Thanks Wilf, some good ideas there and I certainly want to do everything I can do to encourage contributions from the more rural areas around our North East England Cities.
I realised some time ago that posters from those rural areas areas who have ‘urbanism type issues’ (the remit of SSC) to discuss, in much the same way as posters in our major urban areas do, were often reluctant to do so because “numerically” they knew that their subjects would inevitably get drowned out in the main City-led forums.
I discussed this in the “Forum Issues” section of SSC . . .
http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showthread.php?t=1367087
Prior to that point there were NO discussion threads at all in the “communal area” of the North East England Sub-forum, other than the old pre-forum threads discussing the need for a sub-forum, that had been initially moved there.
I saw our “communal area” as an opportunity area for (almost) a “5th” internal forum, in addition to and separate from, our four City-led forums (and database changes to forums are almost impossible on SSC, I have found) where (without a database change) the rural areas around our cities could post and cover the topics they wished to, without fear of being drowned out.
So, the initial
“Areas around Newcastle, Sunderland, Hull and Teesside - NOT covered in the City-forums”, threads were set up, and have subsequently been joined by other discussion threads, and even by two 'Project Threads' and their own Development Summary!
I have attempted to highlight the existence of this “communal area” (and those threads) by posting about it and them on the City-led
forums Admin Threads. eg . . .
http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showpost.php?p=71711113&postcount=268
http://www.skyscrapercity.com/showpost.php?p=66323127&postcount=237
I actually think I should have posted about this area on the City Admin Threads, a bit more often.
Inevitably, the more rural areas will have less ‘urbanism issues’ (by definition) to discuss than our city areas (hence the ‘drowning out’ concerns, mentioned earlier) so the numbers of posts and threads will be correspondingly lower, but I still think I should publicise this area a little bit more. As said, some posters will not be aware it is there, as there is a tendency to go DIRECT to your own (of the four) City-led forums!
Using the “Communal Area” also has the slight advantage of (occasionally) bringing members from the four different City-forums together.
On a routine daily basis, it is often best to have the four forums discussing issues in their own separate forums in the level of detail that is likely to be of real interest only to their fellow 'local' members, but occasionally it is useful to have an area where members (who are "near neighbours") can come together to share views.
The “Impact of the CUTS” thread (started by a member of the Hull Forum) is an example of the potential for this.
It is also interesting that we have (sort of) re-created the traditional “BBC Region” of
The North East and Cumbria by attracting some Cumbria threads here. The situation for them is even worse than it is for the rural areas around our North East England Cities – as they have NOWHERE to post at all, apart from
our Communal Area.
So, that is the thinking behind the unofficial “5th Forum” of our North East England Communal Area. SSC are very reluctant to make official changes to forums structures, as the campaign for a “South East England Sub-Forum” – similar to our North East England sub-forum - in the Forum Issues area of SSC, is finding. This is due to mainly the database problems involved in structural changes - even name changes - to forums (as I found when changing "Humberside" to "Hull and Humber") so the "annexing" of our communal area seemed to be the best way to satisfy the need in a quick and easy way.
Anyway, those are the reasons behind what we have got, and my thoughts on the subject. It is good that we now have a discussion!
.