New Forums?

[Bob Sihler]

I appreciate the feedback here.

To repeat-- this idea is not about segregating people. It is about making it easier for people to focus on areas of high interest and get information more easily. As I pointed out from my own experience, the regional forum I have posted in the most is the Northern Rockies even though I live in Virginia. I am glad I do not have to sift through all the Colorado threads to find threads about Montana and Wyoming; it's with that in mind that I asked about splitting Utah out from the Southwest.

When I have the time for it, I will make a Utah forum and start moving threads there. Time and user feedback will tell if it's necessary to split up the East and/or the Midwest.

The ideas about splitting according to physical rather than political geography are good ones, but since that's not how the forums were set up here in the first place, I think adding that now might be messy or confusing, with the lines often difficult to draw.

[lcarreau]

Yeah, Utah's an extremely "tight-knit" group.

I lived there for 13 years, and I was immediately looked upon as an outcast when I crossed the
border into Arizona.

[Buz Groshong]

I agree with breaking Utah out of the SW Forum. I think it could either have it's own forum, or be regrouped with Colorado since the two states are very similar. I support this for practical reasons, and not just my personal belief that Utah is not really "south western". I frequently see new posts in the SW forum, but when I go look it is always the same few people posting on the same Utah related Ice, avalanche and mountaineering threads. That is good for them, but I feel when that happens, it is time for them to get their own forum. Arizona, New Mexico and Texas are hardly ever posted on these days, in the SW forum. I don't agree about the negatives of splitting the plateau. Most people posting in the SW forum never mention it anyway. The Utah topics look like they are about mountains and conditions which are close to the urban areas near Salt Lake City.

Daria could probably get her own sub-forum in drivel, since a similar situation has emerged down there, but that is a different matter.

I disagree. It really depends on what time of year you look at it. There are generally no threads about southern Utah during the winter, but during the spring fall when the weather is suitable for hiking the canyon country they do appear; splitting them off from the threads about the Grand Canyon and such isn't a great idea.

[Ammon Hatch]

It would make more sense to me to have the region split up based on on geographic provinces rather than political boundaries. Utah itself is split pretty evenly into thirds; the Rockies, the Colorado plateaus, and the basin and range. It would definitely make sense for the Colorado plateaus region to stay in the southwest forum, but the other two regions (2/3 of the state) don't really belong, certainly not the Rockies portion, which seems to get the most traffic from Utah visitors.

[Bob Sihler]

It would make more sense to me to have the region split up based on on geographic provinces rather than political boundaries. Utah itself is split pretty evenly into thirds; the Rockies, the Colorado plateaus, and the basin and range. It would definitely make sense for the Colorado plateaus region to stay in the southwest forum, but the other two regions (2/3 of the state) don't really belong, certainly not the Rockies portion, which seems to get the most traffic from Utah visitors.

I agree with you that it would be better to split forums geographically rather than politically, but it's always been the latter here, and to do the former with Utah would probably mean we'd have to do the same with the rest. It would be a lot of work, with a lot of debate, and all to fix something that works fairly well as it is now. Can you imagine the debates about how to break up California alone?

Anyway, I'll try to make time next weekend for this. It's not creating the forum itself that takes much time; it's moving the threads that will.