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What Conditions are required to set up a sub-forum

24K views 173 replies 35 participants last post by  bobalania 
#1 ·
This issue has started a bit of debate on the Hull thread.

Just wondering what exactly the conditions for a sub-forum are. Is it:

1. Amount of posts
2. city populations,
3. number of proposals
or
4. height of proposals?


or a combination of all of them? Our case goes like this:

1. Hull is the second most popular thread in projects and construction when measured by 'amount of posts', it also scores fairly well on the views counter. We reckon a 'Hull Metro' or 'Hull and East Yorkshire' sub-forum would boost this even more.

2. Built up urban area - 320,000. Hull & East. Yorks 600,000+. Not massive, but big in UK terms, and an undoubted regional centre.

3. Lots and Lots! Off the top of our heads, we came up with:

1) St Stephens Shopping Centre
2) St Stephens Hotel
3) Paragon Station Transport Interchange
4) Hull Truck Theatre
5) Albemarle Music Centre
6) Ferensway Refurbishment
7) St Stephens Apartments
8) Spring Bank Apartments
9) Anlaby Road Flats Reclad.
10) New York Hotel Refurb.

11) Hotel, East Bank
12) The Boom Apartments, East Bank (Imminent)
13) Footbridge, East Bank (Imminent)
14) The Deep Submarium
15) Streetlife Museum
16) Clarence Flour Mill (tbc)
17) River Hull Impoundment

18) Humber Quays 1
19) Humber Quays 2
20) Freedom Quay Apartments
21) Wellington Street Refurbishment
22) Hotel (4 star) Humber Quays
23) HC Conference Centre

24) Fruit Market (numerous small developments)
25) Large Casino
26) Boutique Hotel

27) Albion Street Refurbishment
28) Albion Square
29) Bond Street Tower
30) Co-op Building Apartments
31) Kingston House (Reclad)
32) Hull History Centre
33) Queens Gardens
34) BBC Centre / Apartments

35) Burnett House
36) Whitefriargate
37) Arc

38) Hull New Town (Retail / Leisure)
39) Hull Old Town (Leisure / residential)
40) Avenues (Spring Bank / Princes / Newland)
41) West Hull regeneration (Clive Sullivan Way / Derringham / St Andrews Apartments )

42) Quay West Retail (£300M Princes Quay Expansion)
43) Hotel Quay West
44) Castle Street Improvement (Tunnel)
45) KC Stadium (Expansion, events)
46) Hull Sport (Hull City, Hull FC, Hull KR, Ice Hockey, Speedway)
47) Hull Museums (Town Docks, Ferens Art Gallery, Wilberforce, Streetlife)

48) University of Hull
49) Hull Schools (£200M plan)

50) Port of Hull
51) Hull Business

52) Central Library refurbishment (phase one completed)
53) The Institute Building (Currently being transformed into a pioneering 4* 'owner hotel')

54) Proposed works on the Guildhall
55) Mytongate upgrade
56) Office developments on the A63 corridor
57) Upgrade in rail freight from the docks
58) Possibility of Hull to York (via beverley) railway line re-opening?
59) Dock Office Row (behind hull college - planning permission granted for two areas of resi development between three dry docks

60) There is also the Newington and St Andrews Pathfinder regeneration scheme


Again, these are limited to Hulls restrictive city boundaries, if the metro area was included, the list would be over a hundred schemes long.

4. Surely this is a daft criteria to use?

Personally I'd completely support the idea of the likes of Leicester, Hull and other medium-large sized urban hubs being able to discuss things on a bigger platform,mwhilst also giving a regional focus for their surrounding areas. It is an easier way to cover more developments accross more of the country.
 
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#103 ·
Hmm, i hadn't thought of that but i doubt it would work. Hull and Newcastle are just too far away to be considered as in the same region. Plus the Hull thread has almost 6 times as many posts as the other cities put together. IMO it has to be just a Hull or possibly an East Yorkshire sub-forum.
 
#108 ·
we have sweet fanny adams to do wi newcastle, etc so why bundle us in wi them, i dare say they couldnt give a flying flippance what happens down here either. - if you'd have said York then fair does (east and north yorkshire sub-forum anyone? poss north lincs too for scunny n grimsby?)
york-hull would make sense, not least with the current wranglings over transport links between the two places...?
 
#109 ·
The creation of an East Midlands sub-forum worked really well as Leicester and Nottingham really are only a stones throw from each other so i guess have something in common. Hull with Newcastle is like having Hull with Norwich - it doesnt really work. But we need something and IMO the popularity and amount of members does justify a Hull sub-forum possibly combining neighbouring towns into an East Yorkshire one.
 
#110 ·
Hull and Newcastle?!?! Well it didn't work in the rugby league mergers did it! Really that sounds daft to me and just for the sake of it.

I think a 'Humber Forum' would work. Maybe some of the Hull guys could create threads for the places you mentioned, Grimsby, Scunthorpe etc, (if there are any worthwhile developments going on there) see how popular they are and then ask for a forum together.

The guys in Cardiff did that by creating other welsh threads and now have a Wales forum including them.
 
#112 ·
How about a North East section including Newcastle and Sunderland... would that work? How do you guys get on with each other? And yes, I know I have contradicted myself.
I don't see how this will work - no one will find us if they want to contribute. We don't really gel with the gordies.:lol:

My route finder says:
Route summary
Start: Hull, England, United Kingdom
End: Newcastle [Newcastle upon Tyne], England, United Kingdom

Total distance: 120.1 mi
Estimated time: 2 Hours, 29 Minutes

I think 120 miles is stretching it a bit!! :nuts:

I can't see how a Hull Metro sub forum alone is justifiable though.
Does that mean the Welsh forum will closed then ? They have roughly the same number of posts as us for a whole country (or their definition of one!):baeh3:

There are 2 million people in Wales and most of them live in the anglicised bit. There are nearly a million people in the 4 unitary authorities around the Humber. I would propose we request a Hull and Humber Regional forum. :eek:kay: :eek:kay: :eek:kay: :eek:kay:

Or as a compromise a Yorkshire and the Humber Regional forum - this would pick up all the stuff outside Leeds and Sheffield? :sly:
 
#114 ·
Hull is not in the North East, however hard that might be for your IT guys to accept. The solution is a very simple evolution of what we've already got:

Leeds & West Yorkshire (as is)
Sheffield & South Yorkshire (as is)
Hull & East Yorkshire (NEW FORUM)

It's got to be a Hull & East Yorkshire thread now or never, because we will lose momentum and interest. New people are joining the Hull thread everyday, but a single forum isn't servicing their need to post comments on their city.

The Hull & East Yorkshire forum is justified as it will be larger than the Wales / Cymru one recently started.
 
#115 ·
I never supported the Wales Forum...and now its here it dosn't really make sense to me. Its not busy at all... I see why Admin held back before giving them their forum. There is however much more interest across the Board in the Welsh Cities than there is in Hull. When you go inside their sub forum they have views like 70,000, 20,000 etc. Hull has 50,000.

My second point is... if Hull Metro Area and its surrounding areas deserve a sub forum.... then many more will claim the need one too. so does Nottingham. Since the Sub Forum has begun, it has become extremely clear there is much more interest in Nottingham than the other EM areas, and it is a little pain looking at Leicester Threads as well as at mine. If everybody get their own little metro area before their time I think Skyscraper city can loose its appeal in the form that it has it now. We don't want lots of sub forums with low post. The EM Forum has done well since starting it as it combines all three major cities and also smaller areas around the region.... but when I was initially asking for Nottinghams own sub-forum... I totally see why the Admin didn't give it too us. We're just not that busy.

The way I see it, creating a Hull Sub Forum will only be as busy as the Wales Forum. AND... it won't be long before every one else makes their claim.

I'm sure... naturally.... you guys will have a different opinion though...
 
#116 ·
The reason why Hull has 50000 views is because it only began last November which says a lot about its popularity. The main Cardiff thread started 7 months earlier so has been going nearly twice as long thats why it has more views but only 1820 posts.

Plus

old Nottingham thread started January 2006 1553 posts
old Leicester thread November 2005 2943 posts

Another thing: 1000 posts on the Hull thread since the start of July. Doesn't that tell you something.
 
#117 ·
I never supported the Wales Forum...and now its here it dosn't really make sense to me. Its not busy at all... I see why Admin held back before giving them their forum. There is however much more interest across the Board in the Welsh Cities than there is in Hull. When you go inside their sub forum they have views like 70,000, 20,000 etc. Hull has 50,000.

My second point is... if Hull Metro Area and its surrounding areas deserve a sub forum.... then many more will claim the need one too. so does Nottingham. Since the Sub Forum has begun, it has become extremely clear there is much more interest in Nottingham than the other EM areas, and it is a little pain looking at Leicester Threads as well as at mine. If everybody get their own little metro area before their time I think Skyscraper city can loose its appeal in the form that it has it now. We don't want lots of sub forums with low post. The EM Forum has done well since starting it as it combines all three major cities and also smaller areas around the region.... but when I was initially asking for Nottinghams own sub-forum... I totally see why the Admin didn't give it too us. We're just not that busy.

The way I see it, creating a Hull Sub Forum will only be as busy as the Wales Forum. AND... it won't be long before every one else makes their claim.

I'm sure... naturally.... you guys will have a different opinion though...
The East Midlands Forum was (mainly) established to serve Leicester and Nottingham. I believe it does this well. (Hull didn't get a forum it requested, despite being busier than Nottingham)

A North East forum was suggested for Hull. Forget it - it's geographically wrong and the real North East's cities (Newcastle, Sunderland and Middlesbrough) are much too quiet to justify it.

A 'Yorkshire' Forum would properly serve the 5 million people in Leeds & West Yorks, Sheffield & South Yorks and Hull & East Yorks. Everybody in urban Yorkshire would agree that this is the way the county is made up, historically, culturally and economically and everybody would be included within their main city-region. A combined Yorkshire Forum would quickly have over 60,000 posts - more popular than the London and Birmingham forums, giving Yorkshire the political clout it deserves.



If the moderators don't want to combine the formats into a single Yorkshire one then the only way to represent Hull (3100 posts & 50,000 views in 9 months!) is to do a seperate Hull & East Yorkshire forum as they have done for Leeds and Sheffield.

The Hull forum is already as large than Wales / Cymru (over 2 years old). Why is the Welsh identity considered more sacrosanct than that of the 'Forgotten City', Hull?
 
#118 ·
Hull is not in the North East, however hard that might be for your IT guys to accept. The solution is a very simple evolution of what we've already got:

Leeds & West Yorkshire (as is)
Sheffield & South Yorkshire (as is)
Hull & East Yorkshire (NEW FORUM)

It's got to be a Hull & East Yorkshire thread now or never, because we will lose momentum and interest. New people are joining the Hull thread everyday, but a single forum isn't servicing their need to post comments on their city.

The Hull & East Yorkshire forum is justified as it will be larger than the Wales / Cymru one recently started.
OK i like this idea personally, except a variation of it.

What about all the main metro city forums as they are already,

ie.

London
Manchester
Birmingham
Liverpool
Leeds
Glasgow
sheffield

then another forum called "Other main UK cities"

clicking this forum gives another list all the other smaller forum subsections, such as:

nottingham
hull
cardiff
edinburgh
leicester

etc etc,

which then can all post diferent topics as they please just like one can with the leeds, london, manchester forums etc.

:banana:
 
#119 ·
Great idea Wiggley although i'd keep the East Midlands and Wales sub-forums to avoid complication but it really would work. In that section we could have Newcastle, Bristol and Coventry. None of them are as popular as Hull though but if thats the only way Hulls going to be recognised then i'd really support that idea.
 
#120 ·
There seems a reluctance to alter the structure too much and i can understand. Thats why i'm against the idea of seperating the country into different regions because it would require too much work. It wouldnt take much to have another section for the smaller cities sub-forums. Such as the ones i've just mentioned.
 
#122 ·
OK i like this idea personally, except a variation of it.

What about all the main metro city forums as they are already,

ie.

London
Manchester
Birmingham
Liverpool
Leeds
Glasgow
sheffield

then another forum called "Other main UK cities"

clicking this forum gives another list all the other smaller forum subsections, such as:

nottingham
hull
cardiff
edinburgh
leicester

etc etc,

which then can all post diferent topics as they please just like one can with the leeds, london, manchester forums etc.

:banana:
I agree Wiggley, but the the mods prefer to lump mid-sized cities into regions.
 
#124 ·
^^
I disagree with the last point. there are over 50,000 posts in Leeds and Sheffield’s sites, it would be daft to merge them with hull into one huge site; as the number of hull posts grow, so do Leeds and Sheffield; it would be increasingly tedious for residents of each city to pick their way through all the threads to find the ones relevant to their city.
Alfie,

I wasn't proposing lumping Leeds and Sheffield in with a new Yorkshire forum I was saying we should have a Yorks and Humber forum to pick up all the rest of what is happening in this massive region.

What about Doncaster, Bradford, York, Halifax, Huddersfield, Rotherham, Barnsley, Pontefract, Barnsley, Wakefield, etc, etc. and us in Hull.

These could all be put into this sub forum.

Lastly are we not getting too carried away with Geography and statistics (population, Sq Miles etc). Surely the main purpose of a forum is to provide a service for its user community. The forum should adapt to the number of visits and posts it generates - it resides in cyber world were geography does not matter.

Sub forums should be created on internet usage stats and traffic. This is how forums continue to grow and attract more users. That is their function. That is also how you get hits on your adverts which create revenue. To keep increasing your revenue you need to be responsive to the users and adapt the site to maximise your hit rate. The only way to do this is to provide forums for users with specific interests who continue to provide worthwhile content and continue to contribute over a sustained period.

As you will probably appreciate from my comments I have some experience in these matters - my web site attracts well over 1.5 million visitors a year. I also have experience of forum creation.

From a site management perspective it makes sense to provide some sort of sub forum for the threads that (1) attract a lot of posts and hits and (2) does this consistently over a period of time. The Hull thread does this.

Simple - Create a sub forum for this group of users :bash:
 
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