Depends on your niche and topic really, there are certain topics which warrant subdvision into specialist areas where as others require you to have everything in one place. Usually IT/Computer related forums do have lots of forums as computer itself has a number of different issues so generalising them wont work.

I think with hobby sites you can have fewer forums because it often doesn't require a level of expertise to participate in a certain forum over others. Therefore, members are more capable of posting in most of the forums. Subdivision isn't so necessary when forums target the same audience.

I think if it is drawing the attention like your site does Dani - it's fine.

I have wondered ever since I built the MalwareTeks forum - if maybe we dont have too many forums to the point of confusing people....

Only thing of course is, it's going to appear that you dont have as many threads when it's all spread out - but in reality you do.

When it comes to forums, less is always more.

>When it comes to forums, less is always more.

Whatever is best for business. While it is commendable to assume these forums are designed purely with the best interests of its users, we know there's also the money making side to it!

You're here to make money, if your sponsors or whatever, say less forums make their adverts more effective then what do you think you're gonna do? And will you necessarily be bothered if it makes it less streamlined for your users if you're getting paid bucket loads more?

Tee he he.

If it becomes enough of a deterrent to site navigation, usability, and the visitor experience, the visitors will win out over the advertisers. Why? Because without the visitors, no one will buy advertising.

This was recently demonstrated in our two week trial with IntelliTXT. It was producing a significant amount of revenue. However, a good few of the moderators despised it with a passion, and in the end, they won. Is extra ad revenue worth losing a moderator team? I don't think so. Without the mods, there would be no site. No pageviews. No one to look at the advertising.

>This was recently demonstrated in our two week trial with IntelliTXT. It was producing a significant amount of revenue. However, a good few of the moderators despised it with a passion, and in the end, they won.

Yeah, who's brainchild was that? It's implementation was god awful. But if it was generating extra revenue, can't you strike a compromise. Tone it down a bit so it isn't such an eye sore?

>Is extra ad revenue worth losing a moderator team?

I don't know I'd prefer it without the mods, sometimes they curtail my right to free speech. Tee he he. If there's no mods there is no site. Bummer. Got me on dat one.

I actually have no problem with IntelliTXT. I didn't mind it at all. But a couple of moderators and regular members despised it with a passion. I tried to comprimise: I gave the option for all staff to disable IntelliTXT from showing up. I also gave all members the ability to disable IntelliTXT ads within their own posts. (Essentially, the IntelliTXT spider would crawl around posts of members with this enabled.) Unfortunately, even that wasn't a good enough comprimise it seemed. With members that against it, I had no other choice, despite the revenue.

>I tried to comprimise: I gave the option for all staff to disable IntelliTXT from showing up. I also gave all members the ability to disable IntelliTXT ads within their own posts. (Essentially, the IntelliTXT spider would crawl around posts of members with this enabled.)

To me that sounds like a really good compromise. If you don't want to see then disable it,works for me. And what the moderators still told you no? Erm why, were their reasons justified?

Don't be such a push over Dani. In any case you know what's best. :surprised