It's due to two things mainly:
- The forum is huge now, with 5,000 posts a day and double that some days. 150,000 to 200,000 posts a month. Anything and everything gets lost 10 pages way back in a few minutes in some of the boards. In order to find anything you need two things: lots of separate boards where specific topics can be found easily because they don't disappear under the weight of general posts; and national boards for smaller groups.
- There is a strong US influence here simply because of the size of things in the USA and because they took up ecigs when others ignored it. There is a major benefit to that of course. The downside for the little countries is that their specific topics and problems would be impossible to find or do anything about if there weren't places for them to hang out here. It gives people in say Poland the chance to take part in a global forum and also sort out their own stuff in their own personal space. The 'smallies' do hang out in the main forums, but if they need to discuss something about their own situation, then their local board here is the best place.
Like Cari says, this is the way to go. We did use to have a small set of forums but when you get 1,000 posts a day in one board it makes it impossible to do anything of any value, with one post a second or something it's like trying to stay on a 50mph travelator.
