Proposed forum changes, give us your feedback

We are planning a few changes to the forum setup, and would like some input before we implement them.

The Problem:

The current setup we have, which is a small number of forums and some very long threads, is not working that well from a usability point of view. Long threads mean that interesting discussion gets lost, and that it's hard to see from the Active Threads and main forum listings what people are actually talking about. This contributes to a general feeling amongst regulars and others that the board is a bit stale. Long threads also create load problems on the site, as they are very database intensive and slow the server down.

However, we know that there are good reasons for concentrating some posts in one thread, and we certainly don't want to clutter up the forum with 100 different 'just seen' or 'last purchase' threads.

The solution:

We are going to expand the number of forums somewhat, and break some topics and types of thread out in to their own forum, while keeping others as they are. In particular we want to break the two Random threads out in to their own forums, where anyone can start a thread with a random question. It will be much easier then for people to search for an answer to something they want to know, and for those who aren't interested in people's random questions, just ignore the forum.

That's pretty non-controversial in our view, but we thought that while we were doing this we'd see if it made sense to create some other sub-forums for other topics, the idea being that some people come to the site specifically to track/discuss certain areas of fashion and don't want to be blinded by all the other stuff. But we also recognise that people like the simplicity of the minimum possible number of forums, so we'd particularly like your feedback on these additional forums which you can see in the mockup screenshot below.

Why are we doing this anyway?

Apart from the problems with the long threads outlined above, we feel that Threads is in need of revitalising. In particular we want to encourage more people to post - literally thousands of people sign up for accounts on the site and never post, and we think it would be good to make it easier for them. Over the years, we've seen a big decline in the number of women posting regularly and with some of these changes we hope to reverse that trend.

Are we getting a GJs only forum?

Since I know someone's going to ask this, the answer is, yes, but not right now. For the moment we need to concentrate on increasing the amount of posting and expanding the userbase, and by hiding half the content behind a private area we would do the opposite. However, if our plans are successful, we will definitely ensure you elitists have a place to hide away from the unwashed masses.

sounds good. Can there be a 'wants' forum rather than the sprawling thread there is at the moment?

a womens forum it might attract a few i suppose

Im not too keen on loads of subsections, would be hard to keep up with everything as it is always nice to do.

its good to see some pro-active thinking going on, however i feel than once a forum is broken up it becomes fragmented unless there is a huge amount of traffic, on some other forums i used to go on this has been done from similar reasons to what you have mentioned above and in those cases it has lead to the ultimate demise of the community.

however from what you have proposed you seem to have avoided these pitfalls, as every area is focused but still general. So hopefully this will enhance fuk

The womens wear section is excellent and it will hopefully kick start some new or lurking members into start posting

I do feel as if a GJ only section is needed sooner rather than later, as there are alot of lurkers who take advantage of the bargains, deals and music links - plus im sure the golden jimmy fund could do with a new cash injection

Could i possible suggest that a monthly/season newsletter is sent out to members, there is alot of content on fuk that doesn't get the exposure it deserves especially Marians work and by emailing members monthly this will make them aware of updates and hopefully getting more members posting- im sure members and students would love to have an outlet for their talents and this could possibly be a great way to showcase fuk

nice werk

gets my vote. would it be worth adding TV and films into the proposed music and sports forum?

imo. I think its a bad idea.

Another thumbs up here.

My only suggestion, if the sites getting a technical overhaul, would be. That the Active Threads item on the left should be enhanced to show how many new posts have been made since the last visit as it does currently within the forum. I feel the Active Threads item should show more info.

Easy to spot the gold threads cos they'll be the ones that have 50 replies in the space of five minutes

that's what I mean though - if people stop opening threads that from the subject don't have comedy potential, that potential will remain unrealised

Thanks for the useful comments people.

For those concerned about having to click on too many links to see new stuff, the Active Threads block should help. We are also considering a full-page version of this which would show all recent content from all forums, with some sort of expanding/collapsing thing to see the latest comments for each thread.

Yes, probably a good idea. Any suggestions for what to call this forum then, preferably without using the word 'culture'?

We are hoping that the changes will actually make it easier to spot comedy gold - if it doesn't work out that way, we can always change things back again, this stuff is all easy to undo.

how about a section called "Music, Film and TV" under the General section

(or Entertainment - suitably vague)

not sure that Sport should be lumped in with "cultural" things but in reality a devoted Sport section is just going to end up with a handful of football threads and the MrPlatinum-andymakesglasses rugby public PM chat