OK... I've just updated the forums to sort by most recent posts, which means active discussions will now float to the top. I've been meaning to revisit the design and make other changes too, so if anyone has any pet peeves please add them to this thread.

That said, I'm not sure it makes sense to divide the forum into sections... yet. It's a good idea long-term (especially with a Chinese/English thread) but right now almost all of our traffic comes through word-of-mouth or people who find us on iTunes, so the only really effective way we have of bringing people's attention here is through the comment box on the front page. And until we have a critical mass of people who are posting threads and starting discussions it is probably best to concentrate the discussion so there is only a single place to check for recent activity.

Thinking about it, one change we *could* implement would be adding a sidebar on pages like this one -- so that people visiting any discussion page get their attention called to other popular threads. We could potentially call attention to the forum on other pages as well, like News in Chinese. My sense is that navigation is better than it used to be, but it is really still quite weak when it comes to non-lesson features.

Either way -- please fire away with suggestions. What features should we be adding or taking away?