I guess that’s the point. What does a city-centric Forum provide as a reason to visit it? For questions, I too would just put in keywords in The Straight Dope and see what hits.
I mentioned this in the SD Chicago forum too but I might as well mention it here also since there have been no replies: It might help your page views on SD Chicago if it didn’t render as a totally blank page in Firefox. When I go to chicago.straightdope.com, using Firefox 3.5.9 on Windows XP, all I get is a blank page. No error message, just blank. If I view the site in Internet Explorer, it loads fine. Just FYI.
As for the topic at hand, this does seem to be an attempt to replicate what people can already get on Yelp or Citysearch, but I can’t fault you guys for trying and wish you luck with it.
It would appear (from playing around with Firefox 3.6.2) that it is actually managing to interfere with Adblock Plus. If you are running Adblock Plus, turn it off and then refresh the page.
Que sera sera I suppose; looks like sites may be starting to block ad blockers. I guess I can’t really complain. 
Huh. Yep, that was it. Well, I am not sure that SD Chicago is really worth my having to put up with giant animated ads all over the page, but at least the mystery is solved.
Straight Dope: Cities seems too broad a forum topic to draw any specific audience. If I want to talk about the Cubs-Cardinals rivalry, is that a Cities topic, or something for The game Room? If I want to talk about the election in the Illinois 7th Congressional District, should it go in Cities or the 2010 Election?
Rather than start a forum for “cities” why not just start with a Straight Dope Chicago forum, for any and all questions or comments about Da Greatest City in Da World. Put it right up there with GQ, GD, CS, TGR, IMHO, MPSIMS and the Pit. If it gets sufficient traffic as a full-fledged member of the SDMB, then try it with other individual cities.
I have to say, this is pretty much my feeling on the subject. As has been noted by others in this thread, there’s no lack of traffic related to Chicago (or any comparable city) on the Web; we just don’t see much here. I have no illusions that we’re going to supplant chowhound, yelp et al at this late date; my immediate goal is just to generate enough traffic to keep the SD Chicago column supplied with Cecil-worthy questions. The simplest thing may be to keep the Barn House forum where it is, consolidate the SDC forums into one, continue to call it SD Chicago (I agree on reflection that an all-city forum would be tough to administer), and move it below CCC. Will we draw more traffic? Can’t say I’m too confident, but no harm in trying.
I have to emphasize this isn’t just a vanity exercise. Local ads are a much easier sell for us than national. One of the things I want to do later this year - God knows if I’ll get the resources - is to “skin” the column display pages based on IP number so that if you’re in, say, D.C. and you come across a Straight Dope page on a Google search (or any other way), the page you see will include both Straight Dope and Washington City Paper branding and content links. If you’re in Atlanta and you call up the same page, you’ll see TSD and Creative Loafing Atlanta branding - likewise for Chicago and anywhere else we’ve got a print presence. That will enable us to use TSD’s sizable national footprint to increase the visibility of our local papers.
Anyway, I appreciate all the comments and understand the skepticism. But I figure to keep trying stuff till I find something that works.
How much advertising for the website is going on in the print and online versions of Creative Loafing’s publications? When I look at the front page of CL Atlanta I see nothing about the Straight Dope. Even at the very bottom under “Other Links” you just link to what seems to be a whole bunch of competitors. Ditto Charlotte. The Sarasota site has a Straight Dope column listed in the recent articles list but again no mention of forums to discuss local issues. I can only imagine that the print editions have a similar lack of advertising. That’s a whole lot of nothing to drive traffic here that could be done for basically free. Fiddling with the order of the forums may push more current SDMB visitors over but I think you want more than that, no? The Chicago Reader site has the Straight Dope right at the top, but still no direct link to the SD Chicago forums. Make a link to that, describing it as a place to discuss Chicago issues, front and centre. Get a some kind of ad for the local forum right on the editorial page of the print edition. Maybe even start a thread yourselves in the forum to discuss the issue in the editorial.
I have to agree with Una that sticking with the “Barn House” title/focus of that forum is short sighted. If you want to sell advertising on it, it needs to be more than an extended advertisement itself. Change the focus to be a general DIY forum.
eta: I agree that merging the Chicago forums is the way to go until high traffic warrants a split.
I would love to do what you describe, but some technical and managerial investment is required to make it happen, and absent some indication that the effort will pay off, it’s hard to get people off the dime. If I can demonstrate that a local forum will work, I’ll have a better chance. With that in mind, I’ll begin reorganizing the SDC forum when I get a chance.
So let me be sure I understand your plan. You’re going to consolidate the threads from The Barn House, Sweet Home Chicago, Out on the Town, and Questions, Comments for SD Chicago/Paulina St. Journal Columns forums into one single forum called Straight Dope City Edition? And that forum will be for people to post about local topics? So I could start a thread like “What’s your favorite restaurant in Buffalo?” there?
Afterwards, you might even partner with some cities without a Creative Loafing presence. Sure, you may or may not want to give local freesheets in NYC, LA or SF a leg up, but you could trade ads with the local newspapers in those cities. People from all over stumble upon NY Observer articles; a link to a local rag might help some, especially if it’s provided as part of an ad-trading arrangement.
No, he changed his mind on that.
OK, done. I left the Barn House forum where it was, although since it has evolved into a home improvement column, I should change the name. “Home Improvement” would probably do, but I’m open to suggestions. I’ll keep it The Barn House/[new title] till people get used to the new name.
You’re a mind reader.
Something glitched badly during the move.
All the quote buttons, the Post Reply button, and the Quick Reply box are missing. There is no way to respond to any post in any thread.
{disregard}
This would be possible using vBulletin’s built-in Thread Prefixes. Essentially, when making a new thread, a dropdown appears with a list of the possible prefixes (Straight Dope Chicago, Straight Dope Tahiti, whatever else) and the selected prefix becomes part of the title: Straight Dope Chicago: Any good pizza?.
The prefixes can be filtered in or out using the normal display functions.
ETA: I almost hate to mention it, but the prefixes can be color-coded or style-coded for easy recognition.
Try it now.
One suggestion RE The Barn House/new title: if you are expanding the scope to be general home improvement rather than specific to The Barn House book, especially renaming the forum, then you should probably remove from “Side Discussions” and stick it under the main listing, integrated with the other forums. I would suggest right under General Questions and above Great Debates. The reason - visibility. If you want the SD regulars (and newbies for that matter) to think of it as an integral SD forum, treat it like one.
As it currently stands, I have ignored that section because I have not read the book and don’t have any interest in fixing up barns. Okay, I could conceivably have some home repair questions, but typically take those to General Questions.
OK, the new Forum Jump pull-down is annoying. How do we turn off or minimize all the Site Areas junk? I don’t like having to scroll down to see all the forums.
Or is this just me?
How about “Doper D.I.Y.?”