Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[webny99]

I would support removing the Travel Mapping board. (For those that aren't aware, TM has had its own forum for several years now.)

[Hot Rod Hootenanny]

I would support removing the Travel Mapping board. (For those that aren't aware, TM has had its own forum for several years now.)

Understood, but there needs to be a gateway over to TM, so new people can join it.

[Roadgeekteen]

I think that Scott was being facetious

[Hot Rod Hootenanny]

It doesn't look like this has been proposed in this board since 2013 so it might be worth floating, although nobody has asked for one so it might not be. Nonetheless:

A lot of posts in Off-Topic are about geography or geography-adjacent topics (area codes, time zones, metro areas, population, town names, to name a few recent examples) and there is a significant overlap on this forum between people who are interested in both roads and people who are interested in geography, given the close nature of the two subjects. Establishing a geography board for these reasons follows the logic of the Urban Planning and Design board which so far has been welcome, although it is not the most active board. I feel it would also help more with sorting out more serious discussion from the fluff threads that are frequently posted in Off-Topic (not that I have a problem with those).

Even still, there are others such as Bridges, which are even more underutilized. Geography-related topics seem to be brought up much more frequently than topics which would go in either of those boards.

They have conferences for Geography:
https://www.aag.org/all-events/

As a devout geographer, I will tell you that everything under (as well as over, around, and through) the sun can be made geographical. All you need is to make the subject spatial.
A new board, for this subject, is not necessary.

[Scott5114]

I think that Scott was being facetious

I was not.

I have 31 different boards (including sub-boards and admin/mod boards) on my board menu. That's a lot of freakin' categories to have to look through. If there's a good reason to separate something out, it can be considered, but ideally I don't want to increase the number beyond what we have now without a bullet-proof reason to do so. If there's a clear board that can be cut so it's a 1:1 swap, that lowers the bar to only a very good reason.

[Roadgeekteen]

I think that Scott was being facetious

I was not.

I have 31 different boards (including sub-boards and admin/mod boards) on my board menu. That's a lot of freakin' categories to have to look through. If there's a good reason to separate something out, it can be considered, but ideally I don't want to increase the number beyond what we have now without a bullet-proof reason to do so. If there's a clear board that can be cut so it's a 1:1 swap, that lowers the bar to only a very good reason.

I guess we could probably merge Welcome and Suggestions and Questions. Travel Mapping could somehow be folded into something else. Maybe we could merge Road Trips and Travel if really needed. I think that the boards are fine the way we are though.

[kphoger]

Make a 'Midwest' board and just move all the Midwestern states over there.   

[Roadgeekteen]

Make a 'Midwest' board and just move all the Midwestern states over there.   

That would just be merging Great Lakes and Central.

[JoePCool14]

I guess we could probably merge Welcome and Suggestions and Questions. Travel Mapping could somehow be folded into something else. Maybe we could merge Road Trips and Travel if really needed. I think that the boards are fine the way we are though.

A definitely NO to at least the first suggestion. Welcome and Suggestions/Questions fulfill very different roles, and I wouldn't want to tread a bunch of one page welcome threads just to see meta discussion.

As for the latter idea, I'll leave that to the people who actively use one or both of those boards. I don't usually look at either.

Make a 'Midwest' board and just move all the Midwestern states over there.   

Let's not go rearranging the regional boards again, shall we? 

[paulthemapguy]

I like the idea of a Geography board.  As with any proposal, though, we're going to need more examples of the Geography board's function to make a compelling case for it.  If we do want this, we should put forth a more compelling proposal with numerous examples of topics or categories of topics that would fit under that board.