Utilizing the forums accordingly out of the window

[kyle1989]

i am a little perfectionist, i don't think the admin or anyone will care for noticing or it being so, but i feel like talking about it anyway as it has popped up on my mind a few times .

i noticed that no matter how many other forums we have, Private forum always gets all the traffic pretty much (the majority).

the rest of the forums do not really get used accordingly, which a bit of a shame in kyles humble opinion.

IES generally appears (based observation and time here) to be out growing its home roots of being a support site for emetophobia. it has quite expanded into a community where support is for all kinds of problems and personal troubles where members support one another with all their issues in their personal lives.

most of the forums we have now are dedicated to 'General Emetophobia Discussion'. but in reality the private forum usually contains a bit of everything, from Off topic off topics, and off topics that are simply desiring support for non emet related issues.

perhaps it would be great if the website recognized this and expanded the amount of forums we have.

perhaps we could have a second sub forum dedicated to Other Support. including a private forum of its own. as i think that is a big reason why a lot of traffic goes into the private forum - its Private!

another reason i think the website is under utilized with all its other forums is because (for good reason perhaps) moderators don't seem interested in moving topics to the right places, or pehraps they don't because they respect that these topics are in the private forum.

anyway, we have a private forum for general emetophobia discussion but we dont have one for various other kinds of topics that seek support.

we don't generally use the other forums as much as we perhaps should, perhaps they arent as needed?

maybe it could be considered that IES's purpose could grow and expand to serve as a forum that isnt simply strictly for supporting emetophobia related issues but any.

also perhaps, none of this really matters and things are perfect as they are,

but this a perfectionists thoughts for you, thanks for reading, just felt like sharing my thoughts.

[amarkham01]

I think you're right. I think it is a good idea to have more "categories" of private forum. I know I try not to post that much in the other sections because I have the same screen name here as I do everywhere else, and I'm paranoid about people googling me! (Yes, I COULD just make a new screen name, but haven't bothered because all the traffic is on the private forum anyways). I think more people post in the private because as you've said, it's private, and then that preference for the private forum is intensified by the fact that threads in the private forum attracting substantially more attention than those in the other tabs. "why would I post my OT relationship advice post in relationship advice when it just gets ignored there" sort of thing....

[sdfl]

Coming from one who recently posted an off topic boo hoo topic, Aye Aye Aye!

[hippychick]

I'll be honest with you, quite a while back we did try to get people posting in the right places. I posted a list of where posts should go, I spent hours moving posts around and after a couple of months people still just posted where they like.

Making the other forums private may see an increase in their use for sure and I would spend the time to move posts around IF people were interested in noticing where they post and taking care with it. IES has a high volume of traffic and it's hard to direct all those posts. Definitely making other forums private would have a big impact I believe.

[sage]

I agree. I would never move someone's post OUT of the private forum because people have posted there to hide their identity from google and so I respect that. But it might be nice to make all the topics private? I do move some posts occasionally when they're really off the topic, but Private Forum gets most of the traffic for sure.