AARoads Forum

Not sure if this has ever been proposed before, but wondering about combining the states that are currently "split" between different regional boards into a single board. For example, western New York is currently listed under Midwest-Great Lakes, but everyone pretty much knows that 99% of discussion about New York is in the Northeast board and would never think to check Midwest-Great Lakes. Same with PA, although there is some discussion of SW PA there.

It could look something like this:

Northeast - CT, ME, MA, NJ, NH, NY, PA, RI, VT
Mid-Atlantic - DE, MD, VA, WV
Southeast - AL, FL, GA, NC, SC
Midwest-Great Lakes - MI, MN, IL, IN, OH, WI
Mid-South - AR, KY, MS, TN, TX
Central-Great Plains - IA, KS, OK, MO, NE, ND, SD

The other regional boards not listed here don't currently have any split states. This proposal would eliminate Ohio Valley, but if that wouldn't work, you could pull WV, KY, TN, and possibly IN and OH from the boards where they're listed above.

And secondly, would it be possible to pin the general thread for each state within its respective board, as is done in the Northwest, Pacific Southwest and Mountain West boards? (This is especially pertinent for the Southeast board, where only Georgia has been pinned.)

https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=10379.0

Anyways, I think with how established the forum is, it's pretty hard to move a big number of threads from its old board with a new system. Though I agree that the Ohio Valley board is the culprit of part of the mess that exists. And it's not that the regional boards are heavily enforced to the smallest detail anyways. Plenty of times I posted Cincinnati stuff in the general Ohio thread in the Midwest board because it's more active there.

Quote from: webny99 on March 03, 2022, 10:35:20 PM
And secondly, would it be possible to pin the general thread for each state within its respective board, as is done in the Northwest, Pacific Southwest and Mountain West boards? (This is especially pertinent for the Southeast board, where only Georgia has been pinned.)

Yea, that would be a good idea.

Quote from: SkyPesos on March 03, 2022, 10:42:06 PM
Anyways, I think with how established the forum is, it's pretty hard to move a big number of threads from its old board with a new system.

I'm not sure any threads would need to be moved, aside from maybe a couple. All that would really have to be done is just changing the board descriptions.

For Indiana, nearly all threads are in the Midwest-Great Lakes forum anyway. The only thread that went into the Ohio Valley forum was the I-265 Ohio River bridge thread.

Quote from: webny99 on March 04, 2022, 07:32:01 AM

Quote from: SkyPesos on March 03, 2022, 10:42:06 PM
Anyways, I think with how established the forum is, it's pretty hard to move a big number of threads from its old board with a new system.

I'm not sure any threads would need to be moved, aside from maybe a couple. All that would really have to be done is just changing the board descriptions.

Well, all the Ohio Valley threads have to be moved if we're getting rid of that board. That's 459 threads already.

Quote from: cabiness42 on March 04, 2022, 07:35:14 AM
For Indiana, nearly all threads are in the Midwest-Great Lakes forum anyway. The only thread that went into the Ohio Valley forum was the I-265 Ohio River bridge thread.

Also the I-69 thread, a big one.

I think at this point, most people are pretty accustomed to which boards are which, but I wouldn't be opposed to some clarification in the board descriptions. Also, I had to double check that western New York was apart of the "Midwest - Great Lakes" board. I don't think I have ever seen an NY thread there. That should be axed.

I do fully support pinning the "x-state Notes" threads on the boards so they are always easy to find right on top.

The only regional board I'd change is Pacific Southwest, which should just be called "California" Most of the posts are related to California and this includes the general "California" catch all thread. Nevada would go to Mountain West and Hawaii could go with Alaska. I also agree that the state threads should all be pinned. In the Southeast board, it never made sense to me that the general "Georgia" thread is pinned, but the others aren't.

This gets mentioned occasionally, and the consensus is generally to just leave things the way they are.

The thing that bugs me about the Ohio Valley board is how so much stuff from Ohio and Indiana gets posted in the wrong region.

Everything about Columbus and Indianapolis belongs in the Ohio Valley section, not the Great Lakes section. I'm not wrong. Simple water drainage factors are the proof.

Quote from: hbelkins on March 04, 2022, 01:35:05 PM
This gets mentioned occasionally, and the consensus is generally to just leave things the way they are.

The thing that bugs me about the Ohio Valley board is how so much stuff from Ohio and Indiana gets posted in the wrong region.

Everything about Columbus and Indianapolis belongs in the Ohio Valley section, not the Great Lakes section. I'm not wrong. Simple water drainage factors are the proof.

If we went strictly by water drainage, the Ohio Valley section would get within a few miles of South Bend, and nobody would consider that area to be part of the Ohio Valley.

I think that when originally implementing the regional boards, the states should have been grouped by US Census designation (South Atlantic is FL-GA-SC-NC-VA-WV-DC-MD-DE, West South Central is TX-LA-AR-OK, etc) although some regions could have been given different names. (Reference https://www2.census.gov/geo/pdfs/maps-data/maps/reference/us_regdiv.pdf )

They don't necessarily need to be changed now, but certain minor changes could be made for the areas where users are posting in the "wrong" board such as discussed above.

Quote from: hbelkins on March 04, 2022, 01:35:05 PM
This gets mentioned occasionally, and the consensus is generally to just leave things the way they are.

I'm basically boiling this down to just removing the partial states from the board descriptions and pinning all the state threads. That seems like a pretty easy, minor change that would bring a lot more clarity to the regional boards.

Quote from: hbelkins on March 04, 2022, 01:35:05 PM]
The thing that bugs me about the Ohio Valley board is how so much stuff from Ohio and Indiana gets posted in the wrong region.

Everything about Columbus and Indianapolis belongs in the Ohio Valley section, not the Great Lakes section. I'm not wrong. Simple water drainage factors are the proof.

Regardless of the technical definition of Ohio Valley, content from one state in two different boards is the problem, so I think everything from those states should go in a single board. I don't really care which one, just as long as they're not split.

Quote from: ran4sh on March 04, 2022, 02:19:32 PM
I think that when originally implementing the regional boards, the states should have been grouped by US Census designation (South Atlantic is FL-GA-SC-NC-VA-WV-DC-MD-DE, West South Central is TX-LA-AR-OK, etc) although some regions could have been given different names.

The problem is that those are stupid. The only state in West South Central that Oklahoma has much in common with is Texas; Lousiana is practically an entirely different planet. We have far more in common with Kansas and Missouri than we do Louisiana. South Atlantic is far too large; any categorization that puts Delaware in the same category as Florida and Georgia is suspect.

Quote from: webny99 on March 03, 2022, 10:35:20 PM
And secondly, would it be possible to pin the general thread for each state within its respective board, as is done in the Northwest, Pacific Southwest and Mountain West boards? (This is especially pertinent for the Southeast board, where only Georgia has been pinned.)

I'm still adamant that the general threads shouldn't even exist. Breaking them into smaller threads is much tidier since you don't have multiple conversations interleaved and cross-pollinating and periodically getting revived when someone reads 5 pages back. It also means that old discussions can peacefully sink onto page 2 and further back. I would much rather have a thread where a question is posted, then an answer, then it goes away, than having that exchange tucked into a 1,078-page thread where four disparate conversations are going on at any given time.

But I'm apparently the only one who feels that way.

Quote from: Scott5114 on March 04, 2022, 06:14:59 PM

Quote from: ran4sh on March 04, 2022, 02:19:32 PM
I think that when originally implementing the regional boards, the states should have been grouped by US Census designation (South Atlantic is FL-GA-SC-NC-VA-WV-DC-MD-DE, West South Central is TX-LA-AR-OK, etc) although some regions could have been given different names.

The problem is that those are stupid. The only state in West South Central that Oklahoma has much in common with is Texas; Lousiana is practically an entirely different planet. We have far more in common with Kansas and Missouri than we do Louisiana. South Atlantic is far too large; any categorization that puts Delaware in the same category as Florida and Georgia is suspect.

I agree those aren't the greatest definitions. I don't have an issue with the regional boards we have other than the split states, so I guess the question would be, looking at the states that are split (IN, LA, MS, MN, NY, OH, PA, TN), can all of those be realistically assigned to just one board? If the answer is yes, there doesn't seem to be any drawback to doing so. It's certainly yes for New York, but I can't speak as well on the other states.

Quote from: Scott5114 on March 04, 2022, 06:14:59 PM

Quote from: webny99 on March 03, 2022, 10:35:20 PM
And secondly, would it be possible to pin the general thread for each state within its respective board, as is done in the Northwest, Pacific Southwest and Mountain West boards? (This is especially pertinent for the Southeast board, where only Georgia has been pinned.)

I'm still adamant that the general threads shouldn't even exist. Breaking them into smaller threads is much tidier since you don't have multiple conversations interleaved and cross-pollinating and periodically getting revived when someone reads 5 pages back. It also means that old discussions can peacefully sink onto page 2 and further back. I would much rather have a thread where a question is posted, then an answer, then it goes away, than having that exchange tucked into a 1,078-page thread where four disparate conversations are going on at any given time.

But I'm apparently the only one who feels that way.

Interesting. I can totally see your point, as sometimes the general threads can have a lot going on. I guess the other side of it is that we already do have separate threads for a lot of general questions, major projects etc., so a good portion of the discussion in the general threads might simply not occur if the thread didn't exist. I know there's been questions I've had that I put in the general thread that I didn't feel warranted their own thread.

What about more frequent splitting from those threads, for example, if a question generates 10+ replies, splitting it into its own thread?

Mods aren't nitpicking about this anyway. Because 95%+ of Minnesota discussion falls into the Great Lakes subsection since 80% of the state's population lives in the eastern half of the state, there's really no reason to farm out the oddball interesting Moorhead project to the other board.

However, if it interests you you can see how painstakingly vtk divided Ohio with justifications about why she chose the lines she did.

Quote from: webny99 on March 04, 2022, 06:38:59 PM

Quote from: Scott5114 on March 04, 2022, 06:14:59 PM

Quote from: webny99 on March 03, 2022, 10:35:20 PM
And secondly, would it be possible to pin the general thread for each state within its respective board, as is done in the Northwest, Pacific Southwest and Mountain West boards? (This is especially pertinent for the Southeast board, where only Georgia has been pinned.)

I'm still adamant that the general threads shouldn't even exist. Breaking them into smaller threads is much tidier since you don't have multiple conversations interleaved and cross-pollinating and periodically getting revived when someone reads 5 pages back. It also means that old discussions can peacefully sink onto page 2 and further back. I would much rather have a thread where a question is posted, then an answer, then it goes away, than having that exchange tucked into a 1,078-page thread where four disparate conversations are going on at any given time.

But I'm apparently the only one who feels that way.

Interesting. I can totally see your point, as sometimes the general threads can have a lot going on. I guess the other side of it is that we already do have separate threads for a lot of general questions, major projects etc., so a good portion of the discussion in the general threads might simply not occur if the thread didn't exist. I know there's been questions I've had that I put in the general thread that I didn't feel warranted their own thread.

My philosophy is that if the topic is distinct enough you can write an unambiguous title for it, it doesn't duplicate another thread, and it's something someone might actually be able to have a discussion about (i.e. it's not something that only the person posting it will care about), it warrants its own thread. Not every thread will reach multiple pages and that's perfectly fine.

From an admin standpoint, merging threads is far easier than splitting them (merging is "select merge target, choose which title the new thread will use and which board it will be in, execute", while splitting a thread can devolve into basically going over the thread and selecting posts one-by-one to split out). If for no other reason than that, I'd prefer erring on the side of smaller threads.

Quote
What about more frequent splitting from those threads, for example, if a question generates 10+ replies, splitting it into its own thread?

The problem is that, as mentioned above, thread splitting can get pretty tedious, especially if it's not a clean "split off everything after this point". If there are two or three lines of conversation going on in one thread, it gets messy. This is especially true if a user makes a single post responding to two different users on two different lines of conversation, as happens sometimes. There is no software mechanism for splitting an individual post in half or duplicating a post and keeping the correct authorship information on it, so the mod can only choose whether that post belongs in thread A or B, and hope that nobody replies to the off-topic half of the post in the wrong thread.

Quote from: cabiness42 on March 04, 2022, 01:41:42 PM
If we went strictly by water drainage, the Ohio Valley section would get within a few miles of South Bend, and nobody would consider that area to be part of the Ohio Valley.

Excellent point. As a matter of fact, creeks that enter St. John and Crown Point in Lake County also don't drain into the Great Lakes.

Quote from: webny99 on March 04, 2022, 03:09:19 PM
Regardless of the technical definition of Ohio Valley, content from one state in two different boards is the problem, so I think everything from those states should go in a single board. I don't really care which one, just as long as they're not split.

I agree that the states split between two boards is a very confusing and sub-optimal situation. It has been a problem all along. As far as not caring which board, I disagree. Despite clear regional differences within states like Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio, they are all Great Lakes states - I have nothing whatsoever against southern states, but these states are northern states.

The Ohio River Valley board is the only one that is defined by a river valley which seems weird and somewhat arbitrary. The boundary between the areas is vague and subjective as proven by the different interpretations in this thread.

Quote from: mukade on March 04, 2022, 08:47:53 PM
Despite clear regional differences within states like Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio, they are all Great Lakes states - I have nothing whatsoever against southern states, but these states are northern states.

I remember this exchange a few years ago, but I can't find it with a search.

Someone else: All of Kentucky belongs in the South.
Me: Is there really that much of a difference when you cross the river into Cincinnati?
Same person: No, Cincinnati has more in common with the South than what's typically thought of as the Midwest.

Quote from: 1 on March 05, 2022, 08:32:32 AM

Quote from: mukade on March 04, 2022, 08:47:53 PM
Despite clear regional differences within states like Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio, they are all Great Lakes states - I have nothing whatsoever against southern states, but these states are northern states.

I remember this exchange a few years ago, but I can't find it with a search.

Someone else: All of Kentucky belongs in the South.
Me: Is there really that much of a difference when you cross the river into Cincinnati?
Same person: No, Cincinnati has more in common with the South than what's typically thought of as the Midwest.

Actually, most people in Kentucky think that the people who are in the three northernmost counties have more in common with the Midwest than the South.

Very much the same for Louisville.

But in reality, very little of Kentucky is what I call "southern." It's more of an Appalachian state than anything else.

Quote from: hbelkins on March 06, 2022, 06:50:14 PM

Quote from: 1 on March 05, 2022, 08:32:32 AM

Quote from: mukade on March 04, 2022, 08:47:53 PM
Despite clear regional differences within states like Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio, they are all Great Lakes states - I have nothing whatsoever against southern states, but these states are northern states.

I remember this exchange a few years ago, but I can't find it with a search.

Someone else: All of Kentucky belongs in the South.
Me: Is there really that much of a difference when you cross the river into Cincinnati?
Same person: No, Cincinnati has more in common with the South than what's typically thought of as the Midwest.

Actually, most people in Kentucky think that the people who are in the three northernmost counties have more in common with the Midwest than the South.

Very much the same for Louisville.

But in reality, very little of Kentucky is what I call "southern." It's more of an Appalachian state than anything else.

The I-24 corridor felt pretty southern to me when I drove through there this past summer, but that might be too far west to get any Appalachian feel to it.

Quote from: hbelkins on March 06, 2022, 06:50:14 PM

Quote from: 1 on March 05, 2022, 08:32:32 AM

Quote from: mukade on March 04, 2022, 08:47:53 PM
Despite clear regional differences within states like Illinois, Indiana, and Ohio, they are all Great Lakes states - I have nothing whatsoever against southern states, but these states are northern states.

I remember this exchange a few years ago, but I can't find it with a search.

Someone else: All of Kentucky belongs in the South.
Me: Is there really that much of a difference when you cross the river into Cincinnati?
Same person: No, Cincinnati has more in common with the South than what's typically thought of as the Midwest.

Actually, most people in Kentucky think that the people who are in the three northernmost counties have more in common with the Midwest than the South.

Very much the same for Louisville.

But in reality, very little of Kentucky is what I call "southern." It's more of an Appalachian state than anything else.

My mother considers herself a Southerner and from Appalachia, despite being born in WV and growing up in Floyd County, KY.

The complications from the Civil War alignments persist. :D

That said, when she talks about "Eastern Kentucky," the line is very far to the southeast.  She doesn't consider Lexington to be Eastern KY, for example, but "Horse Country" and the like.

What is interesting is that she and my relatives do think they have more in common with Louisville than Cincinnati.  The connection to Huntington and Charleston also is strong (main TV stations came from Huntington when I was a kid).

We've talked about this before.

Quote from: Roadgeekteen on March 15, 2022, 05:17:16 PM
We've talked about this before.

Thank you for reviving a thread after a week to tell us.

Quote from: BlueOutback7 on March 04, 2022, 10:35:54 AM
The only regional board I'd change is Pacific Southwest, which should just be called "California" Most of the posts are related to California and this includes the general "California" catch all thread. Nevada would go to Mountain West and Hawaii could go with Alaska. I also agree that the state threads should all be pinned. In the Southeast board, it never made sense to me that the general "Georgia" thread is pinned, but the others aren't.

Most of the population in Nevada is more tied to California than the Mountain West. Las Vegas and Reno/Tahoe are almost extensions of California with lower taxes. I guess Nevada could be split so the few projects that occur east from Winnemucca could be added to the Mountain West. But then Nevada would be dealing with the same problems as Minnesota and Ohio.

I accidentally happened to notice how Pennsylvania is divided into three boards, but only two of them have descriptions about which part of P-A is included in that board. Northeast seems to encompass the entire state, while portions are subdivided into Midwest-Great Lakes and Ohio Valley.

Perhaps adding "eastern" to "Pennsylvania" in the Northeast board would help in terms of geographical accuracy.

For that matter, part of Penna could go in Mid-Atlantic. After all, Breezewood is certainly not in the northeast, or is it in the midwest nor the Ohio Valley.

It amazes me that people care that much about the little details of how the regional boards are organized.

Quote from: US 89 on March 16, 2022, 10:48:40 AM
It amazes me that people care that much about the little details of how the regional boards are organized.

You notice it way more when you're from a state that's split between boards.

Also, nitpicking little things like the Georgia thread being pinned while the other Southeast state threads aren't is pretty much what we specialize in around here.

Quote from: US 89 on March 16, 2022, 10:48:40 AM
It amazes me that people care that much about the little details of how the regional boards are organized.

Some people, like myself, are neat freaks. It is what it is. It's the same reason we nitpick an arrow type or font kerning.

Every time people talk about this I'm tempted to set up 50 subforums and make everyone have to scroll past all the states they don't care about.

Quote from: Scott5114 on March 16, 2022, 03:07:33 PM
Every time people talk about this I'm tempted to set up 50 subforums and make everyone have to scroll past all the states they don't care about.

You can use North Carolina as some sort of trial for this  :bigass:

Quote from: SkyPesos on March 16, 2022, 09:44:31 PM

Quote from: Scott5114 on March 16, 2022, 03:07:33 PM
Every time people talk about this I'm tempted to set up 50 subforums and make everyone have to scroll past all the states they don't care about.

You can use North Carolina as some sort of trial for this  :bigass:

We do already have at least 50 North Carolina threads, even if they're not titled North Carolina.  :-P

But seriously, is there any particular reason why Georgia is the only pinned thread in Southeast?  Would have thought at least Florida would also deserve to be pinned.  Also Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Tennessee as well.

Quote from: wriddle082 on August 19, 2022, 01:14:06 PM
But seriously, is there any particular reason why Georgia is the only pinned thread in Southeast?  Would have thought at least Florida would also deserve to be pinned.  Also Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Tennessee as well.

It would be nice if each state had its own pinned thread to keep track of discussions that are not big enough for their own threads.  It would also be nice if the regional boards did not divide states into different regions, so all discussions respecting one state would be on only one regional board.

Of course, it is too late for some of that, but if a thread merits being pinned, bring it to the attention of the regional moderator.

I think I've suggested pinning all of the state threads enough times that I'm kind of embarrassed to suggest it again, but I do still support it. It's just unfortunate that it's pretty much impossible to separate from the issue of split states, which is probably why it hasn't happened.

Looks like all of the state threads in Southeast are now pinned.  I like it!  However they also pinned North Carolina, which I intentionally (jokingly) left out of my post last week, because NC has about 35673436 individual threads about specific projects, as they seem to be the most active road-building state in Southeast besides Florida.

Anyway, thank you for this!

Quote from: wriddle082 on August 25, 2022, 10:12:08 PM
Looks like all of the state threads in Southeast are now pinned.  I like it!  However they also pinned North Carolina, which I intentionally (jokingly) left out of my post last week, because NC has about 35673436 individual threads about specific projects, as they seem to be the most active road-building state in Southeast besides Florida.

Anyway, thank you for this!

You're welcome 😊

Worth noting that most of the Regional boards have *NO* pinned threads.

Quote from: froggie on August 26, 2022, 12:08:41 AM
Worth noting that most of the Regional boards have *NO* pinned threads.

4 of 10 do, and 5 of the other 6 have split state issues (technically Southeast does as well, but Mississippi isn't controversial).

The one that doesn't is the Northeast, since all NY and PA discussion is in that board. (NW PA/WNY might as well be removed from the Great Lakes board description, since there hasn't been any threads there about either state in several years, at least.)

Quote from: webny99 on August 26, 2022, 08:59:11 AM

Quote from: froggie on August 26, 2022, 12:08:41 AM
Worth noting that most of the Regional boards have *NO* pinned threads.

4 of 10 do, and 5 of the other 6 have split state issues (technically Southeast does as well, but Mississippi isn't controversial).

The one that doesn't is the Northeast, since all NY and PA discussion is in that board. (NW PA/WNY might as well be removed from the Great Lakes board description, since there hasn't been any threads there about either state in several years, at least.)

Not sure what the thought process was when they separated one corner of PA and NY from the rest of those states.

Quote from: thspfc on August 26, 2022, 10:10:50 AM

Quote from: webny99 on August 26, 2022, 08:59:11 AM

Quote from: froggie on August 26, 2022, 12:08:41 AM
Worth noting that most of the Regional boards have *NO* pinned threads.

4 of 10 do, and 5 of the other 6 have split state issues (technically Southeast does as well, but Mississippi isn't controversial).

The one that doesn't is the Northeast, since all NY and PA discussion is in that board. (NW PA/WNY might as well be removed from the Great Lakes board description, since there hasn't been any threads there about either state in several years, at least.)

Not sure what the thought process was when they separated one corner of PA and NY from the rest of those states.

Well they are certainly part of the Great Lakes, but it just makes too much sense to keep all discussion of one state in one board.

Quote from: webny99 on August 26, 2022, 08:59:11 AM

Quote from: froggie on August 26, 2022, 12:08:41 AM
Worth noting that most of the Regional boards have *NO* pinned threads.

4 of 10 do, and 5 of the other 6 have split state issues (technically Southeast does as well, but Mississippi isn't controversial).

The one that doesn't is the Northeast, since all NY and PA discussion is in that board. (NW PA/WNY might as well be removed from the Great Lakes board description, since there hasn't been any threads there about either state in several years, at least.)

There's a fair bit of Pittsburgh discussion in Ohio Valley, but haven't seen any PA in Great Lakes.

Quote from: SkyPesos on August 26, 2022, 11:25:14 AM

Quote from: webny99 on August 26, 2022, 08:59:11 AM

Quote from: froggie on August 26, 2022, 12:08:41 AM
Worth noting that most of the Regional boards have *NO* pinned threads.

4 of 10 do, and 5 of the other 6 have split state issues (technically Southeast does as well, but Mississippi isn't controversial).

The one that doesn't is the Northeast, since all NY and PA discussion is in that board. (NW PA/WNY might as well be removed from the Great Lakes board description, since there hasn't been any threads there about either state in several years, at least.)

There's a fair bit of Pittsburgh discussion in Ohio Valley, but haven't seen any PA in Great Lakes.

Yeah. Anything in the northwest part of Pennsylvania gets put in the general Pennsylvania catch all thread while anything in Pittsburgh goes to the SW Pennsylvania thread.

Quote from: SkyPesos on August 26, 2022, 11:25:14 AM

Quote from: webny99 on August 26, 2022, 08:59:11 AM

Quote from: froggie on August 26, 2022, 12:08:41 AM
Worth noting that most of the Regional boards have *NO* pinned threads.

4 of 10 do, and 5 of the other 6 have split state issues (technically Southeast does as well, but Mississippi isn't controversial).

The one that doesn't is the Northeast, since all NY and PA discussion is in that board. (NW PA/WNY might as well be removed from the Great Lakes board description, since there hasn't been any threads there about either state in several years, at least.)

There's a fair bit of Pittsburgh discussion in Ohio Valley, but haven't seen any PA in Great Lakes.

Erie Bayfront Parkway (https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=25510.0)

I have thought about creating a separate NW PA Thread, but all I see that applies there would be District 1 stuff.  District 10 does not fit in either NW or SW Pennsylvania IMO, and District 11/12 stuff I have been putting in SW PA.

Quote from: BlueOutback7 on August 26, 2022, 12:01:12 PM

Quote from: SkyPesos on August 26, 2022, 11:25:14 AM

Quote from: webny99 on August 26, 2022, 08:59:11 AM

Quote from: froggie on August 26, 2022, 12:08:41 AM
Worth noting that most of the Regional boards have *NO* pinned threads.

4 of 10 do, and 5 of the other 6 have split state issues (technically Southeast does as well, but Mississippi isn't controversial).

The one that doesn't is the Northeast, since all NY and PA discussion is in that board. (NW PA/WNY might as well be removed from the Great Lakes board description, since there hasn't been any threads there about either state in several years, at least.)

There's a fair bit of Pittsburgh discussion in Ohio Valley, but haven't seen any PA in Great Lakes.

Yeah. Anything in the northwest part of Pennsylvania gets put in the general Pennsylvania catch all thread while anything in Pittsburgh goes to the SW Pennsylvania thread.

If I had to guess, when they decided that they needed to divide the country into 10 regions, they probably felt that it would be a good idea to keep certain metropolitan areas in one region.  There are several cities in our country that can rightfully be within a "tri-state area" including NYC, Philadelphia, Boston, Washington DC, Cincinnatti, Chicago, Memphis.  If you are going to keep each of those metropolitan areas within one region, then your only choice would be to divide certain states in different regions.

The problem is, that we can now see with the benefit of hindsight, is that there are very few region-wide topics compated to state-wide topics.  That it would make far more sense to divide on the basis of state lines, instead of regions.  That only a handful of posts about certain bridges that cross state lines would be in a category of "which region does this belong in" as opposed to a lot of discussion on states and their policies.  And of course, one of the biggest problems is that there is no clear definition of where the dividing line is between E Pa. and W Pa.  Is it Harrisburg?  Is it Altoona?  Do we divide on the basis of county lines and do most people even know what the county lines are?

I hope that some of these issues can be resolved in the future, perhaps it would be very good to, at the very least, keep PA to two regions, instead of three.

And once that is resovled, then we can push for pinned state threads.

In my opinion most states should be in one topic for simplicity sake, or it should be clear wear the dividing line is.

Heck, just do 4 regional boards. Northeast, South, Midwest, West. No divided states.

There's no need for small regional boards that average only a few posts per day. It's not difficult to scroll a little bit (or ctrl+F) to find the thread you're looking for.

Quote from: thspfc on August 30, 2022, 05:15:09 PM
Heck, just do 4 regional boards. Northeast, South, Midwest, West. No divided states.

There's no need for small regional boards that average only a few posts per day. It's not difficult to scroll a little bit (or ctrl+F) to find the thread you're looking for.

100% agreed. It's not organizing anything the way we have it.

Quote from: JayhawkCO on August 30, 2022, 05:20:35 PM

Quote from: thspfc on August 30, 2022, 05:15:09 PM
Heck, just do 4 regional boards. Northeast, South, Midwest, West. No divided states.

There's no need for small regional boards that average only a few posts per day. It's not difficult to scroll a little bit (or ctrl+F) to find the thread you're looking for.

100% agreed. It's not organizing anything the way we have it.

I'm on board with this, but definitely get the state threads pinned on each board.

Four boards is probably still too few. For one, California could probably have its own board given how big that state is. And there's probably still room for a Great Plains board that covers the center of the country. Where would you put starts like Nebraska? The Midwest?

If you started pinning state threads - which I support - under a four board setup, you'd have 10+ threads pinned in each board which is way too many.

Quote from: JoePCool14 on August 31, 2022, 07:47:58 AM
Four boards is probably still too few. For one, California could probably have its own board given how big that state is. And there's probably still room for a Great Plains board that covers the center of the country. Where would you put starts like Nebraska? The Midwest?

If you started pinning state threads - which I support - under a four board setup, you'd have 10+ threads pinned in each board which is way too many.

OK, then here's my crack at it.

1: ME, NH, VT, MA, RI, CT

2: NY, PA, NY, DE, MD, DC, VA

3: WV, KY, TN, NC, SC, GA, FL, AL, MS (including Caribbean territories)

4: OH, MI, IL, IN, WI, IA, MN, MO

5: ND, SD, NE, KS, CO, MT, WY, UT

6: AR, LA, TX, OK, NM

7: CA, AZ, NV, HI (including Pacific territories)

8: AK, WA, OR, ID

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

I do not know I would feel about eastern WV threads being posted in Ohio Valley instead of Mid-Atlantic.

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.)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Coming up with new schemes to organize the regional boards is like the meta version of the control city threads.

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).

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.

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.)

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.)

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Quote from: JayhawkCO on September 02, 2022, 09:17:21 AM

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.

Quote from: 1 on September 02, 2022, 10:00:06 AM
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.

So both Kentucky's Cincinnati suburbs and the Louisville metro are are a mixed bag. You find some very Midwestern parts and some very Southern parts in both (Florence y'alll?). If I had to lump all of each area into one from a cultural standpoint, I'd put the Cincy area in the Midwest and the Louisville area in the South. If I'm looking at how to assign states to regional boards, I'd lump Kentucky with Indiana and Ohio because of the number of Ohio River bridge projects.

Quote from: hbelkins on September 02, 2022, 11:15:55 AM

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.

Maybe Paducah and surrounds. But does someone in Pikeville feel Midwestern?

For the purposes of a regional board on this forum, the majority of the state should unquestionably fit into the category.

:popcorn:

Quote from: JayhawkCO on September 02, 2022, 01:28:32 PM

Quote from: hbelkins on September 02, 2022, 11:15:55 AM

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.

Maybe Paducah and surrounds. But does someone in Pikeville feel Midwestern?

No.

Like I said, KY is in the South.

Any Kentuckian that claims that they're in the Midwest is trying to be better than they are (as my relatives would say about people who try to lose their accent...).

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

I appreciate the effort, but Utah and Kansas have zero in common other than voting patterns.  :)

Quote from: JayhawkCO on September 02, 2022, 02:28:23 PM

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

I appreciate the effort, but Utah and Kansas have zero in common other than voting patterns.  :)

Oh, wow, totally.  How Kansas and Utah could be considered the same region is beyond me...

Alright, my attempt at 9 boards.

New England - ME, NH, VT, MA, CT, RI
Mid-Atlantic - MD, DE, NY, NJ, PA, DC
Mid-South - WV, VA, KY, TN, NC, SC
South - FL, GA, AL, MS, LA
South Central - KS, MO, OK, TX, AR
Mid-East - OH, IN, IL, MI
Upper Midwest - MN, ND, SD, WI, IA, NE
Mountain West - ID, MT, WY, CO, UT, NM, AZ, NV
Pacific - WA, OR, CA, AK, HI

I know no one wants to separate OH and KY, but you have to draw a line somewhere.

Quote from: SkyPesos on September 02, 2022, 08:09:41 AM

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.

I don't think it would be too much work to simply combine the Great Lakes and Ohio Vally boards into one.  No need to parse out the different threads.  Every existing thread would be part of the new Midwest board.

Quote from: JayhawkCO on September 02, 2022, 09:17:21 AM

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.

There is truth to the above, but if we are talking of reconstructing the boards with as little work as possible, it would be easier to keep all KY threads in the Midwest (since they are already part of Ohio Valley board) and move out the threads for the partial states like NY, WV, and PA that don't quite fit.  SD, ND, and IA are already within Central States.  MN could go to either Midwest or Central states.

Quote from: SkyPesos on September 02, 2022, 08:09:41 AM

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.

On the other hand, it would give us the most bang for the buck in terms of eliminating split states. I think all we'd have to do is relocate the KY and PA threads, then it shouldn't be hard to mass-merge everything that's left to Midwest-Great Lakes.

I'm looking into this and will get back with y'all when I have more info.

Quote from: JayhawkCO on September 02, 2022, 02:41:08 PM
Alright, my attempt at 9 boards.

New England - ME, NH, VT, MA, CT, RI
Mid-Atlantic - MD, DE, NY, NJ, PA, DC
Mid-South - WV, VA, KY, TN, NC, SC
South - FL, GA, AL, MS, LA
South Central - KS, MO, OK, TX, AR
Mid-East - OH, IN, IL, MI
Upper Midwest - MN, ND, SD, WI, IA, NE
Mountain West - ID, MT, WY, CO, UT, NM, AZ, NV
Pacific - WA, OR, CA, AK, HI

I know no one wants to separate OH and KY, but you have to draw a line somewhere.

Ah yes, as an Illinoisan I love living in the Midwest Middle East. (Sometimes it feels like it, not gonna lie)

Quote from: JayhawkCO on September 02, 2022, 02:41:08 PM
Alright, my attempt at 9 boards.

New England - ME, NH, VT, MA, CT, RI
Mid-Atlantic - MD, DE, NY, NJ, PA, DC
Mid-South - WV, VA, KY, TN, NC, SC
South - FL, GA, AL, MS, LA
South Central - KS, MO, OK, TX, AR
Mid-East - OH, IN, IL, MI
Upper Midwest - MN, ND, SD, WI, IA, NE
Mountain West - ID, MT, WY, CO, UT, NM, AZ, NV
Pacific - WA, OR, CA, AK, HI

I know no one wants to separate OH and KY, but you have to draw a line somewhere.

Cincinnati. Why I favor splitting states.

Quote from: Alps on September 02, 2022, 11:24:14 PM

Quote from: JayhawkCO on September 02, 2022, 02:41:08 PM
Alright, my attempt at 9 boards.

New England - ME, NH, VT, MA, CT, RI
Mid-Atlantic - MD, DE, NY, NJ, PA, DC
Mid-South - WV, VA, KY, TN, NC, SC
South - FL, GA, AL, MS, LA
South Central - KS, MO, OK, TX, AR
Mid-East - OH, IN, IL, MI
Upper Midwest - MN, ND, SD, WI, IA, NE
Mountain West - ID, MT, WY, CO, UT, NM, AZ, NV
Pacific - WA, OR, CA, AK, HI

I know no one wants to separate OH and KY, but you have to draw a line somewhere.

Cincinnati. Why I favor splitting states.

I mean, I get it. But there are large cities on the borders of many states. St. Louis means IL and MO can't be separate? Memphis means TN, AR, and MS all need to be together? Hell, NYC means NY, NJ, and CT have to be together?

The only thing I would change outside of the changes mentioned in the last couple posts is that I would put all Louisiana posts into Mid-South and  all Mississippi and Tennessee posts into Southeast.

Give me one good reason why posts about Philadelphia, Scranton/Wilkes-Barre, Allentown, or even Harrisburg should be in an Ohio Valley board.

As for some of the debates about whether Kentucky is southern or midwestern, I don't classify myself as either. I consider myself an Appalachian. I have more in common with people in Binghamton, Pittsburgh, Charleston, Roanoke, and Asheville; than I do with people in Indianapolis, St. Louis, Des Moines, or Kansas City; or Jacksonville, Nashville, Birmingham, or Atlanta.

But having said that, I'd rather split Kentucky and Ohio than Kentucky and Tennessee.

Quote from: Scott5114 on September 02, 2022, 09:36:18 PM

Quote from: SkyPesos on September 02, 2022, 08:09:41 AM

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.

On the other hand, it would give us the most bang for the buck in terms of eliminating split states. I think all we'd have to do is relocate the KY and PA threads, then it shouldn't be hard to mass-merge everything that's left to Midwest-Great Lakes.

I'm looking into this and will get back with y'all when I have more info.

Absolutely.

Merge Great Lakes and Ohio Valley into one board.

When that is done only the following states will still be split:

NY, PA, WV, MN, MS, TN, LA.

Even if nothing else is done, this one step of merging Ohio Valley and Great Lakes would be most helpful to clean up a lot of threads involving IL, IN, OH and to an extent WV and PA as well.  Of course, if the moderators have time to do a deeper dive to address the other split-states with further realignment, I believe that would be welcomed by many on the forum.

KY is not split.  It is currently in Ohio Valley and with a merged board, it would become part of Midwest.  There are some pros and cons to whether KY should be placed in Midwest or in Southeast.  It would seem leaving it in Midwest would mean the least amount of work to move threads, plus it keeps all of the Louisville and Cincinnatti metros within the same board.  On the other hand, most people do view KY as being more Southeast than Midwest, so perhaps it would be a better fit.

[I am actually agnostic regarding where to put KY, so long as the entire state is in one board and not split.]

Now let's consider the other split-states.

NY: Western NY would be part of Midwest and most of the rest of the state would be in Northeast.  IMO, it would be better to migrate any NY related threads to Northeast and keep the state together.

PA: Southwestern PA and Northwestern PA would be part of Midwest and most of the rest of the state would be in Northeast.  IMO, it would be better to migrate any PA related threads to Northeast and keep the state together.

WV:  Western WV would be part of Midwest and eastern WV would be in Mid-Atlantic.  IMO, it would be better to migrate any WV related threads to Mid-Atlantic and keep the state together.

MN: Western MN would be part of Central States and eastern MN would be in Midwest.  IMO, it would be better to migrate any MN related threads to Midwest and keep the state together. [On a map, it is probably a cleaner break to put MN in with the states that are directly south of it like IA and MO, but I have a feeling that most of the existing posts dealing with MN are probably already in Great Lakes because that's where the Twin Cities are, so fewer threads would need to be moved, if western MN threads were moved to Midwest.]

With regard to LA, MS, and TN, I agree with CoreySamson:

Quote from: CoreySamson on September 03, 2022, 02:59:05 PM
The only thing I would change outside of the changes mentioned in the last couple posts is that I would put all Louisiana posts into Mid-South and  all Mississippi and Tennessee posts into Southeast.

The only downside to this is spltting the Memphis metro area, but I don't consider that a big downside.  St. Louis is already split anyway, even in the current division of the boards, and it doesn't seem to be as big of a deal to split metro-areas as splitting states.  Areas of interest for the whole metro area can be posted in the board where the main city is located (Central states for St Louis and Southeastern states [if the above changes are made] for Memphis.  The only true border topics for each area deal with bridges over the Mississippi River, and those can be put into the boards where the main city is located.

Public comment is now open on the proposal to merge the Ohio Valley board here: https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=32114.0

Any possibility of moving/ uniting western Minnesota with the eastern portion in the Midwest forum? Given that most western MN discussion tends to take place in the Midwest area anyways. Also, the last time there was an active thread that had a sole MN focus in Central was in early '21.

Quote from: on_wisconsin on September 04, 2022, 09:37:58 PM
Any possibility of moving/ uniting western Minnesota with the eastern portion in the Midwest forum? Given that most western MN discussion tends to take place in the Midwest area anyways. Also, the last time there was an active thread that had a sole MN focus in Central was in early '21.

It's definitely a good idea, and I'm sure the subject can be broached once the polling for merging Ohio Valley is completed.

As a de facto matter, you are correct that since there are so few posts about MN in Central States, MN is effectively within Great Lakes at the moment.  Whether something more official comes about remains to be seen.

Quote from: on_wisconsin on September 04, 2022, 09:37:58 PM
Any possibility of moving/ uniting western Minnesota with the eastern portion in the Midwest forum? Given that most western MN discussion tends to take place in the Midwest area anyways. Also, the last time there was an active thread that had a sole MN focus in Central was in early '21.

What is the line between eastern and western Minnesota anyway?

Quote from: Roadgeekteen on September 05, 2022, 03:30:02 PM

Quote from: on_wisconsin on September 04, 2022, 09:37:58 PM
Any possibility of moving/ uniting western Minnesota with the eastern portion in the Midwest forum? Given that most western MN discussion tends to take place in the Midwest area anyways. Also, the last time there was an active thread that had a sole MN focus in Central was in early '21.

What is the line between eastern and western Minnesota anyway?

Lake Wobegon

As a native, I would argue that there isn't really a western vs eastern MN distinction.  The main distinction is Metro vs Outstate.

I, for one, would be in favor of MN not being a split state.

Split all the states.

Let's just do them alphabetically:

1:  Alabama — California
2:  Colorado — Hawaii
3:  Idaho — Kansas
4:  Kentucky — Michigan
5:  Minnesota — Nevada
6:  New Hampshire — North Carolina
7:  North Dakota — Rhode Island
8:  South Carolina — Utah
9:  Vermont — Wyoming

DC goes in #4, because it's part of Maryland.

...Anyway, if you all see any threads that I botched transferring, like if I put a Kentucky thread in Pacific Southwest or something stupid like that, let me know!

Quote from: Scott5114 on September 19, 2022, 03:17:14 AM

Ohio Valley Board (2009-2022)

...Anyway, if you all see any threads that I botched transferring, like if I put a Kentucky thread in Pacific Southwest or something stupid like that, let me know!

You're telling me Kentucky isn't next to California?!

Quote from: Scott5114 on September 19, 2022, 03:17:14 AM

Ohio Valley Board (2009-2022)

...Anyway, if you all see any threads that I botched transferring, like if I put a Kentucky thread in Pacific Southwest or something stupid like that, let me know!

Also, RIP to "Midwest - Great Lakes". At least now, we're by far the second biggest regional board behind the Northeast by post count.

Thank you for implementing these changes. This does make it easier to locate specific threads.

Quote from: BlueOutback7 on September 19, 2022, 08:27:36 AM
Thank you for implementing these changes. This does make it easier to locate specific threads.

Just wanted to echo a thank you for the moderators and admin team for the recent changes that have been implemented! I appreciate the feedback in this thread and elsewhere being considered and look forward to a more user-friendly experience.

We're now very close to having no more split states: I believe Western MN is similar to a Western NY situation where it could be removed from the Central States board description without many threads having to be moved, as I think most (all?) MN discussion is located in the updated Great Lakes-Ohio Valley board. Those that frequent those boards more often could confirm.

That would leave the boundary between Mid-South and Southeast as the only split-state issue remaining (currently affecting 3 states: LA, MS, and TN).

Quote from: webny99 on September 21, 2022, 10:50:35 AM

Quote from: BlueOutback7 on September 19, 2022, 08:27:36 AM
Thank you for implementing these changes. This does make it easier to locate specific threads.

Just wanted to echo a thank you for the moderators and admin team for the recent changes that have been implemented! I appreciate the feedback in this thread and elsewhere being considered and look forward to a more user-friendly experience.

We're now very close to having no more split states: I believe Western MN is similar to a Western NY situation where it could be removed from the Central States board description without any threads having to be moved, as I think most (all?) MN discussion is located in the updated Great Lakes-Ohio Valley board. Those that frequent those boards more often could confirm.

That would leave the boundary between Mid-South and Southeast as the only split-state issue remaining (currently affecting 3 states: LA, MS, and TN).

Western NY had at least two threads to move out of there to Northeast.  Same for Northwest PA.  I am unsure if there were other threads moved out of there prior to the dissolution of the Ohio Valley board, however.

It would be interesting to see if there actually are any threads for Minnesota in Central States.

Quote from: vdeane on September 21, 2022, 01:29:03 PM

Quote from: webny99 on September 21, 2022, 10:50:35 AM

Quote from: BlueOutback7 on September 19, 2022, 08:27:36 AM
Thank you for implementing these changes. This does make it easier to locate specific threads.

Just wanted to echo a thank you for the moderators and admin team for the recent changes that have been implemented! I appreciate the feedback in this thread and elsewhere being considered and look forward to a more user-friendly experience.

We're now very close to having no more split states: I believe Western MN is similar to a Western NY situation where it could be removed from the Central States board description without many threads having to be moved, as I think most (all?) MN discussion is located in the updated Great Lakes-Ohio Valley board. Those that frequent those boards more often could confirm.

That would leave the boundary between Mid-South and Southeast as the only split-state issue remaining (currently affecting 3 states: LA, MS, and TN).

Western NY had at least two threads to move out of there to Northeast.  Same for Northwest PA.  I am unsure if there were other threads moved out of there prior to the dissolution of the Ohio Valley board, however.

OK, I must have missed that. Updated with one very carefully placed letter.  ;-)

Whoever pinned the state notes threads in the Midwest board, I just want to say thank you.

Quote from: vdeane on September 21, 2022, 01:29:03 PM

Quote from: webny99 on September 21, 2022, 10:50:35 AM

Quote from: BlueOutback7 on September 19, 2022, 08:27:36 AM
Thank you for implementing these changes. This does make it easier to locate specific threads.

Just wanted to echo a thank you for the moderators and admin team for the recent changes that have been implemented! I appreciate the feedback in this thread and elsewhere being considered and look forward to a more user-friendly experience.

We're now very close to having no more split states: I believe Western MN is similar to a Western NY situation where it could be removed from the Central States board description without any threads having to be moved, as I think most (all?) MN discussion is located in the updated Great Lakes-Ohio Valley board. Those that frequent those boards more often could confirm.

That would leave the boundary between Mid-South and Southeast as the only split-state issue remaining (currently affecting 3 states: LA, MS, and TN).

Western NY had at least two threads to move out of there to Northeast.  Same for Northwest PA.  I am unsure if there were other threads moved out of there prior to the dissolution of the Ohio Valley board, however.

It would be interesting to see if there actually are any threads for Minnesota in Central States.

Incidentally, I decided to see if there were any MN threads in Central States, and I didn't even have to look past the first page - the Northwest Angle (https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=28902.0) thread from last year is there.

Quote from: JoePCool14 on September 21, 2022, 05:52:55 PM
Whoever pinned the state notes threads in the Midwest board, I just want to say thank you.

What Midwest board?  ;-)

Quote from: vdeane on September 21, 2022, 08:57:00 PM

Quote from: JoePCool14 on September 21, 2022, 05:52:55 PM
Whoever pinned the state notes threads in the Midwest board, I just want to say thank you.

What Midwest board?  ;-)

I guess I'll be that one defiant person who keeps calling it the Midwest board. Because that's the name that first comes to mind.

Quote from: JoePCool14 on September 21, 2022, 05:52:55 PM
Whoever pinned the state notes threads in the Midwest board, I just want to say thank you.

:D ;)

I've noticed that the Northeast board is now emulating how the Southeast board was for a long time, with only Philadelphia pinned.

Quote from: vdeane on September 22, 2022, 12:54:28 PM
I've noticed that the Northeast board is now emulating how the Southeast board was for a long time, with only Philadelphia pinned.

Perhaps "Philadelphia" was pinned to avoid a repeat of this (https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=2410.msg2768627#msg2768627)  :rofl:

Quote from: vdeane on September 22, 2022, 12:54:28 PM
I've noticed that the Northeast board is now emulating how the Southeast board was for a long time, with only Philadelphia pinned.

I did that after I split off the Atlanta thread and pinned it.

Quote from: Alex on September 22, 2022, 08:43:16 PM

Quote from: vdeane on September 22, 2022, 12:54:28 PM
I've noticed that the Northeast board is now emulating how the Southeast board was for a long time, with only Philadelphia pinned.

I did that after I split off the Atlanta thread and pinned it.

Thank you for that change as well. I hadn't thought about how all the Atlanta discussion was dominating the other general discussion in the Georgia thread, so that also helps with organization.

Quote from: webny99 on September 21, 2022, 10:50:35 AM
We're now very close to having no more split states: I believe Western MN is similar to a Western NY situation where it could be removed from the Central States board description without many threads having to be moved, as I think most (all?) MN discussion is located in the updated Great Lakes-Ohio Valley board. Those that frequent those boards more often could confirm.

Most, but not all.  Would agree that all of the MN discussion should be in the Great Lakes thread.

Quote from: vdeane on September 21, 2022, 01:29:03 PM
It would be interesting to see if there actually are any threads for Minnesota in Central States.

There's a handful, including one from a couple months ago.

It looks like all the regions now have all the state/provincial threads pinned (including Canada!).  Regarding Canada, there isn't anything for Nova Scotia or Manitoba, but both have threads that seem to function similarly but are narrower in scope - Nova Scotia Major Road Projects (https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=25029.0) and Manitoba freeways? (https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=5502.0).  Should those threads be renamed and pinned?

Quote from: vdeane on October 22, 2022, 05:33:31 PM
It looks like all the regions now have all the state/provincial threads pinned (including Canada!).  Regarding Canada, there isn't anything for Nova Scotia or Manitoba, but both have threads that seem to function similarly but are narrower in scope - Nova Scotia Major Road Projects (https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=25029.0) and Manitoba freeways? (https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=5502.0).  Should those threads be renamed and pinned?

I wasn't gonna rename them. It's that or create a new catchall thread and let people add to that. I didn't want to get in the way of more specific topics getting generalized.

Quote from: vdeane on October 22, 2022, 05:33:31 PM
It looks like all the regions now have all the state/provincial threads pinned (including Canada!).  Regarding Canada, there isn't anything for Nova Scotia or Manitoba, but both have threads that seem to function similarly but are narrower in scope - Nova Scotia Major Road Projects (https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=25029.0) and Manitoba freeways? (https://www.aaroads.com/forum/index.php?topic=5502.0).  Should those threads be renamed and pinned?

With regards to Manitoba at least, freeways are actually quite rare there. It's only in recent years that Winnipeg has gotten any freeway mileage, and what they have now is a beltway. It would be like having a thread for "New York four-lane expressways" - rare enough that it really does warrant its own thread (and note some of the sarcastic commentary in that thread to the same effect  :-D), so it's probably better to have a separate thread for general Manitoba discussion.

Yeah, I can see that.  I think I got inspired by the recent bump of that thread for the twinning project near the Ontario border (which as far as I'm aware, is just twinning, not a freeway).  The Nova Scotia one is more of a gray area since posting news on major projects that aren't big enough (or don't generate enough discussion) for their own threads is basically what these state/province threads are used for, along with general questions, and it's relatively small, so it hasn't fully taken on an identity yet.

So far, so good, with the realignment of the regional boards.

Here's a few more suggestions:

(1) move southeast Louisiana from the Southeast board to the Mid South board

Reason: To combine Louisiana onto one board

(2) move northern Mississippi from the Mid South board to the Southeast board

Reason: To combine Mississippi onto one board

(3) move Oklahoma from the Central States board to the Mid South board

Reason: Texas and Oklahoma are like hand and glove; they are often paired together, and should be here

(4) Rename the Pacific Southwest board to Pacific West

Reason: California, Nevada, and Hawaii are located in the west, not the southwest

(5) Rename the Mid South board to South Central

Reason: The region of Texas and nearby states is generally considered the South Central (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Central_United_States) area of the U.S.

Pacific Southwest is fine as is.  Probably the most common states I talk about at the moment at California, Nevada and Hawaii.  They certainly fit the region as presently defined.

Quote from: ITB on November 03, 2022, 11:55:02 PM
(3) move Oklahoma from the Central States board to the Mid South board

Reason: Texas and Oklahoma are like hand and glove; they are often paired together, and should be here

Oklahoma has more in common transportation-wise with the other states in Central States; it is a smallish, not particularly rich state. Kansas and Missouri are closer to being economic peer states to it than Texas. We certainly don't have the multi-billion freeway projects Texas has going on here. And Oklahoma doesn't really collaborate with any of its bordering states on transportation projects, so the arguments that were used to put KY in Great Lakes don't make much sense here. 

Texas is enough of its own beast that if anything were to change with it, I would expect it to be it getting its own forum, for most of the same reasons people have asked for CA to have its own forum.

Not only that, but having been to OKC and especially Tulsa, they seem to feel much more like Midwestern cities (think like Omaha, Lincoln, Wichita, or Kansas City) than similarly sized cities in Texas.

Quote from: US 89 on November 04, 2022, 12:40:49 AM
Not only that, but having been to OKC and especially Tulsa, they seem to feel much more like Midwestern cities (think like Omaha, Lincoln, Wichita, or Kansas City) than similarly sized cities in Texas.

By this logic we wouldn't be able to define any regions. There will always be places that feel much more like other places outside their region than they do places further away but in the same region.

I still think Kentucky is misplaced and belongs more in a southeast regional grouping, but if Pennsylvania is going to be all in one board now, it's time for other split states to be consolidated.

Changes to the Regional Boards are so exciting.  Churn them up again!

Quote from: Rothman on November 04, 2022, 01:58:51 PM
Changes to the Regional Boards are so exciting.  Churn them up again!

Just when you thought everyone was happy.