What's the most active regional board?

[ipsedixit]

Is it Los Angeles? Followed closely by San Francisco? Or vice versa? With third being Manhattan?

I wonder why Los Angeles and/or San Francisco are so much active than the other regional boards.

I'm guessing the most active topical board would Home Cooking, right?

[Veggo]

It ought to be L.A. In the time necessary to travel from origins to destinations within the city during rush hour, a New Englander could travel through 3 states.

[chowser]

Didn't there used to be clouds for board popularity? I paid little attention so didn't notice until now.

[HillJ]

I always thought the popularity of the top 3 regional boards was a direct correlation to the location of the CHOW office, CHOW videos and the CHOW writers. The biggest exception being Supertaster who's popularity on social media redefines "territory" and the most popular board being the non regional board, Home Cooking.

If CHOW had an eastcoast equivalent of site producers, writers, kitchen testers it would be interesting to see if that mattered in terms of viewing audience, advertising and blog topics.

[Melanie Wong]

Yes, Los Angeles.
http://boardreader.com/site/Chowhound...

[ipsedixit]

Any idea why that is?

I mean, for all of LA's qualities, it is neither the most populous or most densely populated metro area of the regional Chow boards.

And perception being what it is, it is generally not considered the culinary destination that a New York or SF is, right?

[Servorg]

See what an inherent inferiority complex will do for some cities...

[ipsedixit]

I'm not sure it's right to characterize LA as having an inferiority complex (I think that's reserved for our neighbors down south).

I think LA has more of a blasé attitude, than a "I want to be as good as you" complex.

[Servorg]

It's always the (on the surface) overly self-confident, apparently on top of the situation types that are trying to make up for that deep down inferiority complex by trying too hard to impress...

[ipsedixit]

By that logic, the fine citizens of Kentucky would be the one of the most supremely confident -- quietly so, no less -- group of people in their culinary wherewithal's.

[Servorg]

Daniel Boone proves the hypothesis

[ipsedixit]

I think there's a difference between insouciant contentment and abject apathy.

Boone is the former (or at least represents as much in legend); the fine citizens of Kentucky are the former (at least based on the metrics for Chowhound).

[Servorg]

"I think there's a difference between insouciant contentment and abject apathy."

Which brings to mind that age old question adults always seem fond of asking youthful merry pranksters "Are you ignorant or just apathetic?" and to which the answer of "I don't and I don't care" seems to enrage the questioner to a state of foaming at the mouth with appropriate flecks of spittle flying as they sputter, looking for an appropriate reply...

[mariacarmen]

although, when i lived in L.A., i heard people comment that San Francisco was always saying "We're better than L.A.", to which L.A. would respond "Is someone talking?"

I think L.A. doesn't care that San Francisco is a superior city (which it is!)

[judybird]

Could it be that LA covers such a large geographic area, while Manhattan is considered separately from the other boroughs.

[ipsedixit]

I dunno.

That's a valid point, but if one were to consider density, or restaurants per sq. mile, I think Manhattan would have just about any other regional board beat pretty easily, with SF a very distant second.

I mean Kentucky & Tenn board covers a larger geographic region than LA, SF and NYC combined, but probably has 1/10th of the traffic of just one of those boards.

[Melanie Wong]

In truth? The LA board has its own unique posting style that blows up the number of posts and threads.

In the last couple years, I've been skimming the Los Angeles, France, Mexico, Southeast, San Diego, Great Plains, Mountain States, Southwest, and Phoenix boards as a resource for travels, as well as keeping up with my home SF and CA boards. I don't post many questions, preferring to look back a few years at more than enough archived material for most of my needs. To my reading, the LA board has more thread drift and lower signal-to-noise ratio than the other regional boards I mentioned. Perhaps higher traffic keeps LA readers from paying as much attention to the content and meaning of a post before they reply and move on to the next one. There's some kind of reading comprehension issue in LA that leads to more posts that are not related to the topic in a thread title or causes misunderstanding of questions and missing the point.

I'll probably regret posting this. But you asked, and that's my opinion.

[HillJ]

LA that leads to more posts that are not related to the topic in a thread title or causes misunderstanding of questions and missing the point.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Manhattan board runs the same way.

[ipsedixit]

Are you saying everyone in LA has some sort of Chowhoundish ADD or ADHD?

But in all seriousness, that begs the question as to why there is so much, as you call it, "drift".

[Servorg]

Hi Mel. Happy New Year to you and all the hounds up in SF.

I think one big area of "drift" (what a nice, non-pejorative little word) that develops on the LA board revolves around our traffic and directions on the best possible ways to beat it (if possible). That's one of the things I like best when we are up in SF, it is just so easy and quick to get around by comparison.

I'll fess up to my own propensity for the "QQ" or Quick Quip...(how could I not?). But I tend not to drag them on and on (my only claim to a defense). I try and stop myself, but then I feel a weakness overtake the rational part of my brain (and, realizing that bandwidth is no longer the life and death CH issue that it used to be in Jim and Bob's day) I lose the battle. Unfortunately, everyone of my High School teachers would tell you that this phenomena is nothing new with me...

I also think that we get a LOT of first time tourists coming to the LA board, and those threads seems to take on major drift for a multitude of reasons that I'm willing to discuss, but really don't need to if no one else thinks it's all that important?

[ipsedixit]

I think, just based on happenstance and maybe blind luck, that the LA board is populated by certain personalities that contribute to the board's activity.

For example, we have Chandavkl (the Chinese Food Encyclopedia), J.L (the Ansel Adams of Food), lapizzaman (the uber pie-man), kevin (the inquisitive, but oblivious, one), TonyC (the pseudo PR man), westsidegal (who truly lives up to her name), and long-time posters like yourself. These are just some examples off the top of my head, there are many other uniquely-qualified and vociferous posters in LA ...

Also, for some reason we have a very vibrant and active segment of posters who really really like to focus on Chinese food. If one weren't cognizant of their surroundings, just perusing the LA Board one might get the notion that half of the restaurants in LA are Chinese.

As to drift, I'm not so sure that the ratio of drift-to-targeted discussion is any higher (or lower) in LA than on any other regional board. Because the LA Board just has higher overall activity, it's naturally going to have more drift.

And while drift might explain some of the numerous replies in various posts, they do not account for all the "new" topics that are populated on the LA Board, which, based on my very rough estimate, is certainly higher than on any other regional board. I can't imagine a new topic being based on "drift".

As to the tourism angle, I don't believe that's intrinsic to LA. Both Manhattan and SF are as big, if not bigger, tourist attractions than LA. And DC might be in that mix as well. In fact, I think Manhattan has more tourist-related posts as every other day one will see a post with "Coming to NYC for X days, looking for good [insert food] near UES!" Same could be said for DC, where invariably one the same page you will two nearly identical posts asking for "Dinner recommendations near White House" or "Kid-friendly restaurants near Dupont Circle" Ugh.

[Melanie Wong]

Was going to suggest that you take it up with Daniel Boone. . . :)

Or maybe "E Eto"
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/799469#6740294
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/786458#6616786
http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/7987...

[Servorg]

If you are going to use actual examples of my own words that make me look bad then I am going to have to cry fowl... ;-D>

...and as my parents said to me a million times - "Don't exaggerate and do as I say, not as I do!"

[Melanie Wong]

Sorry, didn't mean to make this personal to you. No, the differences in board culture were ingrained long ago. I recall having a similar convo when the LA board's traffic first overtook the SF Bay Area's, which was back in the dark ages before CNET's 2006 purchase of the site. I have a vague recollection of the LA board being described as "more fun" and the SF board as sounding "like NPR". Like begets like, and though the individual players change, the style of discourse continues.