Forum Structure Redesign

[voodoo scientist]

The forums have too many subsections relative to the amount of active topics. I posit the following changes:

Psychology
* Merge "Relationships" and "Personality" into "General Psychology".
* Merge "Dreaming and the Unconscious Mind" into "Parapsychology".

Counseling and Psychotherapy
* Remove category, establish "Help & Counsel" forum under "Psychology" and merge all three forums in.

Mental Health
* Merge all forums into "Mental Health General Forum", possibly rename to just "Mental Disorders" or "Mental Health".
* Move remaining forum to Psychology.

Personal Development & Self Help
* Delete category, move forum to Psychology.

General Forums
* Rename to "Off Topic"
* Merge "Board Games" into "Off Topic"
* Merge all other forums into new "General Discussion" forum.

The Members Area
* Delete "Members Only"
* Move "Introduce Yourself" to "General Forums"

This leaves the following lineup:
Psychology
- General Psychology
- Parapsychology
- Mental Health
- Help & Counsel
- Self Help

Off Topic
- Off Topic
- General Discussion
- Introduce Yourself

This will allow the forum index to fit on one page, granting the user a full overview of the forum with one look. It also removes dead or very low-use forums and contributes to making the site as a whole seem more active and alive, and thus more attractive to new users. The current structure contains many forums with less than 50 topics, none of which are active, which is very discouraging for new users in terms of assessing the site's health. Folding more topics under one forum banner will help generate activity until activity is so great that a more detailed structure becomes beneficial.

Edit: note that this does not alter in any way the range of "allowed" subjects, it simply groups them together so we can all debate in a more convenient manner.

Edit the second: "About The Site" category remains the same.

[SWM]

the forum structure has been the source of much deliberation for me. i realise that empty categories is discomforting for members, and having too many categories becomes confusing. however i would also like a to provide adequate space for to develop the discussions along the lines that i believe are essential for the aims of this forum.

i appreciate everybodies feedback about this forum. i beleive a forum is about a communnity and a community is developed by its members.

there are certain points you have made that i agree with and some forums i agree could be made redundant. there are some forums that i myself consider essential.

so i will think more about this. nothing will be done hastily and all things must be considered.

[SWM]

if any other members have an opinion about the forum structure please do share. i appreciate constructive criticism.

[SWM]

i have implemented some changes to the forum structure. mostly to condense the less used boards into other existing boards.

i would really like some feedback form other members about how they use the forum.

how do people use this forum and does how they use the forum fit comfortably with the current structure?

to illustrate i will explain how the structure of the forum is usable for myself.

when i access the forum i use the links at the very top of the page and the very bottom of the page. i have all of the categories minimised so i cannot see all of the forum categories only a title of each major catgories. this enables me to see the whole of the forum on one screen.

the first thing i look at when i access the forum is the info centre at the very bottom of the page. this shows me the latest posts and the latest members, and who has been on line recently.

the second thing after reading all the new posts from the information centre is go back to the top of the page and use the link to [all active topics] this shows me all topics that have been posted to in the last 60  days, form here i can look back over posts that might not have been included in the info center on the index page.

after this i use the [new replies to your posts] link this shows me any unread posts that are specific to my previous posts.

using the forum in this way i dont have much interaction with the forum structure and so it has not been a problem for me.

the forum struture becomes important when i want to make a new topic. i believe having a clear defined category for the subject of my topics is crucial.

what do other people think?

[voodoo scientist]

Maybe it's my mind making things up, but I seem to be seeing a distinct pattern of increased site activity since these changes were implemented. Could you check and post traffic statistics for the period before the changes for comparison's sake? I'm interested in the short term effects of this change.

[SWM]

screen print of analytics traffic graph from april to july

[SWM]

there has been a decrease since June only slightly. may was the most active month. the dip in the middle of may was due to forum maintenenace which meant analytics was not installed.

[voodoo scientist]

Interesting. Does SMF do posting activity statistics?

[SWM]

indeed,

http://psychologyforum.us/index.php?action=stats

[voodoo scientist]

Wow, May and June were huge. That's very interesting, I'll keep an eye on this page.

[SWM]

seekinghga had a lot to do with that i think, Liza123 and anaklio where also more active over those two months.