Completed site release (The areas release)

[Old Blue]

I was also wondering about greater london suburbs, and whilst there might be a straightforward "just do whatever feels like it's most useful and least confusing to site visitors" answer, thought this might be worth floating for views. Taking Surbiton as an example I think well known to several prolific posters, currently it has 27 open pubs, of which only one is in an area, Long Ditton (I suspect that may have happened because of unexciting reasons to do with the administrative and postal boundaries not marrying up) and that feels a bit silly. We could either (a) get rid of the Long Ditton area and just keep everything under Surbiton, on the basis that it's not a very big area and 27 isn't a great deal of pubs that actually needs dividing up further, or (b) divide the rest up into areas.

The most logical way to divide up, thinking about distances between pubs so it might be useful when planning a crawl, and also based on generally accepted area names might be to have the following areas:
Tolworth - 5 pubs
Berrylands - 5
Hook - 2 (this could also pick up a couple of Hook pubs that are in Chessington postal town, if you can do that)
Long Ditton - 1
Surbiton Town, or Surbiton Town Centre - 17 pubs
which adds up to 30 as there are 3 pubs I'd put in two areas because they're somewhere in between.

Lots of people on the river side of Surbiton have been calling their bit 'Surbiton Village' in recent years, and would doubtless prefer that, which would potentially take 7 pubs out of Surbiton Town and into a new area of Surbiton Village. Though I'd be inclined not to do that as (a) Surbiton Village isn't a generally recognised description, thus could be confusing (b) there's not really enough distance between them to make this a particularly useful distinction when e.g. planning crawls (c) you could get into an argument over whether 3 of the 7 pubs actually qualified for inclusion in the 'village', and (d) there is a school of thought that 'Surbiton Village' as a concept only reflects some of its residents being completely up themselves.

Finally, one could put one of the pubs in an area called 'Seething Wells', which they make much of on their website, but that would seem to be a ridiculous distinction to make on this site.

Whilst writing, I'm coming round to my original thought that doing whatever feels best might be the simple answer.

[oldboots]

It certainly looks good and apart from the point others have made - that it's not easy to sift out the pubs in the place the postal district is named after - it works fine for me. I have updated York with a York Central and three new areas but it's not so easy to decide where some areas begin and end as RR, I think, said on the London thread. Did I understand you correctly Conrad when you said you'd like us to put all the central pubs into an area called XYZ Central for each postal area?

[Millay]

Thanks for some of the explanations, it's becoming a bit clearer with use. I've had a look at my local area, Watford, and the outlying areas are already there.

Is it possible to have a pub in two postal areas? for instance this one is in the postal town of Watford but geographically is closer to the postal town of Bushey, being just outside Bushey train station. Can I allocate it to the Bushey page without screwing anything up?

[Old Blue]

Millay
if the issue you have here is the same as one of the ones I've been struggling with, I think the answer is that each pub can only be in one postal town, but that we can now set up areas to show when pubs are near to each other even if they appear under different postal towns. So if you create an 'area' which describes the locality, and allocate that to the relevant pubs on both sides of the 'postal town' divide, they should then be visible together in the area view.

Though I'd appreciate Conrad or Dave's confirmation, as I've just tried to do this with Hook, and want to do it in some other places, like Weston Green where pubs on opposite sides of the road appear separately under Esher or Thames Ditton postal towns.

[Conrad]

(b) divide the rest up into areas.

Definitely this, a major point of this release is to allow more areas to come into existence. Do what you feel is right is my message, if someone disagrees they have they option to request it removed from the area.

Did I understand you correctly Conrad when you said you'd like us to put all the central pubs into an area called XYZ Central for each postal area?

Yep, your busy work is much appreciated and exactly what we were driving at, hopefully will also alleviate the issue of the town relating to the district.

There is a slight question mark over whether this makes sense for smaller postal districts, but that is only in the sense of naming convention. I am receptive to others thinking on that, my only concern is to keep it simple (for the sake of my poor brain).

Is it possible to have a pub in two postal areas? for instance this one is in the postal town of Watford but geographically is closer to the postal town of Bushey, being just outside Bushey train station. Can I allocate it to the Bushey page without screwing anything up?

I'm afraid where postal towns are concerned we are staying resolute. We look them up on Royal Mail and stick them in there, it is the one solid point of reference we have. What is allowed under this new system is: if there is a 'Bushey Central' area in 'Bushey' Postal Town, The Victoria can be added to the 'Bushey Central' area even though it is in a different postal town (it would help if you added a pub in 'Bushey' to 'Bushey Central' first so that 'Bushey Central' knows it belongs in 'Bushey' though).

I hope that all makes sense, this new system is going to take some getting used to.

Edit: overlapping post with Old Blue, what you say is correct. Hopefully this outlines it in a little more detail, happy to clarify anything though.

[Al 10000]

Ah right having read Oggwyn's post I take it that basically somewhere like Bridport is small enough that it is a central area in it's own right. I take your point but I would like something that could be consistent across the whole site, so you could apply it to Bristol equally as well as Bridport.

My reasoning is to cut down on our overhead of checking it, but also just so that you know what to look for if you are used to the site.

How do others feel about the 'central' area in general? I am trying to decide how wedded I am to it now.

Hi Conrad,


Having read recent posts i think the problem is with smaller towns like Bridport, Beverley and Dronfield they used to have there own seperate list of pubs in that town but now the other villages close to the town are included in the towns list.
I have just had a look at Beverley and i car'nt seperate the smaller villages from the Beverley list.

At the top of the towns main page there is a list across the top with the villages in that towns area if i click on a village i will see the pubs in that village seperatly but there is no town name at the top to click onto,if you added for example Bridport or Beverley to the list at the top of the main page then when we clicked onto that towns name we would then get a list of the pubs that are in Bridport or Beverley and not a list with the villages mixed in with it.

Cheers Alan

[Al 10000]

Hi Conrad,

Sorry to bother you again but how do you make a new area eg Nottingham central.
I was going to sort out the Notttingham area but dont have any idea how to do this.

Thanks Alan

[ROBCamra]

Hi Conrad,

Sorry to bother you again but how do you make a new area eg Nottingham central.
I was going to sort out the Notttingham area but dont have any idea how to do this.

Thanks Alan

Alan, I've just added an area called Nottingham Central and put The Approach in it.

It should now appear as an option on the list for you.

[Al 10000]

Alan, I've just added an area called Nottingham Central and put The Approach in it.

It should now appear as an option on the list for you.

Hi Rob,

Ive just had a look and i car'nt see a Nottingham central option on the main page or on the Approach's page.

Alan

[ROBCamra]

Hi Rob,

Ive just had a look and i car'nt see a Nottingham central option on the main page or on the Approach's page.

Alan

Alan, It works for me as I've just added the Canalhouse to Central.

Try clicking on the Olde Trip, click on correct details and then select Setup pub locations. Nottingham Central is in the list of areas you can choose.

Cheers