Welcome! Glad you found us!
As you poke around the site and peruse the boards and threads you’ll probably find more people you recognize from CH. I think the majority of people on HO were originally on CH. But we do get new members who found us without that connection.
We are small but have seen that “if you build it they will come” has more than a bit of truth to it!
Welcome, JackieChilds. As mentioned by Meatn3 most of us here are former CH members, you will notice many familiar names the into thread.
@LindaWhit is active on here, especially on the monthly dinner threads.
Good luck with your job search.
Thanks!
Years back, I was approached by a very senior Chowhound executive (not CH as such but the parent company) asking for my views about how they might grow their regional boards that were not North American. She’d contacted me because of remarks I’d made about CH’s seeming exclusivity, which did not encourage non-North Americans to contribute. I put some considerable effort into this and gave her detailed ideas about how the CH “brand” might be developed in Europe. Did anything happen? No, of course not.
Curious, what were your solutions and detailed ideas if you want to share?
Bear in mind that, with the lessening influence of forums, this is not really relevent any more. But, briefly, I started from the situation that CH’s international boards were basically just a place where American tourists asked the same “where to eat” questions about a small number of locations in a country. For example, the Spain board was pretty (and is) pretty much restricted to questions about Barcelona and Madrid because that’s where Americans visit. Yet American tourists to Spain represent only a small number of the country’s tourists - with around 2.5 million visiting. There are even more people, 3.5 million, visiting from the Netherlands. More significantly, over 18 million Britons vsiit each year. And, generally speaking, we Europeans visit a much wider part of the country than do the Yanks.
So, my basic premise was that if CH could first expand its presence in the UK and Ireland (drawing on the fact that CH uses English as its language), then those new contributors would obviously be growing their home boards but, also, would be likely to post about their food experiences when on holiday in Spain. That would be likely to then attract British residents in Spain, together with other European visitors to Spain who speak English as a second language. There was a similar “destination issue” with France. CH’s board is almost exclusively about Paris - because that’s where Americans visit. Yet, the number of British tourist nights in France are nearly three times those of Americans - but many of us are visiting different places. For example, I have only visited Paris twice in my life but have visited the Pas de Calais for a short break on many occasions. Thousands of Britons pass through Calais every week, many staying within a comparitively few kilometres of the port. Yet, if you search for Calais (to include the department) on CH, you’ll only find a handful of posts about restaurants - most of them mine.
So, that was the problem and the way forward. I offered some fairly detailed ways in which CH could have been “marketed” in the UK and Ireland to significantly improve its profile. As I said, these are no longer relevent so I won’t go into them in detail - but, bascially, it would have been a matter of getting the name placed into online or print food journalism.
Thanks for taking time to reply.
I think some of what you have suggested make sense even today. It is/was easier to grow the UK boards than for example other parts of Europe, which English is not their first language. Adapting to your ideas meant an extra investment that I guess they had no interest.
The regional boards were the original attraction to me and when they eliminated those they eliminated me.
Welcome to HO, @JackieChilds! Yup, I was an early defector from “there” and enjoy participating on here on HO on the WFD threads, as well as the Top Chef threads, where I’ve started doing some mini-recaps. 
Good luck on your job search, and enjoy reading the HO boards!
Thanks Linda. I recall the Top Chef recaps!
That’s outrageous, egregious, preposterous!
Unless it’s just on the mobile version, there no longer appears to be a way to flag posts. Just cruised by and found a couple in really poor taste but don’t see a way to report them. Either they plan to self-police or they don’t care?
Here’s a screenshot from the mobile version. The “flag” icon is right next to “reply,” same as always.
If they don’t care why should we?
Aha. The site had logged me out. I’m guessing you can’t see the flag if you’re not logged in. 
Of any board site I follow CH seems to require by far the most frequent log in of all.
That is true! No anonymous flagging allowed (which I think is as it should be).
To repeat, the flag icon is very much still in evidence. I can’t say that means they “care,” but I can say you are free to flag any posts that bother you.
I meant the site in general, not this specific topic. They don’t care about posters.
You may well be right, but I don’t really need a site to care about me. I just need it to do what it’s supposed to do. Chowhound did recently remove a feature I found useful, and I have bitched about said removal. I’m waiting to see whether it’s reinstated.
