The future of Travel

Ponster

Recently we have noticed several posts concerning the organising of the current Travel section of Board.ie Today the forum structure looks like the following :



Travel >

Sub-Forums :

Australia New Zealand
Independent & Youth & Student Travel
North America
Things To Do In...
Travel & Holidays
Travel Reports & Reviews



The purpose of this thread is to get people's opinions as to how they believe Travel could be changed to work better. I'd like to know what people think works well and what could work better. Here are a couple of posts that I grabbed from another Feedback thread :

P. Breathnach wrote: »

I'm putting down a proposal, which I hope can be used as a basis for discussion:

1. That there be a General Travel forum for all travel posts that do not fit readily into any sub-forum;
2. That there be destination sub-forums as follows: (a) Ireland, north and south; (b) Europe, including Britain; (c) Australasia; (d) US and Canada.
3. That the content of the other travel forums be subsumed into the new structure (i.e. that they be abolished).

I think some thought should be given to stickies. This can be discussed if and when the structure of the Travel forums is agreed.

dory wrote: »

I would love someone to open a discussion on the re-jigging of the travel forums.

At the moment many people are posting independent travl questions in the regular travel sections and not getting many replies. And the people who do reply are different to those who reply on the Independant Travel forum. If it was arranged by continent it would be far more organized.

And the 'What to do in' is a terrible forum as I feel the posts there would get far more replies if they were in a specific location category.

One suggestion could be:

Holidays
Oz/NZ
North America
Europe
South America/Africa/Asia
RTW/Long Haul Travel
Ireland

Could be more, but I'm not sure how many forums we're allowed! I think the Ireland one is very important as more people seem to want to holiday at home these days.

Ponster

Something to remember is that the forum creation process on Board is a very organic one. The current Travel structure wasn't something that was worked out as the best way to organise the section but was formed over the years as people saw the need for a new forum and when accepted it was added to the mix.

Looking at the section as a whole I feel that there are some forums that we could do without and feel that it could be structured better but would the addition of new forums lead just to a better visual organisation of Travel or do people believe that posters will get better service?

(Travel is primarly a Q&A forum where people come to for help rather than chat).

Are there questions today that are going unanswered because people can't find the correct forum to post in?

Savman

Definitely needs re-organising IMHO. Rather than 'North America' (which I think is an ambiguous title) what about renaming that one 'USA & Canada'?

I agree that most people come to the Travel forum for a quick Q&A, very few actual long discussions so what you get is lots of small threads about transferring in Heathrow or whatever.

Another idea is to divide the forums up by continent while keeping USA, UK & Ireland (maybe Oz too) seperate.

Never saw the point of the 'Travel Reports & Reviews' nor the 'Independent & Student & Youth Travel' subforums, because what constitutes an Independent traveller to be in the same category as a Student traveller? You can't rent a car as a student and that's the ultimate in independence tbh.

So yeah, re-organisation ftw.

I propose:
USA & Canada
South America/Asia/Africa etc (medium-haul destinations)
Australia & NZ (due to its popularity)
Europe (incl UK and the obligatory London Megathread)
Ireland (to be sure to be sure...this really needed??)

Maybe Long Haul/RTW could be merged with South America/Asia...I doubt we get enough traffic for many more subforums tbh.

Black Swan

Savman wrote: »

Definitely needs re-organising IMHO. Rather than 'North America' (which I think is an ambiguous title) what about renaming that one 'USA & Canada'?

Agree! I was referred today to this thread by two of my Cmods (trout and g'em) regarding this very issue.

I've been the mod for the North America forum for over a year now. It appears to have grown a bit, especially Canada and the USA. Mexico has been largely dormant, with the past flu epidemic discouraging interest somewhat.

For months now, several Canada posters have expressed an interest to have their own unique forum.

What do you think about restructuring the North America forum into 2 separate forums, Canada and USA, deleting the North America title, and reassigning Mexico to So/Central America forum?

This would also serve to eliminate the occasional ambiguity associated with what North America represents, where new members erroneously post to one of the other travel forums.

If 2 separate forums are created for Canada and USA from the existing North America forum, I would like to remain a mod for both the new forums, and help them to continue to grow.

google faps

Any chance of a deals/special offers section?

dory

Savman wrote: »

Never saw the point of the 'Travel Reports & Reviews' nor the 'Independent & Student & Youth Travel' subforums, because what constitutes an Independent traveller to be in the same category as a Student traveller? You can't rent a car as a student and that's the ultimate in independence tbh.

I propose:
USA & Canada
South America/Asia/Africa etc (medium-haul destinations)
Australia & NZ (due to its popularity)
Europe (incl UK and the obligatory London Megathread)
Ireland (to be sure to be sure...this really needed??)

Maybe Long Haul/RTW could be merged with South America/Asia...I doubt we get enough traffic for many more subforums tbh.

Three things.
1. I agree Independent Travel is ambiguous. I would propose to rename it Long Term or RTW travel. We keep having the same discussion over and over on RTW trips. If it was only them in the forum it would help people see the information already there. Multi country/region trips are quite popular.
2. Travel Reports and Reviews and What to Do In are ineffective as I see it because they don't get enough traffic. The threads in there would be seen more if they were in a region specific forum I believe.
3. Yes, an Ireland forum is important, I would say the most. People want to holiday at home now and I think we should be promoting Ireland as a holiday spot. Have a 'Special Offers' thread etc.

Ponster wrote: »

Are there questions today that are going unanswered because people can't find the correct forum to post in?

Yes there are. Just one example. There is a thread in Independent Forum asking about getting from Exeter in England to Dublin. It's not going to get a response there. People who look at that forum are thinking about Asia or South America. If there was a UK/Europe forum it may get answered there.

Blue_Lagoon wrote: »

What do you think about restructuring the North America forum into 2 separate forums, Canada and USA, deleting the North America title, and reassigning Mexico to So/Central America forum?

If you think there's a need, then I would support this. But I would hate to see USA and Canada separated at the expense of another possible thread. For example, I think it would be more important to separate Asia from South America rather than USA and Canada.

Ponster

dory wrote: »

Yes there are. Just one example. There is a thread in Independent Forum asking about getting from Exeter in England to Dublin. It's not going to get a response there. People who look at that forum are thinking about Asia or South America. If there was a UK/Europe forum it may get answered there.

I would say that if the question can be answered correctly in an existing forum then all be need are mods who are instructed to move it.
We get these types of questions in Travel almost weekly.

dory

Yes, and I will move it. Was just saying how things would happen more swiftly if the poster had a proper place to put it in the first place. Sorry don't think I explained that properly.

Ponster

dory wrote: »

Yes, and I will move it. Was just saying how things would happen more swiftly if the poster had a proper place to put it in the first place. Sorry don't think I explained that properly.

I understand what you mean but traditionally on Boards.ie the creation of forums has generally been preceeded with proof that

a) it will generate traffic (i.e. won't be stillborn)
b) it addresses an existing need.

There is IMHO no need to have a specific Ireland/UK forum for these types of questions as they can be answered elsewhere (existing Travel forum). If you could point to a lot of ireland/UK-based questions which were not replied to because they wasn't a proper 'home' for them or were posted in a forum that was so busy they disappeared to page 3 after 24 hours then the admins would probably listen up.

I do see the possibility of needed an "Ireland" travel forum, for those who can no longer travel abroad on holidays and people visiting Ireland from abroad. It just has to be created for the right reasons

Black Swan

dory wrote: »

If you think there's a need, then I would support this. But I would hate to see USA and Canada separated at the expense of another possible thread. For example, I think it would be more important to separate Asia from South America rather than USA and Canada.

The "North America" forum title may be technically correct for a geographer, but it has been misleading and somewhat ambiguous to the average boards.ie poster who only takes seconds to decide where to post.

Why waste time trying to educate the new poster to how we sort things, when some distinctions could be made user-friendly and intuitively obvious within seconds for them? For example, everything that pertains to USA travel or emigration should be in this one USA subforum, and everything that pertains to Canada is found in the Canada subforum.

Boards.ie is growing and evolving, and we must acknowledge and accommodate those areas that are growing the fastest today in order to become more user-friendly. Travel to South and Central America or Africa from Ireland are tiny today, whereas there is continuous growth in USA and Canada (especially Canada), justifying separate subforums rather than the jumbled combination of the two.

Are you aware that the boards group is being restructured now? There is a dead link to the "United States" that is the old boards.us. Unlike boards.ie that has been a grand success, boards.us failed and should be moved and consolidated with a new USA subforum on boards.ie. This can be done at some future date when boards group developers are ready and able. But boards.us needs a home, and a new USA subforum separated from the ambiguous North America forum of boards.ie could be that home.

There are threads scattered throughout the travel forums left over from earlier boards development times, like the New York mega thread that is not in the North America forum, providing a source of confusion and duplication for many a poster.

Irish have been flooding Canada for both tourism and emigration from Ireland in recent years. Frequently on the North America forum I am asked "When do we get our own (sub)forum?" We have also discovered that Canada itself does not have a uniformly accepted discussion board that everyone flocks to, and our newly created Canada subforum of boards.ie can become that site for not only our Irish, but also our ex-pat Irish, and many home grown Canadians that would like to interact with us.

There are nations in Asia, Africa, Central and South American that rarely get posts by themselves, and should have a travel and tourism forum that draws all these infrequent posts into reasonable geographic categories. Should a nation in one of these categories start to draw lots of posts (over a prolonged time), then a subforum should be considered, but not until then when it is needed.

All threads that pertain to USA should be concentrated in USA, not scattered throughout travel, the same holding true for Canada. To differentiate between short, intermediate, and long stays, or emigrating vs tourism to USA or Canada just adds to the confusion of our posters. We should be first and foremost user-friendly to where they can decide in seconds where to post without having to read and understand the fine print.

When frequency of posts to various nations about the world are small, they should be put together in reasonable geographic categories, but when two nations have heavy and growing posts as does USA and Canada, to articulate them into separate subforums makes logistical and moderation sense, as does to move all the scattered threads across travel subforums to those respective nation USA and Canada subforums.

As the moderator of the North America forum, I am more than willing to help with these changes, as well as to moderate two separate Canada and USA subforums should this change be put in place.

Ponster

Blue_Lagoon wrote: »

All threads that pertain to USA should be concentrated in USA, not scattered throughout travel, the same holding true for Canada. To differentiate between short, intermediate, and long stays, or emigrating vs tourism to USA or Canada just adds to the confusion of our posters. We should be first and foremost user-friendly to where they can decide in seconds where to post without having to read and understand the fine print.


As the moderator of the North America forum, I am more than willing to help with these changes, as well as to moderate two separate Canada and USA subforums should this change be put in place.

No problem in putting part1 of the plan into force now. We can move the sticky to NA forum and redirect all traffic concerning NA to that forum.
The thing is though I just don't like the name "North America". Seeing as we're not catering to Mexico, can we not just rename it as USA/Canada ?


Question :

Should the travel forums be used to address questions such as work visas? i.e. non tourist-travel issues?

Black Swan

Ponster wrote: »

The thing is though I just don't like the name "North America". Seeing as we're not catering to Mexico, can we not just rename it as USA/Canada ?

I agree with you that the "North America" title is not useful, leads to confusion, and sometimes results in duplicate posts on other travel forums.

Renaming could be a quick fix, but I still think that USA and Canada should have separate subforums in the immediate future, especially with the growth of USA and Canada posts, as well as the restructuring and consolidation of the boards group (and "United States" boards.us) with boards.ie.

P. Breathnach

dory, Blue_Lagoon: Any chance you might put a sticky in the forums you moderate to draw the attention of people to the discussion here?

flahavaj

With a thread title like that there has to be a quip about Marty McFly in here somewhere.:pac:

Black Swan

P. Breathnach wrote: »

dory, Blue_Lagoon: Any chance you might put a sticky in the forums you moderate to draw the attention of people to the discussion here?

Good idea. Consider it done for the North America forum.

silja

I think a lot of the topics in the North America forum should really be moved to the Living Abroad forum, as they are not about travel, but living/ immigrating there. Alternatively, maybe the title should be changed to something like "travelling and moving to..."

I think if US and Canada stays together, then it should be called North America, but splitting the two may bea good idea as especially with visas, the rules are very different.

r3nu4l

Blue_Lagoon wrote: »

A
For months now, several Canada posters have expressed an interest to have their own unique forum.

What do you think about restructuring the North America forum into 2 separate forums, Canada and USA, deleting the North America title, and reassigning Mexico to So/Central America forum?

ADMIN hat OFF:
I'm not so sure that 2 forums are needed right now to be honest. Instead I would suggest perhaps a forum rename to USA, Canada and Mexico. Then we could make use of thread tags such as: [USA], [Canada], [Mexico] to highlight what certain threads are about.

We make great use of these in the Call of Duty forum for differentiating threads for PS3, XBox360 and PC. The tags can be different colours to stand out for users.

Black Swan

r3nu4l wrote: »

Instead I would suggest perhaps a forum rename to USA, Canada and Mexico.

This would be a good quick fix for now. What does it take to get it done?

tenchi-fan

r3nu4l wrote: »

ADMIN hat OFF:
I'm not so sure that 2 forums are needed right now to be honest. Instead I would suggest perhaps a forum rename to USA, Canada and Mexico. Then we could make use of thread tags such as: [USA], [Canada], [Mexico] to highlight what certain threads are about.

We make great use of these in the Call of Duty forum for differentiating threads for PS3, XBox360 and PC. The tags can be different colours to stand out for users.

Sorry, I think this is a bad idea.

It would be like having a "computer games" board and a separate tag for "Call of Duty"

It would make sense to have tags such as "Visa query", "airlines and tickets", "places to stay" but it doesn't make sense to have one board with completely different topics (Canada, Mexico etc)

tenchi-fan

I think the travel boards should be rejigged as follows:

• Ireland and UK (for weekend breaks and travel)
• Europe (interrailing, flights)
• Australia and New Zealand (visas, flights, itinerary)
• United States (student programmes, city break suggestions)
• Canada (Visas, jobs, etc)
• Rest of world (asia, africa, central and south america)
  
• Package Holiday suggestions (for queries like "I want somewhere cheap, hot but not too hot, where can you suggest")
• Travel info (ash cloud, strikes, etc)

tenchi-fan

I just noticed my idea is almost identical to dory's.

Black Swan

tenchi-fan wrote: »

I just noticed my idea is almost identical to dory's.

You separated United States from Canada in your most recent post, recognizing that their travel, visa, student, and immigration requirements are quite different.

Another quick fix that remains confusing: Delete the United States (boards.us) link which is currently dead.

Later, when the boards group developers have had time to do their thing, this old United States (boards.us) site should be consolidated into a boards.ie United States forum, should Canada and USA be separated into two (sub)forums.

tenchi-fan

Blue_Lagoon wrote: »

You separated United States from Canada in your most recent post, recognizing that their travel, visa, student, and immigration requirements are quite different.

Indeed I did!

They should definitely be two separate forums. Short of occasional questions relating to a border crossing from the US to Canada there's little reason to have a combined forum.

dory

Ponster wrote: »

I do see the possibility of needed an "Ireland" travel forum, for those who can no longer travel abroad on holidays and people visiting Ireland from abroad. It just has to be created for the right reasons

This is more what I was getting at. A forum with hotel deals, and ideas for exotic honeymoons in Roscommon, more so than problems.

Blue Lagoon, I have no problem with USA and Canada being separated. I've no idea of the traffic there, don't think I've ever even ventured into that forum. So I'll take your word for it. It never would have occurred to me that there would be a need to separate those two. Pardon my ignorance.

And I'll put up a post telling people of this thread now.

dory

tenchi-fan wrote: »

I think the travel boards should be rejigged as follows:

• Ireland and UK (for weekend breaks and travel)
• Europe (interrailing, flights)
• Australia and New Zealand (visas, flights, itinerary)
• United States (student programmes, city break suggestions)
• Canada (Visas, jobs, etc)
• Rest of world (asia, africa, central and south america)
  
• Package Holiday suggestions (for queries like "I want somewhere cheap, hot but not too hot, where can you suggest")
• Travel info (ash cloud, strikes, etc)

I will vote for this (even if he did steal my idea a little bit).

tenchi-fan

dory wrote: »

I will vote for this (even if he did steal my idea a little bit).

misses out a bit on round the world trips is the only problem.

Although for a lot of people, RTW often means a few stops on the way to and from australia.

P. Breathnach

dory wrote: »

I will vote for this (even if he did steal my idea a little bit).

I'll dissent. One of the things that I think is wrong with the present setup is that there is overlap, and it is not always obvious where a post is best placed. tenchi-fan's suggestion includes a Package Holiday Suggestions forum. What if the package is in Europe? We would be back to uncertainty about where a post should go.

My preference is for a parent forum where all sorts of general things might go, and a number of destination sub-forums (how many, and which destinations, we can discuss). Any destination for which there isn't a sub-forum can be catered for in the parent forum. These would be places that relatively few people visit, and where there might not be enough forum traffic.

I'm not sure about how many destination forums we should have. I suspect that if we have more than about six, it becomes unwieldy.

If we look at what actually happens at present, about 65% of all traffic goes into Travel & Holidays. That includes a good deal that might well go elsewhere (a lot of USA stuff goes in there, possibly following misplaced stickies). That's why I visualise Travel & Holidays as the parent forum -- it's the busiest one in the group.

We have posts about recreational travel, business travel, and about working trips. Should we also cater for one-way trips (emigration/immigration)? I think we should, insofar as it involves travel arrangements, visa requirements, and the like, but draw the line there.

I have no strong views about a USA/Canada divide, but I am concerned that we should not fragment things too much.

dory, thanks for putting the notice in "your" forum.

dory

tenchi-fan wrote: »

misses out a bit on round the world trips is the only problem.

Although for a lot of people, RTW often means a few stops on the way to and from australia.

Seems a good chunk of the RTW people are the same as the ones who would be posting about Asia, South America etc. I would like a RTW forum but I guess there's not enough traffic.

P. Breathnach wrote: »

dory, thanks for putting the notice in "your" forum.

No need for those quotation marks. :cool:

I agree with the rest of what you've said though. Even with the above structure I always imagined a parent forum, I thought they came with the package. But now if we divide by region, and by business/emigration etc. it'll leave around 2 posts per week per forum (not including the parent one).

EDIT: and as for your Europe but package holiday issue. I think that problem is unavoidable. Maybe I'm wrong. I'm sure with some clear signage people could understand that if you're eating sandwiches on a train in Romania you don't go posting on the same forum as those sunning themselves at the Sunny Beach resort.

tenchi-fan

P. Breathnach wrote: »

I'll dissent. One of the things that I think is wrong with the present setup is that there is overlap, and it is not always obvious where a post is best placed. tenchi-fan's suggestion includes a Package Holiday Suggestions forum. What if the package is in Europe? We would be back to uncertainty about where a post should go.

Yea i realise there's some overlap there. Most package holidays are in europe so possibly a separate forum would be irrelevant. I don't think many Irish people travel in europe (could be wrong about that!) therefore there mightn't be enough traffic for a europe travel and a package holidays forum.

On the other hand, tens of thousands of Irish people go into the travel agents and ask for a package holiday.. the algarve, costa del sol, ibiza, the canaries or crete.. they'll just want to know what the weather is going to be like and how much does it cost.


There'll always be overlap, even if there is a travel issues forum (e.g. to discuss aer lingus strikes) people are still going to post in the australia forum.

Overlap can also take place with the following too
airline complaints .. "biz - consumer - consumer issues"
Studying abroad.. "edu - studying abroad"
and travel within ireland "region - *"

There's nothing you can do apart from move the post.

darrenh

As a long time user of the Travel forum, I would have to agree with Dory's way of dividing it up. I also think there should be a RTW forum.

P. Breathnach

tenchi-fan wrote: »

... I don't think many Irish people travel in europe (could be wrong about that!) therefore there mightn't be enough traffic for a europe travel and a package holidays forum.

On the other hand, tens of thousands of Irish people go into the travel agents and ask for a package holiday.. the algarve, costa del sol, ibiza, the canaries or crete.. they'll just want to know what the weather is going to be like and how much does it cost....

Most of my own travelling is done in Europe, so I am more likely to notice posts relating to that. I find plenty of discussions to interest me. It is not always clear whether people are putting something together for themselves or considering buying a package, particularly when they are considering city breaks. And I think it doesn't matter.

If you sample the first few pages on the Travel & Holidays forum, you will find a few threads on travel in Europe on every page.

There'll always be overlap, even if there is a travel issues forum (e.g. to discuss aer lingus strikes) people are still going to post in the australia forum.

Overlap can also take place with the following too
airline complaints .. "biz - consumer - consumer issues"
Studying abroad.. "edu - studying abroad"
and travel within ireland "region - *"

There's nothing you can do apart from move the post.

Of course there will always be overlap. What I am looking for is an arrangement that will reduce it. I agree that moving posts is helpful, but the mods have enough to do without having to do a lot of moving.