Hello OKC Talkers,

The following new forums are under consideration for inclusion on the site. The proposal is to add one additional category to the site with three sub-forums. The actual name of the category I'm keeping a secret but you can see the sub-forums listed below. Your feedback is appreciated.

NEW CATEGORY NAME IS TOP SECRET.

Sub-Forums
Design, Space and Place
Discuss urban design, architecture, landscape architecture, historic preservation, design regulations, and other aspects of the built environment.

Economic and Community Development
Economic and community development, site selection, commercial revitalization, financing and related subjects.

Land Use, Zoning and Development Control
Zoning, subdivisions, signs, development and design review, current planning, enforcement, development control, and related topics.

FWIW, I think there are so many topics right now it's sometimes hard to keep track of them all. These would be good additions, but I'd probably advocate elimination of some less-popular threads to balance things out.

Also, I fear that latter topic might induce unintentional cross-posts, or topics that are born in a more relevant location. For example, someone might start a thread in Bricktown about some issue about a building or land use, and that thread would be perfectly within the context of the Bricktown thread, but someone else might contend that it should belong in the Land Use, Zoning and Development Control thread. The net effect is to fracture both, if that makes sense.

Just my $0.02.

-SoonerDave

Unless there are already a lot of city planners, architects, etc. here, I really don't see how those topics will be all that successful as compared to the old standbys.

zero interest in any of the three listed

Perhaps you'd like to share some of what does interest you? This board is like TV.. change the channel if you don't want to watch something :rolleyes:

Perhaps you'd like to share some of what does interest you? This board is like TV.. change the channel if you don't want to watch something :rolleyes:

Karried, it seems like a lot of change is simply for the sake of change.

The admins decide that "change is needed," and suddenly, this is not "like the OKC talk of old," which is not really true.

So some news anchor refers to this as "OKC Bash." This keeps being brought up as if it matters. Who cares what some teleprompter reader has to say about a board which they don't even post on? There will be diverse opinions. You can't avoid that. Some will necessarily be negative. In fact, we need those negative opinions for a dialogue to occur. News anchors aren't used to talking about negatives when it comes to the city. Their jobs simply won't allow it. When was the last time you ever heard a local news person speak of anything related to the city as a whole in a negative light ever? They're cheerleaders, we're not. It's that simple.

At any rate, we have some fun forums. People such as Randy, Jack, ChristianConservative, Comedian, etc. have been banned for their general flame-baiting behavior and not necessarily violations of rules. Do that, and we have constructive conversation.

The diverse topics provide forums for people to discuss what interests them.

It seems this board has experienced recently a lot of change for the sake of change -- tell us what the purpose of the change is. Be specific. What problems would fewer forums eliminate? What things are you trying to achieve by these changes? Boards like this exist for a reason -- it'd be nice to know what that reason is :)

Zoning? ZONING? Wow, I'm sorry, but that's the kind of stuff that might turn some people off to this site. It's not exactly "exciting" my any means.

That said, I'd just probably never venture into those forums because I have absolutely nothing to add to them. I think a lot of people might feel the same way.

I'm thinkin no...

Well, I'll let Todd handle most of your other questions maybe through PM's ...... but these forums above are being added to create a place to discuss urban design and news regarding community development.

Sorry posting at the same time..

A lot of these things go hand-in-hand.