Need some suggestions.

I need some suggestions for the forum section in Destinations under Major and Minor Destinations.

My personal feeling on this area is that it is a little cluttered with all the cities and states listed under Major and Minor and to many good posts get lost in the shuffle in there.

Should I --

A. Just leave it as it is.
B. Condense all of the posts into one forum--sort of a general area for city/state questions.
C. Leave all the big cities listed there and just have one spot for all other areas.

I am open to any ideas.

Mike

Yeah, it is a bit cluttered and there probably are good posts getting lost. But it's also good to be able to go straight to the area you want . I guess if you did condense it all then people would just have to use the Search engine (but you often miss good posts that way to if you don't put the right words in). So, what am I trying to say.... I don't quite know. Perhaps Option A. Maybe there could be more room for the current thread topics on the Home page as well - some of the more specific questions drop from there too soon..... and so probably never get answered. Anyway, Indiamike, keep up the good work and thanks.

Here's a wild suggestion. Get a map of India graphic and divide it into south, Himalayas, east and west with a few major cities shown (Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Varanasi, Calcutta, Chennai) and perhaps Goa. Then hotlink to any posts that relate to the region, presenting them under a few basic headings (Destinations, Warnings, Places to stay, etc...). And of course some posts will have All India status. I saw a guidebook arranged like that once....

Well, Mike, it's more of a makeover than what you asked for, but when you first launched the "new look" board there was that splendid picture of a steam train smack in the middle. I thought it was a new linking theme for the site, but sadly the train picture dropped down the news and was all too soon gone.

You might have branches named like this:

1st class waiting room - (blogs, all the side-bar stuff and Photo Gallery);
2nd class waiting room - (a place identical to yak yak yak right now);
Cloakroom - (the packing stuff, visas);
Non-Vegetarian Refreshment Rooms - (all the cuisine stuff);
Current Reservation Status - (same as the latest discussions);
Indiamike Cannt. - (all destinations in South India);
Indiamike Fort - (all Northern destinations);
Station Master - (news about this site).

I'm sure you get the idea. A nice picture of a train at the head of the homepage which sets the scene, away you go!

(PS: It's only because I know you'll say no to this idea that I'm offering it free of my usual Web design consultancy fee )

Ok for someone like me who isn't too clued up on using the internet and usually have access to pretty slow connections( a problem faced by travellers in india most places..)..so take my 2 cents with a pinch of salt...
I seriously think that 'B' , designed/layed out in a good way would be an improvement. I do feel that good mail and queries tend to get lost and left unread in the present format. Again trying to define 'major' and 'minor' suffers from a certain limitation whilst travelling. One tends to need information on minor destinations even while focussing on the major ones.
A travel site like this is also accessed on a sort of browsing/surfing basis. This off course is fulfilled by the new threads on the home page. Maybe more space here as, also ponted out by 'maree', some posts don't remain long enough to be viewed..especially so when there are larger number of new posts coming in. Actually i think that u definately need more space or a 'common' section/forum. For details/history/archives one could access the search etc.
Finally, having a good quality map shown somewhere and easily visible might be a greaaat idea...hmmm.

Thanks to everyone for the well thought out suggestions and other creative ideas.

Shortly I will be cleaning up the front page and making it sleeker and faster, though doubtful that there will be a train theme.

The map of India is an interesting idea. I will have to figure out away to do that though. Shouldn't be to tough.

The software that I use to run the forum is going through some major updates presently so in the next few months there will things like...

--member photos in profile
--similar threads-when you view a thread at the bottom will be a list of other threads with similar content
--WYSIWIG posting options
--a new blog system
--threaded display option
--ICQ-style alerts when new buddies come online

and a bunch of other goodies.

I am also tossing around the idea of adding on a "Hotels" section.
Though honestly it's fifty/fifty. If the interest is there I will add it. The "Hotels" section would be a combo of the photo gallery and the forum. It would be sort of like an Amazon rating system. Owners of hotels could list their place, with photos, and people could add reviews on it.

The "hotels" section is a litte ways down the road, since the script being done by an outside source and is not yet finished.

So anyway
Thanks everyone for all the suggestions.

Mike

Hi Indiamike

By "cleaning up" I hope you're not going to get rid of too much... I like the things like the random photo...I only just realised it changed everytime i went back to the homepage - nice touch.

I like the 'similar thread' idea you mentioned and I'm sure the other stuff will be good too (although I didn't understand a word of it! WYSIWIG??) Re Hotels idea... i quite like the fact that there isn't the touting you get on other websites. I don't know...what do others think?

Hi Maree,
By cleaning up I am mostly talking about the menu system and organizing the way the news on front page looks. It will be about the same but a little less cluttered with links. Though the random photo will stay.

WYSIWIG (what you see is what you get) will be an option by the user. Looks similar to the layout of Microsoft Word or any other Office program.

The hotels like I said is fifty-fifty. I am considering it because one of the most commons emails I get is "how do I include my hotel on your site to let others find out about it".

Cheers
Mike

Mike

I think the Destinations section works pretty well. I don't know if you would have more reads if the format was changed. Perhaps you could experiment, watch the traffic flow and then decide on the old or new format.

I agree with Maree on the front page lay-out. Possibly quite a few readers never go past that. I have noticed that when posts go off the page the number of reads really slows down. It might be a good idea to increase the number of posts showing.

Your idea about the hotels section could pose some problems. I am sure hotel owners would love to tap into a possible customer base on this site but the reviews idea could be misused. What would stop the hotel owner or a friend from registering as members and giving their hotel an excellent write-up? This has happened in the past (on LP TT) and still does.

How about known members of this website who are completely incorruptible checking these hotels out --- at a greatly reduced rate, of course

As for all the technical stuff I can't offer any advice. I haven't even discovered how to put things in quotes yet and only found out how to use smilies a few weeks ago. Lots of smilies from now on