Some haven't been used since last year, one hasn't been used since 2009. Maybe we can get rid of / merge some of the boards rather than have a plethora of underused ones.

HI Mike

Its funny that you mention this because a friend also mentioned it to me on Sunday. Now i didnt actually realise this and i wonder if it has been enhanced because the forum is now skinner, meaning its actually longer now when you scroll down.

Ive been looking through the threads, titles etc and must admit that im having a hard time working out which one(s) would be best for a merge. I certainly dont wish to delete any....

If you can spare the time to make some suggestions about merging threads and / or Forums, it would be great. Then we can compare thoughts.

Anybody else that has suggestions about merging the forums, feel free to write them down.

Thanks.

Are there really too many though? I mean, "phobias" is a broad subject to begin with so I think quite a few boards/subforums are needed to really cover it.
What I find a little strange is that we first have a "phobias by category" section, and then we have a "list of phobias" section. Isn't that basically the same thing? So maybe we could change a few things.

If there are too many links on the main page, maybe we could simply make a "Phobias by category" section, and keep all the other subforums inside of that? That way we won't actually have to delete anything, but things will look less messy on the main page. We could keep quite broad topics on the main page like that. Like one "Phobias" section, maybe incorporate alter-ego's idea and have one "Fears" section, and then one "other mental health problems" (not the best name, but yeah) section where we put things like depression and OCD.

I don't know whether or not if changing things around drastically will further compromise your indexed content so the only thing I'd be careful about is whether or not said changes affect the url structure of existing content. If the url structure does in fact change, you'll have to make sure you have good 301 re-directs to the new content or you risk losing all that traffic.

The other thing I'd suggest is to perhaps structure some of the existing forums into sub-forums as you see at mybb. This will certainly help with the scrolling aspect without compromising much in the way of forum content.

"General Phobia" and "Other phobias" - they do (theoretically) have different purposes, but I think the distinction is so small they could be merged without any negative side effects.

"Medication" and "Treatment" - I think medication should be a subforum.

Other than that, it's surprisingly difficult to spot anything obviously superfluous…

Im struggling too I had thought about merging medication and treatment, your subforum idea may be the better way to go.

The community forum which are mainly off topic forums is probably the one im keenest to condense...

Would people think it a bad idea to have an "out-date" of sorts on thread so once messages are so old they got deleted. I was thinking like anything a year old and over type thing? I also understand people being against it as well to for those who have been around for a long time because the history.

I would think that combining the phobia forums would be a good idea just because a good number have not been active since 2010 and none of them have really a huge amount of activity individually.

The only forum I really don't like is "symptoms". Because symptoms from med's would be under medicaitons (which I think should be merged with treatment) but most symptoms from mental illness get covered in other forums: phobia's, rants, etc. and its also not been used much.

I don't know if anyone likes those ideas or not but if some are liked maybe start changing things kinda slowly so if something gets changed and it ends up not working out right or whatever it can be switched back.

So thats my 2 cents.

Slaka

The problem with deleting or enabling auto-pruning is you run the risk of deleting threads that bring traffic to your site. It's really never a good idea to prune forums unless the forums being pruned have nothing to do with your sites main focus such as "General Discussion", "Off Topic", etc., areas.

Personally, I'd just combine the forums that have the lowest quantity of posts in them into more general categories such as General Phobias and Other Phobias (these could both reside under General). I think Fear of Flying could also be merged into the General Forum or perhaps it too could be made a little less specific such as fear of heights or perhaps fear of travel? Of course this may be somewhat risky given the traffic Google Trends says is possible by ranking well for Fear of Flying.

I also wonder if needle phobia and dental phobia could be combined under a more general category such as Iatrophobia - the fear of doctors or something similar?

Medication, Symptoms, Treatment and Support Category could likely have the first two forums, "Medication" and "Treatment" combined as they usually go hand in hand anyway.

Under the "Community" Category you could probably have the Cafe as the only main forum and make all the others sub-forums which would drop the main page scrolling considerably.

Anyway, just spit-balling here so take it for what it is, simply a suggestion. I'd just hate to see you remove any content from this site because you just never know which landing page is going to bring in your next member?

Am I the only one who doesn't really think that we do have too many forums? Maybe I'm just so used to it being this way, but I don't really think it looks all that messy. More categories means less clicking to get where you want to go. I'd personally find it more confusing if all the forums became subforums in broader categories. It could make it more difficult finding what you're looking for.

So, is it really worth the trouble? It sounds like a lot of work for nothing. But maybe that's just men.

I don't think you have too many forums but do agree that there is a fair bit more scrolling than is necessary. Of course I base this on my own selfish needs to scroll less because I have wrist problems and too much mouse play in a day actually becomes physically uncomfortable.

This is why I suggested sub-forums rather than main forums as they take up far less space and can easily cut a 1600px page (length) into an 800px page (length) and move much of your forum offering above the fold.

Either way I'm good though, I've seen much, much, worse. H3ll, Lifesupporters is pretty much the same if not worse (probably because of the huge banners).

(04-15-2011 10:38 PM)Harold-L Wrote:  Am I the only one who doesn't really think that we do have too many forums? Maybe I'm just so used to it being this way, but I don't really think it looks all that messy. More categories means less clicking to get where you want to go. I'd personally find it more confusing if all the forums became subforums in broader categories. It could make it more difficult finding what you're looking for.

So, is it really worth the trouble? It sounds like a lot of work for nothing. But maybe that's just men.

Maybe that's just men, eh? I hope that was a typo!

If not, expect a 'you sexist pig' PM.

Anyways, I agree with Krakow. I know my opinion doesn't matter much as I haven't got a clue about this sort of stuff (hence why I avoid theses topics) but I personally like the forum the way it is. Too many subforums, categories, etc would make the forum seem more cluttered, in my opinion. Plus, I'd also think that it'd possibly make the forum a tad bit overwhelming and confusing for new members.

Quote:I also wonder if needle phobia and dental phobia could be combined under a more general category such as Iatrophobia - the fear of doctors or something similar?

Sorry to pick on your suggestion alter-ego, but I don't think that that'd work. Not if you called the category Iatrophobia anyways. A fear of doctors and dentists don't necessarily go hand in hand (although I'm sure they do for some). I think that the dental phobia and needle phobia forums are best kept separate. Both are common enough phobias that, personally, I think they can hold their own as separate forums.

I only made mention of it because for me, they both go hand in hand but I take your meaning Ana.

Personally I'm not really too concerned with the amount of forum offerings Ofear has however I do think it wouldn't hurt to make use of subforum functionality to reduce mouse scrolling.