Hi all,

The struture of the forum was changed for the following reasons:

1/. This is a freelance forum, therefore it makes sense to promote the areas of the site relating to freelance work. IE the marketplace.

2/. The section now at the bottom has very little discussion at all to do with freelance. Therefore I believe it should be promoted less than sections that do. The sections are now in order of what I believe is the most to the least freelance/webmaster related.

3/. The marketplace previously way hidden away and not immediately visible to people entering the site. People could easily come to the site and completely pass over it - now its open its straight in peoples faces, which is good for people wanting to buy or sell in the forum. The marketplace is the most active "serious" section of the site, therefore to hide it away and put it below a section that had little discussion about what the forum is here to represent makes no sense.

4/. I agree that the site may look "long" now and not as "beautiful", however thats to do with the constraints of this thin skin which will be rectified.

5/. Anyone can open or close the forums they use as they wish.

6/. I believe a lot of the discussions that go in the community area, given their often immature and no freelance related topics, when placed at the very head of the forum would A) Discourage people who wanted a serious discussion about freelance issues B) Encourage people who wanted to just talk about things brought up in that area (ie in general fairly immature non freelance related talk - often argumentative as well). Both these things would lead to discouraging the people we want, and encourage the type of people we don't really want. Therefore something had to be done.

In Summary, it was our opinion that the people who use the marketplace and other freelance / webmaster related sections will be in favour of this change, at the expense of people who generally want to talk about stuff not related to freelance / webmaster issues.