We're merging some sections into the Travel advice area

[MichaelMumsnet]

Hi all,
We’re doing some work on making the Talk boards more useful and user-friendly for both regular and new users. After looking at some stats for the site, we think we could boost activity on the whole by merging some of the lesser used sections.

We’re proposing to fold the topics in this section into the general Travel advice area.

This should increase the number of topics in the section - and hopefully lead to more posts and responses to members.

Don't do it!!! The beauty of the travel area is being able to find what you want easily.
Posts don't disappear off the screen too quickly etc and are relevant.
Campers want camping, not flights out.
Long haul people don't want to wade through UK days out.
Travel advice is useful for spanning all topics.
I think it is brilliantly organised now and I frequent many of the subsections without finding it a hassle.

Noooooo I agree with HappyHolidays above! Please keep them separate, I like that the pages don't move too quickly because it's easier to find stuff. And cruises are quite different to camping!

Please don't do this. I never look at most of the sections but often contribute to Longhaul and Travel Advice. If I had to go through lots of stuff on skiing and cruises I probably wouldn't bother.

Another vote for please don’t do this.
I like the ease of being able to find what I want quickly.
Merging topics won’t make me more likely to read posts I have no interest in, it will just frustrate me as it will take longer to find the threads I’m looking for.

Please do do this. Way too many topics

Please reconsider this and keep Longhaul as a separate topic. I quite often look at this board for travel inspiration and have posted to give and get advice.
It makes no sense to have a travel section that you can't filter by destination somehow, even at the most basic long haul vs short haul split.

I only look at Longhaul. Please keep it separate!

Oh no! I only ever look at shorthaul and find it really useful, no wading through stuff that's not relevant.

Please don't do it... it is really well organised now!

How will it make it easier to use if we have to trawl though irrelevant topics to get to the one we want?

Michael

This whole section is fine as it is; it does not need to be merged into one ginormous and therefore less useful travel topic. Very different topics are within this section and I do not want to have to trawl through irrelevant topics to read the ones that interest me the most.

Remember the phrase, "if it ain't broke don't fix it!".

I think there is scope for some merging in this section. For instance I can never tell where short haul ends and long haul begins.

I think a stats based approach is the wrong one.

It's a bit like knowing the price of everything but the value of nothing.
I'd rather there was the odd thread that wasn't sure if it was long or short haul, than have to wade through posts about long haul exotic, expensive holidays if trying to find a cheap but not sordid campsite.

I do agree with combining certain topics, there’s too many options meaning everyone just posts on chat/AIBU.

However, you need to completely overhaul the search function. If you can make logical searches about questions/topics then it makes everything a lot easier and smoother.

Camping should be a separate topic for sure.

I really like the travel topics because they don’t move too fast, it’s easy to follow and catch up on them.

Yes please do this, all the subforums just cause ghost areas.

I'd rather you never if it's all the same to you

Very few threads on Longhaul go unanswered, usually there are a good number of replies and they are always relevant and helpful in my experience, it’s definitely not a ghost area.

Yes admittedly long haul is fine, but the forum as a whole needs a massive revamp to reduce the number of subforums. Long haul is one of about 3 I purposefully look for.

If anything, I'd get rid of travel advice and as all the topics there would fit on one of the other boards! Weekend breaks either fit on short haul or UK too.

It’s nice at the moment to not have to wade through 5 pages of questions about things to do in London. The long haul forum is nice to have as people often have relevant advice and you don’t get snarky comments about destination choices. I think camping and skiing definitely also need their own topics as there is a lot of gear associated with those and the chatter is very specific. You could maybe combine long haul and short haul into ‘overseas’ and lump days out into the UK? I have never visited the travel advice board...

Please don't merge the topics. It works really well exactly as it is now. I don't want to wade through lots of pages trying to spot long-haul advice or short-haul advice depending on the type of holiday I am researching. It may increase traffic in the short term (I don't actually believe that) but I think it would rapidly lead to many people not using the section at all due to being so hard to find what you are looking for.

I wondered if Travel may be a section under threat. Are you going to leave it alone @MichaelMumsnet ?

We're looking at some sections within travel - but it's not decided yet - we're gathering feedback from the various areas.