# Why aren't there more forums? **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [January 7, 2011, 11:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arent-there-more-forums/566804 "2011-01-07T23:01:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Showing post:** 14
**Author:** ![Arnold\_Winkelried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Arnold\_Winkelried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arnold_Winkelried)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2011, 1:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arent-there-more-forums/566804/14 "2011-01-08T01:15:45Z")
> [@Implicit](#): > > That still appears to be how the forum is organized, although there are multiple subforums for a few of those categories. elmwood is correct. TubaDiva, C K Dexter Haven or LynnBodoni could give a better answer, but on the old AOL boards that preceded [straightdope.com](http://straightdope.com) (and which I never visited), there was pretty much two types of discussion, from what I hear: General Questions Everything Else When The Straight Dope left AOl and [straightdope.com](http://straightdope.com) was originally set up using vBulletin forum software, the forums were: About This Message Board, aka ATMB Comments on Cecil’s Columns / Comments on Staff Reports General Questions, aka GQ Mundane Pointless Stuff I Must Share, aka MPSIMS (the forum title comes from the name of a discussion thread at the AOL board) Then The BBQ Pit made an appearance to confine the fights to one forum After that Great Debates, aka GD due to popular demand then In My Humble Opinion (aka IMHO), again due to popular demand (the half-way point between GQ and GD) The first “subject-based” forum was Cafe Society, which was a departure to the way the forums were divided before. Now any type of discussion (be it GQ, GD or IMHO) about the arts was supposed to be in that forum. After that came The Game Room for all those WoW / Mafia / Sports lovers. The board owner added Straight Dope Chicago for his new column about Chicago. 2010 U.S. Election was created as an experiment to placate people tired of seeing political discussions in GD, and finally Marketplace was added, again due to popular demand. --- _[View the full topic](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-arent-there-more-forums/566804)._