Closed Zoo review section needed for ZooChat

[DavidBrown]

Hi. Would be possible to add a dedicated forum section specifically for zoo reviews?

We have several excellent zoo critics on this site reviewing zoos from around the world. Over time these reviews get buried in the general flow of the forum sections that they are posted in, and the only way to find them is to happen upon them.

Zoo reviews, and discussion of zoo reviews, by knowledgable and passionate zoogoers are one of the most interesting features of the site. I suspect that these reviews may also be valuable feedback to the powers that be that run the zoos being reviewed on things that people do and do not like about their zoos.

I scrolled through this forum section and saw that this request was also made in 2009.

Just a thought. Thanks.

 

[Simon Hampel]

Yes, I think this is a great idea.

However, I want to keep reviews in their respective country areas, which with the current structure would mean a new forum for every country. That would create too much unnecessary clutter I feel.

I'm currently working through some plans for a complete rebuild of ZooChat, and I'm thinking that we might go more flexible with our categorisation of threads - such that a thread can belong in a zoo-specific area and/or a country specific area, but also might exist in an area dedicated to zoo reviews as well.

The idea being that you should be able to get the system to show you all zoo reviews for a specific zoo, or for a country - while also having the reviews in with all of the other zoo-specific threads and posts for that zoo.

The same idea could be applied to the photo gallery - a single photo (along with it's associated discussion thread) can exist in multiple areas ... for example, you should be able to ask the system to show you all elephant photos in Europe, or photos of tigers in France, or all photos from London Zoo, or perhaps all photos taken of giraffe before 1980 from San Diego Zoo.

At least that's my vision - whether I can build the system to do that effectively, is yet to be seen.

 

[DavidBrown]

Yes, I think this is a great idea.

However, I want to keep reviews in their respective country areas, which with the current structure would mean a new forum for every country. That would create too much unnecessary clutter I feel.

I'm currently working through some plans for a complete rebuild of ZooChat, and I'm thinking that we might go more flexible with our categorisation of threads - such that a thread can belong in a zoo-specific area and/or a country specific area, but also might exist in an area dedicated to zoo reviews as well.

The idea being that you should be able to get the system to show you all zoo reviews for a specific zoo, or for a country - while also having the reviews in with all of the other zoo-specific threads and posts for that zoo.

The same idea could be applied to the photo gallery - a single photo (along with it's associated discussion thread) can exist in multiple areas ... for example, you should be able to ask the system to show you all elephant photos in Europe, or photos of tigers in France, or all photos from London Zoo, or perhaps all photos taken of giraffe before 1980 from San Diego Zoo.

At least that's my vision - whether I can build the system to do that effectively, is yet to be seen.

Thanks for the reply. I see your point about clutter and separating them by country. I guess what I was hoping for was a general review area where I might find reviews for zoos in all parts of the world, similar to the way that the photos for zoos around the world pop up on the gallery header...I have discovered many zoos that I did not know existed that way. Good luck with the site redesign plotting...I can see that you have a very complex set of issues to think through.