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Sub forums within the Id forum (1 Viewer)

Steven Astley

Well-known member
This was discussed before and think I was opposed the idea, but the ID forum is very busy these days threads slip of pages within a day and as a result I think the forum is losing some of its effectiveness in resolving ID queries as not enough people are seeing the thread.

Maybe splitting into regions.

What do others think? Especially people who agree with me ;)
 
N America and Central America plus Caribbean is probably good enough for an area. But what would you call it? Eurasia is one. SW Asia? Africa and surrounds. Australia.
 
I agree in theory, Steven, but I have a feeling that it wouldn't work. I think people would end up posting in the wrong sub-forum; either because they are unsure where to post, or because they didn't bother looking.

So you'd either have more confusion, or the forum staff constantly moving posts around.

But you are right about posts scrolling off screen into oblivion (my phrase, not yours |=)|), I'm just not sure what can be done about it.
 
If you split it into the continents surely people would be able to post in the right place?

Africa
Asia
Europe
Americas (maybe have a North and South)
Australasia
Antarctic :)
 
I'd like it. I haven't birded much outside the UK and not at all outside of Europe so I don't look at any of the rest-of-world id requests. It would be helpful to have things listed in a Europe sub-forum (and the other continents, obviously).
 
Just so we know, Eurasia is pretty much one big continent. Where do you want to split it? The Ural mountains?
 
I think it's a good idea. If we go with this, though, we should also have a "miscellaneous" sub-forum for things like unknown locations, museum taxidermy IDs, etc.
 
There are so many ID request postings that, I feel, subforums would only mean that instead of one main ID forum with many pages there would be several ID forums, with many pages.
I think that the logic behind the 'sticky' ie area and location in headings, if, when used correctly, is fine for getting ID help. People with enough knowledge of a geographical location and its birds, and who are willing to help others, only have to flick through the postings and respond to ones suitable to their knowledge.
My opinion is that if it's to much work for people to move from 'page 1' to 'page 2' then it will be even more work to open sub forums and subsequent pages.

We musn't forget either, that birds are not bound by locations and geographical sub forums could hinder, rather than help, with the ID of unknown migrant species.

If I was to post an ID request for a North American wader, for example, I would get loads of help from people outside of the US, some of whom just quoting stuff from their 'shorebirds' croom helm's. The best help, for me, in that situation would be advice and assistance from someone who sees the bird regularly, ie a USA person.
Geographical sub-forums could hinder that kind of 'first hand' help.
 
Well, to put in another voice... I personally like them all mixed together - more UN like and its easier to crossover and to look in on threads that you might not have expertise in, but be interested in. I always figure I should go back and look over 2-3 pages to get caught up on what's new, and I just pick and choose the threads I'm interested in. (Maybe people who scroll up through each thread feel more inconvenience with all the variety?) Hey, it's a great intro to birds around the world ;)

When the Local Patches got very separated out into regions, Asia began to really feel like a wasteland to me... not so many visitors or activity. More subforums also means more layers to wade through when going from one subforum to another (though I guess they wouldn't create as many layers in ID as they did in the Patches). I personally am not in favor of separate subforums.
 
Another vote against splitting for the various reasons given by other posters. My guess is that threads “scroll off-screen into oblivion” more because they’re not interesting to people than because they’re lost in the shuffle. At any rate, I’m pretty sure that's why several of the threads I’ve started disappeared so quickly.
 
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Unless you really think that certain experts will only stick to certain subforums (which I doubt) I don't see how it will make much of a difference one way or the other - there will still be the same amount of id traffic and the same people responding to the queries, seems like all that is at stake here is whether KCFoggin, et. al. would rather go to page #2 or forum #2.

This reminds me of little kids that try to spread their peas out on the plate to make it look like they're finished their meal.
 
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I think it's a good idea. If we go with this, though, we should also have a "miscellaneous" sub-forum for things like unknown locations, museum taxidermy IDs, etc.

I was thinking the same thing, if splitting it into many subforums would be too much of a hassle and less of a learning experience a miscellaneous subforum could maybe be added for things as Alex has mentioned? That way threads such as my museum ID's wouldn't clutter up the forum...unless of course members find them interesting and learn from them?

My two cents,
Matt
 
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I think it is a good idea, as you can comeonto the page and see a list of i/d posts from an area you are not really that interested in. A continental split would be fine. Otherwise, how about reducing the ability to post to one per week, posters should put all their i/d issues onto a single post, as they are all usually from same or near locations.

It's a wonderful forum overall, brings us altogether, and my post is not intended to appear as fractious. But for simple ease of use, I do think the i/d page could and should be streamlined.
 
You could have subforums such as Gulls, pelagic seabirds, shorebirds, raptors and so forth.............that would make sure specialists in those areas could see threads more easily.......
 
You could have subforums such as Gulls, pelagic seabirds, shorebirds, raptors and so forth.............that would make sure specialists in those areas could see threads more easily.......

A good idea but would only work if the poster knew what type of bird they were getting ID for, which doesn't always happen. I think you may be able to do this for certain groups which get a lot of threads, gulls in particular.

I like the idea of a geographical spread, though this would not stop me or, I suspect, many others from looking at all the ID posts. I access threads through the 'Today's posts' tab as I am interested in many of the forums and this lets me catch up across all of them, so would not make a great deal of difference.
 
You could have subforums such as Gulls, pelagic seabirds, shorebirds, raptors and so forth.............that would make sure specialists in those areas could see threads more easily.......

How many sub forums would that make? :eek!:

I'd go with splitting by continent, you only need to look at the recent threads from Kenya to see how easy it is to push everything else off. That wasn't a criticism as I'd want the opportunity to get id's as well but for a day or two whole pages were from Kenya.

This forum is only going to get busier as more people take up birding and more birders photography. The day will come when the proposed change has to be made. And for traffic reasons alone, the UK should have its own sub forum and not be grouped in with Europe.
 
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