Were on your forum do you have your hidden board, boards like the ones the staff use. I have mine at the top so the staff can see if there is anything they should know.
I keep them at the bottom, always. And (almost) always have the announcement/feedback section at the top. The content of the forum would then be in the middle.
Well here they're on the bottom, but on the linnie forum they are at the top. If my staff doesn't automatically check the Staff Forum immediately upon logging in, at least they will see it at the top of the forum. Other hidden forums though (like for Premium Members) are on the bottom.
On one forum I had the staff forums at the top. My staff had a bad habit of not checking it if they didn't see it right off. At vBFAQ we have them at the top also. However on all other forums, I have the staff area at the bottom.
There spread all around. The archive is at the bottom, on Bird is the Word as well as the staff forums. And, on Setsou Design, at the very top.
Always on bottom. Hidden forums are used less often by staff and top fold space should be reserved for the most widely used areas. Just a tip...use Google Webmaster tools (Overlay) and check the clicks. If you have something in top fold with a very low percentage..place it lower on the page and bump up something that might do better. This can lower your bounce rate.
I keep our Staff forums on the bottom. I've never had a problem of the Mods missing anything. We have a couple of other hidden forums and they just go wherever is the best place - some are in our top category, some in the bottom one. However, we don't have hidden forums showing like some sites - you have to actually be able to view the forum in order to see it even exists.
I had mine at the bottom to balance out the categories with 4 forums each. Now the categories on vBCodex are all messed up and out of whack because I added a forum and some sub-forums to organize some things better. They are on the top at vBulletin.com and there are so many of them that I find them obtrusive and that they get in the way of real content.
RCTgo's one staff forum is at the bottom of the top category. If it were an entire category, I would place it at the bottom, but that's really not necessary for our two-member staff. At MyBB, we have our staff forums at the bottom, but above the Community Archive.
So when you say there are so many hidden forums on vBulletin.com do you mean there is a whole new universe there?
When the permissions were wrong on vb.com, I saw a ton of forums at the top. They do have a LOT of Staff forums! I wonder if the users would have noticed the permissions being off if the Staff forums were at the bottom? Of course, it would have taken that much longer for Staff to realize the permissions were off also.
Thats a good reason, mind you it is easy to scroll at 200 mph, so the rest of the forum passes in a blur. I have them at the bottom as thats what I have got used to on other forums lol
