Reorganising the forum structure

[Andem]

Reinventing the board topics.

This is a very important step we should be making to improve the layout and ease of use of CC forums. The staff threads have mentioned it several times in the last months so let's put this also up for talk.

Currently:

Canadian Café
`-> In The News
`--> CBC News, CTV News, Odd News
`-> Introductions
`-> The Lounge
`--> Articles and Debates, Discussion Française
`-> Off-Topic
`-> Regional Chat
`--> Alberta, British Columbia, Maritimes, Ontario, Prairies, Québec

Politics
`-> Canadian Politics
`--> Federal Elections, Conservative Lounge
`-> International Politics
`-> US-American Politics

Themes
`-> Canadian Culture
`--> Coming to Canada
`-> Consumer Awareness
`-> Food, Cooking & Recipes
`-> History
`-> Movies, Music & Books
`-> Spiriruality & Philisophy
`--> Christian, Faith, Philosophy
`-> Science & Environment
`-> Sports
`-> Technology
`--> Computers & Internet, Mobile Phones


This all has to be rearranged and setup in the easiest possible order. Perhaps merging "The Lounge" with "Members Lounge" for one. Wreck Beach is kind of redundant, so merging the Steel Cage into Wreck Beach and using Wreck Beach as the new Steel Cage is an idea. Here's what I'm come up with really quick:

An idea:

Member Lounge
`-> Introductions
`-> Forum Games
`-> Off-topic Chat
`-> Wreck Beach

World & Politics
`-> Canadian Politics
`-> Christian Discussion
`-> Faith Discussion
`-> History
`-> In The News
`--> CBC News, CTV News, Odd News
`-> International Politics
`-> Philsophy Discussion
`-> US-American Politics

Lifestyle
`-> Canadian Culture
`-> Food, Cooking & Recipes
`-> Movies, Music & Books
`-> Sports

Debates & Discussions
`-> Science & Environment
`-> Sports
`-> Product Reviews

Science & Technology
`-> Computers & Internet
`-> Mobile Phones
`-> Science & Environment
`-> Troubleshooting

Regional Discussion
`-> Alberta
`-> British Columbia
`-> Maritimes
`-> Ontario
`-> Prairies
`-> Québec

I've tried to eliminate sub-forums in the above example, so please add your opinions and ideas to this thread! I'm trying to make it much easier to navigate and the sub-forums kind of give it an extra unneeded layer of clicking.

 

[darkbeaver]

Why christian discussion and not muslim or jewish or voodoo stick the ugly stuff under religion. Ain't it the same god anyway?

 

[Andem]

To this date, there has not been enough interest in opening such a forum.

 

[hermanntrude]

I do most of my posting (as do many of us) through the topics which are popular.

I guess this applies mostly to people who create most of the threads.

 

[lone wolf]

Really, isn't an extra layer of click one way to prevent opening the door and coming face to face with a discussion that normally you'd have no part of? (ie all the faith inspired ones that draw attention from the God is Dead crowd)

Have you ever looked at the opening page for Plentyoffish.com forums?

http://forums.plentyoffish.com/

A bit more ideal specific might keep a newbie from thinking he just found the pack of trolls....

 

[FUBAR]

Really, isn't an extra layer of click one way to prevent opening the door and coming face to face with a discussion that normally you'd have no part of? (ie all the faith inspired ones that draw attention from the God is Dead crowd)

Have you ever looked at the opening page for Plentyoffish.com forums?

http://forums.plentyoffish.com/

A bit more ideal specific might keep a newbie from thinking he just found the pack of trolls....

Sorry, sorry just couldn't resist............

 

[Kreskin]

Two thumbs up on the topic in the thread title.

 

[Praxius]

From the various forums I've gone through in the last number of years, I feel this would be the easiest approach:

In The News
(All news topics placed in this section, sub sections I don't feel are nessicary.)

The Lounge
(Everything Off Topic, hince the Term "Lounge" ~ This includes member intros, sports, movies, music, regional chat, and the sort.)
(The Steel Cage would be the only thing I can see as being vaild for a sub section.)

Politics & Government
(Politics relating to any country, US, Canada or otherwise can be placed in here.)

Spiriruality & Philisophy
(Everything relating can go here.... I don't feel there is a need for sub sections.)

Science/Technology & Environment
(title explains itself.)

I believe I see why the sections were broken up as they were, so one can focus on a subject easier without having to go through other things that don't exactly relate, but one has to considder: "Do those sub sections actually make it easier for people to find what they are looking for, or would it be more easier to just have them all in just a few sections such as the above?"

To me, it's not only time consuming to jump through each section to find the right section to post or reply in, but it seems like way too much work then it should be.

If the search feature was improved greatly, then having the various sections setup like above would be far far more easier to manage.

As it stands now, the sections, sub-sections and sub-sub-sections is just one big headache and I usually will just stick to the main page "Recent Posts" and the "News".... avoiding the rest of the forums, due to the amount of hunting one has to do.

Added:

I'm not trying to pimp out these other forums, but www.volconvo.com had only a few sections for posting topics, and they have hundreds of news posts per day and I still didn't find it that hard to find what I'm looking for (Which the combination of their quick search feature helps considderably.)

 

[L Gilbert]

I like what Pax said.

 

[jimmoyer]

If the search feature was improved greatly, then having the various sections setup like above would be far far more easier to manage.

As it stands now, the sections, sub-sections and sub-sub-sections is just one big headache and I usually will just stick to the main page "Recent Posts" and the "News".... avoiding the rest of the forums, due to the amount of hunting one has to do.

------------------------------------Praxius----------------------------------------------------------

I agree with those 2 statements.