I agree that your users should not need an "Onboard Mission" to understand the Thwack "Forum", its not a forum at all. I don't care how many products you support, it is still horribly organized. I can't find anything. Look at sites like XDA Forums! They have structure that users look for in a forum and I can find what I need quickly. Here my head spins and I can't find anything and I give up shortly after starting and want to scream! You can have a section for each product and then sub-forums for those products to break it down. I've put a few together and guess what? Users use them and find what they want and get help from the community. Please scrap this Thwack and move back to a traditional forum so we can find things. Its really not that hard, don't recreate the wheel, swallow your pride. Take a look at the old WHD forums, they made sense.
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Product A
- Product A > Sub-Forum 1
- Product A > Sub-Forum 2
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Product B
- Product B > Sub-Forum 1
- Product B > Sub-Forum 2