UBB.threads PHP Forum Software Community Forums Resources and Customizing Admin Zone New Member Introductions

How many "Introduce Yourself" forums are needed for an entire community of forums?

I don't know how other community owners do this, but I'm not sure I want a mixture of shorthand types conglomerated into one general forum to introduce themselves (gregg, pitman, teeline, intern'l, Easyscript, T-script....).

Seems to make more sense if each different forum (shorthand group) had their own "Introduce Yourself" sub-forum so that one type of shorthand group wasn't mixed with another as conversations sprouted from them.

From my Board, each Community is a general category of Shorthand Types. When the category is opened, the different forums are for different shorthand groups. So should each shorthand group have a separate sub-forum to introduce their new members?

Do I need:

1. ONE "Introduce Yourself" forum for all shorthand groups and types under the community category "Before You Post"? Maybe I should do away with this one since this specific community is for Board Rules, Forum Training, New Features, etc.

2. ONE "Introduce Yourself" forum (as the first forum) under a community category? This means when anyone opens a category, only one "Introduce Yourself" forum will be available for all the different forums (shorthand groups) within that community category.

3. ONE "Introduce Yourself" sub-forum for each different shorthand group forum? This makes the most sense to me, but it means I'd end up with 40+ sub-forums for the same thing. Is this practical?

Maybe each forum really NEEDS their own sub-forums for introducing themselves, having their own galleries, etc.

I know I've somehow made this small task confusing without meaning to.

Any suggestions will be helping me to make a better decision. Thanks.

Just do 1 forum called New members

And put it near the top of you forums.
So they see it easily.

This way any one can say hi and welcome,
the more welcomes they get the more comfortable they will feel.

Thanks Marky. That relieves a lot of pressure to building repeated sub-forums. Done.

Sometimes on hidden forums (which are very few on my site), i'll have a welcome thread in there. Not a forum, but just a 'Muhaha, a n00b has arrived!!'

or the like

then they get to negotiate the 'gauntlet' on their first seeing that forum..

Yes too many forums can be daunting to navigate for people that are not very comfortable with forum software.

I was on one the other night that had to have a few hundred sub forums. Looked like they tried to be a portal to just about anything one could think of talking about. Fairly busy site too according to their post counts, but for a noob I'm sure they might just get lost and leave.

I agree nt.

The initial idea was to have 1 forum so that "everyone" registering could introduce themselves regardless of which shorthand type they wrote.

And then, after the introduction, scoot to the forum of their choice.

Sometimes when I don't take enough work breaks from my screen, the phone will ring and once I'm off yapping and back to my computer, I haven't the faintest idea where I left off. That's usually how this sort of stuff happens.

Thanks to this group, I'm back on track again.

I have 0 introduction forums; but i would sugguest if you plan to have many, that you utilize subforums

I only have one introduction forum. I'm a minimalist - I hate clutter on my site, so I have as few forums as possible. But I still have too many IMO.