How many forums are too many?

Too many in how people would see the forums as a place they would come back too...

.. or too many as in it would be over facing and they would not join much less return?

Just wondered what makes one forum more successful than another as in how many members, and how many members interact with other members..

If I gotta scroll down for more than 5-10 seconds thats too much lol..

Thanks YM

Am just in..just..hahahahaha

Bang on 10 secs

I honeslty couldnt tell you whats too much just as long as you dont have to much to scroll down a lot..Thats a major turn off for me on a board if I gotta scroll a lot.

Not really a limit IMO (when you actually have the NEED for them)... just start with few forums in a category or two and ONLY create a new forum when the demand for it is high (like a ton of topics/discussions have been and will be made on the subject). A forum with a ton of forums on very detailed subjects with only a few hundred posts in each will turn me away faster than a forum with only a few forums with thousands of posts each. If your board gets to the point where you have tons of active categories and forums and you still find the need to add more, then I'd look into splitting it into two boards or at least get a skin that allows navigation between categories easily, at the top where people can see.

I think it just boils down to making sure you actually have a need for each of your forums, that they are active (coincides with the first point), and are organized well/easily accessible.

Hmm..

I am thinking to lose a couple of forums, thanks again YM.

What is your forum about anyway? I clicked your link but you have no content showing.. IMO I think it would be better to show a lil more to guests.

Well,

I know 'some' Dreamweaver buut not enough to go it alone so I asked a lady from Adobe if I could have some of her tuts which she agreed. She is an Adobe Forum advisor and does seminars for Adobe. I am learning CSS so I have added that as a resource. Resource where you follow a link to go off site for the tut. Eventually sort of a huge resource. Dreamweaver Extensions, Project Seven for all things Dreamweaver. Adobe News. etc.

I love gardening so thats included. Some wallpapers from a designer named George Grier who gave permission to allow dl but not for adding to your collections. Not sure how that will fair with Dreamweaver stuff. The 3d wallpapers may go down ok, or it did a few forums ago in thaat forum I put 'site of the Day' and 'Flash Sites of Excellence like neostram.

Alsorts.

The thing is what to remove.



A sample of a wallpaper here:

I wouldn't say there is a number that would stop being using it, you just have to make sure there are enough for your community. If you find that there is a lot of conversation about a particular topic area then make a forum about it, but don't make hundreds of forums for the sake of it so that you end up with it takes hours to find the correct one.

That said, one of the largest IPS forums has a lot of section and it doesn't seem to hurt them http://www.justmommies.com/boards/ so it just depends on the number of visitors you have I suppose, grow the number of forums slowly instead of starting with a shed load to begin with.

As a general rule, always have as few as possible. It's better to have 3 active forums that have a mixture of subjects going on than 15 very specific forums that get very little posting. You'll know when you reach the point that you need to create a new forum for a specific subject.

Totally agree.

If I go to a site and see 100 forums, and each has 1 topic, I'll never sift through them all.

If I go there and there is 1 forum with 100 topics, I will at least get to see all the topic titles even if I don't visit each topic - increasing the likelihood I'll be active.

I agree and I deleted a few inactive ones on my site.
Just moved those posts into the general section.

hi all
lol

Number of forums honestly matters very little. To ME personally it's MUCH better to have only a few and have subforums because then nobodyu has to scroll a lot. But trust me, some of the most popular sites ahve tons and tons and tons to scroll down. So obviously people would rather it look crappy like that.

*REMOVED*

The number of forums matters a great deal in keeping users active. Having generalized sections exposes users to see threads that might catch their attention when they wouldn't have otherwise seen them.

In general the fewer the threads the better. Look around at failed and successful communities. Obviously there are exceptions like the motherhood forum Stephen linked. My guess would be that a topic like motherhood is specific enough to draw a large number of users based on it's genre alone as opposed to a general community forum that has no focus.

Sub-forums are annoying as hell to me personally. I don't understand their usefulness at all, they seem to just hide topics deeper and make them less accessible/visible.

Ya I do not like subforums either. I like having lots of forums as long as those different forums are active having a forum that does not get many replies or any replies can look really bad, thats why I removed some as a few forums have not had new replies or topics in over 3 months.

*REMOVED*

*REMOVED* Anyone go to sites with the most posts and look how many pages of toipics they have. They have literally hundreds of pages in each popular forum.

You could just say, "Hey idav, I think you mean to say sections." Which is obviously the case. The fewer sections the better. Anything to make yourself feel better eh Jason?

Let's keep this topic friendly please.

I think it depends on the forum. I know that if you need the forums then make them, if they fit the purpose then they should be there otherwise you should probably get rid of them.

Best reply to this!!
No joke either its the best reply and I think it goes along with what bfaber said.

Yeah. Agreed.

I thnik if your site is bAsed on a popular topic or theme it doesn't matter at all how you ahve it arranged though. I've just seen so many sites where things were disorganized and yet extremely busy.

Yep I have even seen some that are so poorly designed yet getting over 5000 posts a day.
I was on a site like that because a friend of mine was on it, but I found it very hard to find things and navigate.
Not to mention they had all kinds of annoying pop ups and stuff. The only reason I was there was because of my friends that were there.
After a while though I opened my own site and have not been on that one in years.

I have a couple of sites that I help run or run myself and they all are set up differently. One site's users hate sub forums, while another loves them. You need to do what makes it easier for your users and what makes them want to stay on it.

Pretty much my same experience also. I am on other sites and thinking "how can they not know how annoying this is?". Like you said, some have annoying popups or rollovers, etc etc. One site has a JS error where I can't even edit a post and I told the admin and he didn't respond. One site uses an OLD version of phpbb and is very active. That's what annoys me the most, I think, is when I see old versions of software (from years ago) with barely any features and those sites do good. ahhhhhh. lol

Yep its interesting how that works.
I myself listen to all feedback from members and if a member reports some thing to me that is not working I will try my best to fix it, I will fist reply to the email or Pm.

That site I mentioned is still up and is using a very old version of ikonboard 2.1 to be exact.

Indeed I could not agree more there.
As I mentioned I listed to my members and will make changes if its requested and does not conflict with other members or features.

You should definitely listen to you members. My suggestion was for building members to listen to is to not have a cluttered forum that users will get lost in and lose interaction.

A company forum shouldn't have too much forums, and a "general discussions" forum should have many. That's my opinion about it.

um... a forum should have a use. there are so many general chat forums out there... it really depend son your subject!

Thanks,

I have learned loads listening and reading about forums. I removed one or two due to advice about people not wanting to scroll very far

For instance. You have a Flash forum for arguments sake, there are a million like it. Will you be the lucky one that ends up top in Google and everyone come rushing to signup to your new Flash forum?

Its a dog fight out there. Some will be successful and some like mine have in the past fail.

I do not intend to end up on the dog pile this time...lets just say I have been set a challenge

What I also do know is people ususually want something free from a forum, I know that because I used to moderate at a very large Swish forum where templates were given. Had no templates or Swish movies be given that forum would not have been quite so large.

What do you give for free?

I thought about giving actual gift certificates for various things for free, but it would make no sense when a whopping 2 people may try to win it, so I still have to get some activity first.

some times even the name of the site matters.
My site used to have a different name and it was to specific even though the main content on the site was more general . so after many talks with the staff the name was changed. Which actually made the site take off like a rocket and for months after that I was getting over 1000 posts a day. How ever one of the biggest posters left do to getting grounded and when she left a few others left as well resulting in the site going from 1000 + posts a day to 100 a day and thats what it still is today. Under the old name how ever I was no where close to 100 a day except when I did the post contest which I did at the end of every month.
the old name according to must was not just to specific but it was very grily as well so males felt embarrassed to be there.

My free thing is site exclusives for dolling, (since I own a dolling website) and special monthly doll gifts. (Dolling is internet Art)

I have a few members on my site that make dolls. I bet like me you get a lot of young members.
The members on my site that make dolls are around 10 years old.

I think a few are from a site called my doll place.

My site is geared towards 17+ so the youngest I allow is 13+ with parental permission.

Yep i agree with parental permission. the active kids I have also have their parents on the site with their own accounts.
One mother said she would rather have her daughter on my site then on places like myspace and thats the 10 year old that is the must active and makes dolls.

I have never come accross 'dolling' before.

Interesting about the parental permission. How do you know the permission is from the parents and not a forgery? I really have wondered how that would work.

I get faxes with signatures. Even that could be a forgery but its a safe-guard really.

A few of mine where verified over the phone.