How long will you keep a section?

[Shawn Gossman1]

Section - Category - Node - Whatever you want to call it.

How long will you keep it active on your community?

Take this section, for example, Community Collective. If it weren't getting posted in that much, then I would brainstorm to create a better section to make it more engaging to community members. Leaving it up and not getting any activity isn't always the best thing to do.

You can get away with some sections, such as a classifieds section or official news section, where content isn't posted as often.

But how long will you keep an inactive section up before making some kind of change? And how do you define a section to be active?

 

[ClicketyKat]

For Crafter Craze, I noticed that some craft areas were pretty empty and that meant that they weren't as popular. So, that's when I started combing the categories. It makes it harder to find though and I worry about that.

 

[Shawn Gossman1]

I like combining sections. That’s essentially what I did here. As this community grows, I’ll look to adding more sections. It might mean some work on my part with moving threads here and there but I’m okay with that.

An active section looks so much better than one that doesn’t get any activity.

 

[ZandraJoi]

Depends on what the niche is. Some of mine are for "reference" & education even if nobody replies to them.

 

[Shawn Gossman1]

Depends on what the niche is. Some of mine are for "reference" & education even if nobody replies to them.

And those are fine.

But I would either do two things:

(1) Let guests see the section but not the contents inside without logging in and/or

(2) Keeping it updated weekly if possible

 

[ZandraJoi]

And those are fine.

But I would either do two things:

(1) Let guests see the section but not the contents inside without logging in and/or

(2) Keeping it updated weekly if possible

Guests can view most of the board.

 

[Shawn Gossman1]

Guests can view most of the board.

I'd mainly let them view every section (that's for members), but in inactive sections, maybe adjust it where they have to join. It could be an interesting beta test. Of course, your forum is fairly active enough that you probably don't have to really do this.

 

[Tracy]

I like combining sections. That’s essentially what I did here. As this community grows, I’ll look to adding more sections. It might mean some work on my part with moving threads here and there but I’m okay with that.

An active section looks so much better than one that doesn’t get any activity.

Had a fairly "expansive" conversation with a certain Australian over on XenForo that never seemed to be able to grasp the fact that having 10-15 nodes using a combined 130'ish prefixes and having content in those nodes was better than having 130 nodes with some with little to no traffic in them.
Don't think they could quite wrap their mind around how beneficial (and powerful) the use of prefixes in XenForo can be.
One big bucket, with use of prefixes for targeting

or another with this

Frequently each of those prefixes (with the exception of the general) would end up being pushed out by many as a separate node/sub-node. Much cleaner this way.
That second one catches both brands of telescopes (the ones with the scope icon) and then types of scopes (with the galaxy icon).

As for "keeping a section"... this allows your "big bucket" to be around a lot longer and not have to worry about massaging search engines to find the old information in a new location. And if you need to add "more areas" that are specific to the bucket, you simply create a new prefix.

It's what allows me to have (as I said) roughly 130 addressable "target topics" in an area like this (with only 1 having any sub-forums, that being the Astrophotography one for Beginner and Advanced).

 

[Shawn Gossman1]

I love the idea of using prefixes vs. too many nodes, in all honesty. It even makes the community have more of a modern feel to it, IMO.

 

[Tracy]

I love the idea of using prefixes vs. too many nodes, in all honesty. It even makes the community have more of a modern feel to it, IMO.

Prefixes... if used correctly... can eliminate that bane of having multiple empty nodes, or a few nodes where everything gets dumped into and then lost.

 

[Uncrowned]

I am really enjoying IPS's newish merged view option for sub forums. It lets me create organized subforums, but users get to see in single (active) topic list. This has made me much more willing to try new things with sections not doing too great.

 

[Tracy]

I am really enjoying IPS's newish merged view option for sub forums. It lets me create organized subforums, but users get to see in single (active) topic list.

But are they still shown on the index? Or are they hidden from the index and only visible through a coded viewport?
That's my main issue with sub-forums. Depending on how its done, you can end up with a lot of sub-forums that get little/no traffic, and if viewable, that is not a very welcoming view. Also, having something like 130 nodes/sub-forums listed on an index would tend/trend to get confusing for your users. Even if they were only listed under each category and requiring you to enter that category to see them is not the smoothest work/read flow.

Filterable prefixes is probably one of the best tools that XenForo has going for it... and is something that IPS was missing when I used it. Yes, they had "tags"... but again, those are pretty much useless as you tag something "colour" and I tag it "color" and they are the same thing... but aren't discoverable as the same thing.

 

[Uncrowned]

But are they still shown on the index? Or are they hidden from the index and only visible through a coded viewport?
That's my main issue with sub-forums. Depending on how its done, you can end up with a lot of sub-forums that get little/no traffic, and if viewable, that is not a very welcoming view. Also, having something like 130 nodes/sub-forums listed on an index would tend/trend to get confusing for your users. Even if they were only listed under each category and requiring you to enter that category to see them is not the smoothest work/read flow.

Filterable prefixes is probably one of the best tools that XenForo has going for it... and is something that IPS was missing when I used it. Yes, they had "tags"... but again, those are pretty much useless as you tag something "colour" and I tag it "color" and they are the same thing... but aren't discoverable as the same thing.

They are displayed on the index, unless you hide them, and can be interacted with like a standard sub forum from there, but if the user goes to the category, then it just shows a combined list that is filterable by sub forum. I like it quite a bit as it lets users use the sub forums but have no idea that they are using sub forums.

IPS has added filtering by tags and prefixes. I like XF's way of doing prefixes a bit better, mostly with how it is displayed in the topic creation. XF has that clean dropdown list and IPS has a hybrid text/list setup that never felt ideal.

 

[joelr]

This is such a great topic.

I think way too many aspiring forum owners try to build for the community they want, rather than the community they have (or will immediately grow into).

 

[Excommunicado]

I would probably give it a few weeks before doing something about it, whether that be merging the section into another or making it a sub-forum of another. I've already experienced this to an extent on my one week old forum - our suggestions and feedback section was empty and I didn't like the look of it so I made it a sub-forum of the news and announcements section. Funnily enough, after I made it a sub-forum, we actually started getting posts in that section!

 

[ClicketyKat]

This is such a great topic.

I think way too many aspiring forum owners try to build for the community they want, rather than the community they have (or will immediately grow into).

I agree with this. Sometimes you need to step back and see what's going to work for the present, yet still have a plan for the future. It's just that what you want now, might only work in the future.

 

[Shawn Gossman1]

This is such a great topic.

I think way too many aspiring forum owners try to build for the community they want, rather than the community they have (or will immediately grow into).

I think you're right,

It's easy to try to gear a community to what you want it to be rather than focus on what you got.

I like that.

 

[Tracy]

But isn't the point of a site to encompass the "desire" of what the admin sees as it's future?
Or are we to delve into the "popular choice" of what a site is to be about and it be based strictly upon the end users.
Honestly.. My site is an astrophotography/astronomy site.. .if you can't deal with that.... pound sand.

 

[joelr]

There's definitely a gray area and overlap between the admins vision and what's achievable.

I think the best example that I can think of is a site that created boards for every single country for his niche. Every. Single. Country. Did his board offer language packs for those other country languages? No. Did his board offer specialized content or posts for those other countries? No. But he still listed every country. His main content areas were barely attracting posts. There is a gap between what you want to cover vs what you're not attracting in any way.

 

[Shawn Gossman1]

There's definitely a gray area and overlap between the admins vision and what's achievable.

I think the best example that I can think of is a site that created boards for every single country for his niche. Every. Single. Country. Did his board offer language packs for those other country languages? No. Did his board offer specialized content or posts for those other countries? No. But he still listed every country. His main content areas were barely attracting posts. There is a gap between what you want to cover vs what you're not attracting in any way.

I personally love this example. Creating sections for every country to include everyone but not supporting language packs!

So, yeah, I agree - run your community with something you envision for the future, but make sure you integrate what your community wants in that. You might have to change your strategy.

In the end, it's a community, not a blog. If you just want to cater to your dreams and desires, you're better off utilizing a blog and engaging in the comments.