Forum Organization
 

Hey everyone

It was mentioned a few times that the site's organization is a little off/misleading/confusing.

I'd like to get your input on how it could be better organized.
Should certain sections be renamed to be more clear?
Do descriptions need updating?
Are some sections obsolete and should just be removed?
Does it make sense to combine a few less active sections in to one?

Let me know your thoughts, and let's work together to make the site easier to navigate for ourselves, and for any new members that venture our way :)

I think the home page could be brought in line with the main pages. It looks like a different website. Also, the trail wiki could be more prominent. The wiki could be developed to include summer and winter type routes.

Not many people are using the gallery, so it could probably go.

The home page is a project all on its own. The wiki is a good chunk of that as well. I have put it on the team's radar, though I have no ETA on when they will be able to look at it.

There is another avenue I am exploring for the wiki as well, but I don't want to say too much and have it fall flat..

Is there an issue with using the gallery? Or is there just no interest in it?
I can have the link removed from the navbar. We would still leave it accessible from the Quick Links, under Tools, as some people do have images housed there, and if in the future other members would like to use it.

I was leaning more towards ideas for the forum side of the site, as these are things I can handle myself for the most part. There was mention that the sections are disorganized, and that provinces are not necessarily the best way to keep order with the Trip Reports.

For me this is the big one. It really should be Canadian Rockies, BC Lower mainland (possibly Interior BC as well?). Being in the Canadian Rockies I don't read the BC forum because its 90% lower mainland stuff but then I miss out on the 10% that covers the BC side of the Canadian Rockies.

Admittedly I am not familiar with the different regions over there. I pulled a few searches and breakdown of the area through tourism and came across these:

Attachment 192642
Attachment 192634

Do those make sense? If so, it does seem like there would be more then a few additional forums to be created. Would any of those make sense to combine? Maybe the Northeast/west in to one 'Northern'; the Central and Southern in to one 'Interior'. I think if there are too many sections, only more confusion would come from it.

Would mandatory prefixes on Trip Reports help instead? We can leave it with a breakdown by Province and add coloured tags to the beginning of each title. These won't have to be manually typed - there would be a drop down menu while you are posting your TR that you can choose from to help others find trails in their area. We can post the region maps in a sticky for reference (of course, I'm still banking on those being anywhere close to accurate).

Does anyone have another idea for better organization in this area? Or any other area of the forum? I would love you input :)

I think "KIS" (keep it simple) is best approach.

Natural region division is better than provincial boundary division, but too much granularity would create confusion. I.e. we have now "Washington State" and it is hardly, if ever, used.

Issue is also existing reports base. It is HUGE work to reorg all this; rachelo was advocating mountain range division for a long time, but big reason why it never went through was amount of work. So if something will be done, better to think it well & not have to redo it later again.

Where is majority of users/trip reports? This is the guideline. Just a guess, but I expect along the lines: BC Lower Mainland: 65%, Rockies 20%, Rest of Canada: 5%, US: 5%, Rest of World: 5%.

Having above in mind, this could be initial draft:

Trip Reports
----------------
BC Coast
Rockies (Nat'l Parks)
Rest of Canada
United States
World


--- "BC Coast" would take Van North Shore, Squamish, Whistler, Duffey, Chilliwack, Manning etc.
--- Rockies/US/World are self explanatory

--- "Rest of Canada" is the part I am a bit fuzzy about; looks like "catch all" bag. It would take BC Interior, Vancouver Island, Alberta grasslands, Ontario (hopefully!), northern BC, etc etc. But considering low amount of reports it would have it could be ok. Again, too many Forums that would just lie around unused is worse.

I like this idea. The drop down menus could correlate to the categories in the trail wiki. I think keep the BC/Alberta divisions, but use regional drop down menus that correlate to the trail wiki. This would allow for regional representation and start to show a connection to the wiki.

I respectfully disagree with this type of division:

Trip Reports
----------------
BC Coast
Rockies (Nat'l Parks)
Rest of Canada
United States
World

I'd suggest
- BC with wiki category drop menus
Cariboo / Chilcotin
Fraser Valley
Hope / Fraser Canyon
Kootenays & BC Rockies
Metro Vancouver
Northern British Columbia
Sea to Sky
Sunshine Coast & Gulf Islands
Thompson Okanagan
Vancouver Island
- AB with wiki category drop menus
Alberta Rockies Central (Banff & David Thompson)
Alberta Rockies North (Jasper & Willmore)
Alberta Rockies South (Waterton & Crow's Nest)
Central Prairies & Edmonton
Kananaskis Country
Northern Alberta
Southern Prairies & Calgary
- Washington (there are actually quite a few TR's from here)
- Other Regions

Ok, let's wait and get some more input on those ideas.
As for getting either set up, neither are any easier than the other so it matters not to me :)

Should the Regional Hiking Discussion mirror whichever division is decided for the Trip Reports?
Would it make more sense to move Park Closures in to the respective Regional Discussions?

This is obviously great and well thought division. Problem is that it is way too granular; practically you will end up with much content posted in wrong places (even now you have people asking for conditions and posting in Trip Reports). That means things like Berg Lake in Kananaskis Country or Lions in metro Vancouver, more work for mods to correct things (if), etc. Just my opinion, I could be wrong.

Sorry! I don't think I was very clear when I mentioned the prefixes.

Here's an example of where you would find the prefixes when posting a new thread:
Attachment 192890

There would be a list with the options for regions, and it would be mandatory to choose one. Everyone would be prompted for it. Granted, someone could still just choose one arbitrarily but I think that would be few and far between enough to not cause too many issues for moderators :)

I hope that makes more sense now. Let me know if I'm still not explaining this well.

I like the prefix as it will restrict the categories to simple regions. My suggestion for regions would be to not have too many. Even I don't know why Kananaskis should be different than Banff or Rockies.

I suggest:

Sea to Sky
Hope / Fraser Valley / Coquihalla
Rockies / AB & BC
BC Other
AB Other
Washington
Canada / US / Other Regions

I'd also like a sort filter to switch back and forth between the threads with the most recent replies, and the newest threads. And keep the Recent Discussions panel so that users may simply click right to the most recent post on the site.

Hope that helps.

Poor old me, consigned to BC Other. But I have to agree that your idea makes good sense.

What about super simple based roughly on where people live and play?

BC Lower Mainland
Rockies and Interior BC
Rest of Canada
United States
Rest of the World

You just made my day. Thank you:D
"Others" are the best!

Not cool to designate any area in BC/Alberta as "Other" when the drop down menu being suggested by VSDM would be easy to use and allow precision, as well as regional fairness and representation. Why not take a broader view of the various beautiful places in our provinces, instead of only a couple popular ones and lumping all the rest? People are proud to show where they are from or visit, and it's good to broaden people's geographic awareness.

Using Marmots designation, a trip in the coast mountains near Lillooet, or Manning, or the Coquihalla, for example, would be "rest of Canada". As would trips near Nelson or other popular areas. Makes no sense.

Further, searching would be easier too. I'm planning a trip to Canmore in a few weeks. I don't need to search "the Rockies" for ideas because I'll be based out of one area, not prancing from Waterton to the Yukon.

Finally, suggesting people won't know where to post their TR's shows little faith that people actually know where they are.

It's awesome admin is putting thought into this, btw.