Thinking about some changes to categories

I was looking at the site tonight and wondering if, considering the content we like to post, a few changes might make the site easier to navigate and show off more topics of interest on the front page.

My ideas are:

* Split the "news" category into "Anglosphere" and "World" (just because that's a lot of categories under one header as it stands)

* Add a few subcategories to "Science" and to "Social Issues" so that more would display at once, sort of the way the "Politics" category displays subcategories now

My hesitation is that it could end up with a really "long" front page, going top to bottom. But I was just thinking that as it is, it only takes one new post to bump something off the front page in the Science and Social Issues categories, and we have a lot of really good topics in those; it would be nice to see more of them on the front.

Any suggestions? Maybe merge a few other categories to compensate for the new subcategories? Leave it alone and stop fussing with it? I would appreciate your input.

I generally just look at new posts, so it doesn't matter much to me which section they're in. If I started new threads it might matter I suppose. Generally-speaking, I think that having a lot of categories and sub-categories is too untidy.

Ben_Reilly wrote:I was looking at the site tonight and wondering if, considering the content we like to post, a few changes might make the site easier to navigate and show off more topics of interest on the front page.

My ideas are:

* Split the "news" category into "Anglosphere" and "World" (just because that's a lot of categories under one header as it stands)

* Add a few subcategories to "Science" and to "Social Issues" so that more would display at once, sort of the way the "Politics" category displays subcategories now

My hesitation is that it could end up with a really "long" front page, going top to bottom. But I was just thinking that as it is, it only takes one new post to bump something off the front page in the Science and Social Issues categories, and we have a lot of really good topics in those; it would be nice to see more of them on the front.

Any suggestions? Maybe merge a few other categories to compensate for the new subcategories? Leave it alone and stop fussing with it? I would appreciate your input.

Good idea Ben; I always felt the news section took up a lot of room, considering there isn't a regular build up of threads outside the US and UK think the two way split you suggest is a good idea- or perhaps a 3 way split allowing for the UK (and Europe?)/USA/World- which is probably equivalent to the share of new threads. I'd scrap the Crime Blotter entirely, crime is news afterall.

For Science and Social Issues I'd leave it as is; Science doesn't get too flooded and is quite steady- while for Social Issues a separate 'Religion' section would almost certainly go down very well   

Raggamuffin wrote:I generally just look at new posts, so it doesn't matter much to me which section they're in. If I started new threads it might matter I suppose. Generally-speaking, I think that having a lot of categories and sub-categories is too untidy.  

Couldn't agree more.

Most people will just do that and only look at categories if they are looking for a thread they have already posted on.

Too many categories has always been a no no.

But what about people coming back after a while away; people looking for something they haven't read yet; new users?

Ben_Reilly wrote:But what about people coming back after a while away; people looking for something they haven't read yet; new users?

They click on "view posts since last visit", or click on the rolling thing on the right.

Ben_Reilly wrote:I was looking at the site tonight and wondering if, considering the content we like to post, a few changes might make the site easier to navigate and show off more topics of interest on the front page.


My hesitation is that it could end up with a really "long" front page, going top to bottom. But I was just thinking that as it is, it only takes one new post to bump something off the front page in the Science and Social Issues categories, and we have a lot of really good topics in those; it would be nice to see more of them on the front.

Any suggestions? Maybe merge a few other categories to compensate for the new subcategories? Leave it alone and stop fussing with it? I would appreciate your input.

Don't know how forumotion works, but on GLP good threads get 'pinned', ie people vote to pin it, and it stays at the top of the page for the day or until you remove it. I agree with you, there are some good threads that sink out of sight, which is a shame. Also you can bump a good thread back to the top without making replies on it.

OK, how about this -- do we feel any of the categories are basically useless?

It is ain't broke don't fix it