kleeblatt

There's a lot of good stuff on here but not enough people see it. Wouldn't it be better to add it to the Lounge and add the category "Travel Tips & Trip Ideas"?

kleeblatt

It's been 16 minutes and no one has replied. These topics deserve to be seen more.

kleeblatt

Well, I'm going to bed now. Maybe in the next 10 hours, there will be some replies.

Sue878

The lounge is too political so I don't go there very often.
I check here.

kleeblatt

Thanks, Sue, for your input.

saige

I agree with schuler, this is where new posters come to get lost and/or be ignored. Regular posters redirect them to Europe and other forums from time to time, but I think you'd be better off deleting this one.

suze

This is record-breaking schuler. Many posts never even get a response here.

For Sue878, You don't have to read the political threads. It's pretty obvious which ones they are and very easy to avoid. I spend a lot of time in the Lounge and NEVER read or post about politics.

The most frequent thing I post (because I do keep an eye on things) is redirecting people to the appropriate forums for their questions, even explaining the blue "change forums" up at the top of the page.

thursdaysd

I am one of the few people who check this forum regularly, and respond, but if it gets moved to the Lounge I will stop. I visit the Lounge about twice a year, if that, and find it almost a total waste of time. I come to Fodors to talk travel.

janisj

I seldom visit the Lounge - just too much ugly 'stuff' over there. Saying if you don't like it don't read it' doesn't help much since half the threads eventually turn ugly. I visit this one every day and almost always greet newbies and help them find the best places to re-post their destination-specific threads, and/or explain if they click on the triangle they can ask the monitors to move the thread to the appropriate board.

I personally don't think they belong in the lounge --just my 2¢

suze

ok, I'll agree about not combining it with the Lounge. My vote would be simply to get rid of it. If it weren't here to catch the miscellaneous and lost, people would find their way to other appropriate forum (destinations, airlines, lounge, etc.)

saige

Maybe what we need instead is a Welcome to Fodors or New to the Forums place for newbies. It could give them an introduction to the site, direct them to specific threads and provide some basic
instruction on how to get the best results from their posts.

ShelliDawn

<i>My vote would be simply to get rid of it. If it weren't here to catch the miscellaneous and lost, people would find their way to other appropriate forum (destinations, airlines, lounge, etc.)</i>

Although I agree that many people post here when the post would be more appropriate on a different forum, I do think this forum has a valid reason to exist. There are a number of general travel topics that are discussed here that don't belong anywhere else. And these topics would get lost in the lounge.

Why is it such a big deal that it has lower traffic than some others? There are other slower forums as well. The Canada forum has slowed down considerably over the last year or so. Should we get rid of it or merge it with the US one? I don't think so.

suze

The problem is things often don't get "discussed" here. You're lucky to get even a few replies. It wouldn't exactly impress a first-timer with the potential help available to them at Fodor's, like if they posted on the Europe forum.

When I asked the same question back in June, the editor at the time (Katie) said they were maybe going to add an introduction at the top of the forum, and state the purpose of Travel Tips for newbies. I thought that was an excellent idea (which obviously never happened).

suze

ShelliDawn~ I really don't care one way or the other. Just commenting since Schuler is asking the same question I had 1-1/2 years ago.

<<Katie_H on Jun 17, 09 at 11:13am
Thanks everyone for the great feeback. We're going to be adding "teasers" under each forum (or at least the ones that could particularly use them) to identify the purpose of the forum.>>

saige

Okay, I did go back to the main Fodors page to approach the forums through "new" eyes and there is a page that tries to help new posters, but since they are still getting lost here, maybe it needs to be revamped? Just MHO.

suze

I think some people end up all the way "into" Fodor's destination forums (not coming thru the main page) because they get here by Googling something specific like "quaint hotel in Paris" or whatever.

saige

Good point, suze.

Sue878

suze: It's not just the "political stuff" in the Lounge, like Janis said "alot of the treads turn ugly", but I do check this site for travel info.

suze

Sue878~ But all your posts ARE in the destination forums, United States, Europe, etc. That's exactly my point.

Exactly what "travel info" have you ever found on this branch?

(If someone doesn't care for the Lounge, OK with me, I can certainly understand that.)

ShelliDawn

I agree that one generally doesn't get as many replies here as on other forums and that can be disappointing. But then this is the "odds and ends" forum and many of the topics here are more specialized so fewer people with experience/answers are likely able to reply. That is what I expect from this forum.

I went to the main forum page and didn't see anything that described what the different forums were for, nor did I see one on this forum's home page. Maybe I missed it?

Since, as mentioned above, people often find the forums through internet searches that go to a specific topic, any welcome/about information should be viewable on all the thread pages as well. Perhaps under the forum title - "Travel Tips & Trip Ideas Forum" in this case. That way, no matter how a person found the page, the info is available.