Too Many Subforums Yup, its jungle out there

[The Simpleton 2]

I'm jumping in a little late in this topic but anyway here goes - yes the forum could do with a bit of cleaning up and some measures to attract new members and retaining the existing members. However, I think for now the focus should just be on bringing back the myCENTs script, because that's the thing which keeps most members sticking to the forum! After the script is back then we can focus on pestering Opaque to take care of these issues

[mahesh2k 0]

@mahesh2k
I realise it's good for SEO, but still... I think we should not sacrifice readability and traffic on certain subforums just for the sake of SEO.

Why not ? Think about it. More forums means more topics and that gives more content for search engine to crawl and send visitors. Just because few people are overloaded with information we can't sacrifice on SEO and money on the table. Think like you own this forum, are you going to leave the money on the table and struggle for giving hosting on your own pocket instead of adsense/kontera ?

I don't know how many people do something like this but if i get blown away by too much complexity of forums and posts then i stick with "active content " link or search options. It saves much of my time while posting.

[Little Asterisk 1]

Why not ? Think about it. More forums means more topics and that gives more content for search engine to crawl and send visitors. Just because few people are overloaded with information we can't sacrifice on SEO and money on the table. Think like you own this forum, are you going to leave the money on the table and struggle for giving hosting on your own pocket instead of adsense/kontera ?

 

I don't know how many people do something like this but if i get blown away by too much complexity of forums and posts then i stick with "active content " link or search options. It saves much of my time while posting.

 

I see your logic, but I still don't like the fact there are so many subforums. Because that means that, when new people come to the site, they won't know where to start. If you look at the link from rob86 (https://forums.techguy.org/), you'll see what I mean by readability. And you can't say there aren't many people out there, when the oldest recent post I found was from 2nd July.

 

Here, on the other hand, there are subforums (not subsubforums) that haven't been replied from 15th June. I hope you see my concern here.

[rpgsearcherz 5]

I see your logic, but I still don't like the fact there are so many subforums. Because that means that, when new people come to the site, they won't know where to start. If you look at the link from rob86 (https://forums.techguy.org/), you'll see what I mean by readability. And you can't say there aren't many people out there, when the oldest recent post I found was from 2nd July.

 

Here, on the other hand, there are subforums (not subsubforums) that haven't been replied from 15th June. I hope you see my concern here.

 

The subforums help keep information refined into specific areas. It is overwhelming but as you get used to it, it's easier to understand.

 

I've found that it helps a lot when wondering where to make threads or find related threads at. For example, we wouldn't want things like our website showcase mixed in with our website advertising and website design. That would just be a mess of various threads that nobody would ever sift through.

[OpaQue 15]

1. MyCents are inactive and no one knows when they'll come back. Sorry to say so, but that's unprofessional. I know Opaque is doing all the work alone, but why not hire someone to work this out, at least on a separate server if not here? My opinion is that, no matter how necessary were the changes, you shouldn't have switched until everything has been tested. Please, don't take the opinion as being too harsh, since I think most people here feel that way.

Already so many excuses given.. This will be up. Sorry.

 

2. Too few people are here... Or at least it seems that way. This complaint is indirectly related to my third complaint. Have you ever thought about advertising a bit more? You should clearly indicate you offer free domain name and hosting, and that the domain can be .com, .org, .net etc. My feeling is that this is not clearly emphasized, at least not from your Flash site (which I had complaints about in my previous topic) and this forum.

Please check the Forum in GUEST mode, Ads are in place explaining the free hosting part

 

Sure, there is a "Start here" link, but I just noticed it now - when I was searching for something like that. Also, the "Start here" link first says "Forum rules and guidelines". And then, after a few lines of some text, I noticed it says something in lines of "In return for posting, you get a free .com domain and hosting...". That sentence should be first after the title ("Getting started" might be suited), and clearly emphasized in size and color. I would also suggest making the "Start here" emphasized with smart use of color.

Noted, Color changed to RED.

 

--- MERGING forums - Yes, I have already merged a few. Further merging will be done.

Gaming Section - Merged.

Tutorials - Graphic tutorial section merged with MAIN tutorials.

 

 

While speaking of Google searches, a query for "Free website forum" (https://www.google.com/search?q=free+website+forum&hl=en&rlz=1G1GGLQ_HRHR294&ei=UZ8tTP_AC5SVOIjdlIEC&start=10&sa=N), again, doesn't return Xisto in the first two pages.

inlcluded "Free website forum" in META tag.

 

 

 

#1 Smaller icons. Put them on a diet. I don't like a bunch of huge icons all over the place, it's starting to look like a myspace page.

Which icons are you talking about?

 

#2 Get rid of all the red. I have never even read those warnings. They're out of place, and they look messy. They look like my first webpage when I was 12 years old and experimenting with colours and underlines.

Ouch.. I just added more red. Well, I will consider this.

 

#4 Clean out topics that aren't being used, merge topics into more general sections. There's just too much stuff. I'd rather have a lot of action in one sub forum than a yearly post in a sub forum. If that section becomes super popular, branch it out. But not before. For example, have a gaming section. If in the future the gaming section starts to get confusing with people talking about consoles and PC games, then change it. Seeing all those topics with no action just makes the forum look dead, whereas seeing a more general topic with some action makes the forum look active

.

Gaming forums and tutorial forum merged.

More merging - pending

 

 

#5 and #6 - The forum descriptions need serious pruning. They're too long, they don't follow a format, some contain colour. I see OpaQue removed the swear words (quite unprofessional since there are innocent teenagers :P here which is a good start! But yeah, take a look at that tech support forum and see how it looks. This forum's descriptions need some restraint. It looks like instead of putting effort into a concise meaningful description, someone just wrote what they wanted with no regard for layout.

We need to re-write the descriptions. I agree

 

For now, I m emphasizing on FREE HOSTING but only to guests.

 

Currently, the SEO of this forum is NEGLIGIBLE. All guests are pouring due to the old ranking of Xisto pages. After mycent and forum-update and some other hosting related tasks, I m going to come back to SEO. Dun worry about SEO.

Traffic will come

 

The "GUIDELINES" Link had been edited. The contents of the guidelines page are also edited.

 

The START HERE forum is something which .. as it says, is under development. Its more like a READ ONLY guide forum.

 

The double "k" issue is also solved. double K will be used only in the Abbreviated form, i.e. kKS. It serves 2 purpose :-

 

1. KS means something already and its VERYYY famous.

2. extra "k" in abbreviated form is to exaggerate the knowledge part.

[rpgsearcherz 5]

Based on your responses the last couple days, Opa, I don't see why people were complaining about your lack of updates.I am sorry I kind of jumped on their wagon with them -- I was absent for quite a while and so when I came back and saw that they were pretty much all angry about the lack of information/updates I assumed they were right.I'd say at least over the past couple of days you've been taking in a lot of comments/suggestions and working towards changing things (except for things you feel are better the way they are -- of which, some might be).

[Little Asterisk 1]

@OpaQue Thanks for the updates, I sure hope that we can have more members coming here in the future. It's great to see you're doing changes towards a better future on this forum. Here's just a couple of things I want to mention:

1. MyCents are inactive and no one knows when they'll come back. Sorry to say so, but that's unprofessional. I know Opaque is doing all the work alone, but why not hire someone to work this out, at least on a separate server if not here? My opinion is that, no matter how necessary were the changes, you shouldn't have switched until everything has been tested. Please, don't take the opinion as being too harsh, since I think most people here feel that way. Already so many excuses given.. This will be up. Sorry.

The emphasis here was on the "why not hire someone to work this out". I know you have a lot of work now (as I've read through topics), and I understand that you don't want to let others to ruin the source code - but if you have at least someone who knows programming, and who you trust, why not give him part of the source code to mess with on another server - it'll reduce the complaints, take the pressure off of you and make the updates faster. I'd call it a win-win situation

Noted, Color changed to RED. vs Less red on the forums

If you want to put less red, but still emphasize the "Getting started" links, I think it'd be a great idea to put a little box on top of the forums - like you see when you're posting (the nice little icon and "You can make xx more posts today"). You could switch the background color to a more "exclamation" one (not red-red, but some light shade of it. If not, the "normal" color would work, too).

While speaking of Google searches, a query for "Free website forum" (google), again, doesn't return Xisto in the first two pages. inlcluded "Free website forum" in META tag

Make that "free website, forum". (Or, look at my proposal a few posts upwards) As I already said, it's great to see improvement, but it's not nice to see people leave from the forum because it's not complete - it takes the experience away both from us (the ones who stay - we can't talk, or write, to them) and them (the ones who leave - they don't get a website).

Edited December 17, 2016 by OpaQue (see edit history)