15 replies to this topic

[Saru]

Recently we've been seeing a large amount of activity in the World Events and Current Affairs board to the point where it was becoming swamped with threads pertaining to recent events in the Middle-East and making it difficult for people to find and keep track of discussions about anything else, to remedy this we've decided to expand our world news coverage by dividing it up in to four regional sections.

The category formally known as News and Media is now News, Politics and Current Affairs.

The new organisation for world news and political topics is now as follows:

- United States and the Americas
----- (Sub) US Politics

- UK and Europe

- Middle-East

- Other World News

The World Politics board has been discontinued and its topics merged with the relevant regional forums.

An additional advantage to this layout is that members interested in news and politics pertaining to their own country can skip the other topics, it should also facilitate some expansion of the areas of world news that we cover here on the UM forums.

As we have several tens of thousands of threads on world news topics it will take a while for these to all be sorted in to the correct regional forums, in the meantime the unsorted threads can be found in Other World News.

[ships-cat]

Saru, on 10 June 2010 - 01:01 PM, said:

....... we've decided to expand our world news coverage by dividing it up in to four regional sections.

<looks up, with a half-eaten sandwich (tuna) in his paw... >

What ... NOW ?

<crunchrip>

AAAAARGH ... the ground is splitting beneath my feet.

<jumps onto the UK and Europe section as it splits away>

Oh bugger.... I've left my lunch box in the Middle East ....

Meow Purr

[Princess Serenity]

Great. <3 This should make things easier.

[Pseudo Intellectual]

I don't like it. There are way too many forums now. Simply creating a sub-forum for Middle Eastern news/politics would've fixed the problem.

But I'll get used to it.

Edited by Pseudo Intellectual, 10 June 2010 - 02:52 PM.

[Waspie_Dwarf]

Pseudo Intellectual, on 10 June 2010 - 02:50 PM, said:

I don't like it. There are way too many forums now. Simply creating a sub-forum for Middle Eastern news/politics would've fixed the problem.

Until the next big news story from another region dominates the news forum and then what? Another sub-forum to solve that problem.

This is a far more forward looking solution. It will also make looking for specific topics easier. Apart from some people's innate resistance to change I see nothing but positives in this improvement.

[Pseudo Intellectual]

The farsightedness makes sense, but what are the odds of the first few pages of the old World Events forum being dominated by 30 threads about, say, the UK? The Israel thing was new, at least to me.

I don't know, I've only been here for a year and a half. I guess I'm just grumpy about having to read 3 forums and one sub-forum instead of 1 forum and 2 sub-forums.

Don't worry, I'll get used to it.

[Ryinrea]

Bows thank you this is very helpful to me since I am an avid poster in the political section.  

[ExpandMyMind]

Pseudo Intellectual, on 10 June 2010 - 02:50 PM, said:

I don't like it. There are way too many forums now. Simply creating a sub-forum for Middle Eastern news/politics would've fixed the problem.

But I'll get used to it.

i was going to post pretty much what pseudo has said.

an extra sub forum (middle east) would, in my opinion, be more than sufficient enough. now, for those who primarily use that part (now parts) of the forum, it has become a bit of a mission to navigate and keep updated.

i know it won't matter, but as i'm guessing this thread is for feedback, both positive and negative, i have to say that i really don't like it much at all. i think it'll change the whole dynamic of posting in that part of the forum.

[keithisco]

This is a good solution to a difficult problem, especially with a couple of big issues coming up in the near future both in the Middle East, and in Europe.

[Saru]

I'd like to de-emphasise that this change is solely for the purpose of organising the current Middle-East threads, the World Events board has been in need of this change for some time. When you have 350,000 posts packed in to a single forum section it makes it difficult for visitors to find the topics that interest them, concerns have been expressed before that those looking for news from one part of the world have to wade through hundreds of topics about another that they have no interest in. This is more about re-organising and expanding our news coverage than it is about simply solving the immediate issue, creating only a Middle-East subforum might have helped for the moment but it isn't a long term solution and the other problems would have still remained.

With the changes we've implemented here now if you are looking for US news you can go to the US section, if you're looking to keep up with what's happening in Europe you can go to the UK/Europe section and so on - its far more convenient than having to wade through hundreds of topics to find the ones that cover what you are interested in.

[ExpandMyMind]

yeah fair enough saru. after reading your post i can see that there are far more benefits with the new layout. i guess i've just spent so much time in that section that the change took me a little by surprise.

thanks.

[Pseudo Intellectual]

I see now. It makes sense. I've already got used to it.

[Mac E]

Thank you!!!  

[Colonel Rhuairidh]

I don't know about anyone else, but I personally find it a bit confusing. If you're not sure whether a story might come under "US", "Europe", "Rest of World", or indeed, "Conspiracies and Secret Societies", it sometimes takes a bit of rummaging about to find a particular thread. And besides, a lot of stories concern several different countries. Where would the words of, say, an American politician about Israel go?

** For instance, I was trying to find a story about the alleged North Korean torpedoing of an S. Korean ship. I found it eventually under "US Politics".  

Edited by 747400, 11 June 2010 - 03:28 PM.

[J.B.]

In the U.S. Politics forum since it's a U.S. Politician's words. I rather favor the new change. I used to see U.S. subjects in the World events current affairs forum that I thought belonged in the U.S. section, but I knew they'd qualify for current events so they were allowed to sit where they were.

Good job on the new system, just took me a bit to get used to it.