Forum structure

Forumera gives admins a flexible structure for organising discussions so they stay navigable as the forum grows. This page explains how to think about categories, boards, and long-lived content.

Designing categories

Categories are the top-level sections inside a forum. Common patterns include:

• By purpose: Announcements, Questions, Ideas, Feedback.
• By audience: New members, Power users, Instructors, Staff.
• By time: Course weeks, project phases, sprints.

Categories are mainly used for orientation: they help members quickly understand "what lives where" when they land on the forum.

Boards inside categories

Inside each category, you define one or more boards. Boards are where threads actually live.

Examples:

• In an "Announcements" category: boards like "Changelog" and "Community news".
• In a "Support" category: boards like "How do I…?" and "Bug reports".
• In a course forum: one board per week or module.

Boards can differ in:

• Who can create threads.
• Who can reply.
• Whether they are public or private.

These behaviours are controlled by Forumera's permissions and visibility system.

Archive and long-lived content

As your forum matures, some content becomes reference material. Forumera supports:

• An archive view, where older threads can be moved once they're resolved or no longer active.
• Canon summaries, which turn long discussions into curated, high-signal summaries.

This helps the forum evolve into a knowledge base rather than an endless scroll of active threads.

Evolving your structure

It's normal for forum structure to change over time. Good practices:

• Start simple: a handful of categories and boards.
• Watch where activity naturally clusters.
• Split very busy boards into more specific ones.
• Merge boards that stay consistently quiet or confusing.

Members experience these changes through updated category/board lists and subtle changes to visibility. Done well, structure changes make the forum feel cleaner, not more complicated.