Breaking the Message Board into Categories?

This is the death knell of the LetsRun message board.

The reason I'm addicted (yes, addicted!) to this damn board is the diversity of topics.

One for people with registered ID's, one for trolls.

Politics and/or current events.

Maybe an advice board, people are always asking about finance, electronics, etc.

Coaching news, like the threads about Illinios/Cal/NAU.

Best way to kill any message board is to break it up.

You always want as many eyes as possible for any given subject.

If the search function works properly then there is no need to break it up.

I agree. I have a somewhat short attention span, so I enjoy the random topics.

Main Categories:

High school running

College running

Professional running

Training

Injuries

General non-running discussion

the430miler & I love peeps forum (yes, they are worthy of it)

MarathonMind wrote:

Best way to kill any message board is to break it up.

You always want as many eyes as possible for any given subject.

If the search function works properly then there is no need to break it up.

Agree. Improve the search, don't categorize.

Pete wrote:

This is the death knell of the LetsRun message board.

The reason I'm addicted (yes, addicted!) to this damn board is the diversity of topics.

I've thought about this but it would still be possible to have 1 main board and topic boards that you can go look at if you are only interested in training or injury prevention, etc.

in theory you could still have the 1 main board with everything. I think a few categories could be excluded from it but i do enjoy the nonrunning posts for sure.

one for i love peeps and one for everyone else.

running and non-running. i agree that having too many categories would lead to less eyes but i don't think having these two would do so. i don't want to click through a bunch of links to get a full view of what people are talking about on a given day but i would not mind two links that would allow me to avoid the non-running stuff that gets posted.

I'm with Pete, TX, and MM - There should always be one free-for-all main board. Maybe once a thread is untouched for 15 days or something, it could get archived into separate folders, but before that it is the very randomness, the 15 ridiculous and one sublime, that makes it so addictive.

wejo - would it be possible to have a category for "outed" troll posts? In other words, instead of the moderators deleting a post by a suspected troll, they could instead move the post to the troll/junk category? I think that would draw a lot of interest.

Breaking it up would, indeed, kill it. You should definitely leave the main board intact.

However, you could color-code the threads according to topic. The thread-starter would have a choice of maybe 6-8 sub-topics (Elite, Injuries, Music, whatever) to choose from. The board would still function exactly as before, except for different colors. Or you could keep the colors the same and have little avatars signify the sub-topics.

If you actually split it up so that an extra click is required, the board is done.

Don\'t, if anything make people register so the perverts will have to go somewhere else.

Here's an idea. When you post, whatever you post is automatically posted on the main board. But you also select a category that your post falls under. The post displays on the main forum, and also that board in which it's subject matter falls.

Munson wrote:

One for people with registered ID's, one for trolls.

Yes! Because it is impossible for a troll to have a registered ID!

we've seen it with dyestat. dividing the message board into categories will radically reduce the contributions and responses to any one board, meaning that, say, you go to training and you get two posts per day, or you go to elites and there are five regular posters, etc. but please get a better search command.

Ask better questions wrote:

Here's an idea. When you post, whatever you post is automatically posted on the main board. But you also select a category that your post falls under. The post displays on the main forum, and also that board in which it's subject matter falls.

I think that is the best idea. No moderator has to worry about moving threads, etc.

If it ain't broke...