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Bold expansion idea

IronTiger

By IronTiger
in HAIF on HAIF

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IronTiger

IronTiger

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I subscribed to UrbanOhio.com for reasons of seeing photos posted to a thread I was following, when it gave me an idea.

The HAIF has become Houston's premier Internet forum, but the other cities are kind of lacking. College Station/Bryan's board, in particular, is quite nice, and not the cesspool MyBCS.com is. Dallas/Fort Worth's board will never be popular, because DFW residents don't like the idea of flocking to a Houston forum (in general).

Given that HAIF, as an acronym, is now obsolete (it stood for HoustonArchitecture.Info Forum), why not just drop the tagline "Houston's original social network", give the Dallas-Fort Worth board more space, and put the screws to the "Dallas Fort Worth Urban Forum" and MyBCS.com?

I can imagine that some shortfalls would be...

- Bandwidth concerns

- Quality control

- Houston-only pride

It's just an idea, but what do you think? Could HAIF work as the premier forum of Texas?

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Coaster

Coaster

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This is a stupid idea. People who want to know about what is going on in other cities should go straight to the source. If I want to know about the latest fiasco at Metro, I wouldn't go to Dallasmetropolis.com. Screw Texas. I only care about Houston and so that is why I come here. I wish the Dallas board would be eliminated. It only serves to invite Houston bashing and is the source 95% of the childish bickering that goes on at this otherwise fine website.

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20thStDad

20thStDad

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This is a stupid idea. People who want to know about what is going on in other cities should go straight to the source. If I want to know about the latest fiasco at Metro, I wouldn't go to Dallasmetropolis.com. Screw Texas. I only care about Houston and so that is why I come here. I wish the Dallas board would be eliminated. It only serves to invite Houston bashing and is the source 95% of the childish bickering that goes on at this otherwise fine website.

I think that number is down around 40% since the Heights Wal-Mart and historic district topics have been up. Lately it's been mostly h-town on h-town bickering.

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IronTiger

IronTiger

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Yes, Coast, you brought up two good points. Quality Control to cut down on overtly bad topics, but too many moderators make for a bad forum.

And of course, Houston pride.

But here's another argument: in creating a Texas forum, we would end up having highly fragmented groups: one a Dallas group, one a San Antonio group, one an Austin group, etc. (maybe if we just limit it to the Texas Triangle, we can cut out El Paso tongue.gif)

But there are already fragmented groups on HAIF. The Heights rules disproportionately, and there's other groups that rarely show up behind certain groups: Historic Houston, Katy, etc.

Alternatively, we can jettison the Dallas-FW boards and create a new, non-HAIF forum. A second HAIF, only not focused on Houston. I propose the name HA2F!

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IronTiger

IronTiger

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I propose calling the new Dallas forum - Dallas Architecture Forum For Yokels or "DAFFY" for short.

It's not going to be strictly Dallas. It will include Austin, B-CS, San Antonio, and Waco...though I suppose you have more acronyms for them too.dry.gif

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editor

editor

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Sorry I'm a little late to this discussion. Here are some thoughts:

This is about the fifth or sixth time this has been proposed to me. Two or three times publicly here on HAIF. And a few times in private. Each time when I've investigated it, the reaction has been mixed.

At one point, some members of one of the larger Dallas forums approached me about starting one for Dallas. They specifically asked for their own version of HAIF. I did I discrete inquiry of some of the more active members of that forum and found that while they agreed that the current forum was not well run, they would not pledge their support to a new forum.

I approached the owner of one Dallas forum about buying him out, or at least taking over his forum in exchange for a cut of the ad revenue. Because of his job, however, he is frequently offline for months at a time (which helps explain why his forum users aren't all that happy). It took him four months to get back to me on my initial inquiry, and he said he would think about it. I haven't heard from him since then, eight months ago.

I have seriously considered the idea. It comes up often enough that I actually bought a domain for it, in case we finally make this happen: http://dsfwa.com

Will it ever happen? I'm not sure. I'd like it to. But I'd need some firm support.

Given that HAIF, as an acronym, is now obsolete (it stood for HoustonArchitecture.Info Forum), why not just drop the tagline "Houston's original social network", give the Dallas-Fort Worth board more space,

Because the people in Dallas and Houston are very proud of their cities, I don't think either would be happy with a shared forum. The Dallas section on HAIF exists because it is natural for people in Houston to want to talk about Dallas, just like they talk about New Orleans or Austin, or any other place. It is not intended to be a Dallas forum replacement. I think Dallas is a big enough, and interesting enough, city to warrant its own forum.

and put the screws to the "Dallas Fort Worth Urban Forum" and MyBCS.com?

I don't mind friendly competition. I don't think I want to put the screws to anyone. In fact, the owners of some Dallas fora have been very helpful to HAIF in the past. I wouldn't want to hurt our cordial relationship.

I can imagine that some shortfalls would be...

- Bandwidth concerns

At first, no. Not for a long time. Since I recently sold one of my web sites, I have lots of extra bandwidth.

- Quality control

A problem for any forum. I'd need a solid pair of moderators to start out with. Not just to keep things orderly, but because I have little enough time to devote to HAIF and my 14 other web sites.

- Houston-only pride

Dallas deserves its own forum. It, naturally, would eventually have an area to talk about Houston, just like HAIF has an area to talk about Dallas. Maybe in time the two areas could be linked somehow.

It's just an idea, but what do you think? Could HAIF work as the premier forum of Texas?

A Texas superforum? Dunno. In a lot of other states it wouldn't work, simply because the cities have too much pride in themselves. Texas, however, is a different beast.

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editor

editor

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I think so. How much more space would the Dallas-Fort Worth board need? 512k? 1GB?

Probably a lot less than that. The entirety of HAIF compresses to 145.7 MB. One of the ways I keep the speed up on HAIF is that the entire thing runs out of RAM. There's almost no disk access, except for pictures uploaded by users.

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editor

editor

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But there are already fragmented groups on HAIF. The Heights rules disproportionately, and there's other groups that rarely show up behind certain groups: Historic Houston, Katy, etc.

While, it's true that the Heights section is very active lately, that has not always been the case. Until just a couple of months ago, the most popular sections of HAIF were:

  1. Historic Houston
  2. Going Up!
  3. General Houston Discussions
  4. Katy and Points West
  5. Houston Area Dining, Shopping and Entertainment
  6. Traffic and Transportation

Alternatively, we can jettison the Dallas-FW boards and create a new, non-HAIF forum. A second HAIF, only not focused on Houston. I propose the name HA2F!

"HA2F" is a cute name. I wish I'd thought of that before. Reminds me of the trend in the 90's when all the radio stations started buying other radio stations and you ended up with WQBE2 and WLW2 and such.

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editor

editor

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I'm happy to look at this idea once again. Here's what I'd need to make this happen:

  • Two moderators. At least one would have to live in the Metroplex, the other would have to live nearby.
  • Commitments from a group of at least six other people to become regular posters.

That's pretty much it. I don't mind coughing up the $10/month it would cost to get things started on a new host. Where these things usually fall apart is in the commitment of time. We all lead very busy lives these days, and getting people to check in on a forum even once a day for 10 minutes, is a lot to ask. Lots of people step forward and say they'll do it, but when it comes time to actually do stuff, they tend so suddenly stop responding to e-mails, etc...

Still, if anyone wants to try this again, let me know either here or by PM or by e-mailing me on editor@houstonarchitecture.com. As always, I'm open to ideas.

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editor

editor

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Anyone else have any final thoughts on this before I once again declare this idea a non-starter?

If I could get a few volunteers to work on the project, I'd be more than happy to put the time, money, and effort into it. But I'd need some help.

Anyone

Beuller?

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editor

editor

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Should I ask around at a Dallas forum if they'd chip in, or would be mocked and driven out on a rail?

Rail. Definitely the rail, if you do it publicly.

If you ask a few people privately, you might have better luck.

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editor

editor

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What kind of help would you need?

Just a couple of people to act as moderators. Primary responsibilities would involve keeping in touch with what's going on in Dallas, and starting lots and lots of new threads to get people interested in talking. People find it a lot easier to reply to an existing thread than to start a new one.

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editor

editor

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It looks like the DSFWA thingy might happen.

One of your fellow HAIFers who lives in a suburb of Dallas has pledged to cover the monetary expenses of the forum for the first six months. This person has asked to remain anonymous for now.

So... who wants to be a moderator?

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