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Suggestion for Regional Boards

Started by webny99, March 03, 2022, 10:35:20 PM

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webny99

I'm fine with the current number of boards, partly because I don't think the mods/admin will ever go for anything that creates extra confusion or requires moving around a lot of past threads.

If we could just get consensus on a single board for the split states, that would solve the issue. How about..

NY: Northeast
PA: Northeast
WV: Ohio Valley
OH: Midwest-Great Lakes
IN: Midwest-Great Lakes
IL: Midwest-Great Lakes
MN: Midwest-Great Lakes
MS: Southeast
TN: Southeast
LA: Mid-South


74/171FAN

I do not know I would feel about eastern WV threads being posted in Ohio Valley instead of Mid-Atlantic.
I am now a PennDOT employee.  My opinions/views do not necessarily reflect the opinions/views of PennDOT.

webny99

I would be fine with all of WV being considered Mid-Atlantic, the issue is that that would reduce Ohio Valley to Kentucky only.  (Ohio Valley would be my easy #1 choice for a board removal if I had to pick one.)

US 89

Quote from: NWI_Irish96 on August 31, 2022, 08:22:59 AM
5: ND, SD, NE, KS, CO, MT, WY, UT

Take out ND/SD/NE/KS and add NV/AZ/NM/ID. Splitting up the mountain states is silly.

74/171FAN

#54
Quote from: 74/171FAN on August 31, 2022, 10:01:31 AM
I do not know I would feel about eastern WV threads being posted in Ohio Valley instead of Mid-Atlantic.
Quote from: webny99 on August 31, 2022, 10:10:17 AM
I would be fine with all of WV being considered Mid-Atlantic, the issue is that that would reduce Ohio Valley to Kentucky only.  (Ohio Valley would be my easy #1 choice for a board removal if I had to pick one.)

You could then just put KY in the Midwest-Great Lakes board IMO.
I am now a PennDOT employee.  My opinions/views do not necessarily reflect the opinions/views of PennDOT.

hotdogPi

Since we missed our chance in 2020, we're going to have to wait until 2030 to move states between boards or get rid of boards entirely.
Clinched, minus I-93 (I'm missing a few miles and my file is incorrect)

Traveled, plus US 13, 44, and 50, and several state routes

I will be in Burlington VT for the eclipse.

JayhawkCO

West
AK, HI, CA, WA, OR, NV, AZ, NM, ID, UT, CO, MT

Midwest
ND, SD, NE, KS, MN, WI, IA, MO, MI, IL, IN, OH

South
OK, TX, AR, LA, WV, KY, TN, VA, NC, SC, GA, FL, AL, MS

Northeast
MD, DE, DC, VA, PA, NY, NJ, CT, RI, MA, VT, NH, ME

Each of these fora would have an average of probably 5 new threads per month.

hbelkins

Splitting states is unavoidable, but the question there is where does the split occur?

I cringe every time I see something about Columbus or Indianapolis posted in Great Lakes. Those two cities are most definitely in the Ohio Valley. Similarly, it wouldn't make sense about a project on I-81 in West Virginia to be posted in Ohio Valley.


Government would be tolerable if not for politicians and bureaucrats.

webny99

Quote from: 74/171FAN on August 31, 2022, 10:27:21 AM
Quote from: 74/171FAN on August 31, 2022, 10:01:31 AM
I do not know I would feel about eastern WV threads being posted in Ohio Valley instead of Mid-Atlantic.

You could then just put KY in the Midwest-Great Lakes board IMO.

I don't know, I think Kentucky makes more sense in Southeast than it does in Great Lakes. It's more southern than midwestern, and it's not bordering any of the Great Lakes.

(also FYI you quoted yourself instead of me)



Quote from: hbelkins on August 31, 2022, 11:48:45 AM
Splitting states is unavoidable, but the question there is where does the split occur?

I cringe every time I see something about Columbus or Indianapolis posted in Great Lakes. Those two cities are most definitely in the Ohio Valley. Similarly, it wouldn't make sense about a project on I-81 in West Virginia to be posted in Ohio Valley.

I don't think splitting states is unavoidable. It's just that, as noted above, what would be done with Kentucky if the Ohio Valley board was eliminated?  :-P

Scott5114

Coming up with new schemes to organize the regional boards is like the meta version of the control city threads.
uncontrollable freak sardine salad chef

webny99

I don't think it's nearly so trite, though. Everyone agrees it's less than ideal for states to be split, but we just don't know what the best solution is (or what type of proposal would have the greatest chance of being implemented).

US 89

Quote from: webny99 on August 31, 2022, 06:50:04 PM
I don't think it's nearly so trite, though. Everyone agrees it's less than ideal for states to be split, but we just don't know what the best solution is (or what type of proposal would have the greatest chance of being implemented).

Nothing is going to be implemented. None of the mods are going to want to scroll through 12 years worth of threads in all the sub-boards and figure out whether and where to move them.

Scott5114

The odds of anything being implemented are probably pretty low, to be honest. The staff had this discussion in 2009 or whenever, decided the current setup was not perfect but good enough, and we basically haven't talked about it amongst ourselves since then.

Some minor improvements, like unsplitting certain states, could be considered, but I don't think there's anyone on the staff who is so wildly in favor of it that they would volunteer to undergo the considerable amount of effort it would take to implement the change. (Suppose the decision was made to move western New York out of Great Lakes, for instance...even that minor change would require eyeballing 1,016 threads to see which need to be moved, much less actually moving them.)
uncontrollable freak sardine salad chef

webny99

#63
I guess I'm not sure why every thread in the entire board would have to be reviewed in order to make a change to the board description. Why not just anything with over ~1000 replies or active in the past ~2 weeks? (Again using western New York as an example, that looks like maybe 25 threads at most, and I can tell pretty much at a glance that none would have be moved; I can't remember anything New York-related being posted there in at least several years.)

Scott5114

#64
We could just leave the older threads in place, but:

- Site search can be filtered to only search a particular subforum. That could cause difficulties for a newer user who is not aware that the forum organization scheme changed at some point in the forum's history, and that for western New York they need to search Great Lakes as well to get the full list of results.
- We'll inevitably end up with a 9-year-old inexplicably bumping a thread from 1868 at some point (and then everyone will be confused as to why the thread is in the "wrong" forum).
   + Worse, we'll end up with someone bumping a thread from 1868 solely to state that the thread is in the wrong forum, which is a brand of stupid that I just know the universe has lurking around the corner from me at any given moment.

I didn't even realize you could sort threads by number of replies until just now, so thanks for giving me a reason to find that out, if nothing else. :P
uncontrollable freak sardine salad chef

webny99

Quote from: Scott5114 on August 31, 2022, 07:57:04 PM
I didn't even realize you could sort threads by number of replies until just now, so thanks for giving me a reason to find that out, if nothing else. :P

Wow! Indeed, I've found quite a few things that are sortable/clickable around here that I didn't know about originally. In fact, all of the headers within in each board (Subject, Started by, Replies, Views, and Last post) are sortable.

hbelkins

Quote from: webny99 on August 31, 2022, 12:14:57 PM
Quote from: hbelkins on August 31, 2022, 11:48:45 AM
Splitting states is unavoidable, but the question there is where does the split occur?

I cringe every time I see something about Columbus or Indianapolis posted in Great Lakes. Those two cities are most definitely in the Ohio Valley. Similarly, it wouldn't make sense about a project on I-81 in West Virginia to be posted in Ohio Valley.

I don't think splitting states is unavoidable. It's just that, as noted above, what would be done with Kentucky if the Ohio Valley board was eliminated?  :-P

Believe it or not, there are often debates within the borders of the Commonwealth of Kentucky as to whether the state is a midwestern state or a southern/southeastern state.


Government would be tolerable if not for politicians and bureaucrats.

Roadgeekteen

Quote from: hbelkins on September 01, 2022, 08:10:54 PM
Quote from: webny99 on August 31, 2022, 12:14:57 PM
Quote from: hbelkins on August 31, 2022, 11:48:45 AM
Splitting states is unavoidable, but the question there is where does the split occur?

I cringe every time I see something about Columbus or Indianapolis posted in Great Lakes. Those two cities are most definitely in the Ohio Valley. Similarly, it wouldn't make sense about a project on I-81 in West Virginia to be posted in Ohio Valley.

I don't think splitting states is unavoidable. It's just that, as noted above, what would be done with Kentucky if the Ohio Valley board was eliminated?  :-P

Believe it or not, there are often debates within the borders of the Commonwealth of Kentucky as to whether the state is a midwestern state or a southern/southeastern state.
I consider Kentucky a southern state with some midwestern influnence just like how I consider Missouri to be a midwestern state with some southern influence.
God-emperor of Alanland, king of all the goats and goat-like creatures

Current Interstate map I am making:

https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/edit?hl=en&mid=1PEDVyNb1skhnkPkgXi8JMaaudM2zI-Y&ll=29.05778059819179%2C-82.48856825&z=5

Rothman

Quote from: Roadgeekteen on September 01, 2022, 09:15:29 PM
Quote from: hbelkins on September 01, 2022, 08:10:54 PM
Quote from: webny99 on August 31, 2022, 12:14:57 PM
Quote from: hbelkins on August 31, 2022, 11:48:45 AM
Splitting states is unavoidable, but the question there is where does the split occur?

I cringe every time I see something about Columbus or Indianapolis posted in Great Lakes. Those two cities are most definitely in the Ohio Valley. Similarly, it wouldn't make sense about a project on I-81 in West Virginia to be posted in Ohio Valley.

I don't think splitting states is unavoidable. It's just that, as noted above, what would be done with Kentucky if the Ohio Valley board was eliminated?  :-P

Believe it or not, there are often debates within the borders of the Commonwealth of Kentucky as to whether the state is a midwestern state or a southern/southeastern state.
I consider Kentucky a southern state with some midwestern influnence just like how I consider Missouri to be a midwestern state with some southern influence.
Given that my ancestors were from KY and fought for the South and were welcomed back with open arms, KY is really in the South.
Please note: All comments here represent my own personal opinion and do not reflect the official position(s) of NYSDOT.

mrsman

Apropos to nothing, and probably not going to happen, here is how I'd divide up the regions:

The current Northeast with about 70,000 posts is just simply too big.  It should basically be divided into two regions.   [Change: Split the New England states into its own region and capture all posts dealing with NY and PA from Great Lakes and/or Ohio Valley.]

New England - ME, NH, VT, MA, RI, CT
Northeastern states - NY, NJ, PA


Mid-Atlantic:  DE, MD, DC, VA, WV [Change: capture all WV posts from Ohio Valley into this board]



The current southeast is fine, just eliminate some split-states.  [Change: Move all LA posts to Mid-South and capture all MS and TN posts from Mid-South.]

Southeast- NC, SC, GA, FL, AL, MS, TN



The two midwest boards should be combined because nobody knows the difference between northern IN and southern IN anyway.  KY, which is currently wholly within Ohio Valley can also stay in the Midwest board.  (And other than KY every other Ohio Valley state is currently only a portion of a state.  How can that stand?). [Change is to combine the two midwest boards and move all posts dealing with MN (to Central), NY (to Northeastern), PA (to Northeastern), and WV (to Mid-Atlantic).]

Midwest - KY, OH, MI, IN, IL, WI.



Mid-South: TX, AR, LA. [Change: Move posts related to northern MS and western TN to Southeast and capture all LA threads from Southeast].



Central: MN, IA, MO, ND, SD, NE, KS, OK [Change: Capture all MN threads from Great Lakes]



The three remaining boards have no split-states and can therefore remain unchanged:

Mountain West: MT, WY, UT, CO, AZ, NM

Pac SW: CA, NV, HI

NW: AK, WA, OR, ID


Quote from: webny99 on August 31, 2022, 07:49:30 PM
I guess I'm not sure why every thread in the entire board would have to be reviewed in order to make a change to the board description. Why not just anything with over ~1000 replies or active in the past ~2 weeks? (Again using western New York as an example, that looks like maybe 25 threads at most, and I can tell pretty much at a glance that none would have be moved; I can't remember anything New York-related being posted there in at least several years.)

I completely agree.  I, and probably many other posters here, appreciate the hard work of the moderators and staff to keep this forum running.  I certainly do not recommend doing something that is insurmountable.  If we limit the movement between boards to only the most relevant in terms of frequency and activity, then only a handful of posts have to be moved. And if an old thread about Buffalo surfaces in the Midwest thread, well the moderator can move the thread to Northeast, just like many of our existing threads get moved to Fictional or Off-Topic or other more relevant boards, from time to time.

What a restructuring woud do would make the board structure more useful going forward and would indeed allow for every state to have its own sticky thread.


If I had to isolate one change of highest priority, it would be combining the two Midwest boards.  Even if no other work were done to eliminate split-states, that one change would make IL, IN, and OH whole within one board.  Included in the merger would be MI, WI, KY, and split regions of MN, WV, PA, and NY.  It would also mean that PA would only be split amongst two regions instead of three.  The combined Midwest board would have about 58,000 posts, which is still less than the current Northeastern board.

tdindy88

Quote from: hbelkins on August 31, 2022, 11:48:45 AM
Splitting states is unavoidable, but the question there is where does the split occur?

I cringe every time I see something about Columbus or Indianapolis posted in Great Lakes. Those two cities are most definitely in the Ohio Valley. Similarly, it wouldn't make sense about a project on I-81 in West Virginia to be posted in Ohio Valley.

Honestly, living in Indianapolis I don't necessary see myself as either part of the Great Lakes or the Ohio Valley. I get not being with the Great Lakes since those are too far north. But the Ohio River is still nearly two hours away either, nothing's really influenced by that either. And with the Indiana stuff I have to navigate two different boards to see stuff going on in the state. The "Indiana Notes" is mainly just the northern half whereas the Southern Indiana projects don't have their own dedicated thread, and I don't know if anything happening in that part of the state should be posted to "Indiana Notes" or is someone going to get semantic about that.

That's why I would be all in favor of Indiana being placed under the Midwest category, because that is what Indiana is in the end, a Midwestern state, the same with Ohio. Kentucky is a border state as it always has been but IN and OH are not.

SkyPesos

Quote from: tdindy88 on September 02, 2022, 07:13:08 AM
And with the Indiana stuff I have to navigate two different boards to see stuff going on in the state. The "Indiana Notes" is mainly just the northern half whereas the Southern Indiana projects don't have their own dedicated thread, and I don't know if anything happening in that part of the state should be posted to "Indiana Notes" or is someone going to get semantic about that.
I post general southern Ohio (well, mostly Cincinnati stuff) stuff into the "Ohio Notes"  thread in the Midwest board so all the general Ohio discussion can be in one place.

But yea, the Ohio Valley board is the root of my issues with how the regional boards are split here. Could get rid of it, as the only full state it have is Kentucky, but that's a lot of work for the mods to move threads.

JayhawkCO

Quote from: mrsman on September 01, 2022, 10:03:08 PM
Midwest - KY, OH, MI, IN, IL, WI.

No one in the Midwest thinks Kentucky is part of it and no one in Kentucky thinks they're in the Midwest. Everyone who lives in Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, and Iowa (at a minimum) says they live in the Midwest.

hotdogPi

This isn't worth creating a board, but I believe this is one region, with absolutely no consideration given to state lines:

PA's southwestern quadrant, including Pittsburgh but excluding Harrisburg
The extreme western edge of Maryland
West Virginia excluding the DC-influenced area
Ohio's 6th congressional district using 2010-2020 lines (the part near West Virginia)
Kentucky east of Nashville's longitude, except the Cincinnati and Louisville areas belong across the river
Virginia's extreme southwestern corner (Roanoke is too far east)

Kentucky west of Nashville's longitude belongs in the Midwest.

This isn't quite perfect, e.g. Pittsburgh is split from Youngstown, but I feel it's good enough.
Clinched, minus I-93 (I'm missing a few miles and my file is incorrect)

Traveled, plus US 13, 44, and 50, and several state routes

I will be in Burlington VT for the eclipse.

hbelkins

Quote from: JayhawkCO on September 02, 2022, 09:17:21 AM
...no one in Kentucky thinks they're in the Midwest.

As I said earlier, you'd be surprised.


Government would be tolerable if not for politicians and bureaucrats.



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