I've been visiting this forum for quite a long time, but I'm having trouble figuring out what the new rules are about finding or posting messages. If a question is posted in the general Europe travel lounge, will it also go the Great Britain or France or Italy travel lounges automatically, or do we have to keep checking in all those places for new questions? <BR>I note that some questions that as recently as two days ago were in "general Europe" are now in the country-specific areas. <BR>I realize that others have been mentioning this issue all week, so I'm sorry to be slow on the uptake, but what are the definitive rules? <BR> <BR>I just posted a new question (new information, actually) under the <BR>"General England" heading when it actually applies to England, Scotland, and Wales. <BR>And if a posting addresses areas in both France and Italy, where should it go? <BR>Will people searching for information know to check Italy AND France AND Europe? <BR>There are lots of places to look now, so I guess some of us "old-timers" need to expand our bookmarks.

Elaine - I just noticed this phenomenon today myself. But I also see that there are posts on Tuscany, etc. still in the general forum. Does the Fodors machine throw the posts to wherever it thinks they should go, OR WHAT??? I'm really confused now... So until someone enlightens me, I just keep switching back and forth from general to Italy, or whatever country.

I don't care for the new format; it is clumsy and incovenient. I will e-mail Fodor's about it.

Yes I did earlier this evening. I think my concern is that we will get all one tracked and lose the helpful and amusing cross fertilisation.

Pssst! Here's an idea. Just completely ignore all of the new categories and post everything under the general header. Then we'll have our good old system back and the new, pointless categories will die a slow, withering, quiet death.

Good idea Rebel, but I think Fodor's is moving the postings into the appropriate category. They're in control of the servers and forget who the "customers" are. I'm sure this web site sells lots of Fodor's travel guides and Fodor's should respond to what the users want. <BR> <BR>I emailed Fodor’s the other night when they put up the new format but haven’t received a response yet. Maybe they should take a vote on the new format. I also asked that they remove that annoying arrow pointing to the messages to the left. Do they think we don’t know the messages are there? <BR> <BR>Sheila – I agree with you too. I enjoy reading a variety of postings and don’t want to have to jump around. <BR> <BR>I also think they should spend their time fixing the search engine instead of putting in a new format which doesn’t seem to appeal. Unfortunately, I forgot to put that into the email to them. <BR> <BR>Adrienne <BR>

This new format is so weird. A month or so ago, someone named Sandi proposed nine categories. The idea was roundly criticized and ridiculed, and it was clear that people did not want such a system. Yet we now have it. <BR> <BR>So only one conclusion makes sense. Sandi went and got herself a job at Fodors. Darn the luck!

Ever since the change fo some reason I cannot get any forum other than "USA" "Canada" or "Europe". I've lost eveything else. My deal is that I have a lot more research I'd like to do for my trip to Italy. <BR>Can somebody copy and paste the Italy web address here for me? <BR> <BR>And I agree that I like Europe being represented together in this forum.

For Jen. <BR> <BR>http://www.fodors.com/forums/crossro...meset&active=5

If you click on "travel talk home" in the upper right corner of this screen (assuming it's still there by the time you read this, what with all the tinkering at Fodor's) you'll see the links to all the forums. That includes Italy, Britain, and France as well as a whole bunch of fragmented topics. <BR> <BR>For what it's worth, I too dislike the new organization (and I use databases a lot in my job, so it's not that I'm intimidated by hierarchies and such). For one thing, it's obviously unclear whether the country forums are meant as subgroups of, alternatives to , or adjuncts to, the continent forums; to wit, now nobody can figure out where the hell to post, read, or search. For another thing, so many posts, and the travel knowledge of so many posters, cross national boundaries that all this splitting up is counter-productive. I fully agree with Sheila on this. <BR> <BR>Apparently some people didn't want to scroll past posts on the places that didn't interest them. (Personally I don't find it all that burdensome to hit the arrow key. Plus I'd rather read some threads on places I'll never visit more interesting than, e.g., endless "are there ATMs in Rome?" threads, though I'm normally interested in Italy.) So instead Fodor's has made the rest of us click all over the place. <BR> <BR>There's a fairly long thread about the new organization on the US forum, including responses from Fodor's. It doesn't look like thy're planning on changing back.

It occurs to me that maybe this change was an attempt to speed up the Search function which we've all complained about. The downside, major, seems to be that I won't trust myself to search for information in only one place, so I'll have to do several Searches to make sure I find everything, particularly if one posting addresses more than one country, or more than one subdivision of a country <BR>(those multiple subdivisions of France, UK) is limiting this entirely too much I think.) <BR> <BR>For those of you who couldn't respond to this original message, did you try scrolling your screen all the way to the right? That's changed too.