No Central Valley Subforum? (San Jose, Fresno: home, preschools, living in)

[Des-Lab]

I admit. I'm an FNG to this site. (which is great by the way, though it will take me months just to browse through much of it).

I've seen a few scattered topics relating to Fresno, Visalia, Bakersfield, etc. But I noticed that the Central Valley (roughly the Hwy 99 corridor from Bakersfield to Modesto) is conspicuously absent from the subforms above.

Is there a reason why?

BTW. I'm currently living in Placentia. But I just bought a place in Tulare and am moving at the end of next month. So I'll have some questions.

Thanks for the feedback.
-Des
TapeHeads.Net

[Kibbiekat]

no subforum. Ask your questions here.

[kettlepot]

Given the name of City-Data, the owners aren't very receptive to subfora that extend beyond one metropolitan area. Therefore rather than a Central Valley subforum, they would be more likely to create separate fora for Fresno, Bakersfield, Stockton, etc. However, they also require a certain level of pre-existing activity in regards to threads and posts, to ensure that a new subforum would be active and useful. If the number of posts or threads for a Central Valley city gets close enough to the current activity of the San Jose forum, you could petition the Administrator to create a subforum for that city.

Some people hate having the state divided up into ever more narrow slices. Personally, I think for a huge state like California it would be useful.

At least these were the reasons I was given when I petitioned for the creation of an Inland Empire subforum.

[Des-Lab]

I run a discussion forum that also uses the VBulletin interface as does this site.

Setting up a subforum in the Admin CP can be done in 2 minutes or less. 5 If you include the usergroup settings. So it can't be because of the effort involved.

Everything else you said kind of makes sense. But given the many already established areas, and that the Hwy 99 corridor is, for all intents and purposes, a 'region' unto itself, why not?

[krudmonk]

The Central Valley is huge. What does a person in Redding care about preschools in Taft or job opportunities in Galt?

[FresnoFacts]

Originally Posted by krudmonk

The Central Valley is huge. What does a person in Redding care about preschools in Taft or job opportunities in Galt?

The original post's question was more about the San Joaquin Valley south of the Delta, not the Central Valley including the Sacramento Valley. The poster just used a less geographically correct term.

As the original post said:

But I noticed that the Central Valley (roughly the Hwy 99 corridor from Bakersfield to Modesto) is conspicuously absent from the subforms above.

I don't see Redding or Galt or other northern points included in the question as defined by the poster.

[eliptik]

I don't get why every other major city/region in California has a sub forum but the 5th biggest city in the state (Fresno) doesn't even have one, not even for a region as big as the central valley. And people will say well just post in the general California section for the central valley, but if you're going to divide up the state into separate sub forums why exclude a large region of the state to begin with?

[that1guy]

Not from the Central Valley, but it does strike me as odd that there is an Inland Empire subforum (the Central Valley of the south), but none for the actual Central Valley. The Inland Empire is also big (from 10 miles of east of the pacific to the Arizona border).

[kettlepot]

Folks, if you want a subforum for Fresno, or Bakersfield, or Stockton, add up the posts and threads related to each one these cities individually, and petition the Administrator for an individual subforum. If there is enough activity to justify it, one will be created.

The Administrator is willing to break apart particularly large Metro areas into component parts (see LA, SF, Chicago, NYC), but doesn't appear willing to combine entirely separate MSA's into regional subforums. That's their call.

If you want a subforum, add up the numbers of posts and threads, and if it's reasonably close to the number San Jose has, I bet the Administrator will create one. Apparently, the more activity a site has the higher up it will show when a user makes a search query. The owners of C-D want to make this website appear high up in the queue. The more they break apart the boards into component subfora, the lower the levels of activity and the lower the site shows up in the queue.


Anyway, after doing the math, if you petition for more subfora, you'll have my support - not that I carry any weight on this topic.

[SOON2BNSURPRISE]

Check out Florida, they have sub-forums in communities in much smaller areas. They also have sub-forums with multiple cities. At the same time the area supports the sub-forum, meaning that the people living in those areas in Florida provide content. Many of us in the Ventura County, Santa Barbara County area would also love a sub-forum. At the same time I am not sure we could support it at this time. Not the amount of questions needed to keep the sub-forum active. If you look at states like Iowa though, they are hardly active at all and they have a forum all to themselves. I bet the Ventura county and Santa Barbara county area produce more topics than the state of Iowa, and we still have no sub-forum. But then where would you rather live? on the coast in California or the plains of Iowa? Who know what happens at the admin level within CDF. I love it either way, but see your point about having a place to call home within the forum world.