Official Northeast Merger Discussion Thread

I don't know what to tell you. My user experience won't be impacted very much. I rely on my Watched threads. I periodically would check in on the New England forum to see if anything was new or if something caught my eye. If there was, I'd add it to my watch list.

My focus is on Watched threads, not checking the regional forum daily. So I'll treat the merging of the regions the same way. Mid-Atlantic, no offense to those there, was not on my radar except for Suarez, which I watched that thread. I'll check the merged thread periodically, like I did with New England, sort by last message, and if something interests me I'll watch it. Then I'm good.

While it doesn't improve my user experience, it also doesn't make it so bad that I need to leave and or take a break.

 

I think the worst thing that came out of the merge is this thread.

 

So has it switched back yet? It’s seems overwhelmingly to be the wish

 

More discussion of what? How a few extra clicks is going to bog down our days. Many of us are probably on here too much/too long as is. Can't satisfy everyone. Change isn't easy and or fun sometimes. If more discussion is the same old jokes regurgitated, have at it.

 

At this point I'm going to be genuinely upset if it gets switched back. It really is functionally better for the way I use BA and, much more importantly, it's pissing off whiny people. Win-win baby.

 

So, it picks up, but it's not going to be nonsense? This thread is not great evidence of that. This thread is hardly something I want to follow on a regular basis, if at all.

I'm not concerned with traffic. I curate this site for my experience and it works for me. If it's that difficult for others figure out how to do that for them, I can't be too worried about it.

I like when threads are active, but not like this thread. I want information and experience of what's actually in the thread, not bitching about how it's set up.

Again, some users in this thread are on here an obscene amount of time, myself included sometimes, so I find it amusing that it's so troubling to work around this.

 

Yeah same here. I had both regions bookmarked (predominantly mid-atlantic, but liked to stay up to date on HF, FF and to pop into the Treehouse train wreck; plus if I walk 10 mins east I’m in - shudder - CT; so picked up some local-ish ideas in the NE region too).

 

lol, hurt is a relative term. You can focus on my word choice, I could have said "It helps bigger breweries more than it help's smaller one". It's a pretty simple concept, this change will result in the front page consisting of the most active threads of the two merged forums which also generally results in larger breweries getting more time on these forums.

Also, just so you know, whining about other people whining is just as annoying. I think you've got an above average post rate on here complaining about the complaints. So stop your whining

 

You have nothing to apologize for; you did the community a favor. This thread served as the informal mixer for our new hang out. Nothing brings people together like a common gripe!

There's certainly been a lot of the same point being made back and forth but such is BeerAdvocate.


To my pals exploring "Alerts" for the first time, perhaps I can share a bit of experience.

Sometimes it's tricky to keep up with alerts if you click the alert but don't go to the new pages of a thread. If you feel like you haven't heard from a regularly updated thread in a few days, you'll probably notice there was a new page.

 

Given the previous overreaction in this very thread (and in previous ones with people caring way too much about imaginary internet points), the sarcasm was not obvious. And it was a straight forward response - BA mainly awards BK points for reviews, so that's the main way to increase it.

 

Not a fan of this merge at all. As others have mentioned, it's a pain to have to scroll through so many irrelevant threads to get to things of interest. If I cared what was going on in states far away, I would check those forums. Weird to make this change during a time period when most people are also limiting regional travel. Will this change ruin my life? Obviously not, but it's super annoying.

 

The proliferation of brewery taprooms coincides pretty much with the rise of (NE)IPA. To be fair my sample size is pretty small, but around here (Suffolk County, NY) the early taprooms didn't, and even some newer ones don't, emphasize NEIPA. Remember Andy Capp comic strip? In one strip, Andy was passing by a brewery and thought, "Too much to do, too little time to do it in." Why would I travel afar to get a beer that I might never be able to find again? It sounds like work. These days I prefer a local, reliable supply of beer I know will be there for more than a couple of weeks. (In the old days, I did visit breweries. I still have a "Cartwright Portland Beer" poster handed to my by the owner in about 1980.)

 

I was going to add OEC and East Rock but was beat to it. So I will add Relic, Firefly Hollow, and Kinsmen.

 

In PA, it was totally driven by when the PLCB allowed breweries to operate a taproom without an additional liquor license or traditional brewpub license - and also be able to serve PA-produced hard cider/wine/liquor as well.

 

While we're sharing BA tips/tricks (and I now have twice as many pals that might have ideas), anybody got ideas for how to update my homepage so I don't have to see all of Todd's reviews? Do I need to follow people that actually do review? Do I just need to not go to the homepage?

 

Ah gotcha, I was confused when you said, “The next time you check it it initiates”. It works the same way as when I get a notification on a thread when someone quotes me or likes my post.

This reminds me why I likely never used the “watched threads” function when it first came out (jeez, have I been on here that long?).

I usually will go days and sometimes a week without looking at my notifications because my alerts will go away once I recognize them. So I won’t check them unless I have more than 5-10 minutes to check those threads.

Otherwise I just pop in and check the New England forum to see what’s new, and maybe a thread or two on the main forum.

I’m really cool so I get like 10-30 notifications at a pop, I don’t want to add watched threads to that.

But seriously, thanks for clarifying, I appreciate it.

Yes, this is what I meant, thanks for clarifying.

HAHA, nice. You win this thread.

And this is what my overall point is and what my gripe is. If it doesn’t improve the user experience, even marginally, why leave it in place?

I wouldn’t have an issue if people really liked it and there were more reasons why it improved the user experience. For example, I used to love having just a Top 100 list. They expanded it to 250. While this doesn’t impact me much, and I liked the Top 100, people seem to dig the Top 250.

But hey, we’re going around in circles now. There’s a poll in the other thread to track users’ preferences. If it stays as is, I’ll definitely get used to it. And I’ll welcome my brethren from other regions...even New Yorkers.

 

MY experience. Maybe it improves for some, not so for others.

Circles for sure.