ozstamps

Very interesting timing for this suggestion.

Might I ask if the OP and the others so keen to use number of posts to back their stance, if they are equally keen to ask the Talkboard to close the Disabilty Travel forum too? Every comment above applies pretty much just as much of course.

In fact let's flush out the politics here ... let me suggest that Talkboard votes to cancel BOTH those Forums in one vote for the sake of not duplicating effort later on - and watch the PC brigade tap-dance around that one.

My guess is that for PC and political reasons, there will be NO vote mooted on removing Disabilty Travel as a forum.

To make it easy .. here is the entire last 3 months of "action" there:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/forum...&daysprune=100

Glen
.

tcook052

Not being in that brigade I'd support a "use it or lose it policy" for any new forum so your suggestion would meet with my approval.

BTW, you'd think the newness of a forum would see increased interest spurring greater traffic immediately after its creation but given this little activity to start on the seniors forum would the traffic only decrease further from here on in? Or do we give an open ended timeframe for a forum to find its 'right sized' community it supposedly had in place who lobbied for its creation on these pages previously?

There are some who will disagree and say within a community numbers shouldn't matter but IMHO a huge FT with only some of the forums getting any significant traffic flow isn't a good thing. YMMV.

ozstamps

tcook052 - my general view was that adding niche forums that were largely seen as being warm and fuzzy and "politically correct" was taking FT away from its roots of miles and points.

FT could start a special Forum for midget jugglers or Nascar fans or Sarah Palin detractors or The Mormons or single moms in Arkansas, and all would get some posts, but have nothing to do with MILES OR POINTS.

It all dilutes FT from the one thing it is REALLY good at.

But that's just my view.
.

kokonutz

The forum does appear moribund. It's been about 4 months, right? I'd prefer at least 6 before declaring it a failure. So if it doesn't catch fire in a couple months I'd be open to shuttering it.

NickB

FWIW, some stats, including the religious forum (which TB recently decided to keep) as a point of comparison:
Number of active threads* in the last 100 days/number of posts in those threads/number of views:
Senior forum: 7/84/7835
Disability forum: 18/327/25343
Religious forum: 37/492/33338

note that some of the threads in the disability and the religious forum, while currently active, are quite old and the stats for # of posts and even more so # of views will therefore be higher than in the seniors forum, whose thread are more recent. The thread on "wheelchair procedures and/or etiquette" started in Nov 2006 and with 6512 views, in particular, does tend to skew the comparison somewhat and should perhaps be discounted. That said, as I don't think I would be far off the order of magnitude by stating that the disability forum tends to have more or less double the traffic of the seniors forum and more or less half that of the religious forum.

*'active' thread=thread in which at least one post has been posted in the last 100 days

Spiff

I'm not in favor of a poll. People who have an opinion about the matter at hand should post their thoughts here, even if it's a simple "close it" or "keep it".

Spiff

No, thank you.

Please feel free to begin a new thread on the issue of possibly closing a different forum. We're discussing closing the Senior Travel forum.

NickB

6 months sounds like a reasonable period for a forum to establish itself, so this seems sensible to me. I have to say, though, that it would be rather strange if there was a sudden burst of activity, but you never know...

kokonutz

Thanks for the analysis!

We learned when we considered shuttering the Religious Traveler forum that VIEWS mattered, too. That people found as much value in reading and looking a few threads and posts as they did in participating there.

Are you able to update that analysis to include views?

NickB

I did in the original post, with some caveat on the stats, especially the views stats, and some additional comments.

Hunki

FWIW, I would prefer that the forum stay open. And if Punki could post, she would too.

I do check it out to see if there are any new posts and see if there are any "seniors" out there whom I've never met.

What difference does it make to the rest of you whether it stays open or not? The cost is minimal and you aren't forced to go there.

And, it doesn't require a full time manager.


But if you want to pursue closing it, then whatever.

NickB

It sounds to me that what you want is a place to hang out with other seniors, rather than a repository of information. If so, would the new "social groups" feature be more adapted to this purpose than a forum?

Dovster

I thought that starting this forum was a bad idea and still feel that way.

That being said, it should not be closed this quickly. A forum takes a while to build up its own community -- and increase the number of threads on it.

I still wish that TB would adopt the formula I have long advocated: A forum will be closed if it does not have 100 threads in its first year and 200 new threads in every year after that.

tcook052

I understood that TB wouldn't create a new forum unless there already was a 'right sized' group advocating its creation. Why else would would a forum be created if nobody wanted to use it and then expect it to find its niche after its creation?

Agree.

wharvey

i fully agree with this assessment.

The Forum has not been open for too long.... and it has received no "advertising" as to its existence.

Besides, it will only apply to a subset of the FT membership.

At the end of the day, a determination was made that there was enough of a need to create the forum.... whatever the criteria.

It is not taking up much bandwidth... and the visitors are behaving.... much better than the users of other certain forums....

I say leave it alone.... if you want to visit it... and contribute... go for it... Otherwise, do not visit and let those that do enjoy it!

William