My take on the forum clean up

To be honest, I don't think any of us have much right to say what should happen to the sections we don't use. I only use a few sections of the forum so I don't see how I can make a fair judgement on what should happen to the rest and I know if the sections I use most, were taken away/moved because of the opinions of people who have no connection with them, I wouldn't be too happy.

I think the best method of finding out what to do, is either create individual polls within each of the sections asking that people only respond if they use that forum (you'll get a few who don't but anyone who sees the poll in a particular section is kind of a user of that section by definition) OR just ask the moderators of each section what they think would be best based on their day to day observations of moderating each section.

Forum Management are appointed for a reason though. Whatever they do is going to be controversial but we just have to accept it, they aren't stupid and will think it through before making any decisions. Sure, people are going to be annoyed I know that for sure but it's a good thing they want to make the forum easier to navigate and make it more visually attractive. To get to those cuts have to be made. I certainly don't envy them having to make the decisions.

Have we thought about all the stickies threads that there will be if/when we merge the forums? Wasn't there a huge thread complaining we have too many not that long ago?

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Originally Posted by Immenseman

Forum Management are appointed for a reason though. Whatever they do is going to be controversial but we just have to accept it, they aren't stupid and will think it through before making any decisions. Sure, people are going to be annoyed I know that for sure but it's a good thing they want to make the forum easier to navigate and make it more visually attractive. To get to those cuts have to be made. I certainly don't envy them having to make the decisions.

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Oh you little bum kisser, you ;) :-j Provided the changes aren't pointless, where they rename things, or merge them with sections completely unrelated, then it's fine. There are alot of pointless forums that serve no amazing purpose. A forum should only exist if the first page contains the majority of new threads/posts. If only 1 third or a half is used, then the forum needs changing or removed. If aload of forums are removed, then you think about categories getting merged together if they have a similar purpose e.g. Gaming is a type of Entertainment <merged> Gaming & Entertainment. It's not quite rocket science, they just need to pick out the dead and useless forums, find out what forums are left, then look at the categories with these forums, see if they can be merged if the categories lack a sufficient number of forums then think about merging them. Opinion and desire of these forums is somewhat pointless, just have a strict rule that follows basic forum designing rules. If a forum isn't used alot, look at why, if it's because it's a sub-genre of a type of forum topic or discussion point, then see what the main category or genre is and then think about moving it or merging it. Fashion, Health and Beauty is another example of 3 discussions that can be merged together.

Again, all they need to do is see what use the forums have, and how much they are used and whether or not a merger would cause chaos in the posting front. Though judging by the forum usage over the past few months, that won't be too hard, you just have to fight the people who love their forums a little bit too much and are affraid of change, which may just be beneficial in the long run :P

Not forgetting, a forum also needs to have decent looking skins to reflect the number of forums and categories. It's all well and good removing categories and forums, but it's useless if the skins are messier.

EDIT: One forum that needs work is the Education forum (just did a quick look). Perhaps this could have all its sub-forums merged together into the main forum?
EDIT AGAIN: Infact, it should be merged, the sub-forum is about College and School Work "help", people are asking for help in the main parent forum deeming this sub-forum virtually useless. Besides, if all the school and college work ends up in the sub forum, what is there left to discuss in full in the main forum parent? Not alot, and there isn't alot.

For the first 2 catergories (Habbox and Help), I reckon they could probably do something like this (which involves merging the catergories).
- Habbox
-- Habbox Announcements (merging Development and Habbox announcemnets)
-- Community Notice Board
-- Competitions
-- Introductions, Farewells and Congratulations (merging Welcome and Congrats forums, if the MGMT are unhappy then it could be a subforum in welcome OR feedback, it's annoying to see congrats threads in here)
-- Habbox Feedback and Discussion
--- Ask the Habbox Staff (removing all subforums from here and using the parent forum)
--- Feedback Polls
-- Become a Habbox Donator / VIP
-- Bug Tracker

Complaints and Report Serious rulebreaking should go into the support system, and actually make some use of that as I'm aware it cost a few bob as it intergrated into vBulletin.
[HxHD] can move into Habbo, the staff could be active in those forums as opposed to that forum, so members feel welcomed into the habbo section by these staff members.

I haven't really looked into the other forums yet as it's a lot to organise, and will probably be somewhat unaffected by the changes, although I would say that EVERY forum needs to be reviewed as there are some wasted forums out there now.

EDIT: And in regard to what GommeInc said on another thread, the skins should be cleared up as well (even I find some of them an eyesore, and I made a good handful of them), maybe add the coding into the templates which breaks the catergories up, which could be easier for the new members. I believe this is default on vb4.