Separate Portland section?

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davem

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I enjoy browsing the Portland related threads, but find myself having difficulty keeping up with the magnitude of different projects there. The compounding issue is that I'm not familiar with the area so all the projects blend together in just a few threads.

With the other major cities in and around Boston (Providence, FR/NB, etc) the posters commenting on what is going on there tend to be the same as the people posting in the Boston threads. Portland on the other hand seems to have a unique community of members that mostly keep to themselves with little crosstalk to the other forums.

My general idea is that since the community posting about Portland is rather distinct, it might be nice to give them their own "Portland's Built Environment" section in the Outside of Boston Metro part of the site. It would allow more topics related to the Portland area to be created, and also make more room in the Greater NE section for all the other cities.
 
Here here!

The Portland stuff clutters up the rest of the Outside Boston Metro forum and buries threads.
 
Agree 100%. I've been behind this for a long time. Nothing needs its own new section like Portland. I don't follow the progress anywhere near as much as I'd like, but I do enjoy that we have a little sub-culture going on here.
 
I would be okay with this. Might be a good idea to have a Portland-specific moderator as well (if there isn't one already) since there is a lot of overlap in Portland-related threads.
 
This is fine with me as long as the Portland guys want it.
 
I'd be OK with this. I pretty much only participate in Portland-related threads anyway. However, I don't want others to feel like we Portlanders need or want special treatment. I'd also be fine with keeping things as-is.
 
Dr. StrangeHat said:
I'd be OK with this. I pretty much only participate in Portland-related threads anyway. However, I don't want others to feel like we Portlanders need or want special treatment. I'd also be fine with keeping things as-is.
Click to expand...

It's not so much special treatment as it is forum efficiency and ease of use. There's a much greater potential to draw in new members if they happen to stumble here on a google search about a certain Portland project and then discover that this site really does have substantial *organized* discussion about Portland even though we are Boston-based.
 
Can we call it "Portlandia"?
 
Sure, this Portlander is down with that idea.

This is just me, but I don't want people to get the impression that I don't participate in the non-Portland sections — I'm just a lurker in those places, and I think that the same could be said for several of us. I'm sensitive to the idea that Mainers are insular and afraid of outsiders — and it's true, some are, but I'd hate for those characteristics to become associated with our state's biggest city, which really is welcoming to and dependent on people 'from away'.
 
I think giving Portland it's own section is a great idea. Another suggestion too could be breaking down the greater New England section into state sections with some additional sections:

Portland, Maine
Maine
New Hampshire
Vermont
Connecticut
Rhode Island
Boston Metro
Worchester and Eastern Massachusetts
Springfield and Western Massachusetts

This may be too much, or maybe not. I think if Manchester, Providence, Worchester and New Bedford/Fall River had more traffic they too could warrent their own sections. With the state sections I could see more input from smaller cities too (I post stuff about Sanford, Maine and Portland usually, but also spend a lot of time checking out Beantown too).
 
It's Worcester, not Worchester. And it's pronounced "Wooh-stah" (or I suppose "Wooh-ster" for the non-Boston accent). ;)

I don't think we need too much outside of a Greater Portland, Greater Manchester, and Greater Providence. Everything else is slow enough to fit in New England in general.
 
I still think this forum needs a separate Portland section - especially since most of us in the "Outside of Boston Metro" part of the forum are Portland contributors. My suggestion is as follows:

Outside of Boston Metro
Greater New England
Portland (new)
General Architecture and Urban Planning

Since our meet up earlier in the month, I feel that there is going to be a lot more participation in respects to Portland. There are a lot of old Portland threads that could be transferred from the Greater New England section to start of the new Portland section too.
 
I think this site should expand to ArchNew England SHAZBAT73 said 2 years ago.... We recently expanded SSC and the site grew by 100 members for those sections... So Im sure by adding new sections this site will grow aswell... New England doesn't really have an Urbanist site...unlike other regions or cities. Of course I would really like to see this site merge into SSC which would form a monstrous site...

With Separate Sections for ..

City Sections
Boston
Portland

State Sections

Rhode Island
Connecticut
Vermont/New Hampshire
Maine
 
SHAZBAT73 said:
I still think this forum needs a separate Portland section - especially since most of us in the "Outside of Boston Metro" part of the forum are Portland contributors. My suggestion is as follows:

Outside of Boston Metro
Greater New England
Portland (new)
General Architecture and Urban Planning

Since our meet up earlier in the month, I feel that there is going to be a lot more participation in respects to Portland. There are a lot of old Portland threads that could be transferred from the Greater New England section to start of the new Portland section too.
Click to expand...
Sounds good to me. At some point, I'd hope that the rest of New England would get similar granularlity, but no point having to decide on a universal taxonomy of other divisions (like Springfield & Western Mass, NH Seacoast, or Cape & Islands) before going ahead with Portland. If Portland is ready, its ready. Go for it.

And the Worcester or Lowell folks will have to decide if they are lumpers or splitters I'm a lumper and say if a city is touched by an MBTA train or within or touched by I-190, MA/RI 146, or I-195, it is in Greater Boston. (Nashua and Providence being border cases)
 
I'm right with you on that thought Arlington. If the Portland section succeeds, who knows what the possibilities are.

So lets do it!

Give the Portland section a try!!!
 
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