Has any thought been given to creating regional boards on the SDMB (by state, city, or broader region)? The user base here is so huge that I would think such boards could easily be populated. And I think they would be useful. I would love to be able to ask fellow Washington, DC-area members about things peculiar to this area – things that would be completely irrelevant or incomprehensible to those outside the area. (E.g., “What’s the deal with the highway signs in Northern Virginia? Could they be any less helpful?” Or, perhaps more appropriate to the SDMB’s purpose, “Why is there a statue of Andrew Jackson in the middle of Lafayette Square?”)
They may be peculiar, but we only have ourselves to blame voting them in. [sub][sup]Too easy to pass up.[/sub][/sup]
Seriously, though, local boards would be pretty thin.
Even making two boards, one US and one outside the US, would probably not have sufficient energy to last.
At one point some groups of Dopers set up a few separate regional message boards, including “G’Dope” for Australian and New Zealand Dopers and another one for European Dopers, but I don’t know if they are still active.
The number of active posters is really only a few hundred at best. You can’t divide that any finer.
The SDMB follows good message board operating practice in having fewer busy subforums, rather than a lot of slow subforums. It’s perhaps the number one piece of advice given to budding message board owners; don’t have so many damn subforums.
In my brief time here, my impression has been that traffic and membership are very high. (I’m member no. 63,933.) However, perhaps traffic is highly concentrated in a small number of posters, and the membership totals are inflated by people who are long gone.
Oh well. I was going to recommend that the Rome sub-board be called “The Straight Pope.”
Membership is inflated by the number who signed up when the board was free.
Current membership is about 5% of that total, and active members are a minority of that figure. They should never post that “membership” number on the front page. It’s so meaningless that it’s actively misleading.
I think trying to limit posters to a geographical region would be self-defeating even if the numbers were sufficient. If you ask a question that only local posters are likely to know the answer, they are here already. Others who live far away might also have something to contribute, too. If you don’t want to hear from them, just say so in the OP.
From what I understand, the Australian messageboard Billdo mentioned is still going, as is the British/European regional one, Nads. There hasn’t been a true NZ one spun off from the SDMB that I know of, but it’s likely fellow Kiwis (like myself) have managed to find our own homes anyway.
Perhaps some kind of a blog system might work for varying American regions?
What’s stopping you from posting regional threads here? It happens all the time.
I guess I haven’t seen them (or at least very many of them) yet.
I understand that there is no rule against posting region-specific questions or issues. However, I, and I assume most posters, put every potential new post through some kind of filtration process. Part of that filtration process is asking whether my question is of such little relevance to the general populace that it would prove to be an annoyance. That filter would stop me from posting, for instance, a thread entitled “Does anyone know anything about the police activity in Capitol Hill today?” I am probably not alone in being dissuaded from making such posts, although I am sure there are some who are not.
It is not at all unusual for large message boards to have regional sub-forums. I, for one, would be more likely to post items of purely local interest in one. However, I understand and accept the statement that the posting population of this board is smaller than the membership numbers and post traffic would suggest, and I thus understand the position that regional subforums would not be sufficiently trafficked.
There are lots of us MADs (Mid Atlantic Dopers) and we’ve been known to discuss local stuff, although I think most local threads have to do with get-togethers…
I believe we’re overdue for one. Perhaps this spring I shall host…
Maybe community starts with you; open a thread on this subject and start talking about hometown matters. If it’s something that gets play, you’ll have lots of replies and similar situations to deal with in short order. It’s easy to “subscribe” to such threads and you can easily track the action it gets.
The board is what you make it. 