cblaisd

It would be so much more helpful to newbies (and oldies for that matter) to know that questions about destination(s) were to be found in the Destinations section. I advocated for the general USA forum years ago, for precisely those periodic questions that are indeed multi-regional but still solely USA-centric

Well, there have to be exceptions sometimes to this... After all there is an Antarctica forum that is not hot with threads. At the same time, on a website that is devoted to travel to not have an Antarctica forum in the destinations section would be silly.

Creating a General USA Travel forum is in some ways less like creating a forum and more like creating a filing cabinet to organize the scattered files that will now be housed in it.

SkiAdcock

1. Well isn't that true now & doesn't really have much to do w/ general USA (the first sentence in #1)?

2. Fair enough.

3. Good analogy.

Cheers.

NickB

Ah, you mean much bigger, more spread out and with many more differences between regions than is the case in Asia, for instance? After all, the differences between Kyrgyzstan and Japan pale into insignificance when you compare them to the gulf between Maine and New Mexico, right?

Sorry, CMK10, I could not resist. I know what you mean and I would not necessarily disagree with you but I could not suppress a smile at the involuntarily USA-centric way ideas or points (which in themselves can be sensible) are sometimes expressed on FT.

The issue, it seems to me, is not so much that the USA are too big or too lacking in homogeneity per se (on that measure, we should have many additional regional fora within continents) but that, given the large number of USA-based posters as well as the large number of questions about the USA, a single USA-wide forum and city or state specific fora with no intermediate regional fora may be unmanageable.

I do not think that the parallel holds perfectly. As a preliminary pedantic point, if one draws parallels with generic fora on continents, then surely the equivalent should be either an "Americas" or a "North America" generic forum (depending on how one elects to define continents) rather than a "USA" one. Secondly, and perhaps more to the point, none of those other fora contain sub-divisions covering the entirety of the area concerned. For instance, we do not have a "North Asia" forum, a "South Asia" forum, an "East Asia" forum etc... which, combined, would cover the totality of the Asian continent. Similarly, we have not carved Europe into several complementary sub-regions covering the whole of the continent. By contrast, if I am not mistaken, all the regional US fora combine to cover the whole of the USA, hence why a generic USA forum is more problematic as it does not have the residual function of fora like "Asia" or "Europe" for the countries within those continents which do not have a more localised forum.

What I am trying to say is that we should not try to make the case for a generic USA forum as if it were a kind of quasi-logical necessity or needed to satisfy some kind of esthetic yearning for (pseudo-)parallelism.

Ultimately, in my view, the case for a generic USA forum depends primarily on two considerations:
1) Are there questions that do not fall neatly in other fora that would be better addressed in a generic USA forum?
2) Would such a forum attract sufficient traffic and regular posters capable of providing useful answers to queries or would it be a ghost town where few people post questions and even fewer answer them?

The answer to 1) is a clear yes. The answer to 2) is less obvious and is, imo, where the crux of the matter lie. There would be little point in satisfying an unhealthy appetite for taxonomical purity (making sure that questions are asked in the 'right' forum) if ultimately we end up with less useful information than when the questions are posted in the "wrong" forum because few have a sufficient interest in the new forum to make it a lively enough place for an exchange of information.

SkiAdcock

Now that I've googled taxonomical , you've condensed both issues down pretty well. I think #2 is the concern.

Cheers.

MSPeconomist

At least the root is the same as taxonomy and not taxidermy.

SkiAdcock

Could you provide links? Thx.

nsx

To me the biggest obstacle is that a member starting a thread may have difficulty choosing the right forum, and that different members may make inconsistent choices. I suppose the number of threads will be low enough that the moderators will be able to move every errant thread to the proper forum.

Is this mild discouragement of creating a new thread more than balanced by the benefits of the new forum? It's a close call.

mia

I see no evidence that members are reluctant to start threads is the wrong forum , but TalkBoard needs to judge if threads which would receive better replies in a more specific forum would languish in a more general forum, or if members will be less likely to search for existing threads in the existing forums.

exilencfc

Personally I would like to see this forum created (i've long wondered why it doesn't exist). In the past I have started several threads which would be well housed in this forum vis:
-Trip including IAD, various places in Maryland and Philadelphia and travel on Amtrak. I got the answers I needed in the DC forum but the questions I asked weren't all appropriate to said forum.
- Whether a document i'd been sent was a tax demand or a tax receipt. This went in OMNI. And i'm still not sure of the answer, guess i'll find out next time I go to the USA...
- Whether ESTA data was retained when my passport expired. I think I ended up adding this question to an existing thread in Travel Buzz.

I see the proposed forum as being similar to the existing Europe forum - people from all over contributing answers to general questions about the area. The existing USA regional forums which are well supported could continue but with a slightly more specialised function, similar to the Germany and UK forums. Those which aren't well supported could be abolished (I don't know what the situation is with them, since these days I only visit the NYC forum and that on an occasional basis).

I wouldn't see this forum as in competition with Travel Buzz - which could become more multi-national in outlook if the US specific threads were moved to a USA forum - or with the travel safety and security forums which are mostly a specialist discussion of particular issues which happens to focus on the USA (and to which questions are already re-directed from the Europe and airline sub-forums). It might also gather threads from OMNI relating to people re-locating to/within the USA but not those threads in which Americans whinge about taxes/neighbourhood rules etc. It would also take threads away from the existing Amtrak forum which could focus more on Amtrak rewards/loyalty and less on how one goes about catching trains in America.

Personally my main concern, at least in the longer term, wouldn't be whether a USA forum would attract sufficient traffic but rather whether it would strangle other forums in particular the less busy existing USA regional forums and the Amtrak forum.

SkiAdcock

Thanks for your input. Much appreciated.

Cheers.

goalie

And a redux on the thanks for the input ^ from me as well

lin821

This recently resurfacing thread may be another good candidate for a catchall USA Forum since other than roll call, folks do discuss/share their impression or evaluation of their referenced states:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/trave...50-states.html

CMK10

I actually disagree with you on that one. TravelBuzz has a ton of "How Many x?" threads like How Many Airlines/Airports/Aircraft etc. How Many Passport Stamps do you have and so on so I think that thread would still belong there.

tcook052

A valid concern and one I share.

lin821

I agree not every "How Many x?" thread fits the destination fora since some, if not most, of them were just simple head counting or hand showing threads.

OTOH, the above thread did start out as a simple name count thread. However, if you had followed the responses (I assume you did with 7 posts there since '13), you'll see the replies are getting more flavors in destination discussion. I think that would add colors if a general USA Forum is created. Not saying Travelbuzz is a wrong placement though, thus my suggestion as a good candidate thread.

YMMV.