!!! Read this carefully because this will severely impact the forum layout !!!
So far a majority seems to favour the reducing of the scales forums.
I've heard from more sides that there are too many (sub)forums and that it's hard to follow what's going on. Therefore I would like to take it a step further by merging (sub)forums together that don't see much activity.
The 10mm, 6mm and 1/600 forums will be merged together for sure because these probably won't see much activity in the near future.
I probably leave the "25mm - 28mm Historical", "25mm - 28mm Fantasy + Sci-Fi" and "1/48 and larger" forums seperate as I expect more growth in these. Plus I don't think 28mm collectors of Medieval/Napoleonics/Historical want to plough through 50% fantasy stuff... something you won't see happening much in most of the other scales forums that are for more than 95% historical orientated.
However I'll merge some forums together.
"Miniatures News" + Miniatures Talk" will be merged to "Miniatures Talk".
"Modelling" + "General" will be merged to "General".
This goes for every scales forum except 20mm - 1/72 scale, although the Reviews will be merged with Miniatures Talk, and Modelling forum will be merged with the general Tutorials forum.
Furthermore all the wargaming related subforums will be moved to a general wargaming forum divided up in periods, thus cutting back on another subforum in each scale.
It was also uttered to split up forums that are too busy. At the moment I can't identify any forum that would meet this qualification. The only forum that's most active is the 1/72 gallery, yet the last post on the page dates back more than 14 days so I don't think that's active enough to split it up.
Splitting up forums up into more forums would also decrease the readability of the forum, something we try to improve now by merging forums that don't see much activity. There are other and better long term solutions to this problem (the use of tags), some on which I'm working now, and which unfortanately, because of a lack of funds, won't see the light of day for a while... but I'm working on it!
Do you think decreasing the amount of (sub)forums is a good idea?
and
How do you think the forum should be divided to improve readability?
I'm interested in your opinion.