Categories and Forums

[Gareth]

Hi all I'm new here.

I'm planning on starting a new forum on world wildlife, yes I know its a big subject but it's what interests me:nuts:

I have read various tutorials and want to keep things small to start with, but should I set it up something like this

Category > Wildlife
Forum > Mammals
Forum > Birds
Forum > Insects and Invertibrates
Forum > Water Life
Forum > Amphibians and Reptiles
Forum > Flowers, Plants and Trees

Category > The Environment
Forum > Issues
Forum > General

Category > Conservation
Forum > Conservation
Forum > Organisation/Groups
Forum > Interviews

Category > The Pond
Forum > Pond (General chit-chat)
Forum > The site

Is this too much? If so, what is the best way to condense it.

Also, if I start off with a forum software like SMF and later if the site gets popular decide to change to vb is there a easy way to transfer the users/posts etc over to vb

Thanks for any input:help:

[Christian]

Is this too much? If so, what is the best way to condense it.
In my opinion, yes. It's been my experience that too many forums without ample content can be a major deterrent for potential members. Once you get a good userbase and have ample content to justify more forums, I would add them then.

My suggestion is to start off to two categories. Like:

Category > Wildlife(or something else)
Forum > Wildlife
Forum > The Environment
Forum > Conservation

Category > The Pond
Forum > Pond (General chit-chat)
Forum > The site

You could also add a few subforums to a forum or two, if you wanted to.


Also, if I start off with a forum software like SMF and later if the site gets popular decide to change to vb is there a easy way to transfer the users/posts etc over to vb

Yes sir! http://www.vbulletin.com/docs/html/main/impex_smf

[Gareth]

Thanks for the reply Christian, much apreciated.

Yep that looks better.