Closing the Smoking Section Forum [Update: it will stay open]
 

A very good question since a quick glance at the Smoking Lounge finds only 9 posts this month.

True, but also a good number of views.

There are some forums that will never have the # of threads/posts/views as other forums (such as airline/hotel forums) yet they still serve a need on FT because they're specialized forums. When I review the threads since the creation there are a # of views in each thread (and depending on which go into the thousands).

I am not a smoker, but I have no problem w/ the forum being created or staying in existence.

Cheers.

How, exactly, did this cause you any problems?

I agree with Dovster. Leave the smoking forum alone; there is a lot of valuable information on there for smokers. If you don't smoke, ignore the forum.

And I agree as well and no, I'm not saying this as one of the forum's co-moderators but as one who smokes and actively seeks out locations to smoke when I travel

TB has set the forum creation bar so low that this moribund forum barely sees one post every 3 days and a topic that draws so little interest could have easily be accommodated in another forum. The 'build it and they will come' mantra clearly has failed in this case.

Compartmentalization has fractured FT into so many small pools of discussion that not only are new members daunted by the myriad of forums and are unable to easily determine where to post but veteran members rarely venture beyond their 'home' forums and don't participate in other areas of FT. More forums don't encourage a feeling of community and so would urge TB to admit it erred in creating this forum and roll it back into an existing forum.

The Smoking Section serves an important niche on this website. The posts also don't really fit in in other forums, especially as they tend to draw irate criticism from militant nonsmokers while they're there. Posts above you seem to indicate people are happy with this forum, you can keep bringing it up every 9 months but I see no reason to close it and I don't think you'll find another TB member who does.

Though, elections are coming up, in case you want to think about campaigning on a closing of forums platform.

Thank you and I will consider it as the fact you feel a forum with such a limited appeal is "an important niche" only serves to highlight the folly of this TB's approach to forum creation.

I don't think the forum does not have a limited appeal. I refer to it often when needed and I also add when I find something new.

Just because there aren't a lot of posts doesn't mean the information in the forum is not used. This type of info does not lend itself to conversations.

Exactly. I recently made posts about a hotel in Bucharest and smoking at the airport. I searched first and found no threads so I started them. If I had found fairly recent threads I would not have posted but that would not have meant that the info was not helpful to me.

If someone else plans to go to Bucharest, he may well see my threads and not make a new post but will be satisfied with what I wrote.

Folly according to you, you're being outweighed by people who are talking about how the forum is important to them. Are we to cater to just you who has a very narrow view of which forums should be created, or are we to cater to those who want a niche forum and who have suffered harassment when smoking threads are created otherwise? As there isn't a finite number of forums we can have, I choose the latter.

Furthermore, I posit that Flyertalk should give more weight to people who want forums retained than to people who want forums removed. The latter group gains essentially nothing by getting their way. They can easily just not go to a part of this site that they see as unnecessary or redundant. The former group actually would lose something they value. Whose interests should Talkboard serve?

Bruce

All of our opinions should be weighed equally whether we agree with them or not though am not surprised you see differently.

TB should be serving all member interests and not just those few lobbying for a special interest forum.

In the discussion thread on the proposed forum one senior moderator posted that in their experience that was not always the case.

That's ridiculous, personal insult notwithstanding. If I want to keep something that's not hurting you in any way, and you want to take it away, then who should win? The answer is obvious to me. I could say that "I'm not surprised" that you see things differently, but then I would be stooping to your level, and I won't do that.

Bruce

What's ridiculous is suggesting some opinions matter more than others.

I hope the new TB will take a different approach to forum creation as I feel the catering to every conceivable special interest and niche in the long run makes FT less of a community and more of a collection of topic storage units but will leave it at that.