My two cents: I actually think sub forums help keep things clean and organized. They make things easy to find if you're new or just want to find an older post. There's pages of stuff I've never even looked at and I've been here a few months now. If the site gets larger I think sub forums should definitely be considered.
That said, it's not my baby, and it works well enough as is.
Thanks for the honest feedback guys, I think it has definitely been a productive thread and I've taken a few things from it. Here's where things stand now.
I will be keeping the one forum layout. This is the most important parts of the design and functionality of the site and in the nature of Barrens Chat which was after all a stream of discussion. My justification for it is this - having administered and participated in forums like this for years, I know from experience that over-categorisation of forum content and hiding posts within layers of subforums is not conducive to an active community.
What ends up happening is that some areas become inactive - which in turn leads to them looking 'dead' - which in turn means that less and less people post in those areas - which worsens the situation further. The one-forum system has been there from the beginning so that as soon as people hit the index page of the site there are interesting things to read only a click away.
I have learned to never underestimate how impatient people are when navigating websites and this is apparent in the way the site is intended to be used with a quick sign up and straightforward features which don't require a manual on how to use. Analytics from the past have shown me that when faced with a labyrinth of different forums to choose from, most people just 'bounce' straight away.
HOWEVER.
It is apparent that the Search feature, whilst I put a lot of work into it in patch 1.7, isn't sufficient for most new visitors and therefore a design flaw in part. Either it's too difficult to find, too laborious to use, or simply not producing the right results for keywords (or people are just lazy and don't search first but that's not within my control). This is clearly evident from the continuous reposting of well-rehearsed topics like 'what is your favourite class/what race will you play/what zone do you like' etc. despite these being very easily accessible through the search.
There are also clearly a lot of people who are well aware of the search, power users and light users alike, but would also like to have a way of filtering/separating topics based on their overall 'category' and have more control over how the forum appears to them. Like I said before, the solution to this is NOT subforums - I will not be adding any this time (and probably never), but I also can't ignore the very clear case for giving users more control over the front page. So what I think I'll do for the next upcoming patch 1.10 is this:
There will be a filter dropdown button in the same style and right next to the New Post button. When clicked, the user will be able to filter the posts on the main page (without a page refresh possibly if I can do it in AJAX) based on the current 'topic icons' which I will repurpose as 'categories' of sorts. So for example, everything to do with Warriors will have the warrior little shield icon attached to it. Someone wants only topics about warriors? They click Filter > (Icon) Warrior and the page reforms to show only those topics. That's a much more intuitive and visual way of categorising the posts so that people can browse categories they are interested in without losing the unique one-forum structure. I'll also add a ton of new icons so that every possible 'virtual subforum' one could think of can be represented and used for filtering in this way.
Thoughts about this solution?
I think it's a great compromise between original design and improving functionality. It's like tags without the ability to be abused.
It is apparent that the Search feature, whilst I put a lot of work into it in patch 1.7, isn't sufficient for most new visitors and therefore a design flaw in part. Either it's too difficult to find, too laborious to use, or simply not producing the right results for keywords (or people are just lazy and don't search first but that's not within my control). This is clearly evident from the continuous reposting of well-rehearsed topics like 'what is your favourite class/what race will you play/what zone do you like' etc. despite these being very easily accessible through the search.
Feedback on Search:
I actually never realised the Search feature. I thought it was simply missing!
Instinctively I looked at the top right of the main page (where the page numbers appear.. 1 2 3 4 ... 10), and it wasn't there. So my eyes looked for a "search bar", and the "84 days left until release! :)" looked like the search bar at first, until it wasn't. It was only after then I noticed the small magnifying glass icon.
This all happened in 2-3 seconds, but if I wasn't made aware that there was a search option, perhaps I would have glossed over it. Maybe (after the launch, so when the countdown is no longer needed) include the search bar as a default on the middle top of the screen? Or perhaps make the magnifying glass stand out a bit more? It is not immediately visible with the dark background of the button.
There will be a filter dropdown button in the same style and right next to the New Post button. When clicked, the user will be able to filter the posts on the main page (without a page refresh possibly if I can do it in AJAX) based on the current 'topic icons' which I will repurpose as 'categories' of sorts. So for example, everything to do with Warriors will have the warrior little shield icon attached to it. Someone wants only topics about warriors? They click Filter > (Icon) Warrior and the page reforms to show only those topics. That's a much more intuitive and visual way of categorising the posts so that people can browse categories they are interested in without losing the unique one-forum structure. I'll also add a ton of new icons so that every possible 'virtual subforum' one could think of can be represented and used for filtering in this way.
I think this is a great idea! I honestly aggree 100% on the "no subforums" thing because well it has been done to death and is proven to feel dead after some forums are dead, making the whole place feel dead. So "categories" or flairs are a good choice. Perhaps a new thread can be forced to fall under a category (im sure there are pros and cons for this)? And my comment above regarding Search is also applicable here! Please make it stand out so people who don't know what it is realize it on the first glance!
Thanks for all the hard work. #1 WoW related forum, ever. I really like it here :D
Teebling Love the ideas! I think that also having it prominently displayed that there is nothing wrong with resurrecting old threads would also be a step in the right direction as so many other forums heavily discourage reusing old posts.
I agree that sub-forums contribute to the death warmed over look of so many forums. Having a search feature to sift through the topics would almost be like all the forums are mixed together and you just have to unmix them to acquire them, but without the negatives of going into your class's forum and realizing no one has posted there for a week because they're too busy talking one sub-forum over (except you don't know).
i really like the design. I mean if we get bigger with the release or so maybe Subforums would be needed but at the moment we have not enough active threads.
I like it that most threads are really fresh and you can see news better.