It's interesting to me that many of the people who want the split of this forum to happen do not post very often themselves.

Perhaps that's why I have a different outlook... My participation here is not to plan one specific trip to one specific destination, but rather as a contributer and reader of all kinds of travel subjects.

And a forum branch that gets less than a dozen posts per day, the approximate amount if you split current new daily threads in half, makes for a dull board.

I guess I will have to bow to Suze. After reading her last post I was intrigued enough to check out her own posting history. A little voyeuristic, I know, but I couldn't help myself after her comment.

Katie, if importance of the votes is based not by the masses of people who feel one way, but by the hours one spends on this site, then I urge you to make Suze's vote count as at least 20. She is a remarkably active member of your forums.

I hereby repeal my yeah vote and walk silently into the distance.

I'm not trying to be uppity or run anyone off this forum, we need all the participants we can get!

I do not believe quantity (of posts) necessarily equals quality (of information).

Lastly yes I have been on Fodor's for 8 years and have observed certain resulting trends when Fodor's makes changes. And this is where my comments above are coming from.

I agree with suze. There aren't a huge amount of posts here, such as like the Europe board, and I've posted here long enough that I can eye which ones I'm interested in quickly and with pretty good accuracy. I'm not a one country only poster, I like reading and learning about various locations even if I only post on the ones I'm more familiar with.

For me the term "Latin" America is

not desrciptive might give offense

so the country names would be better.

For me the more the forum is split

the less posts be per split.

For example taking the rediculous to

extreme TA has a seperate branch for

EACH US state!

I don't even look there

too fragmented

Sooo I would be for

lumping not splitting

A very good idea. Just do it.

I sort of like the idea of South America and then the rest being in a separate forum.. Since they are two different places.. it might make more sense.
I guess I should say that I have been posting here since 2001 ( which might result in a number of posts similar to suze and many other Fodorites ) and have a little experience in what I think works and what doesn't on these forums... But no one listens to me anyway :)

I'm listening.

And I've never been sassy to you. Even when you don't know it I've been learning from your posts. They are much appreciated.

Just to clarify--- we will not be breaking the forums down to the country level.

We are considering breaking the Latin America forum into "South America" and "Mexico and Central America". In the site's new design, each forum will have a "base" page with popular threads within that forum, trip reports, and other relevant items.

As we move to this new platform, we have an opportunity to adjust and make improvements that would have been difficult to do in the past (like splitting this forum).

great idea

If you go ahead with the split I see one possible bright side for me... by actually having Mexico mentioned in the forum name maybe more people would post.

I am used to coming to the Latin America forum since I've been posting here so long, but I've never thought of Mexico, Central America & South American as being "Latin America" except here on Fodor's.

So while I still say I hate to see a small forum split up even further, I don't mind the idea of making the name more accurate.

Definitely. I was surprised that there weren't 2 different forums when I first checked out this site.

Hey Katie, what about an editor who works weekends when the spammers hit? :) The above poster has been going full throttle all over the boards for hours now. :(

Katie_H: The spammer's post was deleted here,but, my post, which criticized Fodor's, was also deleted.

I won't forget that.

I hate to get technical, but isn't latin America really the same as central America? I would suggest Latin / Central America & Mexico be one forum and the continent of South America (hence the name) be it's own forum.

Yes... Latin America IS technically a correct term for Mexico, Central and South America together. Some places even toss in a few of the Spanish or Portugese speaking islands to the definition. Take a spin around Google if you don't believe it.

Another one here who agrees!

((c))

I'm actually for keeping the forum intact (in order to keep a steady flow of visiting folk, etc...) and agree with the different name: Mexico, Central and South America. (and Antarctica?).

My main reason for the change of name is to keep it clear where people should look: Cuba and Dominican Republic are Latin America and Caribbean Islands. With the new name, DR and Cuba would clearly be Caribbean. Also Guyana, Suriname and Belize would make more sense with the new title since they're really not Latin America...but ARE unquestionably Central and South America.

Hi avrooster- I apologize that your post was deleted. The poster posted over 200 posts and almost all of them were at the very bottom of each thread. In my haste deleting them I did delete some last posts that were not his by accident. I don't know if that makes sense. I should have posted afterwards to let you know of the mistake. We certainly allow criticism of the site on the site.

For those wondering what avrooster's post refers to: avrooster commented on the lack of moderation of the Forums on the weekend. Over the weekend the Forums were unfortunately spammed by an advertiser for a number of hours. I apologize for our delayed response; providing better weekend coverage is a priority.

Thank you, Katie.

Everything is OK.

Keep up the good work, but I suggest Fodor's should have at least some kind of skeleton staff over the weekends.

Furthermore, it should be technically possible for you to delete ALL of a certain poster's posts, just by pressing a button.

The fact that apparently you had to delete each of the offending posts one by one, highlights this forum's technical shortcomings and that is one of the matters we are discussing here.

Thank you.