I often wonder why the Travel forum is at the top of the index followed by the Spanish forum. 
Wouldn’t it make more sense to put the forums with the most traffic right at the top of the index?
You’d have the Open forum at the top, followed by Living in Taiwan, Int’l Politics, Culture ‘n’ History, Tech in Taiwan, Teaching English, and so on.
Or am I missing some logic to the order?
[quote=“Spack”]I often wonder why the Travel forum is at the top of the index followed by the Spanish forum.
Wouldn’t it make more sense to put the forums with the most traffic right at the top of the index?
You’d have the Open forum at the top, followed by Living in Taiwan, Int’l Politics, Culture ‘n’ History, Tech in Taiwan, Teaching English, and so on.
Or am I missing some logic to the order?[/quote]
Same reason dairy and meat is at the back of the supermarket. 
I remember back in the very beginning, when the Open Forum was called Rants and Raves, that we put it at the bottom because it was really the “Etc” dicsussion forum.
It became the most popular forum, and seemed to be, well, mostly Rants, and we wound up closing it for a time because minding it was taking up time developing the rest of the website (oh, and our real jobs)
At that point, it was clearly the most popular section, and drew people back to the forums. Afterwards, when we opened new forums, we move up those which needed more traffic to the top, and those that seem to draw their own traffic (no matter what we did or didn’t do) to the bottom (“dairy and meat at the back” --> well said)
I guess Maoman runs thru a similar process today 
[quote=“Maoman”]Same reason dairy and meat is at the back of the supermarket. 
[/quote]Because that’s where the freezer is ? :s
I didn’t get the meat and dairy explanation at first. Then Gus’s comment helped me out.
Basically, yuo get the punters right into the store, passing all the goods on display as they make their way to the back. The idea is to get them to buy more stuff.
For the forums, the logic is people will see what else is on offer as they scroll down to the Open Forum. Otherwise I guess some people would just post everything straight into the Open Forum instead of putting it in one of the other more appropriate forums.
I agree with Spack 100 percent. This isn’t a supermarket and people can look around if they want. Makes perfect sense to put the heavy traffic at the top (and it is considerate too).
Gus wrote: …“we move up those which needed more traffic to the top…”
I agree with Reinhold and spack 1000 percent. This isn’t a supermarket or a store needing traffic control to “sell” more goods. Makes good sense to put the top thread areas on top. Now if it was a store, then yes, but is this a store?
So are we putting the fruit and vegetables next to the entrance ?
Do we really have to have chocolate at the checkout ? 
[quote=“Big Fluffy Matthew”]So are we putting the fruit and vegetables next to the entrance ?
Do we really have to have chocolate at the checkout ? [/quote]
Impulse appeal.
This was how I was thinking back then. For me, it implies less work for the moderators, and greater probability of everyone helping keep the website a bit more accessible.
Spack wrote:
This assumes that some of the people who use this forum are morons.
But, maybe they are…
This could also assume that some of the people who use this forum prefer to be expedient.
Say I have a question about “rice cakes in Taiwan”. First thing I see when I come to this website – Open Forum. I’ll stick it in there and see who bites. But if I had checked a screenful or two below and saw Health in Taiwan, maybe I would attract more relevant responses had I put my question about dieting with rice cakes there instead.
Also, why put a catch-all section ahead of specialized sections? When someone first visits this forum, they can scroll down and see how certain areas of interest have developed here. This is why I wonder if the General Legal forum should be at the bottom of all the legal forums.
When Culture & History was briefly at the top after one of the reshuffles, it received more posts.
Open doesn’t need more posts – at least not at the expense of the other forums. It would just mean more work for the mods of Open, who would have to move posts, and more confusion for newbies, who wouldn’t be able to find their misdirected post in Open anymore.
I think Open is fine where it is. If a reshuffle is being considered, perhaps Teaching English in Taiwan should get moved up (but not to the very top, for the same reason I don’t want Open there).