Randy Petersen

submitted by Landing Gear
I did not notice many candidates naming Travel & Dining Destination forums as their favorite forum.

Do you actively participate in the FT local forum for the place where you live? If not, why not?

phillipas

Not much I can say to this question seeing that i did name a destination forum as one of my favourites - I named the China forum on the basis it was my home for 5 years and it was good to be able to find a forum where I could do more in terms of putting back.

Now that I'm back in the UK I'm wandering over to the UK forum a bit more.

GK

Europe

bhatnasx

I was extremely active in the WAS forum (see the guide I created) and I used to host the DC Monthly Happy Hours and participated in them as often as I could.

I moved to Vegas a few weeks ago & started a thread to try to do a regular dinner/happy hour - unfortunately, it didn't have a strong response, but I'm hoping that'll change once we finally get something going on on a regular basis!

RichMSN

No excuse, really, except that where I live really isn't a "destination" for the typical FT participant. While the Wisconsin Dells is a tourist area relatively close to home, most of the people that go there drive, it seems.

But it's a great idea, and I'm going to therefore subscribe to the Midwest board right now so I can be helpful if questions come up about my neck of the woods (although the last Wisconsin related post was in July).

Maybe I'll try to organize a MSN dinner at some point...

LessO2

There is very minimal talk about my specific region. And when there is talk, it's usually about skiing-related questions, and I do not ski.

However, I do participate in discussions about a place I used to live (and still visit often), Seattle. It's a very popular topic, popular enough to have its own sticky in the West Forum.

CT-UK

Question 8: Local Forum Participation

I participate in my local forum every day I am at home, the local is my local and the forum is a group of guys at the bar.
As for FT I check the UK forum on occasion but not that much happens on it as so many UK based questions go on the BA forum before getting moved. All the train stuff stays on BMI because they also like warm beer.

Spiff

1) The Louisville, KY forum isn't very active

2) I'm hardly ever in Louisville, it seems.

nsx

I have 25 posts in the California forum, mostly about changes to airport access and parking deals at OAK and LAX. Most of the flights in and out of OAK are on Southwest Airlines, and Southwest's market share at OAK continues to grow. OAK-specific material will reach a larger number of interested readers on the Southwest forum. LAX-specific material has much wider interest.

My other notable post on the California forum gave people a week's advance notice of a rare nighttime Space Shuttle re-entry. That turned out to be Columbia's last flight.

Radioman

Well there are a lot of forums, I don't take part in them all, I wish I had the time to do that but like most folk I have my forums that I visit near enough each day.

Why do I have to participate in my local forum? I work and travel on an international basis so things like the BAEC and IC forums are where you will find me as I use both the companies. I might be brave and wander into some of the other forums if am looking for information.

Each to their own, but please don't mark folk down how dont visit a particular forum.

I must say that some of these questions are now becoming very selective regarding individual forums. No offence to the OP of the question but are we going to have to justify why we don't visit every forum in FT?

peteropny

This is a good question. I have not actively participated in my local (CVG - Midwest) forum since I didn't think there was much activity that's specific to CVG. I just took a look at it and found that to be true, there may have been about 5 threads that are specifically relevant to CVG in the forum in the last year. I've now subscribed to the forum in "My Flyertalk" so that I can make sure that I check it regularly.

PTravel

My usual routine after logging on to FT is to hit the New Posts button and see what subjects interest me. For the last five years or so, I have found myself betwixt and between Los Angeles and San Francisco, and don't consider myself "expert" in either city. I can't offer advice about, for example, hotels and restaurants. However, if I see a topic that involves something I do know about, e.g. where to find authentic Chinese food, how bad is driving, is south of Mission a bad area, etc., I'll always do a responsive post.

Similarly, if I'm going somewhere new, FT is my first resource for information (unless it's a business trip in the U.S., in which case it doesn't matter -- to me, a hotel is a hotel, a conference room is a conference, and an airport is an airport ).

For this reason, I don't read the destination forums on a regular basis, though I'm certainly no stranger to them and consider them an extremely valuable FT asset.

B747-437B

I post on the Africa forum whenever I have something to contribute. I don't go on Safari much though, so most of the questions aren't really relevant to my area of expertise.

Markie

UK and London are places that I actively post in to. They are my home and I like to share my experiences and knowledge - so yes I do participate.

danielbk

I think one of the best things about FlyerTalk is that each members find those forums which he/she likes best and sticks with them over time.

Over the past 4 years on FlyerTalk i "evolved" into several forums (after starting with what was then the "middle east" forum before ELAL had it's own) and "progressed" to the CO one pass and LH miles and more forum, trip reports and many more.

Living in Israel and commuting weekly to western europe and the U.S. leaves me a bit short with finding a "local forum"... but i have come to realize that as i mainly fly Lufthansa - it is my home, more then any local forum.