Comments on: Choosing a name for your forum categories

By: Martin Reed - Blog Author

Martin Reed - Blog Author — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 19:31:47 +0000

Alvina – You make a valid point; whilst forum categories and descriptions should be original, they still need to be clear. There is no point having inventive names and descriptions if people don’t have a clue what they mean!

By: Alvina

Alvina — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 06:03:29 +0000

I think this is a good idea if the forum is dedicated mainly to native English speakers or if the titles are simple. I’m not a native English speaker and if I saw “Grease Monkeys” on a forum, I’d have to look at it a few times in order to figure out what it is about. On a site I administered, the “History” forum was renamed to “Thought and Memory” for example, however it turned out to be more difficult for some non-native speakers to figure it out. Some would send me PMs asking me if we have a history forum. So I decided to keep it simple and instead personalize my forum by adding some custom icons for each forum.

By: Martin Reed - Blog Author

Martin Reed - Blog Author — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 17:43:42 +0000

Chris – Thanks for dropping by. The descriptions are so standard these days that people often forget they can be a inventive and stand out from the crowd at the same time.

Has this article resulted in you considering a change over at your forum?

Smiley – I am glad that differentiation has become such a strong priority for your site’s development and growth. Keep it up!

By: Smiley

Smiley — Thu, 02 Aug 2007 02:56:37 +0000

LOL – yes, I am quite obsessive lately when it comes to editing the site. I’m just learning new things all the time. 4 weeks ago, I didn’t even know how to restore a database – now I just about know how to completely re-arrange phpBB boards.

So I’m always looking for new ways to differentiate, everyday of every week

Obsessive.. yeah.. but it’ll be worth it in a couple of years down the line !!

By: Chris Guthrie

Chris Guthrie — Tue, 31 Jul 2007 06:30:59 +0000

Interesting point here Martin. I saw you had visited my blog (love that mybloglog widget ). On some of my forum’s ’subforums’ I occasionally use plain descriptions, but I feel that often times it is done simply to keep up the pattern of having a description for each subforum.

By: Martin Reed - Blog Author

Martin Reed - Blog Author — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 21:54:53 +0000

Smiley – That sounds almost obsessive; a man after my own heart

By: Smiley

Smiley — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 20:01:09 +0000

Yeah. I’ve one a lot to differentiate, I’ve basically gone down the lang_main file changing just about everything. So I think in my case, I could get away with having straight forward category names!

By: Martin Reed - Blog Author

Martin Reed - Blog Author — Mon, 30 Jul 2007 14:39:19 +0000

Smiley – Sometimes it is a good idea to keep it simple; as for the category descriptions, I have no idea how many people read them. They can be used as a bit of fun, though – anything that gives the casual visitor more of an insight into your community is worth utilising, in my opinion.

By: Smiley

Smiley — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 21:50:42 +0000

I had different names before on my forums for each category. But one night I was reading them and thought “people who are new to forums are just going to be so confused…”

I decided to go down changing all the names to much more straight forward names. “Health, Beauty, Fitness & Fashion”, “Music, Television & Video” etc.

A new user to forums will understand straight away what that forum is about. I know there’s a ‘description’ bit under the forum name for people to read, but who really reads the descriptions? I know I’ve never. “Web users are lazy!”

By: Martin Reed - Blog Author

Martin Reed - Blog Author — Sun, 29 Jul 2007 15:43:15 +0000

Mike – Good luck coming up with some creative names and descriptions. Don’t forget to have fun whilst doing it!