deilenberger

Folks - I've been giving some thought to how to optimize our forum structure - to accommodate future growth and maximize visibility for search spiders.

A quick note on how Google rates things - in general (and there are exceptions) - Google gives "weight" to information that appears earlier in the structure of a website, ie:

SOME FORUM - Top Level

• SUB-Forum
• SUB-Forum
  • Sub-Sub-Forum
• etc..

Information in the top-level forum is rated as most important, followed by info in any sub-forum, followed by info in the Sub-Sub-Forum.

The way we're laid out now - the 955/957 info is probably considered more important in search results than any info in the sub-forums for the other models, and the DIY forum (which is a link - which would be followed by the spiders.) Since there is a LOT of information in the top forum (way more posts) - posts further down the pages will tend to decrease in importance ratings.

It's also a rather confusing structure for new people arriving at our Forum. It's a rare day when I don't have to move a post from the main forum to one of the subforums, just because people sort of skip over them.

What to do about that? I've been talking to management - but I'd love to have some feedback here that I can pass on to them. My suggestion is to layout our forum like this:

MAIN CAYENNE FORUM (General Discussions on the beasts we all love..)

• 955/957 - Technical
• 958 - Technical
• 95# - New 3rd generation PIG
• (DIY) Link to the DIY forum
• Offroad-towing - technical (requested by a member, who has found it works well on other websites.)

I'd also like to have links to the DIY forum (which exists as a totally separate forum in the Rennlist DiY section) - in each of the model specific forums, so it would look like:

MAIN CAYENNE FORUM (General Discussions on the beasts we all love..)

• 955/957 - Technical
  • Link to DIY
• 958 - Technical
  • Link to DIY
• 95# - New 3rd generation PIG
  • Link to DIY
• (DIY) Link to the DIY forum
• Offroad-towing - technical (requested by a member, who has found it works well on other websites.)

Right now - my thinking is - the current "Main Cayenne forum" would become the 955/957 subforum, there would be a new top-level MAIN Cayenne forum, and the others would be moved around as shown above, and links created. What I'm trying to avoid is a structure like 6speedonline has - where it's confusing due to advertising sub-forums and a Turbo sub-forum.

What'cha think? If you want to contact me directly - please PM me.. I'm really interested in what you think.

19psi

Personally I think 3 forums labeled with vehicle years is more than enough. There doesn't seem to be enough traffic for Main, technical, DIY, towing etc. Scrolling down right now, there are still posts from 5 days ago on the first page (958 looks about the same too). Have a look at the 928 section. It covers multiple generations spanning 17 years, is hardcore DIY with everything else mixed in and it blows all other forums out of the water when it comes to traffic, yet it's just one forum that operates smoothly. Also only two main stickies with the rest being current Meet and Greet info.
The Cayenne section seems to attract many one post wonders who don't bother to read the stickies, post wherever Google drops them to get their free advice and then run...seems it would be more work for mods moving those topics into the correct areas...especially if there is a MAIN forum for general chat. For the regulars, they're not likely to miss a post if they don't log in for a day or two as the traffic just isn't here.
I think making the years very obvious in bold or caps with less emphasis on 955, 957 and 958 will help a lot. The Cayenne isn't really a "car guy" vehicle and I doubt many know what those numbers mean.

nodoors

My vote is for as few as possible and no less.
Too many subforums = death in my long-time forum experience across many, many interests. Over the past 20 years I have watched many grow and die.

deilenberger

My experience hasn't shown that (and mine goes back to Arpanet..) the problem we now have is - the bulk of the main forum is 955/957 stuff. If someone new who wants to ask about a 958 comes into the main forum and doesn't notice the subforum - chances are they leave or the post a 958 message in the main forum. I suspect the ones you've seen die, died because the structure was not thought out carefully (6speedonline is a prime example) and people get tired of digging around for information.

Perhaps the structure should be something like:

MAIN CAYENNE FORUM - NO posting allowed

• 955/957 - 2003-2010
• 958 - 2011-2018
• 95# - 2019-Current
• (DIY) Link to the DIY forum
• Offroad-towing - technical (requested by a member, who has found it works well on other websites.)

MAIN FORUM = - only closed general information threads. That would make the Main Forum one that is "curated" - ie - carefully filtered by the moderators for significant threads affecting all models.or the Cayenne series in general. Threads that belong there (and it should be a very limited number) would be put there by a moderator.

Then all the model specific ones would appear below that with the link to the DIY forum.

The idea of adding information on the year Cayenne that each forum covers is a great one ..

RED HORSE

This

e30rapidic

I'm for a breakdown by year and and DIY like Don suggested

MAIN CAYENNE FORUM - NO posting allowed

• 955/957 - 2003-2010
• 958 - 2011-2018
• 95# - 2019-Current
• (DIY) Link to the DIY forum
• Offroad-towing - technical (requested by a member, who has found it works well on other websites.)

nodoors

Don, I was speaking specifically to modern style message boards that have come about in the past 20 years when vbulletin and phpBB hit the scene. They are definitely a different animal (as are the people on them) than the systems we used prior on different protocols in the 20 years before those. I was around and heavily used all of them as well including but not limited to things that most people have never heard of like usenet, gopher, WAIS, IRC, etc. (and even non-internet communictions systems like BBS such as Wildcat) back when it was only real geeks online! :-)

I like your most recent structure the best.

19psi

I still call them today with my TRS-80 Model III and a 1200 baud modem. Before the BBS scene I started out on Compuserve SIGs and their CB simulator. To pay, I had to mow two lawns for each hour spent online @ a blazing 300 baud.

This used to be one of my favorite forums...
https://www.hayabusa.org/forum/
It was so busy and fun, it moved like a chatroom. Then they started adding more and more forums. Now there are well over 30 and just the maintenance section has 7 by itself!
That killed the community and the board is a ghost town compared to what it used to be.

phatz

Subforum for 4X friendly NJ beaches

deilenberger

He!! I ran a Wildcat BBS for years.. and yeah, it was just us geeks.. I'm old.. "Hey kid! Get off my lawn and away from my car!"..

CarGuyNVA

Good morning Don,

I'm thinking the one shown below, perhaps minus the main overall Cayenne forum at the top of the structure. I'm still not seeing much of a benefit there (?). (Feel free to convince me otherwise)

I'm also struggling a bit with the 'Offroad' forum only because if you offer this, then what about when someone wants an 'Autocross/Racing' one, or 'Detailing/Accessories' or some other like that? Then I think it starts getting too fragmented/busy, and you ultimately end up with maybe 2 or 3 participants that are ever in those.

MAIN CAYENNE FORUM (General Discussions on the beasts we all love..)

• 955/957 - Technical
  • Link to DIY
• 958 - Technical
  • Link to DIY
• 95# - New 3rd generation PIG
  • Link to DIY
• (DIY) Link to the DIY forum
• Offroad-towing - technical (requested by a member, who has found it works well on other websites.)

deilenberger

Thanks.. and the "Link to DIY" in the model specific subforums wouldn't be visible to someone who entered at the top level, so it isn't like there should be a lot of confusion. As far as the Offroad-Towing - I'm open on this. It was requested by a member, and that sort of triggered the thought of finally fixing the forum structure - but if no one else is looking for it - you're right - it might be quite lonely in there.

The reason for the "MAIN CAYENNE" forum - is two-fold.

1. If we didn't have an upper level forum - all the Cayenne forums would be top level forums - and that wouldn't be too acceptable.
2. It would be used to hold stuff like this - topics that cover ALL Cayenne models and years:



The items in the blue boxes are rather obviously universal to all Cayenne's. I'm sure as time goes on - more like this will develop.

Wisconsin Joe

I like the idea of a "read only" upper level forum, with the stickies that apply to all years.
In theory, it could also be open to posts that apply to all of the models, but the misuse/abuse potential for that (you would spend all your time moving threads out of there to the appropriate sub-forum) makes it unrealistic.

Sub forums for each model would be good, with the appropriate stickies for each (Coolant pipes for the 955, vario cam for the 958, ect).

I think a link to the current DIY in the main forum would be adequate. It is also available from the "top" forum page (the one that shows all the different forums).

I don't think an 'offroad/towing' or other topic specific sub forum would be a good idea. Each model is different enough that what applies to a 955 wouldn't really apply to a 958. Perhaps a sticky in each forum would suffice. Or people could just post threads for each off roading or towing issue, as they currently do.

Last - I would suggest that the top sticky in the main forum be a "Read this first" post, describing the layout and protocols. One thing I see on all the boards I read and post to is that new folks often are ignorant of this sort of thing (as I noted a week or so ago, ignorance and stupidity are different).
From rule violations to simple 'faux pas'.
So they post 958 questions in the 955 forum, or they post for sale stuff without realizing that they need to be a paid member to do that, or post about getting a new car without putting up pics.

But I think this is a great idea overall. This is a very good forum, but (as always) there's room for improvement. Thanks for taking all of this on.

deilenberger

Hey Joe - I've often been frustrated by the order the stickies appear in - but it's basically by last posting date (which can't be changed) unless you click on a column heading like "Thread" - and it will sort by the thread subject. I'd love to have the DIY subforum be sorted by subject by default since that would sort out the model numbers in a rational manner. I'll have to ask management if this can be done for a specific forum. Doing it for the general tech forums makes no sense - since it ignores dates and can make posts from 2008 appear on top..

I'll be talking with the administrator about getting this setup fairly soon..

Thanks for the feedback!

Wisconsin Joe

Well, if the main forum is read only, and all the threads are locked (they wouldn't necessarily need to be sticky), then a "certain person" with all those abilities to lock and unlock and post and such could manipulate stuff to make the threads appear in any order they choose.