Springfield/Western Massachusetts own category. (Boston, Worcester: college, closing, tax)

[tysmith95]

Originally Posted by tovarisch

Given arguments that keep popping up, maybe the Berkshires should be separate from the CT River Valley, too!

My argument was that Western Massachusetts/Springfield deserves its own forum. I believe this area is culturally and economically separate from Boston and eastern mass and large enough to be able to have its own fourm. Worcester is more connected to the Boston area so i'm not sure it deserves its own thread. Cape Cod has a low year round population and doesn't deserve its own forum. That's just my opinion though. I can understand if there isn't enough interest to create a new fourm however.

[chicagoliz]

It's interesting, because different metro areas seem to have different focuses and subcategories. I think it depends on what is posted.

Here, I've noticed that the Boston sub-forum seems to be limited specifically to discussions about the city of Boston itself, whereas questions about the Boston metro area are in the Massachusetts forum. (And if someone posts a question about the metro area in the Boston subforum, they're often directed to move it to the Mass forum.) However, over in Pennsylvania, Philadelphia has it's own subforum and all questions about Philly and the whole Philly metro area go there. (Except when someone wants to know about the south NJ part of Philly metro.)

Over in Illinois, there are several subforums for different parts of the state, but there is a Chicago subforum and a Chicago Suburbs subforum. The latter seems to have come about when someone determined that the Chicago forum was getting too clogged up with questions about suburban areas/concerns. So there's a separate Chicago suburbs forum.

I've assumed that this is partly because MA is geographically much smaller than, say, IL or PA, and people tend to know more about the whole state. But mostly it seems to be a function of the questions from C-D members -- it doesn't seem that there are enough questions specific to Central/Western MA to warrant the separate subforum(s) for them. If there started to be a lot of questions about them, I think whoever the powers that be at C-D are would create such a subforum.

[FCMA]

I spent some time last month at a training with a bunch of people mostly from respectable Massahole society, you know shining pinnacles of human accomplishment like Billerica and Weymouth and Lawrence to name a few. They seemed horrified a) that I lived outside 495 and I was highly amused that b) virtually nobody could place Orange (understandable) or even Greenfield. Is that near the NY line? Nope still 50+ miles away. Is that by Worcester? Expand the limits of your stunted geographical imagination by an hour and change. By Springfield? Sure good enough guess, still 35 miles away. By AmHErst? Getting warmer. Why do you live way out they-ah? To urinate in your drinking water. Being a lone barbarian on this forum is fun, no need for an additional subforum for the semi western part of the state.

[in_newengland]

Originally Posted by tysmith95

My argument was that Western Massachusetts/Springfield deserves its own forum. I believe this area is culturally and economically separate from Boston and eastern mass and large enough to be able to have its own fourm. Worcester is more connected to the Boston area so i'm not sure it deserves its own thread. Cape Cod has a low year round population and doesn't deserve its own forum. That's just my opinion though. I can understand if there isn't enough interest to create a new fourm however.

This. ^^^^^ Boston has its forum, its suburbs make up most of the rest of the MA forum so they could have a separate sub forum and it could include Worcester. Then a separate sub forum for the rest of the state, yes, including AmHERST . People find CD oftentimes though google and if they saw their city or town show up in a search, they'd be more likely to come into CD and join up. The way it is now, we're swamped with Bostonia; there's barely any space for anything else.

For instance, there's a debate going on about putting rattlesnakes in the Quabbin Reservoir and it doesn't even get mentioned on here. I DON'T WANT RATTLESNAKES in QUABBIN! So there.

[chicagoliz]

Originally Posted by in_newengland

This. ^^^^^ Boston has its forum, its suburbs make up most of the rest of the MA forum so they could have a separate sub forum and it could include Worcester. Then a separate sub forum for the rest of the state, yes, including AmHERST . People find CD oftentimes though google and if they saw their city or town show up in a search, they'd be more likely to come into CD and join up. The way it is now, we're swamped with Bostonia; there's barely any space for anything else.

For instance, there's a debate going on about putting rattlesnakes in the Quabbin Reservoir and it doesn't even get mentioned on here. I DON'T WANT RATTLESNAKES in QUABBIN! So there.

Again, I don't believe that someone in charge has deemed other areas within MA to be unworthy of their own forum. If there starts to be a large number of posts that have to do with other parts of MA, I suspect that they would eventually be given their own forum.

It strikes me that the sub-forums are about organization. The more topics you have, the more you need some way to organize them. Since, for whatever reason, there haven't been that many discussions about other parts of MA, there has been no need to sort them out into a separate forum.

Basically, there isn't sufficient evidence of demand. People can say theoretically it would be nice all they want. But if it isn't actually utilized, it's a waste of resources and time.

[in_newengland]

Originally Posted by chicagoliz

Again, I don't believe that someone in charge has deemed other areas within MA to be unworthy of their own forum. If there starts to be a large number of posts that have to do with other parts of MA, I suspect that they would eventually be given their own forum.

It strikes me that the sub-forums are about organization. The more topics you have, the more you need some way to organize them. Since, for whatever reason, there haven't been that many discussions about other parts of MA, there has been no need to sort them out into a separate forum.

Basically, there isn't sufficient evidence of demand. People can say theoretically it would be nice all they want. But if it isn't actually utilized, it's a waste of resources and time.

Yes, but what I'm saying is that most people in WMass don't even know that CD exists because when they look their town up on google, there is hardly ever a hit for CD. I got drawn into CD by doing a google search and it came up with something on CD. So I went to CD and joined.

I guess if we started making a lot of threads about WMass maybe more WMass people would be drawn here and THEN we might get a sub forum. It's just strange that one entire part of the state is largely ignored. I don't see that in other states. It's not as if no one lives there, as if our state university isn't there, as if Smith College, Mt Holyoke, Amherst College are unpopular places, as if no one wants to know about where to eat in Northampton or to ask about the rail trail or where to go hiking. Doesn't anyone want to tour Yankee Candle (It's fun) or visit Historic Deerfield? How about things to do when you go out to Tanglewood? There's more to the state than Boston and its suburbs, a LOT more.

[tysmith95]

Originally Posted by in_newengland

Yes, but what I'm saying is that most people in WMass don't even know that CD exists because when they look their town up on google, there is hardly ever a hit for CD. I got drawn into CD by doing a google search and it came up with something on CD. So I went to CD and joined.

I guess if we started making a lot of threads about WMass maybe more WMass people would be drawn here and THEN we might get a sub forum. It's just strange that one entire part of the state is largely ignored. I don't see that in other states. It's not as if no one lives there, as if our state university isn't there, as if Smith College, Mt Holyoke, Amherst College are unpopular places, as if no one wants to know about where to eat in Northampton or to ask about the rail trail or where to go hiking. Doesn't anyone want to tour Yankee Candle (It's fun) or visit Historic Deerfield? How about things to do when you go out to Tanglewood? There's more to the state than Boston and its suburbs, a LOT more.

Agreed. I believe that adding a Wmass forum will induce more demand for threads. People from Western Mass might not want to scroll through all of the conversations about the suburbs of Boston in order to find threads that apply to them. It should take all of 5 minutes for the administrator to add a new forum, if it doesn't get any sort of traffic than they can just delete it.

[CaseyB]

Originally Posted by tysmith95

Agreed. I believe that adding a Wmass forum will induce more demand for threads. People from Western Mass might not want to scroll through all of the conversations about the suburbs of Boston in order to find threads that apply to them. It should take all of 5 minutes for the administrator to add a new forum, if it doesn't get any sort of traffic than they can just delete it.

It doesn't happen like that.

[massnative71]

Originally Posted by FCMA

Being a lone barbarian on this forum is fun, no need for an additional subforum for the semi western part of the state.

You're probably the lone person with internet out there.

[FCMA]

Originally Posted by massnative71

You're probably the lone person with internet out there.

Haha you joke but it's not far off. Parts of rural Mexico have better internet than the Franklin County hill towns because the state refuses to subsidize that, among many other things. For example just up the hill in Wendell - no internet except via satellite!