Help Forums

I was thinking about this for a while, do you think Jeff should add a Help Forum area in reguarding asking for help to parks, directions, hours ext instead of posting it in the General Buzz have it seperate forum area. I like this idea my self does anyone else? What are your opions?
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17 Parks In the 2001 Season! 105 Coasters in Track Record.

Yeah that would be an excellent idea, many members are always posting about info or directions in the general buzz. It would help to get more of the members questions answered.

This is a great idea. Here are some more ideas for this type of section...

http://www.coasterbuzz.com/forums/thread.asp?ForumID=20&TopicID=3812

If members would just do a little footwork for themselves, they could find park hours and directions from the park's website. As far as asking about lines on a certain day, I think that's just silly and shouldn't be asked in any forum. Just my 2 cents...

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Joshua Wilcox
"The sum of the intelligence on the planet is a constant. However, the population is growing"

Of course they could. Could they find out that using a back entrance to the park would allow them to access certain rides faster than the main gate? Could they find out which day of the week has the lightest crowds at a given park? How about where to pick up discount coupons or what local roads are under construction? That information can only be obtained from a regular visitor of the park. The sort of advice in this section should be submitted by locals for use by non-locals. It should be the sort of information they could not get from an official park website.

*** This post was edited by Camel@Work on 10/12/2001. ***

The problem I have with what some people call "help" is that I call it laziness. Airhead is right. How many times does someone ask "when is the park open" or "what's the park's Web site?" There is so much you can find out about any park or ride just by looking around this site and doing a little work yourself. Did you know that every park page has a list of sites that focus on that park? Look up Cedar Point or Six Flags Magic Mountain and see what I mean.

I also can't stand the "will the park be crowded" posts. Hmmm... what do weather, the day of the week, time of year, holidays and school all have in common? They all determine what kind of crowd a park will have.

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Jeff - Webmaster/Admin - CoasterBuzz.com
"As far as I can tell it doesn't matter who you are. If you can believe there's something worth fighting for..." - Garbage, "Parade"

While I agree that a lot of the information that is asked for can be found through other (sometimes obvious) sources or even by using common sense, I also think that there is a lot of helpful information that is not found elsewhere. I have made this case before and I still think there is a use for this sort of feature. The people who visit a park most often have tips and "secrets" that would be very helpful to first-time visitors. Of course you can get by without them, but why wouldn't you want to know what someone thinks is a great tip for a park you are planning on visiting?
It would do a little of what GTTP does for Cedar Point goers... give them an taste of what the insiders already know. Wouldn't that benefit the coasterbuzz community?

*** This post was edited by Camel@Work on 10/15/2001. ***

Sure it would, but it doesn't need its own forum. More forums fragment the discussion more than I'd like. Remember, before the site launched as we know it, I had a "placeholder" that had individual park forums. They went nowhere.

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Jeff - Webmaster/Admin - CoasterBuzz.com
"As far as I can tell it doesn't matter who you are. If you can believe, there's something worth fighting for..." - Garbage, "Parade"

I do remember... and yes, those individual forums weren't as effective as the general one. I still think it would be nice to be able to access a database of tips, but I understand that the implementation would not be as easy as adding a forum. It's always so easy for people like me to point out what needs to be done without actually doing anything. ;) That said, I want to make it clear that I appreciate this site and all the hard work that has gone (and continues to go) into it. Thanks.

I appreciate your comments. Maybe there is some way to implement such a system... I just wish I had more time.

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Jeff - Webmaster/Admin - CoasterBuzz.com
"As far as I can tell it doesn't matter who you are. If you can believe, there's something worth fighting for..." - Garbage, "Parade"

Maybe it's a silly idea... could the Trip Reports forum be renamed "Trip Reports/Trip Tips" or something? Those so motivated could post a report of helpful information for a park, as some people in this topic are asking about, or a report of a visit to a park. Specific parks could be located with the ever-useful search function.