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Missed opportunity - regional forum groupings
November 21, 2008 - 9:07am
Over the past several months, many babblers have referred to the ridiculous organization of the far and wide section, where the regional groupings of provinces make no logical sense.
Several alternatives have been proposed, including separate sections for each province / territory or regional groupings that have some basis in Canadian political discourse (ie, Atlantic, Quebec, Ontario, North and either West or Prairies and BC).
But instead, the rabble renewal left us with the old and illogical groupings.
Missed opportunity, I'd say.
Hey Malcolm, nothing is written in stone. :) I've changed the forum names and added new ones. I hope people are okay with the names - I can change them if people like something else better.
What I don't like about this software, however, is that the forum name and thread name is actually in the URL. So, if you change the forum name or thread title, I wonder if that means the URL changes too?
Oh good, it seems the URL stays the same for the old threads - I guess it's just the new ones that will have the new forum title in them. Excellent!
I just went to see which recent threads I could move into the new prairies forum (I'm assuming we want to include Manitoba and Saskatchewan in that forum, right?). But unfortunately, I can't edit or move threads that were created in the old babble.
I'm going to see if there's a tech fix for that, but in the meantime, I guess we'll have to continue those threads where they are, and start new ones in the new, appropriate forums.
My regional split of Canada would be: Atlantic Provinces, Quebec, Ontario, the Prairies, BC and the North.
I must have missed it but I can't find the Toronto forum. 8^)) After all, I was born there.
I would think so Unionist since I get to post to the Toronto forum by birth and atlantic Canada by heritage and adoption.
oh, the joys of identity politics. 8^))
I feel like if we give any one province its own forum, that might cause resentment. But I don't want to create 13 forums and give each province and territory a separate forum.
I was thinking that perhaps people would consider BC and Alberta to be "the west", the territories to be "the north", Manitoba and Saskatchewan to be "the prairies", Ontario and Quebec to be "central Canada", and the Maritimes plus Newfoundland and Labrador to be "Atlantic provinces".
Please don't forget, these groupings are supposed to be for ease of searching and organization, not a political statement about whether any province has its own distinct culture or whatever. So, for instance, I know that Ontario and Quebec don't have much in common (well, except that we both think we're the centre of the universe, of course), but it's easier to keep them lumped together since the vast majority of threads in that forum are about Ontario and Quebec already, and it's easy to find them there, and we are kind of a geographical "region" of Canada.
I don't think there should be hard and fast rules about where people post stuff. So, for instance, if someone way up in the far reaches of Northern Ontario (or, say, the North Shore of Quebec
) wanted to post stuff about their area in the northern territories section, then why not? Or, if someone from northwestern Ontario feels like they have more in common with the prairies than "central Canada" then they can post a thread about their area there. Why not?
As for a Toronto forum - don't tempt me! Mwa ha ha! Of course, then there would be the eternal debate: "What counts as Toronto"? Which, of course, we won't get into now.
(tiptoeing away...)
Seriously though - if there are better names for the forums though, or I've somehow been insensitive in the naming, please let me know. I was simply in a rush this morning to do it before leaving for work and wanted to get it done. :)
Well then Michelle, I will repeat what Caissa has said:
"My regional split of Canada would be: Atlantic Provinces, Quebec, Ontario, the Prairies, BC and the North."
I think this is the five-fold breakdown that most of us who have been raising the question have suggested. Of course I would have listed them running west to east rather than east to west...
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Whom the hive does not cherish it eats.
The purpose of having regional forum sections, it seems to me, is to distribute the threads so that (a) they are easier to find after they have ceased to be active and (b) they are balanced in numbers more or less evenly (so that one section will not have 50 new threads a week while another has only one or two), which also makes it easier to find a particular thread, active or otherwise.
So if one section - say, Central Canada - ends up having 90% of the "regional" threads, then we lose most of the benefit of having regional sections in the first place. In that case it would make sense to have separate sections for Ontario and Quebec, or even subdivide further.
The vast majority of the thread topics are not "about" the Prairies or Central Canada or the Atlantic Provinces, etc. anyway; they are almost always about a local or provincial issue within a single province. So the regional groupings are not based on "interest" groupings, but simply accidents of geography. A local story about Regina is, in most cases, going to be just as interesting to someone in Toronto as someone in Winnipeg. And sadly, stories about anything to do with Quebec are of little interest to anyone in Ontario or for that matter the rest of Canada.
So let's get over the idea that there is any "natural" way of grouping the threads, and dump the streotypical thinking about other provinces. Why should New Brunswick "naturally" be lumped in with Newfoundland but BC should not "naturally" be lumped in with Yukon or Alberta? Why do Ontario and Quebec "naturally" go together?
Well, the idea is also because different regions have different issues that they might share across provinces. So if, say, there was a thread on western alienation, that might well go in the western provinces forum, as opposed to a "BC" forum or "Alberta" forum
But as I said in the third paragraph, the vast majority of the threads are not about "regional issues" like western alienation, but about local or provincial issues. The only reason we have to have regional groupings is because there are too many provinces and territories to have separate forum sections for each.
Besides, there's no reason in principle why an "Alberta" forum section wouldn't be able to have a thread about western alienation, anyway. It's not as if there are Chinese walls around the sections preventing other babblers from posting in them, if they are interested.
But basing it on the math should not cause resentment.
(Ahem) Quebec is a nation (ahem).
Furthermore, let's look at the five regions by the number of MPs they will have when BC, Alberta and Ontario get their increase (using Harper's formula):
BC: 43
The Prairies: 61
Ontario: 116
Quebec: 75
Atlantic provinces: 32
Northern territories: 3
Nicely balanced, eh?
Thanks for doing the revision, Michelle.
I think the only apparent confusion is about the western and prairies thing. Seems to me the simplest solution would be to call the one forum BC/AB and the other ManSask. But I'd be fine with lumping us all together as the west too. Whatever works.
But these groupings make infinitely more sense than lumping poor Maniitoba in with Evil Ontario.
Michelle, I really think the forum you've labelled as Western Provinces would be better off renamed BC. There's already a forum for the praries.
I believe that the decision of how to organize the regional forums is an inherently political decision, despite your insitance that the forum groupings arn't done on a political basis. Politically, "The West" is a term that the bourgeois media uses to falsely imply that the spokespeople of the political right in Alberta somehow speak for all Canadians west of the Manitoba-Ontario border. As such, I find it a highly offensive term in any kind of a political context.
Other considerations are that the majority of the threads in the old BC, Alberta, and Saskatchewan forum were on BC issues, and also that BC has a distinct geography from the prarie provinces. Not to mention that I've heard the Term "The West" used in certain context where it refers to the prarie provinces, without BC. For instance, the "History of the Canadian West" course at UBC covers only the history of the prarie provinces, and leaves BC history to be covered in the "BC History" course.
I recognize that Alberta doesn't have much in common politically with Manitoba and Saskatchewan, but we don't get many threads about issues each of those provinces. Plus, the term "The Praries" doesn't have the same offensive political connotations that "The West" does.
Good God, people, we're not redrawing maps here or forming political alliances. It's a frikkin' discussion forum, where everybody is free to read and post in every forum, regardless of which province they happen to live in, where no province or region has any privileges or advantages that others don't have.
Why there should be any noses out of joint because of the titles of the forum sections is beyond my comprehension, unless it's just because people like to obsess and take offence over meaningless and trivial things, when there are so many other matters of consequence that we should be discussing.
Get a life, people!
Bravo Left Turn. You hit the nail on the head by pointing out that in the old breakdown (BC,AB,SK) the majority of the threads in the forum were on BC issues -- almost to the point of completely overwhelming threads regarding the other areas. Since sometimes one wants a quick view of threads of "local interest" having the distinct "Prairie" forum containing "AB,SK,MB" is a distinct improvement (not that the threads about Vancouver municipal politics aren't interesting, there are just so damn many of them
). It may be pigeon-holing, but it is pigeon-holing that makes the site easier to navigate and reduces the chances of missing a thread that might be of interest.
Bravo again for pointing out the confusion the designation "The West" causes -- it is analogous to the confusion the distinction between "The Maritimes" and "The Atlantic Provinces" causes.
I think M. Spector was right in the first paragraph of his post (#11) where he stated
"The purpose of having regional forum sections, it seems to me, is to distribute the threads so that (a) they are easier to find after they have ceased to be active and (b) they are balanced in numbers more or less evenly (so that one section will not have 50 new threads a week while another has only one or two), which also makes it easier to find a particular thread, active or otherwise."
I think, though, he should defer to those who are actually in the regions being written about when people from those regions point out that the designations (titles) are unclear and create confusion.
I'm all in favour of clear and unconfusing section titles.
But that's not the issue I was addressing, and it's not what the topic post in the thread is about.
Three options:
1. One section called "The West"
2. Two sections called "BC" and "Prairies"
3. Two sections called "BC/AB" and "ManSask"
All things being equal, my choices in order are #2, #1, #3
That said, it seems to have naturally involved into #1, with a vestigal "Prairies" section with no threads in it.
I second this, but I would put Quebec and Ontario together (which worked fine in the old forum, the only difference being that Manitoba is now not lumped in with them) and make it "BC & Yukon", "Prairies and The North".
So, it has naturally evolved that all of the threads regarding BC, AB, SK and MB have ended up in the "western provinces" folder, while the vestigal "the prairies" folder has only one thread about why it exists.
In light of this natural evolution, I think Michelle can kill the "the prairies" folder and all us belligerant folk from west of Lake of the Woods can camp out together.
<><>I don't think the changes have been made yet. I hope not, because Ontario and Quebec are not "Central Canada" by any measure I can think of - except population perhaps. Or centre of political power? That's arguable. Anyway I don't think Babble wants to use the centre vs. margins model for categorizing the topics of its participants.