Are there too many Forums on this board?

[ForumManager]

ok so I read this post at the support forum and I'm just going to paste it here instead of editorializing.
here is the "real" link for the forum
http://mahoningvalley.info/ytownpc/forum2
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I'm having the same issue - however, I think it has something to do with:

* www.mydomain.com/forum  and
* mydomain.com/forum

Ask the user who is having problems to try both and see what happens.

In my case, show unread *WORKS* if I go to:

* mydomain.com/forum

but not if I access it via www.mydomain.com/forum ...

Now, if I only knew why?

NOTE/EDIT: in Admin->Server Settings the Forum URL is set to the full domain name ... ie, http://www.mydomain.com/forum ... and that is the URL that doesn't work when trying to get the "unread" posts.

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[ForumManager]

Curious -- Can you click on the recent posts under the stats  under the boards?

[ForumManager]

Do you have cookies enabled?  That is the way the board determines what was read.
Browser?  Maybe the browser is caching and needs to be cleared.  I went to the SMF forum and found one other user that says that   one member of her board can't read the recent posts.... and it was after a server move.... too coincidental... will keep looking into the problem.  Sorry it isnt working for you.

[Rick Rowlands]

Still not working.  I logged out and back in but that did not help.  At least I can scroll down the list of catagories and find the latest posts in each.

[yfdgricker]

'The Show unread posts since you last visit' works fine for me. If you haven't been to the site in a week or two, the forums were moved to a new server. If this is the first time you've logged onto the site since the changeover, that feature will not work. The next time you come to the forums and hit the 'Show unread posts...' link it should work fine. Think of the first time as the initialization login.

See if it works for you now Rick.

[ForumManager]

As noted before the forums were added at users' requests.

I have no idea why the "Show unread posts since last visit." feature is not working for you.  Perhaps you went to the recent posts area prior to clicking the link?

[Rick Rowlands]

Why aren't the new posts showing up when I click on "new posts since your last visit"? Every time I click it says no new posts but your post on this thread is evidence that the function is not working. 

I think a few more catagories should be deleted as well.  Good grief when you have five posts in one forum and three of them are two years old it doesn't need its own forum!

With the level of traffic here (practically nothing) you could have one forum and it would be a much more manageable site.

Go to www.practicalmachinist.com and look at the level of traffic on those forums.  Their general forum has more posts in 8 hours than this entire contraption has had in its entire existence yet we all can navigate it quite well with no complaints.

[ForumManager]

I am planning to remove a couple of boards like the recipes and perhaps the mayoral questions. 

I will say that I added the boards due to  users' requests. And since the people that requested the boards are our most frequent posters, I feel the boards should stay.

As yfdgricker  notes, if you are a member, you can view more easily.  If you find a thread interesting, you can subscribe to it. You can view responses to your posts and see unread posts.  Even if you aren't a member you can scroll down to the newest posts under forum stats.

Go to your profile for many options to personalize your experience.

I'd also like to say that traffic on this board pretty good.
It is the same few who post, but many, many more are reading the posts.
When I was working on moving  it I felt badly that I couldn't find a time when people weren't on it and I had to close it for maintenance anyway  -- so they  were bumped.

[yfdgricker]

Yes, there are too many forums, in my opinion. It makes it hard to do a search.

Mary, if you sign up as a member of the forums, you can have it remember the last time you visited, all you would need to do each time you came back to the forums is click on the Show unread posts since last visit link at teh top right of the page. All of the posts since your last visit would show up, it makes it very easy to see what's new on the forums.

Also, the search feature incorporated in this bulletin board software is very good. If your looking for an older article, the search capabilities will help you find it.

[blackhatron]

Never to many forums!  Not enough members!  You need to get the word out and give people reasons to visit your site.  The site is great,but you are dealing with apathy here.  The need is for awareness and the fact that people can make a change!  I link your site (blogs) to my mvplan-it.com in hopes that more people will be exposed and use the information.  Your site has been added to my morning routine.  Complements to the narrators for the perseverance.   Blackhat Ron

The Mahoning Valley Plan-it

[Mary Krupa]

Yes, there are too many forums, in my opinion. It makes it hard to do a search.

[jay]

As we recruit additional members, each forum will become more active.  I can't think of any other forum that deals with the issues for a specific side of town as we hope to do here.  The south side, for example, has many problems.  In theory, the south side residents could use the south side forum to discuss their problems and hopefully solve them.

[Rick Rowlands]

Could the number of forums be reduced to something much more manageable?  Maybe no more than a half dozen or so individual forums would serve our needs better than trying to create a seperate forum for every single thing.  There are not tne number of participants yet to warrant splitting the forum up into so many small pieces.  Especially when one person starts about 90% of the topics!