Spiff

Moved by Jenbel and seconded by bhatnasx:

that the Destination the World forums be re-organised, such that they are organised alphabetically by continent, with countries being at the full forum level and cities being at the sub-forum level in the following manner below, with 'Other Asia (non-Japan/China)' renamed 'Asia' and 'Europe (Eastern/Western)' renamed 'Europe'
Antartica
Africa
Asia
(subforum of Asia)Singapore
China
Hong Kong
India
Japan
The Middle East
Thailand
Australia, New Zealand & the South Pacific
Europe
France
Italy
Germany
Russia
Scandinavia
UK & Ireland
(subforum of UK & Ireland) London
Latin Central America
The Caribbean
Cuba
Mexico
Canada
(sub forum of Canada)Toronto
South America
Argentina

This poll will close on Jul 10, 07 at 2:51 pm

linsj

I don't understand why Cuba has a separate forum since there are only 11 threads in the past year. Put it with the rest of the Caribbean.

SanDiego1K

When did the Middle East become part of Asia?

Is Hong Kong a country and not a city?

If countries are listed alphabetically under the continent, why does Germany come after Italy?

Would someone explain the logic in that order?

chexfan

My Swag would go something along the lines of...

Africa
Americas
--Canada
----Toronto
--The Caribbean
----Cuba
--Latin & Central America
--Mexico
--South America
----Argentina
Antarctica
Asia (formerly titled “Other Asia (non-Japan/China)”
--China
----Hong Kong
--India
--Japan (Tokyo and beyond)
--Singapore
--Thailand
Australia, New Zealand & the South Pacific
Europe (formerly "Europe (Eastern/Western)")
--France
--Germany
--Italy
--Russia
--Scandinavia
--UK & Ireland
----London
Middle East

hhoope01

From a passport basis, Hong Kong is treated separately from China.

Also, I thought Singapore was a country?

Jenbel

Ok, from the top. The (majority of) countries of the Middle East are Asian. The only one which may or may not be Middle Eastern, but is definitely not Asian is Egypt. All the rest (Israel, Jordan, Syria, Iran, Iraq, Saudi etc) are most definitely Asian. Europe ends at the Bosphorus - Africa ends at the Egyptian border. What continent are they on if not Asia?

Hong Kong should have been a sub-forum, but there was a transcription error when I moved from TB proposal to TB motion, which wasn't picked up until now.

Germany after Italy - I can't spell

The Americas. Since everyone has their own idea as to where the north bit and the south bit stop, I set up a separate section for them. So the logic is

Latin & Central America
The Caribbean
Cuba
Mexico
North America (however no such forum - so implied in forum ordering)
Canada
(sub forum of Canada)Toronto
South America
Argentina

It should be noted that I posted my motion (before it was finalised) into the public forum last week...
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showp...64&postcount=8

Jenbel

This is about structure not content, and I decided it was outwith (and extremely undesirable) to start confusing structure with content. Any changes to forums (creation/removal) in my mind need rather more consideration than they would get in this re-ordering - and we also would risk having the reorganisation voted down if we started including too many unrelated items.

SanDiego1K

Why is Latin and Central America considered a continent?

Also, I agree with hhoope01 that Singapore is a country.

BiziBB

If we are allowed to pick nits or other points, can I suggest UK & Ireland be rearranged alphabetically to Ireland & UK?
It rolls of the tongue better too.

I suppose this is not practical due to there being a London child forum to UK, but if a Dublin child to Ireland is ever proposed, I'd support that too.

----
[OT/future consideration]:
I don't understand, for example, why there is a Toronto forum for Canada but no Dublin or Sydney subforums for Ireland and Sydney.

Considering the number of questions and topics on these cities, could there be support for new Dublin and Sydney subforums, once the Europe forum is tidy?

----

Jenbel

I think I answered the Latin/Central America one above? Since there's disagreement, I grouped them together in their own section, rather than have people argue about whether they were north or south.

And I agree, Singapore is a country. It's also a city, because it's a city state - much as the Vatican and Monaco are. So it can be argued either way. And indeed, I would have been happy to move it before the motion was finalised, if anyone objected. Unfortunately, everyone has waited to comment when it's too late to make any more changes, despite having plenty of opportunity to comment. Voting has begun, so it's a done deal

Jenbel

Possibly those forums don't exist because no-one has suggested them?

If I had been going to add in forums which I thought were missing during this exercise, I'm sure the forums I would have chosen to add in would have been rather different from the half dozen or so which have been suggested - which is exactly why I didn't decide to start playing with content unilaterally. If this vote passes, we have a structure which makes it simple where to slot in future forums. That was one aim of this exercise.

wharvey

NOW... This is a nice clean look.... this looks great.

wharvey

Why is it too late to make changes? Has Talkboard procedures changed? When I was on the Board, we changed motions once made and even cancelled votes on a few occasions.

Seems to me... getting it right is more important than saying "since you did not respond quick enough, it cannot be changed."

wharvey

Jenbel,

I am not sure many people even knew that an entire revamp of the forums was being considered. You had posted your "motion" in the "Move Germany Into Europe" thread... bet many did not even see your post. So, would not be surprised that you did not get any comments here... most probably never saw it due to being buried.

Perhaps it would be appropriate to rescind the motion... assuming you - as the motion maker - and bhatnasx as the seconder both agree. Then, you can consider the feedback you are getting here to realign the forums. The extra week or two might be worth the better end results.

Just a thought.

William

Jenbel

When we discussed, at great lenth, proposals to improve communications, one of the concerns about voting in favour of informing the public board about motions being made was that it would delay the procedures, which can be quite slow moving. This was a concern which was voiced by quite a few at the time, and yet the proposal to keep the FT members informed of what we were voting on was approved, on the basis that it would not be allowed to do that, and individual members were free or not to take account of what was said on the threads after it was made public.

On this occasion, I actually went one better than the bare minimum. I posted the motion onto the public boards before it had received a second, and before it went to vote. The motion was posted to the thread discussing the topic of forum reorganisation, which was the logical place to put it. The motion remained open for several days, during which time one person posted and posted in favour. At that time, since it was unfinalised, we could have encorporated some/any/many of these suggestions in (although I've already indicated what ones I would not have been prepared to do), and I regret the fact that no-one noticed my errors until the motion was too far down the line. Nevertheless, although there are two minor errors, I don't think they are an important enough issue to warrant withdrawing the motion, although I am of course willing to listen to arguments from my fellow TB members on this.

I'm sorry that many of you didn't see it. At the same time, at what point do you think we should be able to proceed with a motion? We've moved and seconded it on TB, it's gone to vote, voting is well underway, and now we are asked to suspend the vote, because it went unnoticed by the general membership, despite the fact that we had informed them?

Sorry wharvey, in this I don't think the failing is with TB. We went way beyond the minimum we are required to keep the general membership informed. That the general membership chose not to be informed until it was well past the point of no return is something that I as a TB member am sad about - but that was their choice. The information was there for them in black and white on the public board. I can lead a horse to water, but I cannot make it drink.