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I'll be honest: that button is so small and down at the bottom of the page, that until this thread was started, I'd never even noticed it!  I'm sure that I'm not the only one.

I always just scan the left column with my eye quickly, seeing which sub-forum has a blue circle indicating new posts.  Then I'll open that sub-forum; it's a bummer when the new posts are then further buried in sub-sub-fora.

And personally, I like opening the Open Sicilian forum and thinking to myself, "What's going on in the Open Sicilian today?" or "What are people talking about in the King's Indian?".  I liked in the old days when I could see all of the threads with new posts right there, all at once on one page, and not have to dig down further.

GMTonyKosten wrote on 06/21/17 at 23:11:07:


I guess because in the "old" days, there were usually not any new posts in more than a handful of threads.  So when you opened "Open Sicilians," you would see the top three threads with new posts in them all right there.  Then I could choose to open one if I wanted to.

Now when I click on "Open Sicilians," I possibly see some threads with new posts, but there all of these sub-forums.  I only see a description of the Last Post off to the right; maybe that particular thread doesn't interest me, but what if there's a new post in a thread that does, that wasn't the last post?  I have to click in that sub-forum to see. 

Unless I'm doing something poorly and there's an easier way.  Still, even when this place was at its busiest, you could take a few days off from visiting and there was no way that there would be an entire page's worth of new posts.  You could always just open a single sub-forum and scan which threads have new posts at a single glance.  Now I have to dig into each sub-forum. 

Frankly, I strongly dislike the sub-forums, though I do love this place!

Also, and this may be a touchy subject, but I truly wish that users were banned for personal attacks and/or "trolling."  Forget all of the Smyslov_Fan nice guy attitude--he does a great job and genuinely seems like a nice guy, don't get me wrong!  But there are some really unpleasant posters that have come around in the last few years, and giving them a temporary ban for personal attacks (and a permanent ban if they continue) would really make this place friendlier again.  IMO, of course.

With all of the sub-forums I feel like I have to click a lot more than I used to, FWIW.

Gorath wrote on 06/20/17 at 18:37:37:


I personally find it now takes me less mouse clicks and less time to find the stuff that interests me, but I could try removing some of the lass active sub-forums. I'm afraid it would be permanent, though, I certainly don't want to have to go through all the threads and reassign them again in the future.

Nobody can guarantee closing the sub-forums would increase traffic. The positive effects would be less strict structure, less mouse clicks to get to the active threads and getting rid of a lot of proof(!) that most sub-forums have close to zero traffic. Looking dead potentially scares people away.
In forums without such heavy content, e.g. video games, it's normal to quickly open new forums for fresh product and close them when the traffic gets below a certain threshold for a certain time.

It's certainly a good idea to think the whole thing through before taking action. It's a PITA to get the sub-forums back once they're gone, unless you find a way to tag the threads in some way.

Three ideas:
1) Would it make sense to restructure the forum in a way that encourages activity? Let's say a book review forum? Or one to discuss live events? A volunteer or a mod could easily open meaningful threads there just by following the news. Real chess content could then be split off and moved to a sub-forum, which increases activity there.
Maybe ask Malcolm Pain's book shop if they want to sponsor the book forum with a few giveaways every couple of months? Or rotate the book publishers for cooperations, no money involved?
And BTW, why are the ChessPub General forums at the top? I would get them out of the way. The important stuff should be at the top.
2) I know of a reasonably big video game site, a professional joint with ca. 5 full time writers, who use a virtual currency to activate their user base. Posting news gives n tokens. If the newsbit makes it to breaking use, the tokens double. A comment to  a newsbit gives tokens. Subscribing to the site gives many tokens. They dish out tokens for everything. A trainload of tokens can be converted into subscription time when they renew. The good thing about digital product is that it can be multiplied for free.
Just food for thought.
3) I don't know if the forum software currently allows embedding YouTube videos. If not you should activate this. Linking to already existing videos is the easiest content you can get.

GMTonyKosten wrote on 06/19/17 at 22:19:01:

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I can only agree. Personally (and that's all I'm saying -- I totally respect others feeling differently), I just happen to like it that if I want to post about, or read about, say, the Pirc, I can go straight to the Pirc sub-forum and do that. I was charmed to learn that this makes me some sort of obsessive!