rogerd - 6:05 am on Jul 3, 2004 (gmt 0)

Guest posts are good in the early stages of a forum. When you are starved for activity & posts, you'll get more with no barrier to posting. As the forum grows, though, the advantages get outweighed by the disadvantages - easier spamming, multiple identity posters, identity theft, and generally less responsibility by posters.

Topic order is an interesting question. I can't say that I've seen much effect on individual forum volume from where it is placed, though it seems logical that very visible forums might get more attention. I guess I'd lean toward putting the most popular topics in visible locations, along with the forums you want to try to grow. OTOH, you could stick a popular forum or two near the bottom just to be sure people scroll through the whole list. Overall, I don't think this issue will have a big effect on posting volume.