Originally Posted by
VA1379
A better idea against fragmentation would be to carefully decide whether to approve new forums for FT. The quality control should be made at this point. Numbers should not be the sole criteria to judge viability. If a forum has the potential for informing a segment of the FT community, we should be willing to consider it.
I am not a big fan of trying to decide which forums are underperforming and should be closed.
Well, really these are two sides of the same coin. What you are doing when creating a forum is exercising a judgment in advance as to whether (among other things) that forum will or will not be underperforming. Agreed that it is better not to create a forum that will fail than close it afterwards but hindsight is a wonderful thing. You might think that a forum would work and only realise later that it does not.
Some topics are more specific in nature, but they deserve a place where people can share information without getting buried in a larger forum. I am glad to see additional forums for Asian countries and smaller loyalty programs (i.e. Choice Hotels) even though I do not participate in them.
Agreed, but these are not really about those kind of fora that the decisions are most difficult as they fall within existing patterns. It is just a judgment call as to whether integration in a wider fora will provide more information and traffic than a standalone forum. I am not entirely sure, for instance, that much more information and knowledge has been produced about AZ with the creation of the AZ forum (even though I would not necessarily recommend its closure now).
The more difficult ones are the new SIGs/marginally or not at all related to points and miles fora.