Better Off Topic Sections

[Shawn Gossman]

Should niche forums add multiple non-niche boards to off topic area?

For example, if you have a forum about knitting, should you add an entire off topic category to include a general section, sports section, debate section, and others?

Do you think this would increase engagement on the forum or hurt the main niche sections?

 

[Cpvr]

I don’t think this is a good approach on a niche forum, you should keep your main niche areas the focus of your forum instead of adding more off topic sections.

However, I think it would be a good idea to add prefixes to the off topic forum itself instead of adding more forums.

 

[Tracy]

If you are going to do that, then why not just start a general chat and then have areas for hobbies, work, science, computers... ad nauseum.
If you are a niche, concentrate on your niche and then give your users a general area to talk about life that they may wish to.
The urge to do what you reference is a desire to try and draw more traffic. And once the off-topic BS starts drawing more traffic you loose the benefit of the niche, and probably a lot of those niche users that don't want to see that other stuff.

I have a meme I use regularly for when I see questions like this. But since the image embed won't allow it and uploading it would probably convert it from the GIF format... I won't use it.
Basically, it s a somewhat sarcastic meme about staying in your lane.

 

[Shawn Gossman]

I'm in agreement with you all - keep the forum related to your niche.

I think a single Off Topic section usually is all you need. If you're a promotion forum, then a much broader off topic category could be helpful if services are credit system based.

 

[Heatman]

It's never really a good idea because I've seen it a lot of time with some niche forums where most of the discussions now switch to the off topic section more than the forum's main area. It can be a serious distraction in the forum.

 

[Shawn Gossman]

It's never really a good idea because I've seen it a lot of time with some niche forums where most of the discussions now switch to the off topic section more than the forum's main area. It can be a serious distraction in the forum.

That's what I've seen in my experience.

I've also seen a lot of forums that do that sell the database pretty quick. I'll typically avoid joining a forum like that because that's probably what they're going to do.

 

[Heatman]

That's what I've seen in my experience.

I've also seen a lot of forums that do that sell the database pretty quick. I'll typically avoid joining a forum like that because that's probably what they're going to do.

Bizdustry recently sold its database. If anyone ever told me the owner Alex was going to sell his database, I would never believe it. This is someone I knew that was trying to compete with FP.

 

[AllyHellkiller]

One of my niches is very dependent on government policies. As soon as anyone mentions a political administration policy the admins on that forums would start getting bent out of shape. When I get my forum up and running I want to create a political section for people and they can go at it. I might join in the melee ,but mostly sit back with pop corn and observe.