Completed site release (The areas release)

[ROBCamra]

I have been thinking about this some more.

I sadly just don't see where it conveniently fits in the system. The other thing is that the real solution is to make the add pubs better I think. So unless this becomes urgent I will probably leave it alone.

No problem.

Just wondering though. Is it possible to do it as a monthly report like Dave's stats?

So that it shows arealess pubs by County/Postal Town?

That would also show which areas still need addressing at the moment.

[Conrad]

It would be possible, only real issue is format. Couldn't really publish it on the forums (it would be huuuuuuuuuuuuuuge), it may be possible to do it as a web page.

Mind you if I was going to do it as a web page I could probably just make it an active web page separate from the site.

Once again, let me think it over , it may actually be simple to do something really spartan and create a link from the forum.

[ROBCamra]

I've no axe to grind with where things are put in Southsea and I suspect you know the area better than me Farway as it's about 15 years since I was last there.

I don't think you can just have Southsea though under the new system as that's the postal town.

I would have thought that Southsea East/West/North may be better though?

Dave,

You've recently rejected a few of my area corrections with things like Barnsley/Leicester etc North/South etc area does not exist.

I thought we'd agreed earlier in this thread that North/South/East/West was acceptable.

My view for what it's worth is that in Barnsley for example there is a ring road pretty much around the town centre. Anything within the ring road I've considered to be in Barnsley Central. If they're outside the ring road and yet not in a specific named area I've used East/West/South/North.

Using Central when they're not really looks a bit confusing to me.

Could you clarify your position on these please?

Cheers.

[Old Blue]

Dave

Same question from me, really. In some towns I've been thinking it's probably most useful to the user to have a central area with, say, 30ish pubs that really are in the centre, and then surrounding areas labelled N, S, E and/or W where there are groups of pubs you could visit depending on which direction you went in. To avoid either having a huge number of pubs in one 'central' area, or a multiplicity of differently named areas representing estates with only about one pub in each, either of which would seem to defeat the object of the areas display. That said, I can see why you've overridden some of mine where on reflection I was probably subdividing a bit further than was necessary.

The other advantage of doing it this way seems to be that when you look at the town display you can see which areas are towards the middle of town as they each begin with the town name, as opposed to bits further out or separate towns or villages that are called something completely different.

OB

[Conrad]

.... either of which would seem to defeat the object of the areas display.

What is the object of the areas display?

Edit: For me they are there to be accurate, if there is only one pub in an estate, then it is fine to put it in that area. If there are 100's of pubs in a central area, then that is fine, areas are not an attempt to replace the postcode system and have exactly 30 pubs in each area. They should exist to serve those who are looking to find a pub in a named area for whatever reason and are searching for that, also they should make up for the weaknesses in the Postal Town naming convention (where towns can exist in Postal towns) - if you are looking to find localities of pubs there is always the maps.

So if you think that you would go to Google and look for a pub in North Barnsley, then having a Barnsley North area makes sense. That is just my interpretation though.

I actually shouldn't have posted on this thread and will now leave it be.

[gillhalfpint]

I am glad that around 99% of the time I want to find a pub, I just enter the pub name in the search box, unless it is something like Red Lion. Then I use the town and normally have no problem finding the pub. Areas have never been something I have looked into in detail.

[Conrad]

No problem.

Just wondering though. Is it possible to do it as a monthly report like Dave's stats?

So that it shows arealess pubs by County/Postal Town?

That would also show which areas still need addressing at the moment.

Just realised that I never officially replied to this.

We honestly haven't got the time for it at the moment. On top of the time it would take to come up with the report there is the fact that we would then end up pouring over obscure areas that people came up with, so it will be left for now.

Sorry about that.

[Old Blue]

What is the object of the areas display?

Edit: For me they are there to be accurate, if there is only one pub in an estate, then it is fine to put it in that area. If there are 100's of pubs in a central area, then that is fine, areas are not an attempt to replace the postcode system and have exactly 30 pubs in each area. They should exist to serve those who are looking to find a pub in a named area for whatever reason and are searching for that, also they should make up for the weaknesses in the Postal Town naming convention (where towns can exist in Postal towns) - if you are looking to find localities of pubs there is always the maps.

So if you think that you would go to Google and look for a pub in North Barnsley, then having a Barnsley North area makes sense. That is just my interpretation though.

I actually shouldn't have posted on this thread and will now leave it be.

I think ideally the object ought to be to assist the site user as best it can in relation to any of the things the user might want to use the site to do. Primarily, to help the user find a pub he is looking for, or a pub in an area he is looking at. Also perhaps to help a user to understand the pub geography of an area he is going to but is not intimate with, for the purposes of planning visits, crawls etc. My point was not that there ought to be a 'standard' way of arranging areas for different towns, or that there is any case for losing accuracy in favour of anything else, simply that there may be different ways of doing it for any town, I think we all want to get the site looking as good as it can, and it would be useful to make sure we're not working against each other in this respect.

Although I can see the areas display may not be of much use to those PuG stalwarts who might already be intimate with the pub geography of places they may go to, or seek advice in the forum if not, I do find it useful myself. I think that being able to look at a page of pubs in an area one may be going to, to look at different pages for different localities nearby, and to print these off if desired, are features whereby this site is potentially a lot more user-friendly than others in ways that are likely to be appreciated by less well established users, and that they are worth doing as best we can for that reason.

[Conrad]

I am not sure how any of what you said has anything to do with the compass points. They are being used for a catch all where the area is not known, and that is why they are being rejected.

One of the ones that left me laughing when I heard about it The New Inn was placed into West Bath (Bath West). I lived in Bath for many years, it is a new one to hear about an East or West Bath on me. Bath can be subdivided into North and South based on the river, or BA1 and BA2 if you are so inclined. Given the existence of a Bath Weston and Batheaston the concept of making up these compass points is just plain confusing and ridiculous. All of which is a bit of a red herring as Monmouth Street is 2 minutes walk from the main shopping Street and between the largest City Centre car park and the shops.

If the areas exist all well and good, but we are at the point where the compass points are being used as a lazy trap for lack of local knowledge. And in the case of the example I gave is actually creating something disingenuous.

[Dave M]

I'm still working from the principle of areas in the middle of a city where they are not in any named district should have the Central suffix. So if it is just Barnsley then call it Barnsley Central.

Where I've been seeing compass points suggested that I think are just there as a stop gap for pubs not in the shopping centre or not within the ring road then I have generally merged them into the central area. After all it made no sense to me to have an area like Barnsley West that had a number of pubs that are still in Barnsley (Gawber district) yet are west of Barnsley West.

Where I've felt there might be a name for an area I've rejected them so that someone with good local knowledge can hopefully fill us in, which is what I felt about the Leicester ones.

As to Farways issues with the the naming of Southsea Central, my take would be that if Southsea Central has a specific meaning then we should call it Southsea Town. Then anything that is just Southsea is put into Southsea Town.