I am a huge fan of sub-forums because I like things to be organised and clean. A messy forum full of various child forums highly irritates me, and I find it incredibly non-user friendly - so much so, to the point where I feel it's an arduous task to even look at the forum nevermind post. However, others do not like sub-forums, and likely feel the same way as me, but for the opposite cause.
On the most recent update of myBB (our forum provider) it seems a little bug which cannot be fixed is present (which has already been noted in the 'Problems' section by a member). If multiple child forums hidden within a sub-forum have new posts, the little indicator does not show after you read the first one. As such, unless you click the sub-forum's title, you will not know whether there are new posts apart from the one you've already read or not. The only solution made the post indicator light up even if you were the one making the post. You essentially had to read your own post after leaving the thread.
A rather annoying bug to say the least, but I feel members can adapt (or likely have adapted) to this to ensure they have always read every post within a sub-forum.
What's the difference between a forum, a sub-forum and a child forum? See below.
A forum:
http://d.pr/i/jV2d
A sub-forum:
http://d.pr/i/sYPN
And finally, a sub-forum holds child forums:
http://d.pr/i/51U5
Without a sub-forum, the three child forums held within 'off-topic chat and useful & informative links' would be displayed on the forum index, under 'the canteen'. Imagine them being below, rather than having the two sub-forums present instead:
http://d.pr/i/QHXG
This would then enlarge the forum index and make it look even bigger, and potentially make the forum look a lot 'messier' or 'cluttered' too.
Would we prefer having a messy/cluttered forum, or an organised forum which can cause inconvenience owing to the additional clicking required? Both ways aren't the most user-friendly of options, but you only have two options - have sub-forums, or don't have them.
You will already notice that we have removed the sub-forums from the Local Bus Scene area, an area we recently changed and received a lot of good feedback on. To avoid the forum being massively enlarged (as it did, by a further three rows), everything was made to be a little bit smaller. Some visually impaired (even if it is just to a remote degree) may find this offputting, and could potentially turn their backs on NEB - something we don't want.
The advantage of them being all on the forum index is that you needn't worry about missing a post if you haven't already adapted to clicking the sub-forum, but I can't help but feel it looks a lot messier.
Thoughts and opinions? Sub-forum or no sub-forum?
Do help us out! There's a poll above if you've got a straight forward 'Yes' or 'No' answer rather than any additional feedback (of course you can do both, however!)