Organizing Your Boards

[Celeste]

Sept 4, 2008 16:31:14 GMT -8 Rozic Dixon said:

How can I Make Categories I need some help?

Mar 27, 2009 7:31:22 GMT -8 stellab said:

I have a Board but so far have only used the General Board for all threads and messages. It has been suggested that we divide it into categories and I have read all of this thread hoping to find out HOW! The theory is great but where are the instructions for doing it? Is there a forum that tells you? Are there instructions anywhere that explain how to set it up?
Rozic Dixon asked something like this further up the thread but no-one answered.
Help or a pointer in the right direction would be greatly appreciated.

To learn the basics on how to create categories and boards, check the ProBoards Help Guide regarding the Admin Menu here.

To add to the discussion, my fellow admins/mods put our hidden admin category at the top so that if an issue pops up, we can spot it faster. With eight of us, communication is key. Nobody else sees it, of course.

[hcfwesker]

Always have your News, Suggestions, New members up top.

then, the body of your theme

followed by all off topic boards from the main theme

then, anything miscellanious, from forum games, advertising, etc ...

try not to cram EVERYTHING onto the main page, make sub-boards for like-boards, and don't think you have to make a board for every genre of entertainment on the home page ... make ONE entertainment boatrd, then split the genres up into sub-boards

[thehansongirls]

hola alguien puede ayudarme a hacer mi propio sitio de club de fans en este lugar

[Storm]

Aug 8, 2009 18:27:09 GMT -8 thehansongirls said:

hola alguien puede ayudarme a hacer mi propio sitio de club de fans en este lugar

Solamente el inglés se permite en estos foros.

[Candice]

Aug 8, 2009 18:27:09 GMT -8 thehansongirls said:

hola alguien puede ayudarme a hacer mi propio sitio de club de fans en este lugar

Hi,

Please make sure all your posts are in English. Thank you.

Aug 8, 2009 18:43:01 GMT -8 Storm said:

Aug 8, 2009 18:27:09 GMT -8 thehansongirls said:

hola alguien puede ayudarme a hacer mi propio sitio de club de fans en este lugar

Solamente el inglés se permite en estos foros.

Please don't respond to other posts in another language. Thank you.

[thehansongirls]

thank you for the tip, i belive that spanish i could writen here

[Sic In Principio]

My first Catagory is: Marine Corps RPG, this board holds all the important rules and info that relate to the RPG and forum. Boards include: Rules (on top) Announcements, and Military Tactic stuff (especially important considering this is a tactical Military RPG)

Next is the enlistment category. All the information to sign up a character is there.

Next is Unit Category. I have all the Accepted Characters and their unit assignments. I keep each section organized by platoon.

The next to sections are RP Threads. I have 2 categories for this: The Base (in the states) this is a neutral RPG area. As long as the base is open, players are allowed to post at will. When not at this category, the players post in the Current Mission Category, an admin controlled RP area. When the Current Mission Category is in use, I hide the Base boards to keep the whole Forum smaller and easier to scroll.

After that, I have the General Category which contains a new members welcome, and Advertisements/Affiliates.

Then, I have the Archive threads that have all the past Missions, old Base RP threads, rejected applications.

Lastly, I have the staff board, which is hidden from non staff.

[Lainey]

I have a new forum and I am toying with how to set it up . I also read the thematic post in the archive. Mine is a general forum, so instead of theming it persay I used the seasons and holidays for skins I also include the proboards defaults.

The Layout I'm thinking is something like this

* Catagory
** Board
*** Sub-Board


* A Break :: From Reality

** Information Lounge
*** News Stand
*** Help Desk
*** Suggestion Box

** Guest Lounge

** Member Lounge
*** Welcome/Good-Bye Room
*** Member Journals
*** Share a Link
*** Rant
*** Off-Topic Chat

** Entertainment Lounge
*** Books
*** Television
*** Movies
*** Music
*** Theater
*** Celebs
*** Cartoons / Anime
*** Comics / Manga

** Hobbies & Interest Lounge
*** Fan Fiction
*** Fan Art
*** Stories / Poetry
*** Art

** The Arcade (POST COUNT Disabled of course)
*** Contests
*** Forum Games
*** Quizes & Trivia
*** Questionare

So is that a pretty good starting layout or is it still too complex in some places ? Should the boards acting as catagories still have descriptions?

[grieves and squick]

No hard and fast rules for where to put what board. But we have the Rules board right up top! {Some folks still seem to have trouble seeing it...} Along with that we have boards for asking questions, making suggestions etc. basically the member support. Further down are the staff area {including boards where members may discuss things with staff} and the general chitchat boards. That's kind of like a warmup, then we get into the real meat of our forum which is the RPG. The RPG auxiliary boards come next--character submissions, character adoptions and requests, hook up with another RPer, etc. Below that the rest of the forum are the boards and categories where the roleplaying takes place. These are divvied up into several categories representing various places in the game's lands.

[[ saga ]]

I organize the boards into quite a few categories, as the type of roleplay forums I go on, require this. I usually would have a 'General' category at the top, with the 'Ad / Aff' section to it, or perhaps separate. I usually have sub-boards for an 'OOC' section. Then, I'd have the other sections that relate to my forum. I'd usually also have a staff section with their own boards and a chat.

[hellyearockstar]

Too many categories looks very scattered to me, especially if there aren't many boards per category. As a general rule, I have 4-6 categories and no more than four sub-boards. As for boards, one category with only two or three boards is acceptable as long as the others have more boards in them.

[littlebabe322]

Referring to a Harry Potter themed board I have mine set up as the floors rather than having one board saying "Hogwarts" so ti's like this

>> Staff Category (only visible to staff members)
- board 1
- board 2
- board 3
etc.
>> Site Title (this is where all the information goes plus there's a board where guests can come in if they need help with anything. rules and other stuff is in this cat. as well.)
- announcements
- guest help
- adverts (i prefer to have the adverts and affiliate stuff at top for some reason)
>>Character Extras (this is where they fill out the app, and then plot planning, biographies etc & job sign ups are.)
- board 1
- board 2
- board 3
>>GROUND FLOOR (this would be great hall, dungeons +sub levels etc.)
>>FIRST FLOOR (i mainly have a few classroom boards and a few extra rooms
>>SECOND FLOOR
>>THIRD FLOOR
>>FOURTH FLOOR
>> FIFTH FLOOR
>>SIXTH FLOOR
>>SEVENTH FLOOR
(^now all these categories are shown to everyone except the guests.^)
>>Outside of HOgwarts (then all the outside stuff are here)
>>Wizarding England (all the other stuff found in the wizarding world
>>Ministry of Magic (now the reason why i added the ministry of magic as a separate cat. is because I had a few RP sign ups that i wanted to have sub-boards for. now since the M.o.M has 10 levels that would make a lot of boards. I'm not sure if i should keep it as is or remove it and add it as a regular board in wizarding england. )
>>OOC (out of character board, where graphics, fun & games, media and other stuff are here.)

Now I am using the code that is the tabulated main page but sometimes that can confuse some members and even I find myself a bit confused with it. So that's why I'm wondering how i should shorten the site. before i had it where it was just separating the cats apart with the category separator code. & it was indeed shortened. a lot of the times i reorganize my boards a lot which i don't know if that drives members away or not but I can never seem to make up my mind when it comes to organizing my boards so help would be grateful. please and thank you.

& should all the RP boards be shown to guests & members or just members (idk if i could add that in there or not so i thought I would.)

let me know what you think and any ideas you might have. thanks.

[kathy025]

I have the administrative category at the top. This is where boards for site announcements, suggestions, staff only, and archives go.

The general boards go next like intro, general talk, entertainment, art, books and forum games.

The themed board with goodies go at the bottom. This is so members will be encouraged to scroll the forums first and hopefully participate in the other boards as well rather than just grabbing the goodstuff.

[Violin - Soul Power]

good idea but,

I've tried how to keep my forum can be viewed by the public with certain limits, but I can't manage what are the features in the free version is limited?

[kathy025]

I have a code that hides a board from guest view, both from the main page and forum jump. It will then be visible when the guest signs up and/or logs in.