I'm sure I'm not representative, but as no-one else is chipping-in...
Grouping the local forums together seems logical now that eg the classifieds are organised in the same way: local forums necessarily have a limited audience and I can't see they warrant the prominence of an individual listing on the home page.
One consideration (from my own experience): if you ignore a "top" forum, that takes precedence over whether or not sub-forums and threads are ignored. So if someone only wanted to see eg Bristol, they would have to ignore each of the other local forums, rather than ignoring the "top" forum and making an exception.
Having said that, this is what you have to do now so nothing is actually lost.
I'm sure I'm not representative, but as no-one else is chipping-in...
Grouping the local forums together seems logical now that eg the classifieds are organised in the same way: local forums necessarily have a limited audience and I can't see they warrant the prominence of an individual listing on the home page.
One consideration (from my own experience): if you ignore a "top" forum, that takes precedence over whether or not sub-forums and threads are ignored. So if someone only wanted to see eg Bristol, they would have to ignore each of the other local forums, rather than ignoring the "top" forum and making an exception.
Having said that, this is what you have to do now so nothing is actually lost.