I have seen several forums seeming to have countless of boards that I get tired of scrolling before reaching the bottom of the homepage. But in fairness, that forum has a big variety of topics to choose from that although it has a theme, I feel like it is a universal forum where everyone would find a comfortable topic. In contrast, a forum with few boards is easy to navigate and the user has an idea of what it’s all about. But it is easier to run out of idea for the limited number of topics. Which style do you prefer of the two?
Few boards vs many boards
- Thread starter Corzhens
- Start date
TradingCardMakers
Resident
@Corzhens I prefer sticking to the niche i'm currently trying to promote, I would never add other niches to the forum (this will only piss people off scrolling to the bottom of the forums to find what they are looking for) i'm working on it just tends to mess everything up when focusing on some different to what you have on the forum that is not related to you niche.
ConradBleu22
Paragon
Less boards make the forum more active
TradingCardMakers
Resident
There are pro and cons to both side of this:
Pros:
-Your members can easily navigate around your forums with a short category/forum sections.
-Easy to manage with a shorter category/forums.
Cons:
-Your members can not navigate around your forums properly.
-Your members wont have a lot of topics to discuss with a shorten category/forums.
ConradBleu22
Paragon
i disagree with the Cons
1. why cant they navigate properly ???
2. Why wont they have a lot of Topics
TradingCardMakers
Resident
1. Because if you have so much category and forums how can a new people get there head around it, which results to the new person leaving the site, blog or forums.
2. If you have not a lot of categories/forums their is hardly anything to discuss about.
Building a niche forum will keep your website neat and clean both from content and traffic. Universal forums often tend to attract all sorts of traffic and if you don't have a strict member guidelines it is more obvious that your forum will receive tons of spam.
I think it depends on what kind of topic the forum is built around and how active it is. For example, I find it more OK with many boards if the community is about a tech giant where all the different products from the company is divided into different forums and sub-forums (like laptop models and whatnot). That makes it easy to find the right product you need help with or want to discuss. But for more general talk forums I think it's better with fewer boards.
Personally, and as a new member to a community, I find forums with too many boards to be complicated to browse and interact with. Most of the time this is because communities with many different boards also tend to have many different rules. And to be honest, I just want to post, I don't want to spend most of my time to probe the site for all the different rules or trying to find the right forum to post in.
But all of this is becoming less of a problem with modern forum software, such as Discourse, Flarum and IPS (that has a Fluid forum view in 4.2). I think that this more fluid and modern approach makes it easier to browse, post and interact with other users in larger forums that has many different boards.
Personally, and as a new member to a community, I find forums with too many boards to be complicated to browse and interact with. Most of the time this is because communities with many different boards also tend to have many different rules. And to be honest, I just want to post, I don't want to spend most of my time to probe the site for all the different rules or trying to find the right forum to post in.
But all of this is becoming less of a problem with modern forum software, such as Discourse, Flarum and IPS (that has a Fluid forum view in 4.2). I think that this more fluid and modern approach makes it easier to browse, post and interact with other users in larger forums that has many different boards.
That's a misconception.
Not every category/forum needs to be ultra specific. Some places can be very general about things. Like say a forum that has a section for just music instead of one for every genre. The site may not need individual sections for rock, pop, classical, electronica, etc... because they either don't have as much discussion on it or it's not their main focus. This doesn't mean discussions about techno or dubstep can't happen... it just means there isn't a dedicated forum on the site for it and it alone. (Rather it just goes into the generic music section.)
Truthfully most sites would be better off not trying to have a hundred forums in them right from go simply because trying to populate all those sections with content takes time/effort and failing to do so makes the site look less active (or like it's dead/dying).
Also if there is a reasonable need for some forums then practical use of sub-forums should be used. Group up the sub-forums wherever possible. To stay with the music theme... Say the parent forum is "Music" then sub forums could be like:
- Rock (which could include classic rock, hard rock, etc...),
- Pop (possibly including J and K pop too),
- Metal (Death, heavy, glam, etc...),
- Country.
Anything not explicitly covered by one of the sub-forums could then just go in the music forum itself.
Though it all depends on the forum and user's focus. So if no one is really talking about Pop music at all (like less than 10 topics) then why bother have a forum for it? But if they were really talking about Classical then definitely have a section for it.
This way forums can keep their indexes clean/shorter and still offer places to talk about things.
MidwestSportFishing
Acquaintance
In the early days I try to keep the amount of boards to a minimum. No one wants to see a forum with a ton of empty boards.
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