Or just banish them to the off-topic forum. Beats further subdivisions.James Steele wrote:By the way... I'm thinking that to avoid clogging on the normal DP forums, I may make a new forum called "Software Deal Alerts" etc. where members of this forum can share these sorts of special deals they come across.
One thing I learned back in the UseNET days, was that over-categorization of a newsgroup would lead to its marginalization. The "alt" newsgroups were always petitioning UseNET's overlords for permission to set up a real newsgroup with structure. It took an act of [insert favorite deity here] to make that happen, so the organizers of the alt group would typically over-categorize it to make it seem more legit. On occasion one would succeed, and the readers of the alt group would migrate to the new legit group. There, faced with a half-dozen to a dozen subdivisions, they split off into splinter groups that became cult-like, while those who had just enjoyed the camaraderie of their own kind would try to continue in the "general" group. But the general group then would have fewer people in it, and eventually interest would wane, and people drifted away. (this was before Spam killed the whole UseNET network.)
Then people started gathering at forums, which of course could control spam through membership and moderation. I saw the same behavior happening at a number of such forums, including the big one, Mac Central, which was the grandaddy of all Mac forums with a huge following in the 1990s. When they split it up, it became cultish, diluted, and finally closed down, its diehard members roaming the internet for a new home, of which they went through about half a dozen before ending up as a small, invitation-only group on Facebook.
I pass that info on free of charge; no need for Doris to cut me a check.
Shoosh
PS: MOTUNation wins half the battle of cultism and division by forbidding politics and religion. Seriously, that's one of the reason I'm here! I don't know if further subdivision of categories would help or hurt, here, as this is the only forum I've been a member of that forbid politics and religion without being unbearable because of bullying overlords. It's possible that it wasn't the categorization that broke up the many newsgroups and forums I've seen fall, but politics & religion. Keeping that out of here may prevent the cultism and its inevitable attrition that only became possible when there were specific categories which allowed people to retreat and regress to their lowest instinctual form of tribal society.