Too many forums. For your consideration.

Mish,

I enjoy your new message boards, however there seems to be too many choices to pick from.  At TMF you had established just two:   the polical one and the economic one.   I think that made the readership work.   I have heard from several people who post/used to post at those boards and the feedback that I got was that there are too many boards to pick from.  I would encourage you to think about consolidating the boards back to the successful recipe you had at tmf for just two boards, with an additional "social" board that Seven is attempting to support.  For your consideration, only.  You may get feedback to this request, but the ultimate decision is up to you.   And remember, if there is a particular interest..... say 'metals or real estate.... that starts to overpower the economic board, you can always spin off ONE more board. 

Thank you for the rec feature here... it helps those of us with limited time to focus in on the most rec'ed/valued posts.  I also like the feature that shows how many people stop by to read a particular post/thread.

Best wishes in this year and in the coming years.  I think you have valid contributions to many, many people who are watching the economic landscape.  ~julie

Mish,

I enjoy your new message boards, however there seems to be too many choices to pick from.  At TMF you had established just two:   the polical one and the economic one.   I think that made the readership work.   I have heard from several people who post/used to post at those boards and the feedback that I got was that there are too many boards to pick from.  I would encourage you to think about consolidating the boards back to the successful recipe you had at tmf for just two boards, with an additional "social" board that Seven is attempting to support.  For your consideration, only.  You may get feedback to this request, but the ultimate decision is up to you.   And remember, if there is a particular interest..... say 'metals or real estate.... that starts to overpower the economic board, you can always spin off ONE more board. 

Thank you for the rec feature here... it helps those of us with limited time to focus in on the most rec'ed/valued posts.  I also like the feature that shows how many people stop by to read a particular post/thread.

Best wishes in this year and in the coming years.  I think you have valid contributions to many, many people who are watching the economic landscape.  ~julie

Julie
I can (if you want) merge that in with geopolitics and I am considering right now merging mt blog forum back into general discussion but please remember there there are people like  Wayne Owl  (of the FOOL) that complained about how hard it was to find anything of use to him on my board there because of all the stuff on the economy when all he was interested in was metals and energy.

I just created the Uranium board by request of Rien who ironically originally said the same thing as you. So you and (apologies if I am mistaken on this and am confusing a conversation with Rien and someone else) but at least two people (you included) have simultaneously asked for more forums and less forums!

Remember your request for the Seven Forum?

So which is it?
There is no right answer on this. There are only compromises.
So far I am pleased about the compromises made.
The question now is do you want to merge seven with geopolitics and if so does everyone else?

My blog board is easier in a sense because that is my problem but I welcome feedback on that as well.
But there is no way that we are going to see a collapse down to two boards. That would create as many problems as it cures.

Jullie, give me a call on Sunday. I will be around.
Opinions from others on this topic are welcome as well.
Mish

 

I do not remember if I asked for more or less boards. What I think I might have said would be something like this: depending on what YOU want, less is more. If you have more boards, people will find using the boards harder and harder usually means less traffic. OTOH, one general board and several specific topic boards makes it easier to organize stuff.

Hence my request for a Uranium forum. You will only find uranium stuff there. I am (slowly) moving my collection of information to the uranium board just in case other people like to get a head start. The main reason for having that on a separate forum is that I need the possibility to place posts at the top and an unlimited time to edit old posts.

If your goal is to maximize traffic, then each board should have no more than 7 forums. 5 would probably be optimal.

When I open the Mish & Trotsky board, I usually look only at the top 6 boards since my screen is not big enough to show the rest. A stupid reason, yes. But that is how it works. And I do not think that I am the only one. (Of course I do scroll down from time to time, I just frequent the top 6 more for that silly reason)

I have solved the problem for myself by using the RSS feature.  I see post from all the forums consolidated.  There is some cross posting between the forum and that becomes quickly apparent with RSS so I can easily skip duplicates. 

miro

I have solved the problem for myself by using the RSS feature.  I see post from all the forums consolidated.  There is some cross posting between the forum and that becomes quickly apparent with RSS so I can easily skip duplicates. 

miro

Miro, can you explain the RSS thing?  tia ~j

Remember your request for the Seven Forum?

So which is it?

God!  don't be so cranky.....  It's YOUR place.  do what u want.   ;-)

Leave Seven alone!       ~j

I agree with Rien, I have found there are too many boards, and my personal compromise is to just routinely go to this one, which I find most useful. If the other boards are getting enough traffic, then others can use them, but one thing i noticed at TMF was that small boards just died as people gravitated to the busier ones.  -abb

<Miro, can you explain the RSS thing?  tia ~j>

Sure.

Notice the little orange RSS button on the main "The Market Traders" page next to where it says "Message Board List."   Click on the RSS button.  It takes to you to the subscription page.  Use the drop down menu to choose the reader you want and subscribe.  I use Google reader though there are other readers you may prefer to use.  The reader then lists the posts in chronological order. I can quickly peruse posts without having to click through all the boards.

Hope this helps.

miro

Some people are going to take the plunge and learn how to use RSS. They'll be much happier after they do. Others won't and the number of boards will be a problem because it is burdensome to check around. A lot of the seldom used forums should probably be consolidated for the sake of new visitors. Once there is enough activity, boards could be split into parts. The forum probably isn't growing fast enough for the current breakdown.

Two things that annoy me because they undermine the structure of the forum:
1. People posting to the Economy and General board just to get more attention.
2. People posting the same post to multiple boards.

I'd like to see the Housing Bears and Bulls turned into a Sector Analysis section, with Housing, Financial and Retail at least for now. Discussion of individual stocks could take place within each sector board. I've had a bunch of things I've wanted to post to a retail board, but there isn't one yet.

One last suggestion: On the main forum page, instead of those pictures of deformed kids' faces, let's have a listing of the most recent posts across all boards, sort of like what the RSS feed gets you (except that it would be updated in realtime, instead of once per hour. If we must have the ads, then save them for lower menus and actual messages.

Hey Roger,

The ads you are referring are public services announcement ads for charity.  We do not get paid for those ads.  What happens is that we have a third party marketing company that has contacted companies are our behalf.  There is only so much inventory or budget that they have.  Once that inventory is used up, we get the public service/charity ads.  We are in negotiation with another company to take up all of our access inventory.  So fairly soon, this will no longer be a problem

As for too many boards or any other issue, thanks for all of your feed back.  We are all in the process of adding and eliminating, and taking ALL of your ideas into consideration. 

Thx!

Andy

Julie,

Thanks for the input.  What has been a challenge for us is that we have had MANY requests for different forums.  Our policy is first to give a great experience and sense of community to our readers, and then second is if a person wishes to post and develop a forum and take ownership with it, we are more than happy to accommodate them.  However, if the postings stops, we will more than likely consolidate and so on. 

But also keep in mind, we have attracted posters and visitors from many different places, not only the fool.  And we are giving them an opportunity to develop their own community with us as well. 

If any reader wishes to take ownership of one of the boards, please let us know.  We would be glad to make you an administrator.  :)

Andy

I don't mind the muliple boards.  Actually like it because people are usually sticking to the subject.

But...I am a little tired of seeing the SAME posts on several boards...

Scott