My only complaint is that it shouldnt mess up the text formatting when you hit enter.. And as you get more traffic, you'll need sub-catagories.

I feel the current format fits the current level of traffic, as you said.

Don't add subforums, the place isn't big enough and they aren't needed anyway. That guy is just an idiot being an idiot, which is what reddit mostly is.

Especially on classicwow, most people are new or from retail and since they watched their favorite internet celebrity talk about the game they think they know everything there is to know about it and will downvote you if you call them out on it even with proof.

I was confused at first to be honest, but I like the focused aspect of this forum as others have said. For a smaller community I think it's good that people see the community being active. With different categories we might just end up with people being too spread out, some categories very rarely being used, and a looming feeling of inactivity even though there are dozens of active members.

It's also in the spirit of the real Barrens chat :)

I know it's hard to do, but as somebody who produces stuff: art, games, programs, forums, anything, please refrain yourself from seeking opinions, especially outside your creation. Internet, and Reddit in particular, is full of self-entitled jerks who have never created anything but are first to criticize in the most obnoxious ways. Not every Reddit user is like that though, so please don't burn me.

In my opinion, it's a great idea that there's just one big forum. If it was split in 30 various categories I might miss some threads that would be interesting to me. Sometimes I find myself reading threads that at first didn't seem interesting to me at all. When it comes to wording, it was plain simple to me from the get go. It might be a generation thing - I'm used to clicking stuff and seeing where it gets me, whereas this new generation wants everything served on silver platter, preferably immidiately.

whereas this new generation wants everything served on silver platter, preferably immidiately.

Retail WoW?

I don't understand how people can be confused by a format like this. There's literally nothing more than a single well-formatted page containing all the threads. There's absolutely no effort required to navigate. Clear as crystal.

It does break the convention of what many people are used to, but I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing. I was also a little confused about the forum button when I first joined, but I was also very confused how reddit worked when I first joined there. People will learn. This is better design (for now) than burying posts in a bunch of different subforms.

I don't understand how people can be confused by a format like this. There's literally nothing more than a single well-formatted page containing all the threads. There's absolutely no effort required to navigate. Clear as crystal.

Can we please quit with this elitist attitude, not singling you out specifically but there is a lot of generalist going around in this thread about 'different generations' and 'everyone on reddit' etc. Teebling asked for legitimate feedback and we should be able to discuss this without dealing in absolutes and knee-jerk reactions - thats what I thought separated this forum from all those other places.

To your point. There are obviously multiple pages. The speed-running thread has occasionally fallen off the first one that's one of the best and coolest threads on here and it can get lost among the more short-term threads. Even a few sub categories would probably fix that solution. It's not that its difficult, its just that possibly some organisation could benefit the forum as a whole.

I still remain in the camp that the current design is sufficient, but if traffic and population increase, it would be prudent to be prepared.

I think this thread itself makes my point: Even people in this thread, regulars to the forum, do not know that there are subforums/categories, and believe that the 'main' forum is the only one about. The dude had a point, and contrary to what everyone else in this thread is claiming, he wasn't an 'asshole' or anything about it.

He was giving valuable feedback, and he's getting shit on for it. Not cool.

When the traffic was small, it did not matter that you don't have sub forums (others than guides).
Now that there is more and more people joining, you should think about implementing regular sub forums : classes, PvP etc...

Even people in this thread, regulars to the forum, do not know that there are subforums/categories, and believe that the 'main' forum is the only one about.

Yes, this is unfortunate. I also fell to that assumption, because the first thing I read was

One forum category
It's all that is needed - no endless sections, sub-sections, categories, rules and requirements... just talk.

and also because I haven't been long enough on the forum to glance on the sections and -indirectly- compare them with the main section, as I already assumed they were all appearing there, and I was assuming the sections were a way to categorize and easily find "good posts".
The dude had a point, and contrary to what everyone else in this thread is claiming, he wasn't an 'asshole' or anything about it.
(...)
He was giving valuable feedback, and he's getting shit on for it. Not cool.

As someone who pinpointed in an earlier reply that the dude had a point, and speaking in the name of others who claimed the same, assuming they let me, we feel offended by your claim.
Also, he would deserve to be getting shit anyway for the way he spoke about it. Justice be served!!! *add retri paladin voice*

-----

Just as a suggestion thrown here, as a way to deal with the chaotic main section that may happen in the future as some people are pointing out in here, I'd give registered users a way to "hide" posts they are not interested to read any more. This is just a concern to power users of the site, and between that and the categories of "special" posts, it shouldn't be an issue for newcomers either.

I have never programmed for websites, so I don't know if there's anyway to store this in cookies or the like, but if it was possible to do somehow like this, I'd save the unwanted posts on client-side, and make it so that intelligently the client fetches new posts as necessary to fill the page, and allow registered users to save them into their account (if you are willing to pay the extra storage space)

So, TLDR:
- Main section, all posts appear
- Categories are just selections of the best posts (could be improved with community votes + pinned posts, etc)
- Let people hide posts they are not interested to read anymore.

Just an opinion, as always. Kudos again, Teebs.

EDIT:
The TLDR is just an idea, please don't assume that is the definitive list of functionalities (Some of the features, like unhide posts, are implicitly assumed)

What your intent originally for this site was just be a discussion board for Classic so your fine there, but like someone mentioned earlier having everything in one Section can get messy though you got guides section/sub forum though only staff can move stuff there I guess. But yeah without more realm info not much you could add in terms of sub forums. Def would love a Sub Forum for Classic Twinking in future possibly hehe.

Also having multiple sub forums or categories can tend to make sites/forums Look ''Dead'' if they don't got enough fair interest in those multiple categories or subjects so what you got now is totally fine, but has traffic increases / members def maybe something to consider!

I think their could be a section for the really active topics, like speedrunning for example. I think I had even suggested it within the thread itself previously. It is hard to find any other topics that are consistently active enough to warrant sub-forums at the moment. Maybe having a 'Guilds' section where people can advertise/apply/discuss guild information? This website could be a nice LFGuild hub leading up to Classic, if implemented well.

I actually liked the fact that everything was in one place.
However as time passes and we get more users, I can see how it could be hard to find topics.
Just spitballing ideas, but maybe instead of having 10 sub-forum categories, an easy way to search with tags can also be applied. Similar to topic flairs on reddit.

Haters gonna hate. This site is epic and I love it! :)

Dont change anything, as the site is perfect as it is. if you're looking for something specific there's a search function that works really well.

I think it might be something that needs to be considered more as the userbase of the forum increases. Honestly the only desire I've ever had for a 'sub forum' here is a place to communicate about playing together with other forum members. I've been in beta since the beginning and have felt pretty lonely outside of some random interactions with people in the world and I'm the only one in the beta in my guild so it sucks finding people to play with.

His points are poorly presented, but there is a kernel of truth in there. Mainly, I would point out that there ARE in fact sub-forums already. As he pointed out, for instance, the header "Realms" leads to a subforum for realms. I think there is a small point to be made that having the header "Forum" is inaccurate, considering the board it leads to is NOT the only forum board on the website, but rather the MAIN forum. If you want to be strict about it, it's not unreasonable to suggest that the "Forum" header be renamed to "General." It would be more accurate, and less confusing. I admit, when I first came here I was surprised that the other links led to forum-style boards. The link titled "Forum" implied to me that there was only one such board on the website.

Aside from that, I agree that our small community wouldn't benefit from splitting the General forum into multiple boards. What would be nice, though, would be the ability to tag our threads with categories, to make it easier to search for and view certain types of posts.

...does he have a point though?

No. This forum is awesome and simple. We don't need 10 empty sub-forums.