Suggestions for forum and the (sub)forums

[BigBlockMopar]

I noticed the 'View Active Topics' link doesn't work here.
To get this to work, in the Admin-Panel, under the Forums-tab, at every forum the 'display active topics' has to be selected to 'yes';





Looking over the forum-index I can't help notice a lot of subforums haven't got any recent posts in them since a couple of years. One could wonder if they still have any use. If it was my site, I would simplify the forum-structure.

I would suggest the following;
- Group the top-3 'Your'-subforum together into one forum called 'Your Projects'.
- Group the subforums Alcohol, Hydrogen and Ammonia together into one 'Alternative fuels'-forum.
- Limit the market place to 2 subforums, Buy and Sell.
- Delete the entire General Information-forumgroup. Instead, just open a 'General forum' in the maingroup 'Technical Information Forums'.
- Delete 'Dealers' and 'References', and move subforum 'Product Announcements' into the main forum group.

Just my 2 cents...

[Steptoe]

I agree generally why too much diveristy

I would suggest the following;
- Group the top-3 'Your'-subforum together into one forum called 'Your Projects'.

I would leave the "your car and your self" the your project tends to go in the prppane or what ever below anyway.

Group the subforums Alcohol, Hydrogen and Ammonia together into one 'Alternative fuels'-forum.

I would leave as is.. easy to head staight to what one wants without digging thru a heap of stuff.

Limit the market place to 2 subforums, Buy and Sell.

I would just have 1 "but and Sell" but move under the "general section.... the items be it a car or part whatever get listed , heap per page anyway....
But would delete the old threads every so often

Blather and drivel and soap box combine
Conferences and clubs combine
And links refernces and dealers combined

I noticed the 'View Active Topics' link doesn't work here

Its the link beside that which is more useful View new posts

[Frank]

A revision of the structure of the forum probably isn't a bad idea. When I first set up the sections, I looked to other forums for ideas as to how best to set this one up as I wanted to ensure that the forum's structure allowed for growth and ease of use.

C3H8 suggested some changes in June and I haven't had a chance to do much about it lately. C3H8 suggested that I split the propane section into 2 parts: basic and advanced. Basic would cover any unmodified products and initial installation or trouble shooting questions. Advanced would cover non-standard installations including turbocharging and possibly off-road.

As for view active topics, thank you for the suggestion. I normally use the view new posts, so I didn't realize that that function wasn't working. I enabled this for the first two top-level sections.

As for making structural changes, I try to get to that early this fall. Any other suggestions would be welcome.

[BigBlockMopar]

If you want or need any help with the forum feel free to just ask. I run a number of phpbb-forums myself and know my way around them pretty well.

I've learned from experience that splitting up forums should best be done when there's a real need for it. Like for instance, if interesting active topics get pushed down by other topics which draws another 'group' of people. This would be the case if say, 30 new topics were started each day and another 50 are replied in.
Since this forum still draws very little traffic and mainly consists of a fairly likeminded (propane) group of people, I would think it would be better to leave the propane-forum as it is for now.
More subforums will lead to confusion with new members which in turn could prevent them from posting or registering at all.

[Steptoe]

You sound like me with kakariki.net
Set it up... works well...been meaning to make a few changes, sort out member albums in the galleries, lots stuff....
But other piorities and in the mean time its working well....for the last 5 or 6 yrs.....been up for nearly 10 now I think.

And it is a lot easier for me to change thingfs arounf because the server itself sits 3 feet away from my foot in the office.. no ftp or stuff like that to worry about...and access directly to data base files and stuff.

I know what Frank says... it just getting around to it , and being in the mood at the time to do it.
Steps.