Places: Wiki format

Talk Discussion in 'BeerAdvocate Talk' started by Stevedore, Apr 3, 2013.

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  1. Stevedore

    Stevedore Grand Pooh-Bah (5,096) Nov 16, 2012 Oregon
    Pooh-Bah Trader

    Saw yet another "What to do in Chicago?" thread show up in the Great Lakes subforum (http://beeradvocate.com/community/threads/what-to-do-in-chicago.79351/). People have resorted to blanketpasting links to similar threads in these situations. To a lesser extent, I see the same for Madison, at least 3-4 in the last week alone. As in the above thread, I think we should consider Wiki functionality if possible.

    My proposed solution would be to add a new Wiki function to the Places section of the site, at least for the major cities. Beerfly is nice for looking up reviews on public houses and bottle shops when you know where you'll be. The big city links on Beerfly is nice for providing a layout of recently rated places which are going to tend to be the more popular places, but I find it a bit clunky- e.g. I recently visited the Twin Cities and stayed in a suburb- I have to look up the suburb on Beerfly, and then surrounding suburbs individually to see what's around, as well as St. Paul and Minneapolis themselves. So it's a bit clunky and one has to use it methodically to do some beer research.

    But I think a Wiki of some sort where BAs who have had long enough membership (1, 2+ years), or are moderators, or whatever other criteria you deem fit can make/propose changes/additions, etc. would serve the purpose of 1) helping people find better beer at better places as well as find fun stuff to do instead of spending valuable time on their trip looking for fun stuff to do, 2) reduce the amount of repetitive "What to do in Big City?" thread topics in regional sub-forums , 3) make beer research for large metropolitan areas a bit easier, and most importantly, 4) give bored BAs more stuff to do to waste time.

    Thoughts?
     
  2. Todd

    Todd Founder (13,518) Aug 23, 1996 Finland
    STAFF Mod Team Society Pooh-Bah

    Places will be getting a major overhaul with the site redesign.

    I'm not sure a wiki-format is ideal, but we're listening to all suggestions.
     
    flexabull, Roguer, Ri0 and 4 others like this.
  3. Stevedore

    Stevedore Grand Pooh-Bah (5,096) Nov 16, 2012 Oregon
    Pooh-Bah Trader

    Thanks for listening- I'm looking forward to seeing what it looks like after the redesign.

    I suppose a Wiki format would require more manpower and time, more oversight on the part of moderators or whoever you choose to monitor these pages. But if this were to work, I think there would be more real-time updating/monitoring of information from locals, by locals for everyone, and all the changes made would still be trackable over time.

    I've used wikitravel.org when traveling in Europe to look up neighborhoods, restaurants and watering holes that cater to my demographic and I think a beer-focused version would be absolutely fantastic.
     
    nloetz likes this.
  4. opwog

    opwog Initiate (0) Jun 16, 2008 Minnesota

    Here is a suggestion that would be nice to see/have on this site or an app; to be able to enter an address and then be able to see a map layout pinpointing what is around you within selectable distances. Beer Where app works that way with GPS basing it on wherever you are, but BW's database is also filled with a lot of crap. Ratebeer's app will also do it based on your location, but they don't link back to see how the business rates on their site. The best would be to have a database of places like BA has that worked (on the app side) where it uses GPS location and shows overall rating of the places (also ability to select place "type" like store, brewery, etc.). But also on the full site side of things, to be able to enter an address and then have the same selection show up as if you were physically at that address and using GPS locator. The idea being that I frequently find myself having to go some place that is non-beer related and want to know in advance what my options will be to get a beer before or afterwards.

    The way that the site currently works and even when people start threads like "I will be visting LA, any suggestions?" If you are looking at the list or if two different people contribute to a thread recommending places like Fathers Office II and Verdugo, with traffic and such a large metropolitan area, the place that you are originally going to LA for, may take close to two hours to get to either place. Or if you simply thought that both places sounded good and decided to only do the two beer stops, they can be an hour+ from each other. I think that a mapping functionality like I am suggesting entering addresses in advance and seeing surrounding locations by distance, type and displaying rating; would actually be a little more practical that a wiki format which would have to be grown organically through user contribution, one area at a time and ultimately still wouldn't give any relationship between multiple places.
     
    Sludgeman likes this.
  5. nloetz

    nloetz Initiate (0) Jun 2, 2005 Austria

    I also use wikitravel, but I'm not sure it is ideal. I'd really like to see a google map kind of thing on here!
     
  6. Kinsman

    Kinsman Maven (1,457) Aug 26, 2009 Nevada

    A potential solution that may be quicker to implement would be a sticky thread at the top of each regional forum covering all the popular destinations that people create numerous threads about. Using the collective knowledge of those locals or other travelers who are familiar with these places, these threads would sort of provide a FAQ section for each destination that any user to contribute to. For example, in the New England forum it seems like there 1-2 new threads a week asking many of the same old questions about making a trip/beer haul to VT for Heady Topper, Lawsons, and Hill Farmstead. The usual questions vary from where to stay, where to eat, what days each brewery delivers, and other questions like that, but having one sticky right at the top would hopefully get people to read that before they create a new thread asking something thats been answered a thousand times before. Another thread for Boston/Cambridge and another for Seacoast NH/Maine and I think the New England forum could be noticeable less cluttered.
     
  7. SaCkErZ9

    SaCkErZ9 Grand Pooh-Bah (3,057) Feb 27, 2005 South Carolina
    Pooh-Bah Trader

    In most cases, if you go to Google maps and type "Beeradvocate" in the search box, many of the places on BA will show up. I have been clamoring for something better for years, hopefully something will be implemented.
     
  8. grilledsquid

    grilledsquid Initiate (0) Jul 10, 2009 California
    Trader

    This has to be one of the most needed features to be implemented IMO. I think the idea of having a sticky on each regional subforum would be great as that is where people usually look first. This is a case where the community is, ultimately, responsible for the maintenance and updating of the information as I wouldn't expect The Bros and the mods to vet each place listed.
     
  9. otispdriftwood

    otispdriftwood Initiate (0) Dec 9, 2011 Colorado

    My traveling research goes like this:

    1. Use map to see where places are: https://www.beeradvocate.com/ratebeer/?path=/Places/RegionMap.asp?rid=0
    2. Write down names of places and check them out on BeerAdvocate.
    3. Make a list of places I want to visit based on reviews and general feel from the places' websites.

    For me, half of the fun is in the discovery and using all of the resources at my disposal. By using the map, I find everything I want - stores, bars, brewpubs & breweries. The only drawback is that I don't believe the maps show everyplace there is but when I look up a place on this site, it shows others close-by in the margins so I'll cross-check my list with that list.
     
  10. dbrauneis

    dbrauneis Grand High Pooh-Bah (8,071) Dec 8, 2007 North Carolina
    Mod Team BA4LYFE Society Pooh-Bah Trader

    I do something similar and if I find places on the other website or by being referred by locals, I try to make sure to add them to this site.

    I tend not to use the BeerFly guides but rather use the names of each of the different cities especially if I am not going to a major city... I use a map to figure out other cities/towns nearby.
     
  11. metter98

    metter98 Grand High Pooh-Bah (7,303) Aug 29, 2006 New York
    Mod Team Society Pooh-Bah

    I really like the interactive map of places with geolocation on BeerAdvocate Mobile Beta (http://beeradvocate.com/m/nearby). The only drawbacks I've noticed so far are that you can't access place reviews when clicking on a place (only basic details such as its name, address and website are provided) and if you want to search for places near another location, you need to keep on panning in the map away from your current location.

    Before this feature was available, I used to look up places in the location(s) I was visiting and added them as placemarks on a custom Google map to determine what places were nearby. Now I can skip the process of looking at another map to find out the names of adjacent cities or find a ZIP code map so I could limit the search to a particular neighborhood of a large city.
     
    dbrauneis likes this.
  12. jmw

    jmw Initiate (0) Feb 4, 2009 North Carolina

    This has been suggested and declined many times. A sticky thread such as this will never garner full agreement of the locals and will always have detractors and full-on arguments, but the main reason is that someone will have to commit to updating it--sticky threads are static (if not, they are discussions by nature).
    Now, a thread that is started by locals, updated by locals, and kept to a minimum of actual talk could be devised, and then it could be linked in a response to those inevitable queries which come in from someone who is entirely too lazy to do their own search or feels that their plans are much more narrow and sophisticated than all other queries with almost exactly the same thread title. But good luck with that, as an open thread of this sort will no doubt eventually become trashed with disagreement and homerism.
    Unless of course you happen to be in the UK (hint) and can agree on such things civilly and make a pact to control unnecessary chatter in that actual thread.
     
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