Travel sub-forum?

Van Hellseek said:
Same could be said about food, and yet that forum is clearly a success.
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You might have missed the following sentence to what you quoted as I was still editing it in but sometimes the dilution matters and sometimes it doesn't matter so much.

mr tommo said:
I appreciate that it may get missed by people wanted to comment with a "nice holiday, always wanted to go there" , but I feel the most important part of a Travel forum is nearly always going to be the initial opening post.

Lets say someone posts about Bora Bora in the travel forum. Some great photos are posted, little paragraph about the hotel, the local area, best bits and worst bits. Thats fantastic and the OP is there to answer any questions people have about that holiday area, it matters very little that the average GD poster misses the opportunity to comment with a "cool hol, bro".

Its unlikely to evoke lots of "cool holiday" types posts, but as a review, it will make a great resource for others.
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You're thinking of a travel forum in a very specific sense it seems where people basically just post up reviews of their destinations. There's the other side of travel threads where people ask "I'm planning on going to Nepal/Kuala Lumpur/Belize/Wherever - what's it like and what do I need to know?" - those threads rely to a certain extent on people just happening across the thread and providing their opinions. Whether that would happen as often with a specific travel sub-forum I've no idea. No argument here that not all the comments will add valuable input to the discussion but then you could probably argue that point about the vast majority of posts ever.

Scuzi said:
Taking a reactionary approach and creating a sub forum when another forum becomes overwhelmed with subjects on that topic isn't a good way to run a forum.

If discussion on a certain topic wants to be encouraged, a sub forum should be considered to promote and encourage discussion on that topic. Look at La Cuisine. How many food threads did we have in GD? Not that many. There are now a lot more threads on food than there would have been had La Cuisine not been created.

The boating forum is a failure but that's mainly because very few members have an interest in boating. It can be argued that a much larger portion of the membership have an interest in travelling and if there was a forum which took the topic seriously, those members would be more willing to take the time to construct reviews and conduct discussion on the topic of travel.
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There was probably at least a similar number of threads regarding cooking, quite possibly more but there were also fairly regular features along the lines of "Cooking with AH2/Jonny69 etc" which tended to evolve into multi-page threads for each posted topic suggesting there was a reasonably high level of demand there.

You may be right and all that's been missing is a specific forum to spark off greater discussion on travel but then again it might just as equally die an ignoble death. I can certainly raise it for further discussion but that is, of course, no guarantee that it will happen.
 
semi-pro waster said:
There's the other side of travel threads where people ask "I'm planning on going to Nepal/Kuala Lumpur/Belize/Wherever - what's it like and what do I need to know?" - those threads rely to a certain extent on people just happening across the thread and providing their opinions.
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Anybody here who has been to such exotic destinations would almost certainly take an active interest in a travel sub-forum (and people asking about such topics would be directed as appropriate), so the point is kind of moot.
 
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Van Hellseek said:
Trial and error is the key, as has already been said. Try it, and if it works keep it, otherwise don't. Simples.

Prevents legitimate travel topics being trolled by the GD masses at least.

TBH, the only people who would argue against it are people who don't travel and would read (and reply to) such threads out of literally nothing but boredom anyway.
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Trial and error hasn't really worked so far. Hello on the water subforum.
 
It's just a bit pointless really, just like the other current suggestions.

I wouldn't actively look in a travel forum, but I will give advice in GD on things I know about. People think similarly and this is why the broad range of people browsing GD often gets a decent response on travel topics, or gardening etc.

Most of the food threads in La Cuisine would undoubtedly be busier if they were in GD.
 
Nitefly said:
Most of the food threads in La Cuisine would undoubtedly be busier if they were in GD.
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Busier yes, but if you start a thread in "La Cuisine" you get replies from people who really know what they are talking about (including industry professionals), as opposed to replies from bored GD-ers.

So number of replies versus QUALITY replies...

It's a no-brainer as far as I'm concerned.
 
Van Hellseek said:
Anybody here who has been to such exotic destinations would almost certainly take an active interest in a travel sub-forum (and people asking about such topics would be directed as appropriate), so the point is kind of moot.
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Maybe but you appear to be putting your own interest and inclinations as being representative of the majority. Not everyone who has been to amazing locales or has relevant experience is, of necessity, going to wish to go into yet another sub-forum to pass it on. Sometimes people just give advice because they happen across it.

I have raised the question for discussion amongst the moderators anyway so we'll see what comes of it.
 
Sigh... The second one sub forum gets some support, people decide theyre going to create threads for 50,000 other ideas...

Can I propose a conspiracy theorist sub forum? Or a daily mail sub-forum? Or a someone famous has died sub-forum...

kd
 
I am all for a travel forum. I think it's a great subject. Personally, I don't like general discussion forums. Everything is just too fragmented and people just talk a load of **** most of the time.

If this forum was all about PC's, I would agree with not having different forums. However, I think people need to accept that OCUK forums have gone way beyond a techie forum and if anything, leans towards a general lifestyle forum. I only really hit the hardware section when i'm thinking of upgrading. Normally every 18 months or so. Other than that, I very rarely visit.

That's why I think both the travel forums and and home and garden are good ideas.

Maybe you could just create a lifestyle forum with Home & Garden, Travel and La Cuisine subs. I would love that.
 
arknor said:
ocuk is a pretty old place as its members mature they become less interested in pcs and more interested in travel , cooking , gardening or cars its a simple fact.

if you want to keep brand loyalty from these people you need to give them a reason to stay interested in OCUK.

look how many people only post in the sports or motors section and barely ever bother with the other forums at all
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A very good point.

You know, this section doesn't interest me, but good luck with your request. I certainly won't post in here complaining about your request - if people aren't interested in the forum, simply don't post in it. Simples :)
 
King Damager said:
Sigh... The second one sub forum gets some support, people decide theyre going to create threads for 50,000 other ideas...

Can I propose a conspiracy theorist sub forum? Or a daily mail sub-forum? Or a someone famous has died sub-forum...

kd
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Nothing do do with other subforums. I'm contemplating travelling SE Asia next year for 3 months. Now over the years that I've been posting and reading here, I've seen many great posts about other peoples routes, island hopping, places to definitely visit, things to avoid. But the problem is they've all popped up in different Thailand/Asia/travelling/back packing threads over the years and trying to get it all together is a bit of a nightmare using the search function IMO.

Just for the record, I joined this forum many years ago purely for the 'life' forums. No interest in computers or hardware whatsoever, I joined because of my interest in motors and he occasional decent GD thread.

forums are one of the first things I check every day when browsing, And in my opinion pretty much has an answer to everything. It just seems odd that a topic such t tas travel, which 90% do doesn't have it's own place.

Look at the photography thread, its people posting their own photos or asking for opinions mainly. Sure it misses out on people commenting who were just bored in GD, but the people posting their photos don't care, they are after views from people with experience or an interest in photography. Now that's not an exceptionally busy place but everybody there is happy and would rather one reply from a photographer than 10 from people just passing by their thread.
 
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I think GD has been quiet of late and further diluting things maybe not be such a good idea. But if that is the desire can we have a 'bhavv forum' where he dispenses sagely wisdom and his extensive knowledge.
 
I think that there should be one subforum added ... one for conspiracy theories, lizardmen, etc etc etc ... the usual nutjob stuff that appears in GD.

If that stuff was moved out of GD then it would be lot easier to see the Travel, Gardening etc threads and hence subforums wouldn't be needed for those. It would also be easier to ignore the subforum of nutters ... ;)
 
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