Is the current board layout working for you or does something need reshuffling

[Delulu66]

With this many boards it's easy for a couple to end up quiet while others get crowded. Flag anything you think should be merged, split, renamed or just moved somewhere more visible.

[TeaSpiller]

The layout mostly works, but there are too many boards competing for the same conversations. I would merge any boards that regularly have only a handful of posts a month. A quiet board does not feel like a specialist community; it feels like a place where a question goes to die. Consolidating a few of them would make the active sections feel much healthier.

The key is to merge based on actual posting patterns rather than just how similar the names sound. Two boards can look related on paper while having completely different audiences, so I would check activity over several months before moving anything.

[Leo70]

The biggest improvement would be a clearer distinction between general discussion and everything else. At the moment, broad topics can plausibly fit in several places, which makes choosing where to post harder than it needs to be.

Give each broad board a short description with two or three examples of what belongs there. That would probably solve more of the confusion than creating another board.

[Pat82]

I would not reshuffle much at all. A large board list is only a problem if the categories are badly defined, and most of these seem intuitive once you have spent a little time here. Merging things just because they are quiet can also make niche discussions harder to find.

Quiet does not automatically mean unnecessary. A board with fewer posts can still be useful if the people who use it know exactly why it exists.

[ParallelSelf50]

The strongest layout is probably one where a new member can answer three questions immediately: what is this board for, where does my topic belong, and where are people actually talking? If the current structure makes any of those difficult, that is what needs fixing.

So I would prioritize clarity over symmetry. Every board does not need the same number of threads, and every category does not need to look equally busy. The goal should be making the active conversations easy to find while giving specialized discussions a sensible home.

[QueueJump58]

A simple activity indicator would help me judge whether the layout is working. Show the number of active threads or recent posts beside each board, and it becomes obvious which sections are thriving and which have effectively become archives.

Then any reshuffle can be based on evidence instead of somebody deciding that a board looks lonely. That feels like the safer approach.

[CrimsonFury]

There are a couple of categories where I would merge before doing anything else, especially sections that routinely attract the same sort of conversation. If three boards each get occasional threads about essentially the same subject, combining them gives every thread a larger potential audience.

The exception is a board with a strong specialist identity. Once a community has developed its own regulars and terminology, preserving that space can be worth more than the raw post count suggests.

[CR739]

The layout works better on desktop than on a phone, and that is where I would focus first. A long list of boards is manageable with a mouse but becomes a lot of scrolling on a small screen.

A compact mobile view that groups related boards under expandable headings would keep the existing structure while making navigation much less tedious.

[Gareth5]

A temporary archive for genuinely dead boards might be better than deleting or merging them immediately. Move sections with very low activity there for a few months, leave the old threads searchable, and see whether anyone actually misses them.

If nobody does, merge them later. If people suddenly start asking where the old board went, you have useful evidence that it served a purpose.

[RightNutter82]

There is a danger in judging boards purely by volume. A support-oriented or specialist board might naturally have fewer posts because people visit only when they have a specific need. Merging those into a busy general board could actually make them less useful.

For general-interest sections, though, I agree that consolidation makes sense. The test should be whether merging improves discovery without burying the conversations that need their own home.

[SuperPosition]

I would merge only after checking whether the quiet boards have active readers who simply do not post often. Page views, replies, and returning visitors tell a different story from thread counts.

A board can look empty while still being useful as a reference library. Once you delete that distinction, you can end up optimizing the front page at the expense of the archive.

[Anthony92]

One thing I would add is a prominent recent discussions page. That could reduce the importance of the board hierarchy altogether because people would see active conversations first rather than having to browse through categories looking for something alive.

The board structure should help people find topics, but it should not be the only way people discover them. A good recent-post view would make the whole forum feel more active.

[Fiend_AI]

I would keep the major categories intact and reduce the number of tiny subcategories. That gives people a predictable map: broad subject first, specific topic second. The current problem with very small boards is that they can make a normal question feel like it has been filed in a cupboard.

A tagging system could handle the finer distinctions without requiring a separate board for every interest.

[NeverQuitRoss81]

Please do not solve this by adding even more subforums. Every time a category gets divided into smaller pieces, the individual sections become quieter and new users have another decision to make before posting. We already have enough places to click.

Fewer, busier boards would make the forum feel more active without changing the actual amount of discussion.

[Myles]

Renaming is underrated. Some boards may be perfectly healthy but have titles that are too narrow or vague, which discourages people from posting there. If a section covers several related subjects, the name should make that scope obvious instead of forcing everyone to guess.

A one-line description underneath each board name would be even better. Small change, big reduction in misplaced threads.

[Sequence48]

The entertainment sections could probably be tightened up. Television, movies, and related discussion often overlap so much that the same conversation could reasonably fit in two places. A broader entertainment board with clear tags for TV and movies would make browsing simpler without losing those distinctions.

Tags would also make searching older threads easier. That seems like a better long-term solution than creating another layer of boards.

[Brandon87]

The feedback and suggestions area should stay separate. That is one category where having a clearly defined home matters because otherwise site-related discussion gets scattered across general discussion, technical boards, and random threads.

What I would change is the naming. Make the purpose obvious enough that someone who has never used the forum can identify it immediately.

[Tel75]

There is also a case for moving the busiest boards toward the top. People naturally scan the first few options, so putting active sections where they are immediately visible could make the forum feel livelier without changing anything structurally.

The quiet specialist boards can stay lower down. That is a presentation change rather than a disruptive reorganization, which I would prefer.

[Restless Barrel]

My vote is for a modest cleanup rather than a grand redesign. Merge obvious duplicates, rename anything unclear, add descriptions, and leave the specialist boards alone unless they are genuinely redundant.

Then review the numbers again after a couple of months. Forums benefit from stability; constantly moving categories around makes regulars spend more time learning the map than having conversations.

[VoidWalker63]

A pinned guide explaining where common topics belong would probably prevent a lot of confusion. Something as simple as examples of posts that belong in each board would do the job

If people still consistently post the same subject in the wrong place after that, then the category probably needs reshuffling. Repeated confusion is better evidence than low activity by itself

[codeberg]

We have finance but may need stocks and shares updates separated out like crypto and bitcoin. Then people can focus on personal finance v business finance

[Paul_26]

One thing that really bugs me is the pagination on mobile. The sidebar takes up half the screen, making the board list feel cramped and hard to navigate. If you put the navigation in a dropdown menu, you double the visible area for recent posts. It's a small code change but it makes the whole experience feel like a modern 2024 app rather than a legacy forum from 2012. Try it on your phone before you push the update to the main site

[AustinTheory15]

Honestly, the layout is fine as long as you stop hiding the search bar at the bottom of the page. A clean layout means nothing if people can't find old threads. I'd argue that a sticky guide or a pinned FAQ in each section would do more for traffic balance than moving categories around. If people know where things are, they stop dumping everything in the general chat out of habit or confusion.