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Site Design

Impact of Layout


Veino
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So, I know many sites use the format where each specific location gets its own subforum. Like one for Elf City and another sub-forum for Dwarf Citadel and so forth. That seems like it might even be standard practice. Personally, I dislike the format and never stick around somewhere like that for very long. Ends up isolating the community into too many groups. Plus, when I write on boards, they usually have lots of freedom for members creating new locations, so there's no way to keep track of them all and have them properly sorted. 

 

That raised a question. How do board layouts affect members and potential members/guests? Have you noticed ways that different layouts affect your initial response? 

Aure entuluva! Day shall come again! - The Children of Hurin

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Layout is absolutely important. We use forum software to roleplay because they are a highly effective means of organizing our collection of threads.  Organizing being the key word there. People like things laid out differently. What makes sense to one person might not to another. The beauty of forums, though is that you can move things around. Create new subforums and close inactive ones easily, etc. Which also means most guests are not taking any excuses- If your site isn't easy to navigate they aren't going to really check things out. They have options, and they know it, they're going to find somewhere with a layout more compatible to their taste.

 

I definitely think that minimizing the amount of subforums is important for fledgling sites. It gets a much better response from potential members. You want your place to look active and tidy! A bunch of empty forums on the first page is going to turn people off. When I am personally checking out a site I might want to be a part of, the very first thing I do is look at the last post date on all the IC forums. If it's been a week since most have been posted in, I know the activity is slower than I will enjoy and that weighs in on my decision to join. I always look at the 'members online today' count, too. That's just part of how I try to gauge activity.

 

Now specific to your example, I personally expect region specific subforums- for active and/or key locations. That is the norm on most sites. It's really easy to take that overboard, though, and a lot of sites turn off potential members by overcrowding the writing space.  Not every house and business, or even state in a country, needs it's own subforum. If Elf City and Dwarf City are both in Fantasy Country, a catch-all forum for Fantasy Country is fine. But if Elf City has 10 current threads and Dwarf City has 2, I am going to want Elf City to have a subforum to make finding my threads easier. 

 

I don't agree that having subforums is a reason to be turned off by a site. Or that IC communities can be isolated by subforum usage either. Character are still free to travel between subforums, just like they would travel between cities. Post your thread in whatever community it is currently set in. If your going to move the setting from one location to another, post it in the parent forum. Or else just post it in the starting location, it'll be clear in the thread that travel took place. Or you could even end that thread to start a new one in the other setting and link the two. 

 

 

 

operation: bowtruckles & bombs

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I am one of those RPers that will not consider a site that has too many IC forums and sub-forums. In fact, when we first moved back to forums from Nova, we had one IC forum. Now, we have a total of 6 IC forums with zero sub-forums. We use tags to add more descriptions to our threads so things are relatively easy to find.

 

I am on one site that has hundreds (or so it seems) of IC forums. It's overwhelming. I do post but with only one person and have given up reading the other characters' stories.

 

Clean, simple, easy-to-navigate!

Someone somewhere went to sleep and dreamed us all alive.
Dreams get pushed around a lot, and I doubt if we'll survive.
We won't get to wake up, dreams were born to disappear.
And I'm pretty sure that none of us are here.
~ None of Us Here by Jim Stafford ~

 

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