Here are my thoughts on these issues.
1. To many forums
Keep in mind the new forums are less than two weeks old. Some will take off faster than others and some might not take off at all. The more active those forums get, the more new members and guest will be inclined to register and make a post in them. I am doing some PPC advertising trying to find new members who may be interested in those forums in addition to more search engine ranking work for various other keywords.
While I agree the new graphics forums have started of slow, the coding forums are starting off pretty well IMO (the PHP forum in particular). Using subforums is an option but it seems most people don't really like them. If I did this, it would probably be for the graphics forums only. We did used to have one forum just for graphics and one forum just for coding. IMO, that was the right way to start off but at some point I wanted to expand. If it was to early to do this is yet to be seen. As I said in a previous post, if some of the new forums did not start taking off to an acceptable level, I had no problem combining them again (though I hoped we would not need to).
At this point we "might" have to combine some of the graphics forums, but I still think we should try and give it a least several more weeks. But maybe if they don't get moving, we could go the subforum route instead. Then after each of the forums have an acceptable level of posts we could move them back to the index page as there own forums.
Anyway, I'll keep thinking about this and keep listening to your input. Nothing is set in stone and these forums are always a "work in progress." I only think we should give it a few more weeks and then reassess what we should do (and it is very possible we could combine some again or go the subforum route). IMO, it's not a matter of if the new forums should have there own forums but if they are going to be busy enough to warrant it at this time (one interested in PHP or with questions on PHP does not want to sort through a bunch of other threads about ASP, HTML, Javascript or whatever else).
I don't think confusion about where to post is all that much of an issue (seems pretty self explanatory to me) and if it is then one can just ask (or we will move it).
2. The Right Side Bar
I can probably assume that the majority of you with a problem are at 800 x 600 resolution. However, at any resolution, I don't dispute that it certainly takes up more space. This issue is somewhat of a difficult one. We do sell ad space and have partners (which send us new members) with these forums and they either have to go on the top of the forum, bottom, or right side. Placing all the links of our partners in on the bottom of the forums is not really an option anymore. I want to provide value to our advertisers and partners and not bury them on the bottom of the footer. I know not all of you click on them but our advertisers and partners DO get a decent amount of traffic (and they should). Most of them are all "webmaster" related and can prove useful to some members. If you are interested in a new host, there are many to consider. Maybe you are looking for a freelance programmer, affiliate tracking software, shopping cart software etc... Point being that these ads ARE relevant and do proove helpful to many of our members (but obviously won't for everyone).
Getting back on topic, I did briefly try moving the partners and advertisers to the top of the forums and it just didnt look very good. Maybe if I designed it in a better way it would work out. I am NOT dead set on the right side bar. I personally like the side bar as it adds a little uniqueness to the forums (though many other very popular forums use one).
I never intended have the right side bar only for partners or advertisers. There is a lot of other useful info I could add to that section such as recent polls, current contests, maybe a featured member, the list could go on. If I added more forum related content to it would it change your mind? (assuming it probably would not as the space used seems to be the issue).
Meanwhile, while we are still considering the options, I reduced the amount of space it takes up by about 20 pixels (will help just slightly).
3. Load Time
I could possibly change a few things at the expense of the design(removing gradients for a solid color etc) but this probably won't help a whole lot. We use very little large size graphics on the site. Much of the load time is from features we have added such as similiar threads listed on the bottom of threads. I could remove more features if most of you never use them. Overall I don't think load time is to much of an issue but I can understand where it may be slow on a 56k modem (I'll have to test that).
Take Care everyone and thanks for your feedback. Again, nothing is set in stone and could change at anytime. I am super busy and don't always get to things right away but do eventually get to them (I also have a another day job). I am sorry that whatever we do, it is very difficult to make everyone happy but we will try our best.
