All;
From my perspective, I favour the compartmentalization approach, the main reason being functionality based on what I listen to and wish to consult and/or log.
I for one routinely do not care about the licenced stations, or some of the other board topics for that matter, and as such with just one click of the mouse will use the "Mark Read" button to bulk mark the messages as read and clear their status flags. Combining topics within the same forum heading will greatly reduce that functionality and result in having to scan the topics in order to only read the ones that are of interest.
My philosophy is that what is established for North America should be mirrored for Europe. The end user should be able to frequent section(s) of interest with maximum ease and flexibility. I for one infrequently consult the European Pirate section other than for mainly "The Vault" as that signal does reach North America and my location so it is of interest to me. Most other European pirates do not reach and as such I mark them as read in bulk.
As Chris mentioned:
I've also considered creating a second board specifically for European MW pirates ...
I personally do favour compartmentalization. Albeit these may turn out to be low traffic forums, if a user feels like trying to listen to European MW pirates, then the option is there and easy to get to. You may be surprised. As for one, I am totally surprised at the amount of readership and correspondence I have received about my static HFGCS Force Directional Message (FDM) and Emergency Action Message (EAM) Log. That steady and ever increasing readership is what keeps me posting and keeping this log active.
I like the HFU and its functionality which is the reason I joined it.
Thank you to Chris for funding it and keeping it alive and the moderators for keeping things sane and in the right forum location.