Split forum into subfora?

[Black]

Paul F. wrote:
Only other example I have is also far too old to be of use to you for demonstration purposes... the old "Accurate Shooters" forums. When there were 5 forums, it was a lively place with high traffic.
Eventually, it was spit into ten... then fifteen.. then thirty or more sub-forums. Traffic died off, users left. Eventually the place closed down.
It was shutting down about the time I started on Dealmac....

What was behind the impetus to whittle it down into more and more fora?

[Paul F.]

Folks in different shooting sport or collecting "genre's" wanted "their own space" to talk about their own "niche" interests.
They got it... the three people that were interested in "post unification, pre-WWI, German cartridge arms" got their forum... and wondered where all the people went until the board host flipped the switch and the lights went out.

[Lux Interior]

Paul F. wrote:
the three people that were interested in "post unification, pre-WWI, German cartridge arms" got their forum... and wondered where all the people went

I still miss that forum!

[mattkime]

YOU CHEAT!

[The UnDoug]

My daughter has gotten very "into" the game, "Minecraft" lately. To further enable her addiction, I started running a server on a Mac here at our house so that she and her friends could connect to it and play together. As a result, I've been spending some time at the Minecraft forums.

They are split into many, many, many sub-forums.

My thinking as to why is because there really are a ton of different things being discussed which all relate to Minecraft, but there are so many posts and discussions, that if someone is only familiar with the PC version, they are more likely to want to read posts about that version; and the same goes for the Mac version. Similarly, there are sub-forums for the X-box version, for Server Administration, for news, etc., etc., etc.

I think when a forum gets a serious amount of traffic, and the lack of separation of topics will cause some readers to lose interest because they have to see so many posts they have no interest in nor knowledge of, then it can be beneficial to split the forum up.

My thinking is that at DealMac, they put the cart before the horse. Maybe they thought that by splitting the forum up into niche areas, it would attract more visitors who would be interested in one specific thing, rather than what interested most of us who were regulars there: the mixing of refrigerator buying tip posts and RAM replacement posts.

[Black]

The UnDoug wrote:
My daughter has gotten very "into" the game, "Minecraft" lately. To further enable her addiction, I started running a server on a Mac here at our house so that she and her friends could connect to it and play together. As a result, I've been spending some time at the Minecraft forums.

They are split into many, many, many sub-forums.

My thinking as to why is because there really are a ton of different things being discussed which all relate to Minecraft, but there are so many posts and discussions, that if someone is only familiar with the PC version, they are more likely to want to read posts about that version; and the same goes for the Mac version. Similarly, there are sub-forums for the X-box version, for Server Administration, for news, etc., etc., etc.

I think when a forum gets a serious amount of traffic, and the lack of separation of topics will cause some readers to lose interest because they have to see so many posts they have no interest in nor knowledge of, then it can be beneficial to split the forum up.

My thinking is that at DealMac, they put the cart before the horse. Maybe they thought that by splitting the forum up into niche areas, it would attract more visitors who would be interested in one specific thing, rather than what interested most of us who were regulars there: the mixing of refrigerator buying tip posts and RAM replacement posts.

Well, that's exactly it-- you need a certain amount of traffic so all of the subfora see daily activity. A topic of interest to most with a national or international base (e.g. Howard Forums) is going to be your only shot at a successful multi-topic message board. The forum in question is a city specific forum on one topic.

[Speedy]

If they are interested in a community, then stick with one forum. Otherwise, split and have a good search function for those people who are just seeking an answer to a question.

[Filliam H. Muffman]

For some reason this makes me think a little of my first MUG, and also Boston Computer Society.

[The UnDoug]

Interesting about the Boston Computer Society. I didn't know much about it, nor its founder.