Question on best way to topic structure a large site forum
 

Do you think its better having one large general forum or to have a wide array of sub forums by topic.

I've been researching a lot of forum boards and it seems most people gravitate to the general discussion section even when you have lots of sub-topics.

I'm thinking just one large forum works best.

Your thoughts?

This site has the most catefories and sub-categories of any board I frequent. As long as people are able to find what want easily, I don't think it matters.

You'll always have one spot where most people congregate regardless of how many topics you've got.

http://vwvortex.com/

Start it off as one large forum to build members, then "spin-off" other forums, as members request them.

Good idea.

Also, do you think its better to have one integrated forum or separated men's forum, women's forum's, gay forum's?

I think the amount of topics is determined by you and the flavour of the forum you want to run.

If you want to encourage newbies, then have a newbie section, so they don't feel like they're going to be eaten by the sharks.

If you want to encourage traffic trades, it's a lot neater to have its own topic section.

I'm all for one general area for most boards, unless they are resource sites; in which case, I would probably have more than one topic.

Excellent.

I think you're right! :thumbsup

This is for surfers not webmasters. :1orglaugh

Having run a surfer board for many years, I did what Holly suggested.

General, at first...and, then I added topics, based on surfer requests and what I could see interested them.

I guess I could see how you might want to separate those, since many of the topics will be unique.

Females will take a whole forum and be happy with it. Same with gay guys. But imo, from what I've seen, any good "men's" forum, usually depends on having females there. ;-}

Well I'm thinking if I leave the doors open to all 3 the men will pop into the women's forum also as well as the guys forum.

Yeah, I guess it depends on the flavor of the board/forum and what path it's pushed towards. If the "women" board turns into a mommy/child raising deal, the men won't join in, I would think.

Maybe have a "singles/dating" board? Or even call it the "mingle" board, where the married people will get in on it too. I guess that's basically a general forum, but having something for people who are definitely looking, or even for the married men who want to just flirt, might be good.

one large general forum

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I agree, as someone said above. When your forum grows then you can add new categories, if you start off with too many categories it could be difficult to get the forum growing.

Maybe check out some of the smaller boards listed on http://www.big-boards.com and see how the small forums are doing with lots of categories. Usually forums that begin with too many categories don't seem to do too well

Good luck :thumbsup

Thanks for that link!!!!

Wow. One board on there has 75 Million posts.

Your welcome :glugglug

http://www.ratemybody.com/forum/default.aspx

This one is broken down nicely especially having the rate my pic sections.

Nice thread, I'm glad I clicked it. Found a link that I have forgotten about and it's usefull for a project I'm working on. :thumbsup

Nothing cooler then finding new links!