Somehow the subcategories don't really work for JoeUser the way they worked for Wincustomize. I've never really wished I could keep all the 'war on terror' posts out of my 'us domestic' posts in the politics section. Browsing JU isn't really an act of targeting specific information as much as it is browsing for new insights in the same way one would read a newspaper.
I think regulars will either bookmark the g=recent page or produce a lot of needless click-through. At the very least some subcategories need to be tuned. Right now 'Environment" in "Politics" hasn't seen a post since the 24th of August, so that slot is wasted for the frequent visitors.
Also, right now there is only one category, "General" showing for Current Events. Headings with only one subindex don't really need subindexes, do they? Granted, I can't think of many subcategories for Current Events that aren't duplicated elsewhere, thus my questioning the real need for subcategories at all.
If subcategories aren't negotiable, I would absorb 'Politics' into Current events. I think 'war on terror' and 'environment' for instance could sit alongside 'politics' at the same level beneath the current events section. I would look at all the sections that way, and see if maybe less-used topics couldn't be merged or divided between other sections. Anything that isn't bringing something new to the top is wasted space.
In terms of page real estate I wish that the articles got as much impact as the headings. People don't come here to read the category titles, but that is what the focus seems to be on. I think I would de-emphasize the category titles and give more attention to the article title. Perhaps maybe like a table of contents style, like: "This is the name of the article. (whitespace) _b_in Politics_/b_ (date).
I don't mean to be cranky about it, I just think sometimes what is good for one site doesn't really meet the needs of another. JU isn't really informational the way a lot of the content on wincustomize is. Therefore wincustomize benefits from a strongly-categorized format that gets specific information in front of the person with ease. JU, at least from my perspective, is for people who are coming here to find stuff they WOULDN'T normally be looking for.
