Psychology of Subforums

[Different...Very.]

Hello, I've been a member of Gaia since 2006, and a member of my first guild probably since 2008. I've always enjoyed the ideal implied with the subforum system possibly because I love organization and structural systems, and yet I've always been disappointed by the lack of population of them... so I'm wondering:

Do you happen to understand why subforums are always dead in most guilds and why only the main forum keeps the attention of the guild's members? Why is that if a thread gets moved to an appropriate subforum, it then dies itself?

Do you happen to frequent a guild with successful subforums?

Do you have a subforum of any guild that you enjoy and others also populate?  

[Different...Very.]

Prof. Moonie

Back in this guild's golden years, the sub-forums were just as happening as the main forum. You wouldn't know it now since the activity of a majority of our members has died down, either due to real life getting in the way or people getting fed up with Gaia and moving to a different forum site.

Well, I can certainly look through them to see that they're all littered with dead threads with high post counts from eons ago... rich history. I wish I was more a part of it.  

[Ryougi Yasumaru]

Visibility probably has a good deal to do with it. A thread is going to get more eyes on it in the main forum, people don't have a reason to check subforums unless the subforum's focus is inherently interesting to them.

If subforums had the option of a preview, viewable from the list on the main forum, things would no doubt improve, just not having to click that one extra time is a very small thing, but it's value can't be understated.

Theme is important too, roleplaying has a better chance of engaging an active userbase than a spam/poll forum, a weak theme will end up with weak engagement.

Monitoring activity in the main forum is a good idea before you make a new subforum, if there isn't even a new page on the main forum every month, what point is there to splitting that activity up? Gauge the interest the members would have with a new subforum before making it.

As it stands, I'd say a guild only needs one subforum at the start, for archiving particularly good/important threads. A subforum for crew should be saved until there is a need for organization, like if you have a large userbase/crew, or want to keep tabs of problem posters.

Like Moonie said, this guild's subforums used to be very active, the fact that it was one of the LARGEST guilds, and the old way of displaying guilds by membership numbers (Which meant lots of visibility for us), meant that they were going to be active just due to sheer numbers.  

[Zphal]

It's that one extra click. So much effort. Wow.  

[Kor Saiyajinkami]

I agree that things have to popping for SubForums to get more interest. Honestly when it comes to guilds, I usually just view whatever threads are in the Top 5 Preview List before entering the Guild with the exception of maybe a thread's title not be interesting to me.  

[beaulolais]

it used to be a good way to get extra gold for extra polling, but now that doesn't matter
also, i like stuff like food, but i have already shared my best ideas there (chessie and i have) so no what?  

[Ryougi Yasumaru]

Zphal

It's that one extra click. So much effort. Wow.

It's not the actual effort of clicking, it's the factors that make even bothering to look at the subforums not worth thinking about, it's much simpler to post whatever in the general forum, you don't really have a reason to look and see if it's more appropriate somewhere else unless it clashes with the main use of the forum.

For example, I don't see posting about some big event that just happened in this forum being an issue even though there is a specific subforum for news. I didn't even know there was one until I checked the subforums list specifically to find an example. In a theoretical RP guild the main forum might be for in character stuff and a subforum for out of character stuff, so I'd actually go to that subforum to post about the big event.

Of course this is comparing our 33 subforums list to just 1, but the number difference is a big factor too, people are more likely to skip large blocks of text they're not interested in, and the more subforums there are there's a higher chance of overlap, which does nothing but take up screen real-estate (For example, COS, SPS, BTPO, and MPL are all vaguely "Just post for posting's sake" subforums. BTPO and YCQ have some overlap too I'd say.) and nothing "pops".  

[Zphal]

Ryougi Yasumaru

Zphal

It's that one extra click. So much effort. Wow.

It's not the actual effort of clicking, it's the factors that make even bothering to look at the subforums not worth thinking about, it's much simpler to post whatever in the general forum, you don't really have a reason to look and see if it's more appropriate somewhere else unless it clashes with the main use of the forum.

For example, I don't see posting about some big event that just happened in this forum being an issue even though there is a specific subforum for news. I didn't even know there was one until I checked the subforums list specifically to find an example. In a theoretical RP guild the main forum might be for in character stuff and a subforum for out of character stuff, so I'd actually go to that subforum to post about the big event.

Of course this is comparing our 33 subforums list to just 1, but the number difference is a big factor too, people are more likely to skip large blocks of text they're not interested in, and the more subforums there are there's a higher chance of overlap, which does nothing but take up screen real-estate (For example, COS, SPS, BTPO, and MPL are all vaguely "Just post for posting's sake" subforums. BTPO and YCQ have some overlap too I'd say.) and nothing "pops".

Well, Gaia has failed to ever deliver us the ability to remove subbies, so... xd  

[Ryougi Yasumaru]

Zphal

Ryougi Yasumaru

Zphal

It's that one extra click. So much effort. Wow.

It's not the actual effort of clicking, it's the factors that make even bothering to look at the subforums not worth thinking about, it's much simpler to post whatever in the general forum, you don't really have a reason to look and see if it's more appropriate somewhere else unless it clashes with the main use of the forum.

For example, I don't see posting about some big event that just happened in this forum being an issue even though there is a specific subforum for news. I didn't even know there was one until I checked the subforums list specifically to find an example. In a theoretical RP guild the main forum might be for in character stuff and a subforum for out of character stuff, so I'd actually go to that subforum to post about the big event.

Of course this is comparing our 33 subforums list to just 1, but the number difference is a big factor too, people are more likely to skip large blocks of text they're not interested in, and the more subforums there are there's a higher chance of overlap, which does nothing but take up screen real-estate (For example, COS, SPS, BTPO, and MPL are all vaguely "Just post for posting's sake" subforums. BTPO and YCQ have some overlap too I'd say.) and nothing "pops".

Well, Gaia has failed to ever deliver us the ability to remove subbies, so... xd

Yeah, that's unfortunate for sure. You could always make a ~new~ guild but thats not... great... for obvious reasons.  

[Zphal]

Ryougi Yasumaru

Zphal

Ryougi Yasumaru

Zphal

It's that one extra click. So much effort. Wow.

It's not the actual effort of clicking, it's the factors that make even bothering to look at the subforums not worth thinking about, it's much simpler to post whatever in the general forum, you don't really have a reason to look and see if it's more appropriate somewhere else unless it clashes with the main use of the forum.

For example, I don't see posting about some big event that just happened in this forum being an issue even though there is a specific subforum for news. I didn't even know there was one until I checked the subforums list specifically to find an example. In a theoretical RP guild the main forum might be for in character stuff and a subforum for out of character stuff, so I'd actually go to that subforum to post about the big event.

Of course this is comparing our 33 subforums list to just 1, but the number difference is a big factor too, people are more likely to skip large blocks of text they're not interested in, and the more subforums there are there's a higher chance of overlap, which does nothing but take up screen real-estate (For example, COS, SPS, BTPO, and MPL are all vaguely "Just post for posting's sake" subforums. BTPO and YCQ have some overlap too I'd say.) and nothing "pops".

Well, Gaia has failed to ever deliver us the ability to remove subbies, so... xd

Yeah, that's unfortunate for sure. You could always make a ~new~ guild but thats not... great... for obvious reasons.

Indeed. And things are even more jacked with the new currency, because now I can't send out a guild announcement. Used to cost around 15,000 gold. They forgot to apply the conversion factor. So it costs the same. But in platinum. In other words, they inflated the cost of sending a guild announcement by 10,000,000x.

So yeah. Can't really even do an event and get everyone's attention either.