I apologize if this issue has been raised before. I tried searching and couldn't find anything.

I've seen a consistent pattern on FT of destination enquiries in airline fora. I understand the logic; people who live and travel there frequently will have the best info. Still, we have a Travel & Dining section of FT for those issues.

My question (and subsequent proposal) is; is it possible to provide a link in each airline's forum to the relevant Travel forum for that geographic region. E.G. for the US airlines, a link to Destination : United States. For Cathay Pacific, a link to the Hong Kong subforum.

Ideally these would appear as sub-forums at the top of each airline's forum (as in the Hong Kong link). My experience has been that such links get far more attention and usage than stickies. IMO this would drive traffic to the proper fora as well as keeping the airline fora cleaner.

I think this is a very good idea, as there is much duplication at present. For example, there are lots of posts in BA which should actually fall under "London" or "UK and Ireland". The argument goes that the people with the local knowledge don't visit the local forums - making it easier in this way should help. (Also, I think "London" and "UK & Ireland" should be merged, but that's a little OT...)

ahh, nevermind...

I think this is an excellent idea. It does a better job of supporting the way people think about travel, while presenting the preferred options to organizing posts. The presence of the sub-forms will promote their existence and naturally draw more attention and posts.

Agreed. I do look at the 'London' forum every day or so just to see if I can help someone with some advice, but I never look at the broader UK one.

And, as Wingnut says, in reality you get a far better response to any London query by posting on the BA board. The only benefit of the London board is that old threads do not disappear as quickly because of the lower volume of posting, which makes it easier for first-timers to search.

I've visited the UA forum near every day for about 6 years now and can't recall seeing more than a few posts about city or country advice sought.

Regular posters and forum mods are pretty quick to steer such VERY occasional off topic questions like that to the right area. Mods in all busier airline forums I am sure do the same?

Some Forums like Qantas are due to their much much lower post volume, and smaller core of regular users, a little more liberal in that regard for general oz related questions, and it seems to work for everyone. Air Canada is a little more like that too. No-one steers hockey questions and entire threads to NHL.com - be a riot if they did!

The problem with "stickies" and Admin notes etc atop forums is that if there are more than a couple of really relevant and super helpful ones related to that particular airline, the forum quickly looks cluttered, and less threads are on the first page.

I lean towards this being the call of individual forum mods to allow it or not, depending on the traditional tolerance in those forums and heaviness of posts in that forum rather than it being a TalkBoard issue. They have a better idea of thier own forums.

A firm rule that works for UA or AA might not be necessary or even wise for QF or AC etc.

Good call. I think this would have to vary on forum and then you're looking at all kinds of complexities. I tend to think that we leave this for the moderators.. that's one of the reasons they're there.

Were the issue at hand forum stickies I would tend to agree. That's not a TalkBoard issue. However, this is about sub-forum links which moderators cannot create.

My entire point was that stickies are not as effective at driving traffic and aren't as visible. They also clutter up the forum whereas one or two subforum links to the proper destination fora (which forum/'group' is correct for which airline is beyond my scope, it's possible to link to a group of forums) might be very helpful.

I can see how boards such as UA or AA might not need such links while QF, AA, CX, etc might benefit greatly. To reiterate; moderators cannot address this issue as we have no ability to create the relevant links. You can see what I'm proposing here. If moderators CAN create such links, I'd be appreciative if someone would show me how.

I agree with what Kanebear's proposing in the above post. Stickies are not useful in this scenario, in my opinion. While I think there should be flexibility between forums in terms of the degree of OT that's allowed, I don't think it's useful that threads which would be ON topic in another forum are posted elsewhere (eg UK destination specific threads in the BA forum). I think having the sub-forums where relevant would help people to post in the place which is most useful to the most number of people without creating too much inconvenience in terms of altering current posting patterns.

ETA: I also think that destination specific threads should not be in Travelbuzz, but in the forum for the relevant destination.