How Many Boards Should I Have On My Forum?

[myke]

A very important decision when making a new ProBoard, is deciding the amount of boards your ProBoard is going to have.

It is important to have a nice variety of topics and boards, no matter what type of forum you have. You want to give people enough diverse content to keep them interested, and keep them coming back to post.

However, a common mistake that is made, is starting off a forum with too many boards. I once saw a bran new forum with 93 boards (Wolf and I counted in amazement). Having too many boards on a young forum will always hurt the forum more then it will help it.

It is best to start off small, then expand as you grow according to your members interests. If you start off with too many boards, then those boards will sit empty for an undetermined period of time, until you get a good amount of members to keep those boards active.

Even then, there is no guarantee each one will be active, as you don't know what kind of members you will get, and don't know what their interests are. Every inactive board will only make more of the forum as a whole look more inactive, which will drive visitors away.

There is almost nothing more unappealing then going to a forum you may be interested in, only to discover they have a whole lot of boards that are either empty, or dead. It gives them the impression that the forum is dead, and it would be a waste of their time posting on it.

General boards are real bad about doing this. A lot of times their admins have good intentions, and try to make a board for every possible interest. For example, let's say one general board has boards for Paintball, Skateboards, and Sports cars. There are so many people out there who has no interest in those three subjects that could join, but will never post in them, thus those boards would remain dead.

As members start coming in, notice their interests, notice the things they are talking about. If a subject is getting alot of conversation, maybe it could warrant it's own board. If you have 10 people who talk about World War II everyday, then perhaps a WWII board would be warranted.

I wouldn't suggest anymore then 10 boards for a bran new forum.

All in all, like I said, too many boards on a new forum will hurt the forum more then it will help it. It is best to start off small, then expand as you grow according to your members interests.

Thoughts, comments, questions?

[Ímþ®óvîšâ†ó®]

myke said:

A very important decision when making a new ProBoard, is deciding the amount of boards your ProBoard is going to have.

It is important to have a nice variety of topics and boards, no matter what type of forum you have. You want to give people enough diverse content to keep them interested, and keep them coming back to post.

However, a common mistake that is made, is starting off a forum with too many boards. I once saw a bran new forum with 93 boards (Wolf and I counted in amazement). Having too many boards on a young forum will always hurt the forum more then it will help it.

It is best to start off small, then expand as you grow according to your members interests. If you start off with too many boards, then those boards will sit empty for an undetermined period of time, until you get a good amount of members to keep those boards active.

Even then, there is no guarantee each one will be active, as you don't know what kind of members you will get, and don't know what their interests are. Every inactive board will only make more of the forum as a whole look more inactive, which will drive visitors away.

There is almost nothing more unappealing then going to a forum you may be interested in, only to discover they have a whole lot of boards that are either empty, or dead. It gives them the impression that the forum is dead, and it would be a waste of their time posting on it.

General boards are real bad about doing this. A lot of times their admins have good intentions, and try to make a board for every possible interest. For example, let's say one general board has boards for Paintball, Skateboards, and Sports cars. There are so many people out there who has no interest in those three subjects that could join, but will never post in them, thus those boards would remain dead.

As members start coming in, notice their interests, notice the things they are talking about. If a subject is getting alot of conversation, maybe it could warrant it's own board. If you have 10 people who talk about World War II everyday, then perhaps a WWII board would be warranted.

I wouldn't suggest anymore then 10 boards for a bran new forum.

All in all, like I said, too many boards on a new forum will hurt the forum more then it will help it. It is best to start off small, then expand as you grow according to your members interests.

Thoughts, comments, questions?

Well, I tell ya one thing I certainly learned my lesson in that field lol. Having boards that noone was interested in was a very big mistake and mind you all, when I started creating my forum, I had NO GENERAL TALK board on my forum, which was causing the suggestions coming out (i.e. "Can there be a general board...??"), eventually I created one and got rid of some boards that were clogging up the scrolling space of my forum. Now that I've done that, the current members are more happier than ever in that regard .

With other message boards, according to the ones I rated a long while ago, some of them were empty = no posts in them at all. That brings up the form of board in-activeness, this really isn't recommended when trying to maintain a good forum. As good ol xkamelx would say....

It's the QUALITY, **not** QUANTITY that counts when maintaining a proboard forum.

[Drewz]

I like boards that have a maximuim of 10 boards. Anymore is just way to cluttering. Sub-Boards are diffrent though, I think I have at least 5 sub-boards and 8 normal boards.

Things like Introduce Yourself, Premote Your Site, Suggestions don't need a whole board in my opinion. I have a sticky thread for each.

Every board needs a general (aka off-topic) board, and a games board. No matter what the normal topic! People like to relax, make your forum the place to do that. In my opinion, forums don't need a sports board or music board, unless their the focus of your forum.

[D]

Categories/Boards are vital to the layout of your forum. Having too many to post in could scare members off. It is always good to have a general board and a news/updates board. Other boards you may wish to have a re a games board or a support board. Don't have each one ina seperate catagory though, try to organize them the best you can. Don't start off with too many either. About 5 boards and 2-3 catagorys should do.

[myke]

drewz said:

I like boards that have a maximuim of 10 boards. Anymore is just way to cluttering. Sub-Boards are diffrent though, I think I have at least 5 sub-boards and 8 normal boards.

Things like Introduce Yourself, Premote Your Site, Suggestions don't need a whole board in my opinion. I have a sticky thread for each.

Every board needs a general (aka off-topic) board, and a games board. No matter what the normal topic! People like to relax, make your forum the place to do that. In my opinion, forums don't need a sports board or music board, unless their the focus of your forum.

I disagree with using a sticky thread for introductions. I tried that once, and it worked okay for a while, but as the forum became more active, and more people began to register, some new members who posted became lost in congestion of the thread. At least on my forum conversations tended to start between members and new members, which was okay, but several conversations going on between members in a single thread soon became chaos.

We decided to devote an entire board to new member introductions, and it worked perfectly. Conversations still continued between members and new members, but it stayed in the seperate threads posted by the new members, and made things much more easy to follow.

[Slacker]

I would always suggest people consolidate their board sections.

having different boards for sports, music, television, and a general board is too much to have for a new board. put everything into one general board and if recurring topics appear then the Admin should consider creating a seperate board.

if I were to make a board, say a graphics design board, I would set it up like this:

General Category
-Introduction Board
-General Board

Image Category
-Image Discussion
-Image Request

and thats all. you have the general area and then the main purpose of the site, image design. if code questions and requests were posted alot in the General area then I would open up a new category, but only for the apparent need.

also I think displaying Staff areas and "Junk" boards is pointless. if regular members can't go in the staff area, why let them see it? and why would you want to view junk posts?

in all I let a guiding principle of simplicity guide my judgements of a forum.

_{I edited out my quote of kamel, seemed a bit pointless in retrospect.}

[Zen]

It happened with my forum. Being a Hogwarts-related forum, I had created about 62+ boards with about 17 categories. This was because on all the HP forums I went, they had way too many boards. And to make it worse, much on them had 0 posts in them, seeing that it was new. This made it look inactive. Then when I got my forum rated, a member suggested me to tone down my boards. It was then I started thinking about sub-boards and just within some weeks, I had far less board and my board looked quite active.

This is one of the main problems with many RPG forums. If you have many boards at one time, then your forum may look inactive as new forums have less members. So its very hard to fill in the 0s. A new forum should make the basic boards first and then as more members hop in, add more boards. Or if it can't be done, make more sub-boards.

[electroshock]

Yes, I agree.

I have about 4 sub boards in the general area of my forum. This includes the polling booth, GOAYB forum, advertising section, the newsletter section, etc.

As everyone would suggest, continue making new topics, eventually someone will reply, and become interested to look further in being active on the forum. Making more and more topics makes the member see you're dedicated to the forum, and most probably be active as well. As everyone would say, an inactive forum results as inactive members, but that's a fact which everybody needs to remember.

I recommend you "don't" make too many new forums if your message board becomes really active as your members will be bombarded with new forums, and may not like the new change. Making a couple of new forums which your members have suggested is a good idea, and makes your members more relaxed, and more involved. It's really good when you respect members suggestions, and they will respect you back by being active.

It's best to start of with a maximum of 4 categories and 10-15 boards, but don't forget to post new topics in them, I don't think your members want to do it for you.

And most of all, constantly go back to the forum and greet new members to the forum. Prefabally greet then via Private Messages (PM) as well, if members reply to topics anywhere, its good to continue the discussion and reply back. Like I said, it makes members more involved into the forum.

When you get enough members, and enough posts surely members are going to start getting bored just posting, and doing nothing else. It's highly appropriate when you have an active community to start competitions, for example MOTM and SOTW. Make great prizes like free custom titles and free graphics.

It's great to actually own an active community, and actually see members posting, and wanting to start a discussion. Just remember members don't come from no where, advertise appropriately like in signatures, etc. It's recommended to make a professional-looking banner to attract members to viewing the forum, and if they like the design and subject of the forum, they're more likely to register.

Remember not to bombard members with constant e-mails as they're more likely to delete themselfs. It's good to send e-mails every 2 months or so to remind members the forums alive, and active. Just entertain your members, and you'll get the award of activity.

[Raven]

I'll say that in the past, I've never created too many boards.
I like neat layouts.
Also, it is an advantage to start out small, as the board counts will be higher.
I'll say the boards that you should at least have on your forum at the beginning:

General Section-
Support-Feedback Board
General Discussion

Themed Section-
What the forum is based on, 3-4 boards on the theme will be enough at the start, as the forum gets more active, you can add extra boards later.

So basically, you should always have a general section as you will always get members interested in multiple topics and make a really creative themed section, this is the section that should drive your forum's activity.
Although it is usually a general board that is the most active.

[HoneyV]

dodz said:

Categories/Boards are vital to the layout of your forum. Having too many to post in could scare members off. It is always good to have a general board and a news/updates board. Other boards you may wish to have a re a games board or a support board. Don't have each one ina seperate catagory though, try to organize them the best you can. Don't start off with too many either. About 5 boards and 2-3 catagorys should do.

I agree. If you don't have enough boards it could hurt the board. One board full of threads could make a new member feel overwhlemed.
I do think the number of boards would vary by what topics the board is about and if you will already have instant members. If you will already have members right from the opening of the board you should have enough areas for them post and chat about the topics.
I also think that as board grows it's always good to add more boards when you see a need for them and to get rid of boards that do not attract enough interest.

[Raven]

It's not necessary that you have a ton of boards or lack of boards (A medium number at best).
What matters is that the subjects are separated based on how the admin wants to separate the forum.
Like a section for music and a section for video games,etc...
I've seen a forum with 50 boards and there was no problem at all, but that was because all those boards had thousands of posts, it was incredibly active.
More boards require more activity.

[Raven]

But ask yourself if you would join a role playing board with 115 boards?
I've seen forums like those and they rarely succeed and I mean rarely. The main problem isn't the number of the boards, but the fact that most of them won't be active. That will initially hurt your forum.
I think 15-30 boards at most will suffice for most forums, there is no reason for unnecessary boards.

[sharon]

I always liked the idea of starting small and working bigger if need be by members' demands/wants. That's what I've done for my first forum Serene Distraction. I started off with 2 boards (yeah I know that rediculously small). I think over a few days I added a few more boards and I noticed the more I added boards the more members I seem to acquire. However, I only added boards when someone suggested it and when I believe that they, as well as other users will utilize it/them.

I suppose it depends on what kind of forum you have. You can have as many boards as you want but make sure that it will be used. If it's been like a month and no one is posting in a board you should post something in it to generate interests and if not, you should just scrap it.

[Slacker]

brandon1406 said:

So what? Mine has more then 115 because its for roleplaying. People has told me to delete some boards, but I don't want to. I like my board.

yes I rated your board. you may like your board but more important is if the guests like your board before they register.

when I saw your board I was relectant to even rate it. true it is a roleplaying board but it could simply be consolidated into a smaller front page. it takes to long to scroll down to the correct place.

if you had a single board for each one then a member could easily find where they want to go and then using the subboard function they could post in the five or so different areas in that board. keeping your main page neat and simple and the forum overall organized.

furthermore there will be alot of empty boards or boards with one or two posts. you should focus more on content rather than quantity.

just something to think about.

[myke]

brandon1406 said:

So what? Mine has more then 115 because its for roleplaying. People has told me to delete some boards, but I don't want to. I like my board.

Yeah, that must be why you have 126 boards with ZERO post still. Despite what you think, I would almost bet money that your forum is going to fail if you do not read, and take the advice of the first post in this thread, as well as the other member's suggestions and advice.

126 empty boards! That would take FOREVER to fill in, and to make every board active, and 99.999 percent of a chance says, that this will never happen.

You will need to be more open minded to the advice and ideas of those who have been here for quite a while, who have successful forums as part of their resume, and listen to your members or the simple fact is you will fail.