Time for more forum categories?

[KarlSchneider]

Dan,

Are we getting to the point where a forum on peripherals is in order? i am thinking of cups, tampers, knockboxes vs. machines (grinders and brewers).

KS

[HB]

Perhaps someday, but currently HB has modest traffic and a manageable ~30 posts per day. The advice I've read from successful forum owners consistently says to keep the number of forum categories proportional to traffic. A rookie mistake of young forums is to create too many categories of which most languish with only a handful of posts. I follow the phpBB discussion forum and see it all the time (e.g., 30+ categories with a few hundred posts spread among them).

BTW, I am looking for ideas on keeping good discussions from getting lost. The FAQs and Favorites is a good start. On the other side of the equation, archiving older threads with low view counts is possible, the idea being to keep the quality of search results high. (Speaking of searches, I ask myself why isn't the default "and" like every search engine on the planet... need to change that, and the default results to posts, not topics; the latter makes sense with HUGE forums, not small to medium ones).

[KarlSchneider]

Hi Dan,

I think the plan to keep the number of fora to a small number is actually quite wise. I suspect this also encourages people to contribute and that is good.

You quite likely know I love cups and talking about them. I did lots of cup trading early on (with Abe Carmeli among others) but now have a core group that grows only occasionally.

I also sold and gave away some tampers but that activity also has subsided. I did recently get a nice HB tamper from Espresso Parts like the one pictured in your logo. I am adjusting to the different ergonomics from my Thor tampers and find it quite good as an alternative.

KS