8 replies to this topic

[gamesguru]

I like the idea to categorize everything, but this could be done with tags or another drop down.

 

Ideally everyone could be able to see the topic/post count for all the Boards, from the main forum page.  To generate more traffic we can merge a lot of them in a way I'm not exactly sure of yet.  Ideally a website is known for 2-4 primary, memorable forums/Boards.  These main boards are the core of their brand.  The rest are just there out of politeness and to fill the web page.

 

I know a couple other forums that merged smaller sub-forums into their larger parents.  And I kind of feel "News" sub-forums can just share the press release in some sort of Brain Health or General Health board.  It's tempting to keep a separate forum for supplements or group buy stuff, but that could be broken down into brain/general health too making 2x2 = 4 boards.  That's getting out of hand.  Nutrition, Lifestyle, Dental health can probably be lumped in one greater category, as can Aging Theories, Stem Cells, News Releases.

 

Being able to tell which forums are hottest and most traveled from the main page is an under-rated asset.  As is condensing information into a few main feeds.  What you lose in on-topic-ness you gain in solidarity and sheer traffic volume.

[MichaelFocus22]

1. Ya I don't agree I prefer seperate forums for topics and it allows me to lurk in different forum sections without crossing other members.

[gamesguru]

I can appreciate the desire to have small and meaningful groups and not create a giant feed where everyone is drowning in a sea of voices.. but at a certain point it gets absurd.

Some of these subforums haven't had a post in months, the first page goes back 4 years. They're practically dead and begging yo be merged, but just my two cents

[MaximilianKohler]

I agree that some of the subforums should be merged. There's nowhere near enough traffic on this forum to warrant all of those. They can be replaced with tags, thread prefixes, etc. See:

* Tags https://invisioncomm...gs/known issue/

* Thread prefixes https://community.ce...ll-questions.8/

 

There are dozens of subforums here and it would be very tedious to try to subscribe to all of them. I'm not sure about Invision/IPB but Xenforo has an addon to send out a weekly email digest which works that way: https://www.theadmin...t-email.155217/

 

Someone just asked me "what is the best Longecity subforum for me to post about x" and 1. I'm not sure. 2. I'm probably not even subscribed to it because there are too many.

 

[Galaxyshock]

I don't quite like how many forums have turned to difficult to follow boards with the tags etc. I prefer it the old way like LongeCity with all the sub-forums but maybe I'm too set on my ways. Some reviving could be done as for example the Brain Health section has quited down a lot. But what measures exactly, well I don't know yet.

[adamh]

There are definitely too many sub forums and it causes fragmentation. We have the situation now where in order to see all the posts in, for example, supplements, we have to click on the main forum and 5 side forums some of which have no new posts or none in a while. This fragmentation means we miss a lot of posts we might be interested in. I have a few times wondered where my post was from a few days ago that I can't find. It was in one of the subs.

 

There are those who don't like change and dont care if its a bit disorganized. What we could do is have the sub forum posts be duplicates of the main forum posts. That way if you were mainly interested in c60 posts you could see them but they would also appear in the main forum. Whichever post you replied to, the reply would show in main as well as sub forum

 

Would that create a main forum with too many posts to keep up with? I don't think so, activity on this site seems to have declined slightly in the past 10 years or so. Its not in danger of collapse but its not huge nor is it getting that way. In the end, I suspect inertia will win out and nothing will change

[MaximilianKohler]

This is also related to the fact that the forum software being used is quite outdated https://www.longecit...ver-to-xenforo/. Most new software have a "what's new" tab that shows a feed of all new posts/threads on the forum.

[Mind]

This is also related to the fact that the forum software being used is quite outdated https://www.longecit...ver-to-xenforo/. Most new software have a "what's new" tab that shows a feed of all new posts/threads on the forum.

 

We do have a "recent topics" in the Search drop-down menu, along with some other tools.

[MaximilianKohler]

Ah, thanks. It's unusual/unexpected to have it under "search".