OK, lets see how this goes. I've made some changes to the format on the front page
The idea of Smeggy's a general forum and for fun as well as serious.
I appreciate that not everyone is into politics and also that some are just into politics.
To put things into perspective there are currently 20,311 threads, 3,728 are politics threads. That means only 18% of threads on the forum are about Politics.
Now becuase of the traditional way the right hand side top topic list is structured it appears that there are more politics threads than there are in reality.
Without a right sidebar list then it's a lot easier to ignore sub-forums that have content you aren't interested in, for example someone not interested in celebs or cooking could simply not open up those particular forums, and likewise with politics, TV or whatever.
The right sidebar list though very handy and makes the forum very quick to use, but the caveat is that it shoves topics of all sub-sections in everyone's face whether they are interested in them or not.
So what I've done in order to let that majority of threads, the 82%, not get overshadowed by the politics threads is to split the politics threads into a separate list underneath on the right sidebar - check it out!
For those not into politics, then now if you don't scroll down or open the politics forum you won't even see them. For those just into politics the politics threads are now on their own list so you don't have to see non politics threads.
Hopefully this will be a good improvement. Let me know you get on with it folks!!
sorry love 
