How many sections should a forum have?

One of the toughest jobs when creating a new forum is deciding on the different sections. It doesn't sound like much of a task does it? The trouble is that if you have too many sections everything looks lonely and unloved in the Laser levels and theodolites section but the Footie chatter is chocked full of non-core discussion. Past experience tells us that a bit of balance is needed.

So how did we arrive at a decision? In truth we haven't really because after a hot and sweaty meeting this morning we put down a simple structure that we hope won't be too confusing in the early days. It might change though!

DEVELOPMENT AND LAND

clients, legal, contracts, acquisition, investment, agents, project managers,

ARCHITECTURE, PLANNING, DESIGN AND ENGINEERING

architecture, civil, structures, environmental, geotechnical, transport, planning, services, highways,

CONSTRUCTION

main contractors, site work, subcontractor trades, materials, suppliers, merchants, tools, plant, machinery,

ENVIRONMENTAL

renewables, recycling, waste, remediation, pollution, contamination, carbon footprint, transport,

PROJECTS

project or location specific threads

LEARNING ZONE

students, new to industry, ask an expert, CPD

GENERAL CHAT

anything not related to the built environment

SPORT CHAT

COMPUTERS & TECH

IT, computers, mobile phones, cameras, surveying equipment, internet, social networking,

CLASSIFIED ADVERTS

• TENDERS
• JOBS
• VEHICLES & PLANT
• LAND & BUILDINGS
• MISCELLANEOUS

MEMBER DIRECTORY

List of members, their companies, blogs, Twitter, etc

You'll see that we've tried to keep it simple - big sections but ones that try to cover the major areas of interest in today's built environment. We'll keep it under review and will invite feedback and suggestions as time progresses so please let us know your thoughts.