Hi, have suggested this a few times before, but Ill do it again :D

I really think it would benefit the Renderosity forum and usability if you narrowed down the number of forums that you have available. The reason for this comes down to several things.

First I think its very confusing with so many forums, for instance the Poser technical forums there are 6 forums in total for different version, in half of these there haven't been posted in the last 80 days, so it makes little sense to keep them. What i would suggest is to combine all these into a single Poser technical forum instead or simply make people post in the regular Poser forum where they already post a lot of these questions, because that the place with the greatest chance of getting help.

There are 2 different suggestion forums (Im not even sure im posting this in the correct one :D) The majority of the suggestions are posted in the one called "Suggestion box" so remove the other one and keep all suggestions in the same forum.

"Where can I find" Remove that and make people post in the software specific forum that they are using. So if a user is looking for a "hat" and uses poser they would post in the Poser forum.

There is no reason to have 2-4 2D forums or how many there is, combine them all into one.

There are to many forums to go through each, but in general I think all forums which are rarely posted in should be removed or combined into a single forum. for instance all those that are for specific programs and posts are rare, make one forum called "Other software". "Other technical" and so forth.

The reason why I would do this, is to focus the forum more, so posts are easier for people to see and therefore to get help. When I come to the forum I very rarely check any other forum than Poser, Vendor support forum, meaning I scroll to these without even checking the others, simply because there are so many that I honestly cant be bothered checking through them and I know that 80% of them are not very active and based on the activity in most of the forums I assume that most users have a very similar behavior. Which means that if you post in any of them, there is a good chance that only the moderator of that forum will see it.

Even though it might seem very user friendly with all these specific forums, Im pretty certain that its exactly the opposite and a new user would find it extremely confusing where to post varies things having so many forums, besides that it doesn't really help them either if they then post in a forum and no one answers them. Reducing the amount of forums would also increase activity in the other forums, which is what makes a forum fun and interesting, that people are sharing idea, helping each other and have friendly chats. But with all these forums people are scattered all over the place.

So I would strongly advice that you do a really a huge clean up, its really messy and not very useful with so many inactive forums I think

If you go to your Settings page and select Forums, you can scroll down and select which forums you want to see, and which you don't. It's the easiest way to "clean up" what you see when you visit the forums. This is an option I've been using for many years.

Oh, and you can also choose how many threads per page, and how many messages per page, as well as your forum signature, and visibility choices.

Hope that helps.

I know you can hide forums, but I don't see that as a viable solution, its a nice feature to have I think, but only if the overall forum design or layout is good. The reason for this as I see it, is because the feature is not really addressing the problem in the first place, but merely pushing or hiding it. At least to me such feature is something you would have to use if part of a forum is really off in regards of what topics you are interested in.

But based on the amount of forums and how many of them that are "inactive" meaning hardly any posts, views or replies to what people have posted in them, at least to me give an indication that these are not needed, which could mean that people are simply not interested in those forums or as me wont bother checking them, or as you suggested have hidden them away. To me it give an impression of a forum that is very inactive which is a killer for any forum, no one cares to spend time on a forum if you are the only one in there :)

So instead of keep adding forums, combine them so you get more activity, thereby the forums will be more interesting. Im also a vendor so we have more forums and as with the Poser technical forums being split into many forums, these are also split into many forums, but its pretty much only one of them that are being used on a regular basis, the rest could easily be combined into that one without causing any problems.

If I should rearrange the Forums I would do something like this:

General

News - (Post all news here, that include coupons, special sales, changes made to the forum etc. You could add industry news here as well)

Contests - (Contests are posted here, rules and questions etc.)

Questions / FAQ - (Place for people to ask questions regarding stuff on Renderosity, how does coupons work, what are Render rewards etc)

Customer support - (Any questions that customers might have)

Suggestion box - (Place to post suggestions to Renderosity)

Looking for artist / Jobs - (Place to post for people looking for help)

Freebies - (New freebies stuff)

Prime forum - (Only for prime members)

Galleries WIP

3D Art WIP - (Post 3D images and animations you like feedback on)

2D Art WIP - (Post 3D images and animations storyboards etc you like feedback on)

Photography WIP - (Post photography you like feedback on)

Other art WIP- (Anything else that doesnt relate to the above)

Software

Poser

Daz3D

3ds Max

Maya

Zbrush

Photoshop

Other software

(I know there are some special software like Virtual world dynamics which could get there own if needed or if this is only for Poser, make a sub forum in the Poser forum instead)

Techniques

Modelling

Texturing

Lighting / Rendering / Camera

Animation / Rigging

Fractals

Drawing

Photography

Other techniques

Vendor only

Vendor support - (Vendors can ask questions, get information etc.)

All other forums should be removed as I see it. If a software receive a lot of posts in the "Other" categories they should make one for it. Other than that they should not make new ones.