SkiAdcock

Are you referring to the forum description? Every forum/sub-forum has one. I don't regard them as gratuitous, but helpful to those who might not be familiar w/ what areas fall under them. I can't speak for other TB members or for the CommunityDirector, but I think the suggestion of eliminating descriptions is probably a non-starter.

If I've misinterpreted what you said, I apologize & perhaps you could explain further.

Cheers.

mia

Look at this view:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/destinations-704/

The Destinations area is subdivided into eight Categories (blue bars), but four of these Categories contain only one Forum each: Africa, Antarctica, Middle East, Oceania. I don't really see a problem with this because it is not necessary to use this link to navigate to the Forum:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/middl...ing-egypt-709/

...we can go directly to this link:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/middle-east-481/

SkiAdcock

Ah - thanks for the clarification. I don't really see a problem w/ it either.

Cheers.

SanDiego1K

Agreed. And yet there is a reason that I set it up that way.

I did a lot of work on the destination forums after becoming Community Director five years ago. The USA forum was shown first. That didn't represent the geographical diversity of the users of this site. I ordered the forum by continents/major geographical area. I tried to give greater clarity as to what should be posted. I also had the IB team break Destinations out into its own separate section. (Note the Jump to Forum line above.) I initially only had the one line for a geographical section that had no sub forums. But that then showed as white. Folks didn't realize that it was clickable. In order to give equal appearance to each geographical region, I made a non post forum followed by the forum in which posts were permitted.

BuildingMyBento

If FTers can't figure out what "Africa" and "Middle East" equate to (granted, Cyprus's inclusion in the latter might confuse some) - or if they're from either of those broad regions - then that's a bigger problem.

Since you realize the inefficiency in the antechambers, and that many of us still don't know (and may never learn) where to post destination-specific threads, why not get rid of them? Sure, one can just bookmark: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/destinations-704/, but why not streamline the process?

SkiAdcock

Thank you for your explanation. I'm sure that will make it clear to many FTers why you set it up the way you did & how you overcame the "white/ perceived not clickable" issue.

Speaking only for myself, this has been discussed in the past & the reason for the 4 forums being set up the way they were were fine (for me) & IMO not an issue at all for 99.9% of FTers.

Not everyone who comes to FT is a FTer & familiar w/ all intricacies of drop down menus, click to specific, (and heck even a lot of long time FTers don't know about "MyFlyertalk" for crikey's sake), so I can see why the CommunityDirector set it up for (let's face it - only 4 sub-forums) to show the sub-forum even if only 1 under the main one - so that people could find them. And I think having the descriptions helps a lot.

I do find it pretty funny that folk are saying int'l people should be totally familiar w/ everything in the US & all US people should be familiar w/ every region/country around the entire world, yet then are derogatory if they're not. What silly comments. While some FTers are familiar w/ parts of the US &/or parts of the world, that doesn't mean all FTers are familiar w/ all parts of the US or every country in the world/region.

BTW - I totally don't get the comment that folk know where to post stuff but then say that they don't know where to post stuff & therefore should eliminate links. That makes no sense to me. Also, not to point out the obvious, people who visit FT (and not all a registered members[ familiar w/ FT) come in at it via different ways/click on different links. The best way is to make all various ways for them to find the information available.

Again, speaking only for myself, while I've traveled in many countries around the globe I've not traveled in Africa or the Middle East, so heck yeah I'd be looking to the sub-forum & the description to figure out where to post/ask something. And do you really think I would care two patooties that Middle East had only one sub-forum? The answer is no!

The above comments are my take as a regular FTer.

Now I'm putting my TB member hat on. My opinion is this is much ado about nothing, so I'm not inclined to change it unless someone really puts forth a really good argument for it & so far I've not seen it. Again, I speak only for myself as a TB member.

Cheers.

SanDiego1K

Certain destinations routinely showed up in 2 or three forums. That's not useful when folks want to find what already has been posted. Macau is one example of many. Threads showed up in China, Asia, and Hong Kong forums. In consultation with a number of members, I decided it made most sense to chose the Hong Kong forum for Macau topics. After all, Macau is most frequently visited in conjunction with a trip to Hong Kong.

I'm perplexed as to your statement that we should get rid of destination specific threads. I'm likely misunderstanding your point as there is a large section of FlyerTalk that pertains to destinations. I can't conceive of getting rid of the Japan forum or China or Argentina.

There were probably 50 to 70 people consulted over several months as to how to give clarity to this area of FlyerTalk. It was a very dusty section of FlyerTalk that needed some good housecleaning. We went from considerable dissatisfaction to none, at least expressed directly to me. After five years of it being as it currently is, you are now expressing concern. There might be ways we can do it better than we do it now. So far, I haven't heard them but I'll keep listening.

Prospero

Having done a little research, it turns out the topic I raised for discussion isn’t a new one and TalkBoard has reviewed the split between regional and city forums on three previous occasions. These discussions (and decisions) are listed below:

Combine the Toronto child forum into Canada parent forum
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/talkb...sub-forum.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/talkb...-subforum.html
Motion passed on 11 February 2012 (8-1)

Combine the London child forum into UK and Ireland parent forum
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/talkb...nd-forums.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/town-...and-forum.html
Motion passed on 01 August 2007 (7-1-1)

Change name of Paris forum to include all of France
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/talkb...nce-forum.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/town-...ll-france.html
Motion unanimously passed on 17 June 2007 (9-0)


The America-USA section currently includes:
USA - for all manner of discussion on matters of a national nature including entry visas, national culture, cross country travel etc etc
New England
Mid-Atlantic including 2 child forums: New York City and Washington DC (including Baltimore)
South
Florida including 1 child forum: Orlando
Midwest including 1 child forum: Chicago
Texas
West including 1 child forum: Las Vegas
California including 2 child forums: Los Angeles and San Francisco
Hawaii
Alaska

Looking back at the discussions of the Toronto, London, and Paris city forums, several salient and persuasive points were made in support changing these forums, and you may wish to consider if these reasons and objectives also apply to the current NYC, Washington DC (including Baltimore), Orlando, Chicago, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and San Francisco child forums. You may also wish to consider why (as far as I am aware) there has not been any requests for the introduction of a Shanghai, Beijing, Sydney, Cape Town, Buenos Aires or [insert topical city of your choice] city forum.

Returning to my earlier question, If you were to start afresh and assign say half a dozen city sub forums, of all the cities on the planet which are the most talked about and which would you select? Would you select any at all?

mia

I would start with a document like this one which identifies the 20 most visited cities in the world (chart 7, page 9). I believes this counts only international visitors, not domestic.

http://newsroom.mastercard.com/wp-co...al-Report1.pdf

CMK10

I much appreciate the research, Prospero. I want to make the following points

- New York City: I think this forum has to remain separate. First of all, it gets a lot of traffic. Secondly, there's a debate among where NYC is, some say Mid-Atlantic, others New England. And, as NYC encompasses the suburbs, some of which are in New Jersey and others in Connecticut, it would just lead to more confusion.
- Chicago: The Midwest forum is so lightly trafficked and Chicago not much more so that I don't have much problem folding it in.
- LA/SF/CA: There's a decent enough amount of traffic in LA and SF that I don't think folding them in is a good idea.
- Orlando: I'm not sure why it's separate (Disney, I guess) but I don't really think it needs to be.
- Washington D.C.: Similar to New York it doesn't really fit an area, I think it should stay separate.

OverThereTooMuch

I think things are fine the way they are.

The downsides are that places that are frequent destinations (like Vegas or Orlando) will make up the bulk of the posts in a forum and will drown out discussion on other locations.

I'd support the idea of adding some non-US city forums, if there was any city that really had significant traffic in any existing forum. London is probably a good example, with a lot of posts in the UK & BA forums (though much of the content ends up being irrelevant chat that belongs elsewhere).

MSPeconomist

Paris and Tokyo would be other obvious candidates.

CMK10

Except that the theme of this motion is moving towards fewer forums, not more forums. Plus if you look at the France forum, the first page has six weeks worth of threads. There's hardly a need for a separate Paris forum, which is probably why in 2007 TB voted to turn the Paris Forum into a France one @:-)

MSPeconomist

AFAIK there's no motion.

I was responding to the comment in the post just above mine that perhaps we should add some nonUSA cities. London was mentioned and I mentioned two other cities that might be obvious candidates.

I don't think it makes sense to count fora in the context of one particular issue as after all what matters is what's best for FT, not some number.

tcook052

Best according to whom?