There are 23 seperate boards now?

francishatesme

I'm posting this here because this is where I always post and I couldn't figure out where else it could go (OT was my plan but Swine Flu is too popular). To whomever bought this forum, it's running much better than it did before. It's not down for hours at a time anymore and it's not hanging up. But my one question is--are 23 boards really necessary. I understand the idea of separation and everything has it's place but isn't that a little unnecessary. Couldn't some of these be combined or have sub-forums like it used to be. I'm not saying I miss the good old days. I just think we may be spreading the jelly a bit too thin.

br0ken

Agree'd

I prefered it as it was before, all nice and neat

So i didn't have to scroll down for half an hour to find what im looking for.

Target Practice

This was one of the points raised (by me actually) during the discussions amongst the staff regarding the reorganisation.

Once the SDK hits and becomes established, we're probably going to get a large increase in traffic here, particularly as there has recently been a lot of work done behind the scenes with regards to search engine optimisation (basically means we're easier to stumble across when casual users enter terms into google) and promotion of the forums.

What this basically boils down to is the fact that one forum for everything L4D-related (L4D General Discussion) was probably going to get very crowded very quickly when you have upwards of 300-400 users online at once. A thread could be created and drop off the front page in a matter of hours like that.
The only decision was when to do it - 711 decided (and it was agreed amongst everyone) that it was better to do it early and let everyone get used to it rather than suddenly throw it on you all at the same time the SDK hits. We'd have threads all over the place.

I know it's a pain, and I know there are a lot of forums on the front page, but give it time and you'll get used to it. These aren't set in stone, and they'll probably be rearranged at least a couple of times in the future, but trust me when I say that it's being done for the right reasons.

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francishatesme

Fair enough. I'll trust you guys for now but I swear to god if SDK comes out and we're not flooded with people I'm taking my shit right over to the Steam boards.

PMS Betty B

UHH. yeah i wouldnt recommend that actually
even if it is flooded.

steam people tend to treat xbox users like shit
(no offense.)

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Parlim

Just a quick question, would there be any way to reduce certain sections on the main forum page so that I don't have to scroll down through them? Like say have a little icon, maybe a closing safe room door so that when pressed minimizes that section, for example since I don't post regularly on the Left 4 Dead Mods, Maps, & Skins areas of the forums I press it any minimize them so that scrolling downward could be easier. It could say show section and when pressed again I could see it if I ever decided to post there.

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He who knows best knows how little he knows.

711

Indeed, TargetPractice made most of the points I would have made regarding the reasons for the new organisation of the various forums and subforums.

I'll add an explanation of several of the other benefits:

L4DForums is growing very quickly, with more than 1000 new members each month. That was the growth rate before I took over the forum, and before the comprehensive promotional campaign I have launched began, which should increase the growth rate substantially. Already I am seeing such in the visitor and registration stats.

As the site becomes more active, threads are quickly pushed deeper into the threads listing and search results lists. In the earlier days of L4DF, when there were fewer posts per day, it was ok to have the majority of threads dumped into General Discussion. That is no longer practical, and will become less so as the active member base grows.

Of course, the release of the SDK will result in lots more activity in the mod & maps development arena, and it is important for L4DF to support that part of the community and to make communications and collaboration as user-friendly as possible.

The new organisation is intended to make the forum easier to browse for all members and visitors. It also helps dramatically when searching for specific threads or posts, because you can limit your searches to any forum or subforums that you like, helping you target your searches much better.

Another benefit of the new organisation is that it allows members and visitors to subscribe to RSS feeds for individual forums. For example if you are only interested in L4D mods & mod development, you can now subscribe to that forum's RSS feed directly:

Links to all the available L4DF RSS feeds is available here: Left4DeadForums RSS Feeds

Lastly, the new organisation will help improve L4DF's search engine optimization, resulting in pages being ranked higher in major search engines (which also helps members and visitors find info quickly), and helps the growth of the community.

I am working on improving the layout of the main page to minimize unnecessary scrolling. In fact, this is why I am running a contest to create a new header for L4DF:
Design a Header Banner for L4DForums and Win a 1 Year Dedicated Game Server!
The current header is much too tall, and results in a huge amount of unneeded scrolling on every page view.

I will also modify the category headers, to make them collapsible. Then, if you are totally uninterested in a particulary forum category, you can collapse it, and that setting will be remembered on future visits.

Lots of other site usability enhancements will come as well over the next few days. I have quite a bit of experience managing large forums, and optimising them for usability and convenience. Just give me a few days to get all my ideas implemented, and you will notice that L4DF has become much more user-friendly

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PMS Betty B

Well, the site is lookin' pretty snazzy so far

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Bianary

You just don't tell them.

Spritanium

I'm going to just come right out and say this

Having 23 separate boards is ridiculous, regardless of the reason. Subforums were invented for a reason: so people don't have to scroll through mountains of text to find the board that they want. The subforums were clearly visible from the front page, and I think you should take the users' opinions into consideration before making decisions and changes like this.

There's my input, hope you enjoyed it

EDIT: Also, if you insist on having so many boards, at least move L4D Problems and Errors up. A lot of people probably come here only because they need help.

Target Practice

Well, thanks for your opinion, but I'd like to think that had you read mine and 711's posts, you might have an insight into why this was done, and why it was done now. Once the collapsible sections are implemented in the next couple of days, things will be just fine. I fail to see why having subforums improves the situation any - not only do we lose valuable SEO hits, the number of forums is still exactly the same, just that some forums are harder to find. :-/

As for taking the users' opinions into account, I can't speak for 711 here, but I believe he has said that any major changes to the forums will be put to the users to comment on before they're made. Whilst it's a change, I don't think re-ordering the front page is a really huge change.

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AzH

That's wrong matey. A subforum is just as content relevant as a main forum in terms of search engines. It's all in the URL.

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Target Practice

I stand corrected. That's why you guys are admins and I'm just a henchman.

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razman360

I do like the way you have split things up into subforums, but, as parlim said, is there anyway for you to implement buttons to skip to main section, rather than scroll down. Though it makes everything clear and easily reachable, it does make things a little awkward.

Thunder

A few subforums would be nice, like moving the picture of the day into screenshots, and maybe combining L4D arrange a game PC with L4D clans PC; then do the same with xbox.

Target Practice

Yeah, the ability to make groups of forums on the main page 'collapsible' (so you can show/hide sections) is being worked on by people with far more knowledge than me.

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711

Forum categories are now collapsible. Please see the Left 4Dead Forums Tips & Tricks thread for instructions and screenshots.

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Evil

Excellent. I was thinking earlier about making a post about that.

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razman360

Nice one! Perfect! And, 711, I can see that AzH was wise in his choice of buyer.

Thunder

They're collapsible. Now everybody quit your whining