lin821

I have to respectfully disagree.
Airline discussion belongs to airline forums.
Unlike NRT in Japan Forum, there isn't as many questions/threads about ICN in Asia Forum.
FWIW, passenger traffic doesn't equate to FT traffic.
FT isn't about cargo traffic.
Flyertalk is not economist-talk. There is quite some economy talk in OMNI/PR but most is not Korea-centered.

Although true, I doubt FTers are visiting Korea to buy Samsung, LG, Daewoo, Hyundai, KIA.... IIRC, folks don't fly to Korea to get good-priced electronics/appliance/phones/cars...etc. They have other countries/places in Asia (such as HK, Singapore, China, even Thailand...etc) in mind. BTW, all the named places/countries have their (sub)forums and FTers' demand/traffic supports them.

Besides, how is that related to miles/points/travel discussion other than charging to your miles/point earning credit cards?

I totally agree. Comparatively speaking, FTers show more interests in Southeast Asia countries than Korea.

Personally, I haven't seen that much discussion threads to substantiate a standalone Korea Forum.

skchin

These are just few sample key words used. The numbers shows there is interest level that supports a stand-alone Korea Travel forum.


Total: 1897 threads
458 threads containing "Seoul"
391 threads containing "Korea"
496 threads containing "Korean"
496 threads containing "ICN"
56 threads containing "Incheon"

Total: 3016 posts
497 posts containing "Seoul"
490 posts containing "Korea"
500 posts containing "Korean"
500 posts containing "ICN"
492 posts containing "Incheon"
362 posts containing "Kimchi"
175 posts containing "Bulgogi"

lin821

Speaking of stats, are all those threads mutually exclusive? (I guess not)

If not, your math is off.

Spiff

One thread about Korea in the last two weeks clearly demonstrates that there is not an unmet need for a Korea forum.

skchin

Have you tried searching for just "korea" or other words subjecating (is this even a word?) Korea?

nsx

There are several factors that I would consider when deciding whether to recommend creation of a new forum or removal of an existing forum:

1. Post count. How many posts have there been that fit into the forum?

2. Passion. Are there enough passionate advocates who would use the forum? Passionate users are the life of any forum, and you need perhaps a dozen highly active contributors to really keep the ball rolling. Otherwise interest tails off and the forum essentially dies.

3. Alternative. Do the posts in question have a reasonably good home in the absence of a forum?

4. Fragmentation. Would creating this forum drop any of the alternative forums below critical pass, potentially leading to two dead forums rather than one live forum?

I'd appreciate any and all help here in answering these four questions.

Spiff

Yes and I found that "Korea" threads are running about 5 per month, just over one per week.

bobbybrown

I do support for this whole idea. I know it won't be that active as Argentina or Japan, but I'm sure it will be very useful for those visiting this country. In Asiana and Korean air forum, there are tons of threads like "I have 10 hour layover at ICN, what can I do?" <= This one should be a sticky once this forum opens.

poohhead80

I support. South? North?

How can I vote?

Never mind. I figured it out.

SirJman

I think most of the posts about bulgogi are probably from me...

I think i'll go out for some right now!

skywalkerLAX

Just had some. Gotta love YVR as pendant to authentic Korean cuisine ! ^

RichMSN

A great example of a forum that may or may not succeed, with some TB members not willing to give it a chance.

There needs to be a way to create the forum, evaluate it for 6 months or so, and eliminate it if the traffic isn't high enough.

nsx

The "eliminate it" part has proven to be the most difficult. I'm open to any and all suggestions on this. The problem I see is that objective criteria such as post count and thread count are easy to manipulate. If there's one thing FT'ers are great at, it's gaming the system. If the criteria are subjective, we face the hurdle of a 2/3 vote to eliminating the underperforming forum.

Here's one possible method to achieve what you want. The TalkBoard could pass a recommendation for creating a forum for 6 months only, after which its threads would be moved to another specified forum. If a new recommendation to make the forum permanent were not approved within 6 months, the FT Host (Randy) would act on the original recommendation to close the forum.

I will ask the rest of the TalkBoard if they are interested in trying this approach for the next borderline situation. It shouldn't take more than 2 or 3 tries to come up with a template that achieves the desired result. That's not the problem. The problem is whether routine creation of temporary forums is good for FT. I am skeptical that it is.

Rich, how about posting a persuasive argument that creation of temporary forums is good for FT, along with your opinion of what the perceived probability of success ought to be before the TalkBoard recommends a 6-month trial. I'm very interested in your rationale for your opinion on the probability threshold.

RichMSN

1%? Why have such a high admission price? The Accor forum proposal really annoy me for some reason. Part of the reason, I think, is that Americans look at Accor as a substandard brand. I mean, I don't stay at a Motel 6, so why would anyone else want to do business with Accor? It's the American-centric mindset that sometimes is overplayed around here (in my opinion), but in this case I think is right on the money.

I think the gaming the system argument is only semi-valid. If people post ON TOPIC items in these forums, it doesn't matter if the posts are there to keep the board going or not. We game the systems for points and miles and status levels and the airlines know this and it doesn't really change policy.

All boards should have regular (at least every six months) review.

All boards should have objective criteria in place (number of threads and posts) -- for boards under those numbers, we would have a thread started (by policy) in both the private and public TB boards calling for discussion.

The only difficulty I see is getting 2/3 vote to eliminate the forums. Personally, I would have no problems deleting forums that are not used, but I still say that the only way to determine whether a forum is really viable is to give such a forum a chance and to promote via TalkMail, announcements, and stickies.

Once a forum is created there should be no sacred cows, either. Forums shouldn't get special status because of the subject matter. If 100 posts in a forum is too few for Accor (for example) it should be too few for all forums.

As for a formal proposal, well, that will have to wait to see how the election turns out. If I am seated, it will be the one of the first things on my agenda.

nsx

IMHO, having a proliferation of temporary forums that fail to make the grade will confuse FT newbies. People will find a forum through web search, and a week or a month later it's gone. If the forum doesn't have a really good chance of continuing, creating it and then removing it only served to confuse some members and annoy others. That's why I don't think that the TalkBoard should promiscuously create new forums, even if they were easily closed. But, as I said, I am open to persuasive arguments to the contrary.

BTW, there is another problem with numerical criteria for forums. Some forums are useful even at a low post count because the focus of the forum is so tight and because there is no other good home for the information. If it were easy to come up with numerical criteria, someone would have already done so.