Best post ever!

(the one above)

Snobs!

God seriously! Thanks Kahunna – but my search for "common sense" turned up "no matches found". Methinks the newbies will still turn up empty.

Have the newbies ever read anything with "newbies" in the subject line?

Judging by the response to this thread? nope.

That is some funny shit!!!!!!!

And it all pertains to my dumbass!!!!!

But if you can’t laugh at yourself who can you laugh at….

Cheers from a NEWBIE!!!!!!!!!

Great thread, but there’s a problem though… You think newbies will click here before starting a new thread?? They rarely do (Jester remembers her days as a newbie)

I want to go to Italy, where should I go?

Like that topic never came up before!

What amazes me the most is how ltb continually (and more than thoroughly) helps out people. I just couldn’t be that nice and helpful. ALthough if nayone asks about Montenegro or Serbia or Georgia, some place that hasn’t been covered by everyone here I am more than happy to do it.

There is so much wicked information in the archive, not searching is really harming the n00b as a lot of us can’t be arsed to add our 2 cents which we added a long time ago (but not out of date!)

With interest that is about 4 cents by now.

Search. Word up.

Yeah I agree. I mean me too, I’m glad to help out on Bosnia, Serbia, Montenegro, and the Baltics, prob. my best areas of speciality, but what can you say when people say they want to go to Europe for the first time to see London, Paris, AMS, etc. Ok, so go there…great, nothing wrong with that, but there’s just too much out there for it to make any sense for us to add stuff w/o them searching.

Good link there Kolby….but like others said on here, I think there are no "newbies" on this thread, you scared them all off.

My personal pet peeve is when people post once, for the first time, get a lot of good answers, and never post again.

Anyhow, have a good w/e all!

-A

My personal fave was some guy about a year ago who posted "Which is better, Venice of Florence?" and I proceeded to write a really lengthy response. The thread died, but then, two months later, another thread was created by the same guy on that very topic. I linked him back to his old thread and my response. His respone? "Oops, yeah, sorry, I forgot about that."

Sometimes you wonder how people manage to brush their teeth and pay bills, much less travel around Europe!

See Hope, it might have also been funny to just reply:

"Venice"

and not give any reason why or more information. Even scarier would be if the OP would just go with that, and do no more research.

I’m trying that next time. Or if someone posts a question about their 1 week London, Paris, Amsterdam trip, asking if it looks nice, I might just say, "No" and leave it at that

-A

There should be a sticky thread with the top ten or twenty most informative threads. For instance, I remember a multi-page thread about general travel advice that’s been kicked up to the front every once in a while. It seems like that single thread answers a handful of questions I see on here every month.

But some of you remind me of that inspirational story about that beach with thousands of washed-up clams and the guy trying to save them. All you can do is help one at a time.

Bumping it up…

Yeah I think one of the problems with this board is that there are no stickies, not even one with posting guidelines. I’ve seen so many threads that I felt like replying just "we need more information" to. Sometimes I’m in a good mood and I’ll do that, sometimes I’m not and they’ll just have to figure it out for themselves.

Bumpity bump bump….

This messageboard also has way too many members. It also needs to be moderated a bit more.

Also, ive been reading this board for a few years, but whenever I post a question or information, people love to act like they know it all or are more "cultured" than others. That has definetly put me away from this board in the past year.

Maybe there should be a section on posting information about countries and what you liked or disliked. No questions, just information. Also, special memories or embarassing moments.

My 2 cents

Up!

Good one to bump…

There has to be someone with the power to create stickies. That’s a great idea that would help out a lot on here. Esp. on the Cheap Flight forum, there is always this list of 50 booking engines, and people always have to BUMP it up… silliness really…

Uhmmm…. It’s true that some Newbiez are asking questions for answers that may be found all over the INet!!!
Maybe that’s why I answer just the ones that point to Croatia or where I live or I’ve been, assuming that the question makes sense!

It’s also true that the majority of the so called "stupid" questions are due to the copletely lack of whatsoever knowledge of history and geography! So I’d suggest to the Newbiez first to learn more, to know better where they’ll go…. That’ll surely avoid some postings like what is better Florence or Rome ‘cause there is no answer!!! Apart being so personal due to almost everything that happend to you there, the two places are two different cities… I may say I prefer Florence, but than I shoud also write a novel to explain why (cause I met a nice girl there!!!!! …..
So, I’ll, like others do as I see, concentrate in what I know better… Croatia! and if U need INFO about Venezia NP… I’m just 10km from it

Ciao by Appis

Uhmmm…. maybe would be also an useful thing to divide better the main forum site. Like adding more rooms, to divide europe to countries/cities. That could allow users to read more and to post less (maybe). Because now it’s really tough to expect that someone searches the page number 44 for a needed topic.
To create stickies like Auher says would help too!

Ciao

Unfortunately, I don’t think Wandrian really cares, and I don’t think anyone else has the power to make these sort of changes. This is the only board I visit that doesn’t have stickies, and seems to be completely unmoderated (anyone have any idea who MiM is, and why s/he doesn’t ever interfere?). I guess this is the reason why TOS was started. That’s like 2 years ago, and things have only gotten worse.

Yeah, but the regulars are cooler here. ^^

Totally agree with you guys here….esp. on the parts about how we should get some new forums….

maybe something broken down like W. Europe, Balkans, E. Euro, C. Euro, etc… you get the idea.

I actually just sent a message to contact@eurotrip.com & andrew… we’ll have to see if anything comes of that.

I too think this is one of the best and most interesting sites out there, it’s just that it hasn’t exactly "kept with the times" as far as discussion boards go. Hopefully we will be able to bring it into the 21st century!!

-A

Hmm, auher, that will only lead to more problems!

Where does Slovakia fall? Eastern? Central?

Romania – Balkan or Eastern?

We’ll have to divide up Europe a la Yalta conference just to make the categories!

I am interested to see what Wandrian says about this. It is a great idea, and requires very little of their effort and only helps them.

They should really do it.

Kudos for trying mate!

Perhaps the division should be similar to the interrail zones, or something else that’s fairly neutral and doesn’t lead to endless arguments?

Sure, but people will still post in the wrong categories all the time!

Look at the Thorn Tree.

Right, Favorite Places is were people post questions just about everything. And something has to be done with the Search feature. I mean, it just doesn’t work! Just a little while ago someone brought up the subject of Neuschwanstein Castle, but I could not find that post! Guess I’ll have to start a new one

On the other note, it just amazes me how well this board does being essentially neither moderated nor maintained

Yes, but people also post questions about transport in the hostels forum. And the Thorn Tree is just confusing.

Here’s my propostion for dividing Europe into regions. Note that some of them overlap (as they do in reality):
– Scandinavia and the Baltics: Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania
– CIS: Russia, Belarus, Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, Azerbaijan (sp?), Armenia
– NW Europe: Denmark, Germany, Benelux, France
– Central Europe: Poland, Germany, Slovakia, Czech Republic, Hungary, Austria, Slovenia
– the British isles: Great Britain, Ireland
– Alps: Spain, Andorra, France, Switserland, Liechtenstein, Austria, Italy, Slovenia
– Mediteranean: Portugal, Spain, France, Monaco, Malta, Italy, San Marino, Vatican City, Slovenia, Croatia, Montenegro, Albania, Greece, Turkey, Cyprus + North Africa (as many people combine this with a trip to Europe)
– Balkan/SE Europe: Slovenia, Croatia, Bosnia, Serbia/Montenegro, Macedonia, Albania, Greece, Romania, Moldova, Bulgaria, Turkey

Also, there should be a "first-timers" forum with a good many stickies.

I was just thinking, I don’t have you on any sort of IM program. Send me an email and tell me what works for you, seraph.

As for you posting.. I smell an argument! Yeehaw!

quote:- Scandinavia and the Baltics: Norway, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Iceland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania

Yeah, thats perfect. Questions about Kaliningrad are also accepted.

quote:- the British isles: Great Britain, Ireland

Also, "grouse." And by that, I mean "good."

For the rest, there seems to be some overlap. ie. The Mediterrean and Balkan portion where some can be twice, or in Slovenia’s case, three times (+central)

The CIS one is good, although Im sure many wont even understand what CIS means or what a Georgia or Belarus is. I might even consider Moldova as Balkan, depending on how I feel that day. Not that the question ever comes up.

We could have a Caucausus area but that would only benefit auher and myself. And you, as you will end up there one day.

—-p.s. do you have my emails from there?

I think the LP style break up of West/Central/East is the best way to do it (sorry as some people dont like being labelled as "Eastern" European) as that seems the easiest for the casual user.

All of your ideas are great, I am just lacking the faith in the below average user to make a go of that. Simpler the better I reckon.

Hah!

I knew I would open a can of worms by suggesting those kind of geographic divisions. I think that Serap’s breakdowns are actually quite logical, and we could definitly go with something like that. No one way would make everyone happy, and somehow, someone will try to convince us that:

a) Estonia, Lat, & Lith are in Central Euro, or CIS, even though Scandinavia is more logical for them.
b) Turkey isn’t part of Europe
c) Slovenia should be C. Europe, while Croatia eastern, and Bosnia Balkan.

Then it will erupt into discussions if we should have a seperate forum for the semi-autonomous areas attempting to break away from nations, a sort of rebels gallery. Possibly made up of:

The Trans-Dniester region of Moldova
Chechnya
S. Ossestia (sp)
Montenegro
Kosovo
Eastern Ukraine

So basically, we will be asking Wandrian to create approx 200 new forums, one for each country )))

Just kidding on all this, if they really reply at some point, I’ll let you all know and see if we might get on this. I agree it wouldn’t be hard at all for them to do, but I have a strange suspicion that absolutely no one maintains this site.

Don is the only moderator that I know exists, over in the cheap flights forum. Maybe he could offer us some insight on how to get in touch with the powers that be???

-A

Sickboy, I don’t think I have any sort of IM program, but you have my e-mail adress, right? And yes, I think I kept all of your e-mails from the Caucasus and other places.

One could have just a western Meditarean section, excluding all the countries I put in the SE section (and adding Cyprus to that one), but it seems like a lot of people take ferries across the Adriatic between Italy and Croatia or Greece, so to me it would make most sense to have all the countries bordering the Meditarenean (I’ve had too much wine topday to bother with spelling), including the non-European ones, in one section. I don’t think the overlap is a huge problem. Also if someone would post, say, a question on Romania in the Central Europe section, that wouldn’t be a reason not to answer, but if someone posted a question on Spain in the Scandinavia section, that post should be moved, but since moving posts isn’t done on this forum, someone telling the poster nicely to look at an atlas would be appropriate.

I think using west/central/east as the only division could only lead to endless argument and confusion. Where does one begin, and the other end? And isn’t there a lot of overlap in those, too?

I wouldn’t put the Baltic states with the CIS countries despites clear historical grounds to do so, mainly because they are much more accesible if you don’t want to deal with visas and all that shit. I could see Lithuania in Central Europe, but not Estonia, and it does seem most logical to keep them together.

quote:
I have a strange suspicion that absolutely no one maintains this site.

Now where would you get an idea like that?

Most of the people who started TOS were moderators, and part of their frustration was exactly that they couldn’t get in touch with Wandrian, or basically do anything.

Forgive my ignorance, what/were is TOS?

"TOS" stands for "The Other Site". Look at my profile.

quote:Also if someone would post, say, a question on Romania in the Central Europe section, that wouldn’t be a reason not to answer

Quote:

I have a strange suspicion that absolutely no one maintains this site.

I would even dare to say that Romania could be considered, with no much exageration, in Central Europe (looking on a map of Europe, analisyng the distance from the Atlantic Ocean to Ural Mts, you’ll see why )

All best,
Radu[url=‘http://www.outdoorholiday.com’ title=‘Vacations in Romania, TRansylvania’]Travelling in Romania[/url]