Go Back  FlyerTalk Forums > Community > The Suggestion Box
Reload this Page >

Forums for airports UPDATE 24 Feb: Destination forums now show major airports

Forums for airports UPDATE 24 Feb: Destination forums now show major airports

Old Jan 19, 2017, 9:07 pm
  #16  
A FlyerTalk Posting Legend
 
Join Date: May 2002
Location: YEG
Programs: HH Silver
Posts: 56,417
Originally Posted by chgoeditor
I do not think we need airport-specific boards and would encourage people to post their airport questions in the destination forums.
Agree completely.
tcook052 is offline  
Old Feb 15, 2017, 9:44 am
  #17  
Community Director Emerita
 
Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Anywhere warm
Posts: 33,681
The OP has raised a good point about the lack of clarity we have provided as to where airport queries should go. As a result, there is a large project going on behind the scenes to refresh the destination forums overall. This is the first such project that has been undertaken since the destination forums were created. Forum descriptions will include which major airports are in that region, with the hopes of making it clearer where to post. I will return to post once it is executed.

Carol
SanDiego1K is offline  
Old Feb 23, 2017, 9:31 am
  #18  
Community Director Emerita
 
Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Anywhere warm
Posts: 33,681
Most of the work has been done on the USA forums. Take a look and see that the airports within the region are now listed. An example is given below:

Key airports Chicago (ORD & MDW), Minneapolis (MSP), Detroit (DTW), St Louis (STL), and Kansas City (MCI).

Kiwi Flyer is the person who has done most of the work on this project.
SanDiego1K is offline  
Old Feb 23, 2017, 11:38 am
  #19  
FlyerTalk Evangelist
 
Join Date: Sep 2001
Location: FW, TX, USA, Earth, Milky Way
Programs: 2008 FT1 Fantasy Football Champion
Posts: 10,581
So in the process we consolidated the USA Destination fora and added one for the Pacific NW?

I was wondering what was going on yesterday when the Orlando forum had nothing in it.

I always thought the Orlando and DC fora received decent traffic, so a little surprised they got rolled into others.
empedocles is offline  
Old Feb 23, 2017, 1:39 pm
  #20  
Community Director Emerita
 
Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Anywhere warm
Posts: 33,681
Originally Posted by empedocles
So in the process we consolidated the USA Destination fora and added one for the Pacific NW?

I was wondering what was going on yesterday when the Orlando forum had nothing in it.

I always thought the Orlando and DC fora received decent traffic, so a little surprised they got rolled into others.
Thanks for your comments. It's always such a delicate process to change any of the structure of FlyerTalk. I wish I had the wisdom of Solomon.

3 city forums were rolled into their regions. Those are Chicago, Washington DC/Baltimore and Orlando. I expect to merge two regional forums into one. Florida will roll into the South and the New England and Mid-Atlantic will be merged. Our destination forums are not nearly as active as the hotel and airline forums that are core to FlyerTalk. Hopefully merging a handful of destination forums will mean more eyes on the threads within those forums. Once upon a time, we moved Paris into the France forum and London into the UK forum. Those moves worked out well. I hope that these do as well. Another change we've made is to move the city forums up to the level of the regional forums, thus making those that remain much more obvious.

This all came about because of dj_jay_smith's request that we have airport forums. We do, we just didn't make it clear. And since we were committed to updating forum descriptions, it was the perfect time to take a comprehensive look at all the destination forums. We'll also be doing a refresh on the rest of the world forums. While we will undoubtedly disappoint some people who understandably don't like their favorite forum rolled up into a larger one, I really believe that on the whole this is a positive move for FlyerTalk.
SanDiego1K is offline  
Old Feb 23, 2017, 3:04 pm
  #21  
FlyerTalk Evangelist
 
Join Date: Sep 2001
Location: FW, TX, USA, Earth, Milky Way
Programs: 2008 FT1 Fantasy Football Champion
Posts: 10,581
Oh, I don't have a problem with it. As you said, these forums get like 1/100 of the traffic of the main hotel/airline forums.

I think the only reason I noticed was I had a subscription to the Orlando forum.

Last edited by empedocles; Aug 17, 2021 at 3:08 pm
empedocles is offline  
Old Feb 24, 2017, 4:46 pm
  #22  
Community Director Emerita
 
Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Anywhere warm
Posts: 33,681
Descriptions have now been updated for all countries throughout the world. All major airports have been listed.
SanDiego1K is offline  
Old Feb 25, 2017, 8:07 am
  #23  
FlyerTalk Evangelist
 
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: Denver, CO, USA
Programs: Sometimes known as [ARG:6 UNDEFINED]
Posts: 26,625
...and another little piece of FT history dies, as all of the "original" subheadings for the Destination fora are gone.

Las Vegas always had a quirky subhead, which I have to recall from memory as it's now gone: "What's the scoop on Glitter Gulch. Bellagio anyone?"

Not only was it grammatically incorrect for decades...it was an echo of the days when FT was taken care of by people with passion for individual fora.

With the changeout of subheadings and re-arrangement of the Destination fora, FT becomes a little more efficient, a little more organized...a little more corporate.
DenverBrian is offline  
Old Feb 25, 2017, 8:54 am
  #24  
Community Director Emerita
 
Join Date: Oct 2000
Location: Anywhere warm
Posts: 33,681
I agree, DenverBrian. I had a lot of nostalgia as I changed forum descriptions. I remember it was a Talkboard initiative to write up descriptions for the destination forums some 10 or 15 years ago. I believe that lucky9887coins and cholula were two of those involved in the project. And some of the descriptions were really evocative of the regions. Not all destinations got done and it was a real mishmash overall of no description, bland factual description, and colorful descriptions. The current update will help people know where to post, but does remove some flair in doing so.
SanDiego1K is offline  
Old Feb 25, 2017, 7:40 pm
  #25  
glg
 
Join Date: Sep 2003
Location: Chicago, IL, US
Posts: 2,210
Originally Posted by SanDiego1K
Thanks for your comments. It's always such a delicate process to change any of the structure of FlyerTalk. I wish I had the wisdom of Solomon.
And now you'll get some complaints for not being Solomon

Originally Posted by SanDiego1K
3 city forums were rolled into their regions. Those are Chicago, Washington DC/Baltimore and Orlando. I expect to merge two regional forums into one.
It seems very arbitrary that you've left San Francisco, LA and Las Vegas but cut Chicago (I can't speak to DC/Orlando). I usually use the "2 week" view, looking at what's in LA, SF and LV compared to what was in Chicago yesterday, it's pretty similar, even less in LV. NYC has more traffic. I'm going to be a touch mean, but your handle says you're in Cali, what you've left looks like a pretty west coast focused decision.

If you're cutting city forums, either leave it or cut them all. *Maybe* leave NYC. Though since Paris and London were cut in the past, should just cut them all.

In the future, I would suggest posting an announcement a week or two ahead of time in the impacted forums. I don't normally read this forum. All I saw is that Chicago had disappeared from my subscribed forums this morning. I had to dig around to find Midwest. I then looked around for any kind of announcement and couldn't find one. I didn't check this thread because the thread title says nothing about forum consolidation.

Last edited by glg; Feb 25, 2017 at 7:46 pm
glg is offline  
Old Feb 26, 2017, 4:08 am
  #26  
 
Join Date: Jul 2009
Posts: 845
Originally Posted by glg

If you're cutting city forums, either leave it or cut them all. *Maybe* leave NYC. Though since Paris and London were cut in the past, should just cut them all.
I tend to agree, had there been something mentioned on top when logging in I would have spoken up myself.

Without getting political, what makes the California cities more important than others that have been rolled into regions?
ords is offline  
Old Feb 26, 2017, 4:30 am
  #27  
Moderator: British Airways Executive Club, Iberia Airlines, Airport Lounges and Environmentally Friendly Travel
 
Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: London, UK
Posts: 22,200
I am happy to share some of the data collected which SanDiego1K referred to during her review of the USA Destination forums. As you can see, several parent forums (Mid-Atlantic, South, and Midwest) were not receiving very much traffic at all so it is hoped they will perk up as a result of combining these forums together with their constituent child (city) forums.

The USA destination forums are still relevantly quite corners of FT being finely diced geographically, especially when compared to the European and Asia forums which are generally carved into larger geographical or denser populated regions. So, I think we can see that a very gentle approach has been taken following the review.


Previous USA destination forum structure
Number of active thread topics during 2017 (data collected 15 February 2017):

USA 21
New England 11
Mid-Atlantic 5
New York City 40
Washington DC 15
South 5
Florida 14
Orlando 3
Midwest 2
Chicago 15
Texas 11
West 18
Las Vegas 15
California 13
Los Angeles 16
San Francisco 11
Hawaii 23
Alaska 2


Revised USA destination forum structure
Number of active thread topics during 2017 (data collected 26 February 2017):

USA 25
New England 14
Mid-Atlantic 23
New York City 43
South 28
Midwest 21
Texas 14
West 14
Las Vegas 18
California 18
Los Angeles 19
San Francisco 14
Pacific Northwest 10
Hawaii 24
Alaska 2

Last edited by Prospero; Feb 26, 2017 at 4:56 am
Prospero is offline  
Old Feb 26, 2017, 5:13 am
  #28  
A FlyerTalk Posting Legend
 
Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: Yiron, Israel
Programs: Bates Motel Plat
Posts: 68,901
Just curious -- where would Buffalo NY (or Niagara Falls, NY) go? They are too far west to be considered mid-Atlantic, are definitely not part of New England, and a bit of a stretch for the Midwest.

The same would also be true of Pittsburgh, PA (and Pennsylvania points west of it).
Dovster is offline  
Old Feb 26, 2017, 5:23 am
  #29  
Moderator: British Airways Executive Club, Iberia Airlines, Airport Lounges and Environmentally Friendly Travel
 
Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: London, UK
Posts: 22,200
Originally Posted by Dovster
Just curious -- where would Buffalo NY (or Niagara Falls, NY) go? They are too far west to be considered mid-Atlantic, are definitely not part of New England, and a bit of a stretch for the Midwest.

The same would also be true of Pittsburgh, PA (and Pennsylvania points west of it).
Hopefully, the new Mid-Atlantic forum description adds clarity here:

Washington, DC, Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia. New York City has its own forum. Key airports "Philadelphia (PHL), Baltimore (BWI), and Washington D.C. (DCA & IAD)
Prospero is offline  
Old Feb 26, 2017, 8:30 am
  #30  
glg
 
Join Date: Sep 2003
Location: Chicago, IL, US
Posts: 2,210
Originally Posted by Prospero
I am happy to share some of the data collected which SanDiego1K referred to during her review of the USA Destination forums. As you can see, several parent forums (Mid-Atlantic, South, and Midwest) were not receiving very much traffic at all so it is hoped they will perk up as a result of combining these forums together with their constituent child (city) forums.
Your numbers confirm what I found. Chicago and DC had similar traffic to LA, SF and LV. If Chicago and DC get cut, those should be cut too.

I'll reiterate that what really set me off about this is that it was done without announcement. I logged in yesterday to find the Chicago forum *gone*. My subscription wasn't updated to Midwest, it was just gone. As SanDiego1K said, it's tough messing with the structure of Flyertalk, it's going to make people mad. A big way to help alleviate that is communication. Instead of just wiping them out, why not have a separate thread about forum consolidation here (instead of burying it in this thread about forums not having airport codes) and post a link to said thread in each forum that's going to get removed.
glg is offline  

Thread Tools
Search this Thread

Contact Us - Manage Preferences - Archive - Advertising - Cookie Policy - Privacy Statement - Terms of Service -

This site is owned, operated, and maintained by MH Sub I, LLC dba Internet Brands. Copyright © 2024 MH Sub I, LLC dba Internet Brands. All rights reserved. Designated trademarks are the property of their respective owners.