jsmith

Occasionally, I visit and contribute to another travel board whose name starts with Fro and who publishes a series of travel guides. OK, frommers.com and I post with "turnerstate". I see a number of the same names on both boards so I'm not alone in visiting.

The Frommer's board seems to have less activity than here and I've noticed a number of differences.

There are significantly fewer trip reports and requests for them. Here, at times, it seems there are more postings of trip reports than questions.

They seem to have have many fewer mutual admiration postings, many less vanity postings, troll postings and hardly any silliness.

While there are controversies they seem generally less vitriolic.

There seem to be less postings of "I'm going to --, what do I do, what are the must sees, etc." type.

I do prefer the Frommer's method of display. You can see many more titles at one time but I miss that they don't show the time/date of the last posting. It has a new post notation but that can be many days previous and you can find yourself looking at a post which has nothing new to you.

I wonder if Frommer's has stricter editing rules which has led to reduced postings. The quality of the answers is fine.

ira

Hi js,

I think that it's just that the Frommer's board is less frequented.

Travelnut

I don't know, it feels clumsy and not user-friendly to me...
I think the questions are quite repetitive and of a more 'simple' nature, whereas posters on this board often have interesting questions or problems (not that there isn't repetitiveness here).
The quality of the answers is good b/c half of <i>this</i> board also goes over there!
I've been following the TA board, also, but they will wear a person out in no time.

nytraveler

The other board has MANY fewer postings - and posters- and a huge number of them seem to be first time- or practically non-travellers. Few postings get more than a couple of answers.

Fodors may be more &quot;eccentric&quot; but about 25 times more useful - if you have a real question.

suze

frommers is near dead from my experiences there. i used it posting about Mexico (not Europe) a while ago but soon realized almost no one came back to check answers for their questions. and certainly no one had the answers to mine. Threads that actually accumulated a dozen replies might take a couple years to do so! it is not user friendly and the posters generally speaking are much less experienced than Fodors.

i also like lonely planet's Thorn Tree very much but it has a bit different slant, liberal, younger minded, budget, backpackerish but with a huge number of extremely well versed and generous participants generally speaking.

Christina

I read the Frommers board now and again, and post on it. I think it has some things that are nicer than fodors in the setup, and some not as good. Pros and cons. There are many different travel boards and they have different uses and personalities, that's all. It depends on which country you use on Frommers as to how frequented it is.

I think one reason you get a different tone (Frommers is more businesslike, really related to travel) is because it is separated into countries, so general threads with people posting about politics, personal things, etc., tend not to occur. From what I've seen on there, it has a lot of good people posting and a lot of good information, and the general questions are very similar to those on here. I've used it for some years and as far as I know, it has no particular editing rules whatsoever that limit the posts, if that's what you are asking. Not sure what you mean by that exactly, I think it is actually less &quot;patrolled&quot; and arbitrary than this board where some Fodors staffers delete posts for sometimes random reasons which are not consistent across posts.

If you don't like Frommers, just don't post there, I'm not sure if you are complaining or what.

degas

Frommers is a 2 on a scale of 1 to 10 -snooze-city.

Intrepid1

I've found there are far fewer self-appointed &quot;editors&quot; on the Frommers board. That, along with the lack of &quot;mutual admiration postings&quot; is probably why some people prefer this board to that one. I think it is a bit more difficult for some folks to get their &quot;recognition&quot; there tham here.

Intrepid1

But why you simply didn't put the full name of the board in your heading is beyond me. The coyness really isn't necessary.

ira

&gt;...Thorn Tree ... liberal, younger minded, budget, backpackerish ...&lt;

As compared to us reactionary, old fogies with lots of money and too much luggage?

cigalechanta

I'm a fan of several boards, all very different. Fodors differs because many here have met one another or email eachother frequently so it appears clicky and also we post often more than once on a thread, and the thread becomes too long. I don't have time to read everything, so it's nice if it's an informative stream. But there are days when the light-hearted and fun topics can brighten a dreary day.

NorthShore

I admire the many smart, witty posters on Fodors. They richly deserve much recognition for keeping the forum interesting, informative and alive. The cranky complainers, airheads and pompous twits also make contributions in a small way.

Frommers is too slow and stale - a gal could grow old before getting a reply.

SAnParis

I think ira has hit it right on the head..hurray for us &quot;old fogies&quot; although age tends to be a state of mind, not a number.

cigalechanta

So true, NorthShore, most other boards do not get the traffic as here and some never check back.

suze

hey now ira, never fear there are plenty of debates about the size and weight of backpacks. Plus Thorn Tree has an &quot;older travelers&quot; branch too.

WillTravel

Thorntree has questions about good 3* hotels in Florence, splurges in Paris, etc. that are beyond the scope of basic budget travel. And Fodors often has basic budget questions. So the audiences of the two boards are different, but there is overlap.

I find the Thorntree format to be quite laborious to work through compared to Fodors. That's the main reason I don't read there more.

And Frommers simply has a much smaller volume. But it has had very typical controversies also - like if Paris is really all it's cracked up to be (perennial topic).

Underhill

NorthShore,

Why don't we hear more from you?

jsmith

Thank you for your replies.

ira, your first post is very insightful, falls in the category of &quot;it's brighter when the sun is out&quot;.

intrepid1, the first time I've ever been accused of being coy. I didn't use the Frommer's name in the title so as to elicit comments on other boards. It did.

Christina, I wasn't complaining about Frommer's, just commenting. Your analyses are very close to my own.

Interesting that no one took serious offense to the fourth paragraph. I think it is precisely these type of postings that keep the volume high here.

suze

&lt;They seem to have have many fewer mutual admiration postings, many less vanity postings, troll postings and hardly any silliness.&gt;

No one took offence because it's a true statement!

Leely

&lt;They seem to have have many fewer mutual admiration postings, many less vanity postings, troll postings and hardly any silliness.&gt;

I wonder if it's the Europe board that has so much of all this (NOT that there's anything wrong with that)?

I don't really frequent the other boards, except Africa/Middle East, and there's very little of what you describe on that board, although certainly people are friendly and try to help each other.

I actually found Fodors through Frommers when planning a trip to Tanzania. No one on Frommers ever answered my questions.

Love the ThornTree, but don't like the way things just sink and aren't topped. But I'm a young-at-heart lefty, even though I burned my backpack long ago.