. MAde it far more cleaner than before.
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Deleted member 7467
If you have 100 categories, I expect to see 3-400 heavily populated forums. Otherwise, I'll click off and not return. I look at the layout of a forum similarly to how I look at staff coverage. Ultimately, you want to have a small amount of forums to really allow the topics of your forum to shine through. More so, you want to have the focus of your forum be the primary forum areas people can use for discussion with fewer general categories. I think a good rule of thumb is to keep it to like 5-8 categories (including a general/office area for off topic discussions or announcements.) As you grow and forums start to need more dedicated spaces, add a new forum (probably start as a sub-forum?) to allow the topic of interest to grow naturally there.
One website I used to be on had a forum for literally every game announced. There were thousands of forums. This was during the active times of forums too. Most forums were dead and made the site clunky. Eventually, it died (partly unrelated to the amount of forums but that and the toxic staff made it hard to attract new members). Had they worked to really build up the areas of activity and expand to popular games, it might have had a better chance at success.
Tl;dr, keep it simple. 5-8 categories at most, no more than 3-6 forums (possibly a few more if absolutely necessary) per category. Keep the bulk of this pertaining to your site. Leave 1-2 categories for general topics or clerical staff usage (ie announcements.)
One website I used to be on had a forum for literally every game announced. There were thousands of forums. This was during the active times of forums too. Most forums were dead and made the site clunky. Eventually, it died (partly unrelated to the amount of forums but that and the toxic staff made it hard to attract new members). Had they worked to really build up the areas of activity and expand to popular games, it might have had a better chance at success.
Tl;dr, keep it simple. 5-8 categories at most, no more than 3-6 forums (possibly a few more if absolutely necessary) per category. Keep the bulk of this pertaining to your site. Leave 1-2 categories for general topics or clerical staff usage (ie announcements.)
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