Sub-Forums in the Snowmobile Forums

There continues to be a pretty heated debate about the creation of the sub-forums in the 4 main snowmobile forums.

Just for the sake of example I will focus in on the Artic Cat forum.

Artic Cat has 11,076 Threads, with 94,413 replies, which are categorized into 4 sub-forums.

The main argument that I keep hearing is when I created the 4 sub-categories that it made is MUCH harder for the members to stay on top of whats going on in that forum, because now it would require you to enter into each of the 4 separate sub-forums, one at a time, and read the contents of each forum to be up to speed on 100% of the threads in the Artic Cat forum.

This was a legitimate complaint and concern, and in response to it we created the BROWSE ALL forum, which combines 100% of all threads and allows you to see them all in one place, just like the old forum did. And while this solution appears to resolve the problem, a small number of highly vocal members instead continue to complain about the sub-forums and refuse to take advantage of the solution. So I am left a bit confused here.


Now, you may ask, WHY was it necessary to create the sub-forums in the first place?

The answer goes back to those 11,076 threads. The SnoWest forums exist in a program called VBulletin, and the VBulletin search engine is POOR at best, and downright horrible at worst. Right now SnoWest is approaching 36,000 registered members. The majority of which either NEVER post or have posted less than 5 times. Mostly they come to the forums to search for information and to read other posts.

The Sub-Forums were created to aid them in finding the information that are looking for, which tends to be specific to the sled they are riding, and not generalized to the brand name manufacturer, hence the sub-forums...

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Now, some of the mods are suggesting that i consider SCRAPING the current sub-forum categories and looking for some kind of an alternative solution, and I am writing this thread to say that I am OPEN to a different solution that addresses BOTH groups of SnoWest users.

So, if you have a solution that you think is a WIN-WIN for both sets of users, speak up and let me know.

Thanks for your comments on the Sub-forums.
Most of the users that like them only say so in private messages to me and not in public postings.


We do have a "Member Activation" module coming to SnoWest soon.

KillSwitchHitter said:

Could we a least wait until the speed issue is solved before we start changing the changes that caused the slow down in the first place.

Nobody likes the sub-forums because they slowed down the site, I beleive when the new servers get installed it will help being able move around. Now you have to prioritize what you want to read because of the lag time.

But what we really need is lots of SNOW

Christopher you need to fix the Snow problem first

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Ya, I understand.
I bring this up because i continue to hear about it.
The servers are coming, and the speed will be resolved.

In the meantime I am trying to listen and look to see if there is a better solution.

hilinerider said:

and the member activation module means once you pay your bill you can interact with the site i presume

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Huh??

That is a module that will try to get members who never post on the forums to take a more active role and participate.

About 35% of our members have never posted, and another 30% or so have posted 5 times or less.