One general thread or two threads ?

So - you want to start a 'health forum' for a specific country.



What are your qualifications for running such a forum? Are you a health expert? What is the goal of the forum?

The scattered groups provide some buffer for civility. Trying to put this all in one place runs the risk of giving competing belief systems around these topics a place to argue. And then a place for people promoting the new trendy things to promote the new trendy things in health.

When forums have been around 30 years why is there not one in your country doing what you are trying and why instead are there the scattered groups.

Much less moderation required in the groups probably.

Plus that is the way the internet is going and away from forums in general.

Geesh, you are making it too complicated take it from someone who has created a forum from scratch two years ago.

And it is Unsolved Mysteries and l have a main Category under that name also but the site header is worded differently to avoid confusion.

So for you you may consider, forum description - Mental Health USA, and then have a Mental Health Category, then subcatetorys of US Mental Health, and few other countries perhaps and the rest of the world?

Then have another section of Subcategory's of ADAD, Depression, etc.

No rules here about layout just get inspired by what others have done and start, (l created new Category's and Subs, later on including a Stock market trading area that shouldn't work with Unsolved Mysteries but it does).

Sounds like a good setup, and some forum companies have online forums and others don't, Invision has a forum full of forum owners or a forum of #Admins, which can be a big help, and other ones have a one off cost and don't.

But it seems to me that you are trying way too hard!

Just make a start and lay out your site as best you can then over time it will evolve grow expand and some Category's will expand and others shrink while you probably add new ones, and possibly have experts run over your site and offer suggestions, (l did that once).

Important thing is to start put up some basic areas then the forum builds momentum and it gets easier.

A forum is big and may take you months just to learn about it all, (you have to own or manage a forum to understand how big a learning curve is involved) but it is also exciting at the same time.

Feed based formats are popular but clunky and impractical for what you want, (frikin annoying to ask something then have to try to find it again, ((Discord formats seem to have removed the option to type in your name for a quick way to get to your last post))).

And the majority of my visitors use a Laptop, so the "forums are dying, is more of a cop-out than a valid remark".

As on this forum, there is a general discussion main part on all topics and so can their be one on physical and mental health. They often relate to each other, if you are physically ill it can affect your mental health. If mentally ill, it can affect how you look after yourself physically.

Then you can do specific sub forums for various common physical and mental conditions.