The New England states share a ton of cities in common. “Cambridge” in the subject isn’t enough information for the rest of us who are on the board and don’t live in/visit the Boston area. For the sake of courtesy, could you also just add an MA at the end please?
My “home” board covers a large area. At the other site we got in the habit of using a standard method for titles:
Topic - City/State
Helps tremendously with searches, helps visitors to the area and eliminates confusion between towns with shared names.
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At the other place, we used to encourage users of the UK board to start threads with the location in square brackets, before subject title. It was particularly helpful for those of who did not live in London and/or only had marginal interest in that city - meant we could skim throgh and, for me, just usually read the posts that were “not London”.
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Ah - even better. I noticed it on your recent reports from your US trip. Made it quite easy to spot the locations I have interest in.
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Just to be a bit contrarian and keep it streamlined, the board is titled “Boston, New England.” I would suggest putting a state name if the state is not MA. Call me a masshole if you will, but that would result in the majority of posts not needing additional clarification. What do we think about this?
I think since most boards are rather broad it’s best to have a precise format. If newcomers see a method they will be apt to adapt.
Over time HO will grow and there will probably be more spin off boards. Even with a dedicated city board it is handy to have the title reflect districts.
Indeed so. If I’m posting a review about a place in the city that’s at the heart of my metro area, I usually include the suburb as well as the city name.
I think in the interest of being fair to everyone using the board, that everyone should be putting a state on their subject. Massachusetts is not the default state in New England, and Boston is not the default city. And it’s not going to break your fingers to show some consideration to everyone else coming to the area or this board.
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Well, I know YOU feel this way since you started the topic. I happen to respectfully disagree- when the board is titled Boston, to me that makes it the default city. I guess my new question is really what are other boards doing, and does the founder care to weigh in? I will defer to his wishes.
I seriously doubt that putting Boston first was in any way intended as a “default” setting for the boards.
They are regional boards, the entire region is being represented. The question is what will be most useful for the people coming to the board and looking for information here. For anyone not from the region, having the state indicated on the posts makes searching and filtering far easier.
Relying on everyone making the same assumption is fraught with problems (not everyone thinks the same way, and not everyone coming to the regional board is from the US) and it’s unnecessary when there is a very simple fix, just append the state. It’s fair to everyone who posts here, it makes the board easier for people using it as a resource to find what they need, and it makes it easier for folks who aren’t in Boston (who are clearly just misguided idiots who need to be led by the hand) to wade through the inevitable avalanche of posts about Boston that has already happened.
Massachusetts is not the default New England state, and the fact that Boston is first in the regional heading shouldn’t be interpreted to mean that.
Also, of COURSE you’re arguing for Massachusetts to be the default, and I wouldn’t say your disagreement has been especially respectful.
While its good practice in general that we post with good hygiene, i.e. we label the establishment’s location, whether its out of Boston (city/ state, for example) or within Boston (neighborhood), this is something that people will have to do voluntarily since we don’t have a standard template for location when posts are submitted.
Until we get a software that allows us to tag on the map the exact location, we’ll just ask that your posting should be clear to the audience. I acknowledge the desire of having boards with finer geographical separation. The reality for a new forum like here is that there isn’t sufficient traffic to sustain these boards. In the meantime, I’d just ask that all of you to be understanding that no solution is perfect. I’d be happy to carve boards out when there is a sustained and significant volume of posts for any particular regions.
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yes, please. and for those in the boston area, please specify the neighborhood. yes, boston’s a relatively small city, but there’s a long way from charlestown to west roxbury, particularly on the t.
same with newton, which is made up of 13 villages.
