After much thought and some research on this proposal, I've decided to caste my vote as an abstention. [Note that this is not at all the same as not voting.] I realize that, with all eight of my TB colleagues already having voted yes, my specific vote won't matter. Moreover, I intend to fully support the new forum and I sincerely hope that it will succeed.
My reasons for the abstention are twofold: Evidence and Precedence.
The abbreviated history of this motion is roughly as follows (with a bit of editorializing): One of the BA moderators started a thread in TBT on May 15 suggesting a General USA forum. Our Community Director and several TB members quickly posted their opinions that this would be a good thing for FT. A thread in the private TalkBoard forum was started for discussion of the issue on May 17. On June 5 a formal motion was made and seconded in less than an hour, with a voting deadline of June 19 (the customary two weeks).
In the private TalkBoard forum, I twice expressed concern, in two posts on May 20, that no one had either asked or answered the standard questions for new fora as stated in the sticky at the top of this TBT forum. Nothing seemed to happen to explicitly address the questions, so on May 27 I made post #56 in the TBT thread requesting that one or more of those advocating the new General USA forum please provide some of the evidence. That post implicitly documented my attempt to find cases where new fora were seriously considered by TB without reference to the questions. [I could find no such instances during at least the last several years.]
In the meantime, a few FT members had raised concerns in the public TBT thread about whether the proposed new forum would negatively impact some of the other fora in the USA Destinations area, in particular the five regional fora. At that point I examined various fora and threads in the area with the aim of determining whether we should simultaneously consider some larger reorganization of the USA Destinations area, but I quickly decided that there didn't seem to be a serious case for restructuring. ["If it's not broken, don't fix it," a point on which other TB members seemed to agree.
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Also in the meantime, longtime (I mean this as a compliment) active FT member
lin821, whom I consider to be very careful and thorough when providing such information, posted about three threads from TravelBuzz that would be candidates for a new General USA forum:
2014: Best and Worst USA Airports (depending on focus, this could be about best for MRing, worst for TSA, worst for immigration and customs lines, etc., so it could be a candidate for fora other than TravelBuzz, but it's a TravelBuzz sort of topic)
2010: Route 66 (IMO clearly a great candidate for General USA)
2009-2010: National Parks (IMO would belong in General USA if it's created, but it also would be fine in USA West since most of our national parks, including the iconic ones and those that are most visited/popular are in the West as defined on FT)
Also: Speeding ticket threads, which generated an argument about whether the information is general or state specific.
2006-1014: Who's been to all 50 states? (fun TravelBuzz topic that doesn't seem to be about USA as a destination)
Other people, including some TB members, have made posts that included suggestions about potential thread topics that would be suitable for USA General, including the perennial issue of tipping.
rwoman provided her own short list. AFAIK there wasn't any evidence provided that these topics are being discussed elsewhere (where, specifically?) on FT, that there's a lot of interest, that FT is the best place for such discussions, etc.
The other argument in favor of the new USA General forum concerns logic and consistency of organization on FT. Specifically, it's been observed that the other large destination areas, such as Europe and Asia, all seem to have a general forum as part of that area on FT. However, while the USA area doesn't currently have a general forum, it does have the five area fora (New England, Mid-Atlantic, South, Midwest, and West, of which only the last currently has a moderator, with some further state and city subfora, some of which are moderated). OTOH, FT doesn't have General Airline, General Hotel, General Alliance, etc. fora. [Perhaps we should, but that's not being discussed here, nor do I immediately see an argument for General Community for instance.] So I don't find the logic and consistency argument to be logically consistent itself.
Since no one wanted to answer the FT/TB questions for new fora, I decided to try to do so myself quickly:
1. People seem to believe it will be (maybe based on some ideas for thread topics) but no data/evidence seems to have been given.
2. Not obvious and no argument provided. Who would be the contact or what would be the source of any such contacts?
3. Not clear and AFAIK not mentioned. Other travel sites such as Fodor or TA?
4. Not clear. Hopefully some of the folks who regularly answer USA destination questions will participate in the new General USA forum, but others such as
kipper seem more enthusiastic about regularly visiting some of the more specific USA fora.
5. Who knows? This is one of the big questions. One philosophy is "why not approve a new forum, if FT creates it people will come" while the other side could point out the lack of current threads on FT that we can point out as appropriate/natural for the new forum. In fact, I examined thread titles for about 20% of Information Desk and found few if any obvious candidates for USA General.
6. It's the best place on FT but will it get a critical mass? I hope so but I'd like to see evidence beyond assumptions, speculation, and wishful thinking.
7. Not applicable. We're not splitting a forum and in fact there isn't much information already on FT that has been suggested as candidates for existing threads to initially populate the new forum.
8. I hope it succeeds, but I can't say that I'm convinced by the evidence that we "strongly expect" it to succeed (speaking for myself here).
9. Not applicable: no implied question here.
I had really hoped that some people would provide me with some evidence on which to base a positive vote. To some extent, I share the gut reaction that the new forum is a good idea, but when I analyze the criteria, I have a problem with the evidence that has been provided.
My abstention should be viewed as a vote in favor of applying the same criteria to whatever new fora are proposed for FT, however the issue comes to TB for a recommendation and vote. Our standards been carefully crafted (by previous TB members), they seem to work, and I therefore think they should be uniformly applied.