Europe section description
 

Questions about the legendary cultural capitals of Europe, from the vineyards and chateaux of the Loire Valley, the lovely villages of Oxford and Stratford-upon-Avon, the hill towns of Tuscany, and the spectacular scenery of the Alps – FlyerTalkers have been there, done that and live there with advice for all. If you have ever thought about climbing the Leaning Tower of Pisa in Italy, floating down the Danube River in Austria, or run with (or away from) the bulls in Spain, then these and many other threads await you.

Why are the bolded phrases in the 'Europe' description? Shouldn't posts about those topics be under the 'France', 'Italy' or 'UK and Ireland' sections? :confused:

Agree. While, of course, those are interesting sights in Europe, surely there are so many others without their own sub-forums worth mentioning.

I think those references to Stratford on Avon etc should come out immediately... all they will do is tempt people to post in the wrong forum!

Also... that description is awfully long. My "My Flyertalk" used to fit on the screen, now it doesn't any more. I think there should be a maximum of - say - two lines per forum description.

Agree with the previous posts and the grammar needs to be fixed.

The villages of Oxford and Stratford-upon-Avon?

Vineyards, chateaux and the Alps as cultural capitals?

It's a little confused.

Actually, now I look at the 'The World' descriptions that are in place, I'm not really mad keen on any of them. Surely Flyertalk is a global forum, about business and leisure travel? The descriptions make this section sound like a brochure for a if-it's-Tuesday-it-must-be-Belgium tour. While I'm sure that's part of it, I would be very disappointed if that were to become the focus for these sections.

And the advice on Flyertalk about running with the bulls in Pamplona is DON'T.

Here's a photo of North American David Jacob who got knocked unconscious recently.
http://www.noticiasdenavarra.com/edi...49.1303699.php


And this is a great photo gallery showing what it's like
http://www.noticiasdenavarra.com/galerias2008/
Some stunning shots in there, all from the past few days

Please!!! On all of them. Can't stand to see "Wagner's opera's" ;)

Quite apart from the obvious mistakes ('villages', etc) and the fact that many of these places would belong in dedicated country sections, personally, I just find the way it is written rather 'tacky' - which is certainly the opposite of what FT normally is.

Also, there is plenty of usage of the European sections from people within Europe (discussing other places in Europe) and it is certainly they who provided a high percentage of the up to date answers.

But that description is rather external to Europe sounding. In fact, mostly people would read that as a forum limited to 'doing Europe' type people....

I'd loose the description entirely.

Also, "little-known trattoria’s, ".

After taking a few days to look at them, these are the words that come to my mind about the new descriptions:

Verbose (someone suffered with a severe case of diarrhea of the keyboard).

Sophomoric.

A bad case of the "cutes".

Redundant.

Embarrassing.

The Europe description is pretty bad, but I think that the Germany and Italy descriptions are the worst. It is painfully obvious that those two were written by the same person. They make my eyes hurt.

I realize that some people put in some time and effort into this endeavor, unfortunately,the descriptions need to be reworked entirely. Next time remember the old adage, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it.". Also, it's a good idea to subscribe to the K.I.S.S. principle.

sorry, folks I am travelling. Randy changed the forum descriptions. we can work out a better one and ask randy to edit it. ;)

greetings from Normandy

chrissxb
moderator
europe forum

You just gave me the answer for the question: Who made the descriptions ?

Would questions/info/postings about Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan be found here in the Europe branch, the Asia branch, or elsewhere? It seems these countries fall into either Europe or Asia, depending who you talk to.

Thanks!

My vote FWIW is for the description to be VERY short - max two lines - so it doesn't further lengthen the page. "The World" first page is a whole lot longer now than it was pre-descriptions. It was a little over a page, then broke two, and now is heading for spilling over onto a 4th page.

Romelle

Thinking about this more now... do we actually need descriptions AT ALL?

Airline specific forums don't have descriptions, so why do we need descriptions for destination forums? The title really says it all. Europe. Germany. New York.

The descriptions don't add any value. They're just clutter.

IMHO the only forums that need a description are those where the content isn't clear from the tile, such as Travel Buzz.

So - why not just get rid of the descriptions completely?

I ask Randy to make a statement in this thread by sending him the link. I guess the best is if he enters in the dialog.

as for Europe forum, my definition is: continental europe without countries or areas having a specific forum (Scandinavia, Germany, France, UK & Ireland, Russia...) As for Turkey as long as questions are about Istanbul, they're ok in europe forum, the rest is middle east or asia.

regards,

chrissxb
moderator
europe forum

Yes, the description of the France forum is a good example of a short title.

I wasn't really knocking the text of the description, I was only concerned about people posting under the wrong threads.

Thanks for the invite to update you all with this.

Back in March this year, the TalkBoard was looking for something to do and noticed that the various forum descriptions were incomplete. I noted to them that it was something i had started many years ago and got carried away trying to build FT that i forgot to finish them. They decided they would form a small committee and do it themselves. In May they noted that they weren't having much luck completing the descriptions given the limited input from members, etc. So at that point, I said - no worries - i'd jump back in and finish them. So on and off over the past 2 months, I've completed about 80% of what we needed - with the usual interruptions of biz, travel and biz travel!

Anyway, I fully appreciate your comments here and can assure you that it is still incomplete. What i had been doing is simply creating buckets of descriptions and then later planning on coming back to edit them down and certainly assign them to their best locations. In fact, here is my direct quote that i posted in the TalkBoard private forum on July 9th:
"we're certainly closer to the end than the beginning. my plan is to finish them all up shortly and then go back and re-edit them. Will try and balance them all for length and description at that point."

So, i think you can see from this that i am well aware that they are wordy, but again, that was my plan to come back and edit, etc. And as you can see my plan was also to balance them all so that none were that much longer than the others. You can easily identify what the final descriptions would look like by examining my earlier ones that i did complete, such as Cuba, France, Hong Kong, India and Japan.

Hope this answers where this project is and the history behind it.

A good day to you in all parts of the world.

Errr... yes,

Here's an earlier thread saying we wish you'd change the part in the Japan Forum description advising FTers to 'gift the kimono'
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=479937

And a thread I felt compelled to start for anyone who was ready to take this as a genuine 'tip':
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=755355

Much easier to 'gift the Maneki Neko.

Randy, any news on when this EMBARRASSING forum description is going to be replaced by something that is less embarrassing? Seeing Oxford and Stratford described as a "village" makes me cringe each time I look at the Europe forum... and as others have pointed out these two towns don't belong here in any event as there is a separate UK forum.

Even if you haven't yet finalised the final version, I really think these embarrassing mistakes should be corrected sooner rather than later.

Further to Aviatrix's post TWO MONTHS AGO the section description remains utterly cringe-making.

Please change it - for the good of us who actually live in Europe!

Any plans yet to do anything about this? I mean not only is it a) a confusing description of what the thread covers, which only leads to posts being moved but b) it is inaccurate in the first place, as others have noted! How many more months will it take? I mean I know TPTB have been preoccupied opening OMNI to all and sundry, but still... :p

Another YEAR and 3 months.

Can we please change this, it still bugs me every time I notice it!

It's poor grammar in places, and neither Oxford nor Stratford-upon-Avon is a village: Oxford is a city (officially) and Stratford is a town.

It does rather confuse me why locations in France, Italy and the United Kingdom are mentioned, when there are separate forums for each of these countries.

I guess that it could be because people who are traveling in more than one European country, regardless of whether any has its own forum, should post here.

But I still think it's rather misleading.

Another YEAR and 4 months, just spotted this again - and it still bugs me!

Can someone please fix it?

[It would be better even if it simply said "For discussion of pan-european matters, and in relation to countries without their own dedicated section."]

David-A, your suggested text is spot on!

Moderators, how about it?

If the current description shall be a description for Europe I feel clearly discriminated:

Loire Valley in France
Bulls in Spain
Oxford and Stratford-upon-Avon in the UK
Tuscany and Pisa in Italy
Danube River in Austria,

Four of the six big European countries mentioned, Italy is mentioned twice and two are missing: Poland and Germany are not mentioned at all :D Nobody is really aware why Austria is there:D.

thanks for bringing this up ^

if everyone likes that text, I'll forward it to the admins. do we agree on this text, flying lawyer wanted some modifications ...
maybe exclude the countries having a own forum like france, germany or italy? or have them included?

I propose to exclude the countries with having an own forum. This is for pan european issues and the about 25 or so smaller countries in Europe. I would, however, be very much in favour to a forum for the Central European countries (the former Eastern European countries)

Would you agree the proposed text covers that?
"For discussion of pan-european matters, and in relation to countries without their own dedicated section"

This is a separate issue, I think the only way to achive such a thing would be with a section that had a description listing the countries it covers.

Do you agree we should proceed with the redescribing of this section anyway? (Such a redescribing would be compatible with any such future sections or changes).

I like that, but maybe have a little more text? ;)

this needs to be raised with talkboard. I am not in favour of such development since it makes finding the right place even harder than it is now. I would think that having several european countries (like france or italy) included as sub-forum in a european forum would make sense though. having a european home-forum with several subforums may be a good development. I'd include even rail travel to that ...

Really? - And if so are you talking about further clarifiction?

Do we need the sales brochure type stuff? It just takes up valuable 'screen realestate' when scrolling thought the whole Travel & Dining section list.

i never heard about "screen realestate" ... :D
but if that's so precious, then we need to make a perfect list. and would Monaco be included in France forum? What about other european micro-states? is Turkey in Europe ? ... I think something funny would work, too. for a definition of european countries, we can link in a sticky to wikipedia ;)

As for geographical scope and boundaries: The current section description does not address this issue, but it is also very wrong as it stands for other reasons. The proposed change addresses the clearly accepted problems and issues with the current text, it does not address nor attempt to address others, - but it doesn't make them any worse either!

As for micro-states: I think that should be left to the discretion of person posting any question, with the moderators able to move it if it seems more appropriate or becomes necessary.

Afterall, some geographical questions regarding microstates or threads will be appropriate, suited or acceptable in the sections devoted to the neighbouring country, where as others and certainly geopolitical ones will be appropriate in the Europe main section.

Indeed, a point to remember is that the country specific sections naturally also become geopolitical, French overseas departments related questions, being perfectly acceptable IMO etc.

As for Turkey: Again thats a separate issue IMO. In the absence of a dedicated Turkey section, I think Turkey questions are certainly acceptable in Europe as turkey is unquestionably atleasted partly in the european land mass.

As for 'screen real estate' (a well established web term n.b.): I would personally loose the descriptions attached to the Germany, Italy and France sections, I don't see what they add other than to the lengthen the page (and the scroll).

---

I readily accept there are many OTHER difficult questions that have been rasied (many of them not only dificult here on FT, but generally), however the current text doesn't attempt to resolve them.

And the current text makes you cringe! -

"Questions about the legendary cultural capitals of Europe, from the vineyards and chateaux of the Loire Valley, the lovely villages of Oxford and Stratford-upon-Avon, the hill towns of Tuscany, and the spectacular scenery of the Alps – FlyerTalkers have been there, done that and live there with advice for all. If you have ever thought about climbing the Leaning Tower of Pisa in Italy, floating down the Danube River in Austria, or run with (or away from) the bulls in Spain, then these and many other threads await you."

Please can we do something about this now, even if it doesn't solve other questions, it will atleast correct the errors and issues here.

can we agree on that text then? (until we find a better one? ;) )

Seems like a good idea to me. Now, about the Germany, Italy, etc. descriptions, .... ;)

that's another topic :D

I'll have the word Schengen added to the new description and will contact the admin: