Currently the West forum encompasses areas from New Mexico to Washington state to the Dakotas. That's quite a vast area! I try to take a look in the West forum periodically to see what's going on, but the forum as a whole seems pretty light. As someone else indicated, some posts are put in the airline forums. But as someone who never flies them, I wouldn't even think to look in the AS forum. And I know there are some AZ/Phoenix-related posts in the US forum. Some users may look at how light it is and go elsewhere (I do know that the Arizona forum on TripAdvisor is pretty good and toward the top of their state forums).

I'd certainly be in favor of simply splitting the forum in 2. Perhaps, "Pacific Northwest," and, "Southwest," or something like that. California should remain separate. Perhaps Nevada topics and the Vegas subforum could be placed there?

I wasn't even sure what is currently in the West forum, but here's what's listed in the forum description:

So my suggestions--

1. Southwest forum: Arizona, New Mexico, Utah, Colorado
2. Pacific Northwest forum: Idaho, Oregon, Washington
3. Rename California to: California + Nevada forum, and move the Vegas subforum

I would suspect the ND/SD posts could go in the same forum as MN, but I struggle with putting them in something called Midwest.

So that leaves Montana and Wyoming, not sure where I'd put those.

"The Old West" ;)

"Rectangular and Sort-of-Rectangular States"

Isn't Wyoming square, or mostly? ;)

On a more serious note, I guess you could put MT and WY with AZ/NM/UT/CO and call it, "Mountain West," or something like that. Posts for those areas seem to be seasonal, mostly about Yellowstone or Glacier National Parks for travel in summer months.

What do you think of my other suggestions?

Well....

http://images.statemaster.com/images...g_ref_2001.jpg

And I believe square is a subset of rectangle. ;)

That makes a certain amount of sense to me. ^

I tend to think that a far better way for this sort of thing to be decided is to let the Community Director review the discussion and then simply make a decision.

But that's a whole different kettle of feathers....

I really don't have strong feelings on the subject (I reserve that for the heart-wrenching, agonizing, epochally important discussion of post counts ;) :D)

I agree with a combination of the last couple of posts - If forums need further division (which I'm not convinced they do), they should be divided into Mountain West, Pacific Northwest, and California. BC and Vancouver discussion should remain in the Canadian forum to avoid confusion.

I wish ALL forums were created that way so Talk Board could focus their efforts on other areas to make FT a better place. Over the years they have spent an inordinate amount of time going back and forth with the membership about forum creation. The Community Director could easily make such a decision.

Very well said, Tom.

All of the above sounds good from a logical/organizational perspective. The left side of my brain likes nice, compartmentalized, logical forum structure--something along the lines of Pacific Northwest, Southwest, Mountain West, and Midwest.

But note aztimm's words here (emphasis mine):

I do occasionally drop in on the West forum (I used to almost daily before Real Life™ got in the way). Having been to all 50 states and crisscrossed much of the West on various road trips, I would read most, if not all, of the threads in that forum and would respond to a wide variety of posts on topics.

However, if a separate forum for the Midwest were created that incorporated something in the neighborhood of OK/MO/KS/NE/ND/SD/MN/WI/IL/IN/whatever), I would probably never go in, despite having been to all of those places and spent some fairly extensive time in some of them, since I do not personally have a high level of interest in that particular region.

Yet if I saw a post about MCI or STL or the Black Hills of South Dakota in the wider West forum, I'd probably read it and would respond if I could provide some valuable input.

And therein lies the argument against fragmenting forums more than necessary. The fact that the West forum is already not a high-volume forum means that there's not really a need to fragment it. And keeping it as is (including keeping OR/WA/ID) means that topics could still get air-time in front of and feedback from those who may have something to add but who may not go out of their way to seek them out.

To sum it up, after mulling on this issue a bit more, I am not actually convinced that this entire process is a positive move and think that the status quo may actually represent the most productive way to keep discussion stirred up in the forum.

+1.

Cheers.

Well.. time to settle the issue and vote on whether a Pacific Northwest Forum should be created.. and move on..

We need to figure out the details of any motion first. If there's going to be one, that is...

Yes.. its assumed that the details need to be worked out first.. the ageless technique of consensus building (a positive btw).. A myriad of opinions presented here. The major issue I think is what parts of NW US do you include, and whether to include parts of Canada in it or not?

How do the AAA Tourbooks divide the west?

I think we should wait to see if the Chilean government approves the merger between Seattle and TAM, I would certainly like to see a SEATAM forum if that happens.

Otheriwse Seattle doesn't have much going for it, doesn't have a coherent frequent visitor programme, isn't a member of any major alliance and so far as I know it doesn't have any affinity credit card with any major US bank.

:)