Am dreaming up a wild bird related forum , and have going through the different sections,
but did not include a section for bitching, moaning, whining and complaining.
(Like our Whats your deal section)

I think that unless you want all the
complaining seeping in too the rest of the forum sections, you almost have to have a separate area.

I gotta wonder what percentage of usage it gets here on the Sig Forum ?

I guess I never realized how important it is.

quote:

Originally posted by bendable:
I gotta wonder what percentage of usage it gets here on the Sig Forum ?

To try to answer that question what I would do is pick an arbitrary start date in the past and count up the posts and views from then until now of the sections you want to compare. For this forum I believe the two sections that are most similar are What’s Your Deal! and the Lounge. All the other sections are pretty much limited to specific topics and purposes.

As for whether it’s necessary or desirable, I believe it’s a good idea for a forum like this one that permits and even encourages general discussions about wide ranging topics. The Lounge attracts a lot of complaints and threads about things that could be thought to go into other sections as it is, and a complaint section does tend to siphon off some of the extraneous stuff so it’s easier to ignore. For a forum with a highly specific focus, though, the question is how much of that sort of thing do you want at all? If your rules are that you don’t want people cluttering up the forum with bitches about how many political ads there are on the teevee or their latest outrage over something the TSA did, I wouldn’t encourage it by having a section where it would be expected.

What's the upside to NOT including one? Is it that much more costly to operate and maintain?

I'm pretty sure SF is the only forum I've personally used that has a "bitch" sub-forum.

However, many sites have found that, unless they provide an off-topic section, such as The Lounge, the OT stuff becomes a persistent problem in the other sections.

Same with Politics.

Some forums to which I've belonged, acknowledging Politics can be so divisive, have separate OT and Politics sections. In some of those they've removed Politics from showing up in the "Latest Posts" or whatever site-wide listings.

Other sites, very few of them, have simply prohibited discussion of the three big no-no's: Sex, Politics and Religion, entirely. One even went so far as to eliminate their off-topic section and entirely prohibit off-topic subjects.

The only way you'll know what works for your forums is by trying it and finding out by trial and error.

I will caution you one thing: Running a forum is a lot more difficult than you would think it to be in your worst imaginings.

rename that section to "And Further More"

One forum I frequent has a "Chit-Chat" section to cover everything else.