Reorder the forum

[Camillia]

Hi t8

When you click on the forum link: https://heavennet.net/forum/

Wouldn’t it be easier to have fewer rooms (links)? So, instead of having 21 rooms, you have just four. Here’s an example:

1. General Stuff. (All the below threads combined into one list automatically sorted by date):

Rules (Pinned to top of list), Test Posts (59, 616), About Believers Place (23, 2,699), Chatroom (82, 2,243), Feedback & Suggestions (121, 6,654), Forum Features (14, 58), Help Desk & Notices (96, 1,217)

2. Believers Place. (all the below threads combined into one list automatically sorted by date):

Bible, Texts, & Archaeology (23, 2,699), Prayers, Testimonies, & Visions (148, 18,980), Prophecy (148, 18,980), Scripture & Biblical Teaching (989, 125,199), Sermons & Quotes (91, 1,377), Sorting Truth from Tradition (825, 121,627)

3. Skeptics Place. (All the below threads combined into one list automatically sorted by date):

Archaeology & Biblical History (21, 911), Creation & Science (163, 8,175), Faith (48, 4,541), Science & View Points (148, 18,980)

4. Invited member conversation. (All the below threads combined into one list automatically sorted by date):

Believers Debates & Group Discussions (148, 18,980), Believers The Hot Seat (82, 10,640), Skeptic Debates (48, 4,541),Skeptics The Hot Seat (18, 2,807)

So, only four links until you click on a room link, then it has all threads in that category combined into one date sorted list as above.

Do you follow. Hope I explained that alright. Then we can just go to whatever area of the forum we want….. and we’ll see all the latest threads!

[Proclaimer]

Good point. I will have a think about that. Cheers.
What do others think?

🙂

[journey42]

I don’t understand what Camellia is saying, but in my opinion way too many links.
For example to go into prophecy’s we have to select 5 links to get to that post.
It’s also hard for newcomers to find their way around.

[Camillia]

Hi t8.

In other words, there’s too many subcategories.

So, rather than have the threads divided into subcategories, lose the subcategories and just have each thread in the category rather than subcategory, do you follow? perhaps with a few pinned threads in each category.

The only category that may need two subcategories would be the category ‘invite only’, with one subcategory ‘hot seat’, and the other subcategory ‘group discussions’. but all other categories don’t really need the subcategories, if you know what i mean.

So when we click on the forum link above, we are presented with four of five categories such as you already have. then we are presented with, rather than subcategories, just a list of threads.

I don’t know if that would be easy to do with a forum this size? i know it is possible with punbb ect.

Hope that makes sense, i’m on my tablet atm.

[Camillia]

I love the new forum, but it’s hard to find any threads. e.g., I was away for a while, and I can’t find any threads, and can only see what’s on the home page, and it’s just a list of posts made, rather than all active threads. So it’s only showing us a few threads when there’s probably more, or would be more if we could find where they all are 🙂

Much respect, t8.

[Admin]

Okay a couple of things.

1. There are now four main categories as you suggested.
2. There are no sub-categories. So all forums are quicker to get to now.
3. Bookmark one of these pages to get to the forums:
4. a) https://heavennet.net/forum/
   b) https://heavennet.net/forums/

Forums is also linked from the top of the home page and all other pages too.
In addition, there is a widget in the right-hand column of the home page that shows the latest topics and posts that have been made.
https://heavennet.net/

🙂

[Camillia]

t8, you still have all the subcategories 🙂

 

I don’t think I’m explaining myself properly…….

 

Ok, how about this idea instead, (might be easier):

 

On the home page..

https://heavennet.net/

 

Replace the two currant widgets, (Recent Forum Topics & Recent Replies) WITH one widget only… which lists “Latest Threads”, which should show at least 20 of the latest threads posted in.

Follow?

We can’t find any threads, t8, lol.

[Proclaimer]

Hmmm. Not sure why you cannot find any threads. This is how BBPress works. It is one of the most popular BBS platforms on the Web.

Note: There are over 4000 topics/threads here. I cannot just list them all in the same category in latest post order. People would never find a topic and just create new topics all the time instead of sticking to one topic per subject. Then would have multiple topics to deal with any one subject.

To sort the similar topics together, the forum has this structure:

Forum  Home > Categories > Forums > Topics > Posts

At the moment there are 4 categories. Each category contains forums. Inside each forum are the topics and inside topics are posts..

This one for example is in:

Home › Forums › GENERAL STUFF › Feedback & Suggestions › The Old Forum > This post

The four categories are:

• BELIEVERS PLACE
• SKEPTICS PLACE
• INVITATION ONLY
• GENERAL STUFF

Then each category has multiple forums for example in GENERAL STUFF there are:

• Chatroom (82, 2,243),
• Feedback & Suggestions (121, 6,661),
• Forum Features (14, 58),
• Help Desk & Notices (96, 1,217),
• Rules (1, 0),
• Test Posts (59, 616)

Are you suggesting to get rid of these forums? If so, it seems like a range of diverse topics would bunched together. Help Desk stuff for example would be side by side with a General Chatroom topics, etc. Not so sure that would be a good thing to be honest. Would work with a small forum board maybe.

I actually think the opposite to you in this. Topics would never get found because they would be lost in a long list of links. Providing some structure to the topics means you can drill down and find the relevant topic. Your option would encourage multiple topics on the same subject because you would never find anything among the 4000 topics.

If you had to list 4000 topics, how would you do it? One big list? Four big lists?

 

[Camillia]

Hi t8, I hear what you are saying. I still think there are too many forums (subcategories inside categories). Maybe rather than my original suggestion, the forums (subcategories) could be thinned out a bit. So:

Rather than, e.g.,

Believers Place ——
1. About Believers Place (23, 2,699),
2. Bible Texts & Translations (66, 6,296),
3. Exta-biblical Writings (68, 3,162),
4. History & Archaeology (14, 76),
5. Near Death Experiences (10, 90),
6. Personal Struggles (27, 1,344),
7. Prayer Requests (58, 2,292),
8. Prophecy (361, 24,702),
9. Prophetic News (89, 2,812),
10. Prophetic Theories & Conspiracies (88, 1,444),
11. Prophetic Visions (3, 12),
12. Science & Mathematics (69, 196),
13. Scripture & Biblical Teaching (991, 125,237),
14. Sermons (333, 9,344),
15. Truth or Tradition (831, 122,893),
16. View Points (30, 614),
17. Visions & Testimonies (55, 899),
18. Voting Polls (61, 6,472)

You could have instead:

Believers Place —–
1. Theology
2. Prophecy
3. Testimonies, Visions
4. Prayer and Personal
5. Sermons & Quotes

So you’ve narrowed it down to 5 forums inside the Believers Place category, rather than the currant 18 forums. Much easier to find ones way around the place (especially if a new member) if it’s narrowed down, though it would take a bit of reorganizing.

Then you could narrow the Skeptics Place category into two forums, e.g.,

Skeptics Place —–

1. History, Creation & Science
2. Other Faiths

Then narrow down the Invitation Only category into two categories (regardless of whether Believers or Skeptic), e.g,

Invitation Only —-

1. Group discussions & Debates.
2. The Hot Seat

Then, General Stuff, which is usually at the top of categories could be narrowed down from six to two:

1. Rules, Information & Forum help.
2. Chat-room & Greetings

——————————–

But, that said: I personally would only have the following categories with no forums (no sub categories).

1. Rules, Information & Forum help.
2. Chat-room & Greetings
3. Theology
4. Prophecy
5. Testimonies, Visions
6. Prayer and Personal
7. Sermons & Quotes
8. Invitation only group discussions and debates.
9. History, Creation & Science
10. Other Faith

————————-

Just my thoughts, t8.

I understand it would be a lot of work to reorganize… But if you do consider it, just yell out if you need help with the organization of threads, etc.

Otherwise, changing the home page forum widgets would help a bit (Replace the two currant forum widgets, (Recent Forum Topics & Recent Replies) with only one forum widget, which lists “Active Threads”).

• This reply was modified 5 years, 11 months ago by Admin.

[Proclaimer]

What do others think?

[Admin]

Tip: If you bookmark this page, it is pretty simple to find topics by subject.

https://heavennet.net/forums/forum/believers-place/

Unless of course you want to use the other categories. Most do not however.

[kerwin]

I do not believe there is too many subcategories by then I am used to looking for files in computer directories. I believe that some things about the site could be cleaned up.

Some subcategories are not used much and do can be combined with another one.

[kerwin]

Admin,

You could have a + next to the the highest level grouping that when pressed would open links to the next lowest level and a + next to those categories to open to the third level categories. I am seen that on other websites.

[Camillia]

Here’s a topic reg the front page active threads widget.
https://bbpress.org/forums/topic/list-only-most-recently-active-threads/
Which I think would be good!
Apparently, the only trouble is it doesn’t take one to the last page. But, that doesn’ t matter. At least we know what threads are going rather than just latest posts.

[Proclaimer]

Looking at other boards with around the same amount of posts as this, they have lots of forums too.

I think you cannot really avoid it because the topics will have a wider range of subjects.

🙂

[Proclaimer]

Here’s a topic reg the front page active threads widget.

https://bbpress.org/forums/topic/list-only-most-recently-active-threads/

Actually I have read this already. But I will take another look and possibly try implementing. It doesn’t look hard to do.

Will let you know if and when it is done.

🙂

[Proclaimer]

Thanks for the feedback so far.

I have made some changes which even I thought needed to be made eventually.

This forum suffered from being on a different platform and was structured for its features.

So I have flattened the forum hierarchy to make it easier to follow.

It now looks like this:

Forum Home > Categories > Forums > Topics > Posts

I have also merged a lot of forums. e.g., there were four forums for prophecy that have narrowed down to two.

There are now  the following:

• Believers Category: 14 forums
• Skeptics Category: 5 forums
• Invitation only: 4 forums
• General Stuff: 4 forums

Personally I think the current range of forums are diverse enough to exist. However, feel free to tell me what else I can merge.

Cheers.

🙂

[Camillia]

Yay, thanks t8! Also, it would make it so much easier (seeing the active threads list). 🙂

[Proclaimer]

I personally cannot see how the current two widgets do not show the active threads list.

It shows the lastest comments, and the above widget shows the 3 latest topics.

Merging them would present the same information would it not?

Further, you can also see who is online at the moment.

What was the difference again?

Sorry I know you told me in another thread, but I forgot.

[Proclaimer]

BTW, I whittled the current list of forums in Believers Category from 14 to 12. I don’t think I can go any further though. 12 is a good number. 🙂

[Author]

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