Hello! Please ignore this forum in favour of City Life

In fact almost the only times I post is when I'm with drink.

I'm with drink right now. I'm gonna call it Miller.

Y'alls is crazy.

Not much m'dear.

I approve of this thread, since it puts it better than I ever could.

That's the merge part, not the booze part.

I'd rather this forum never existed, but now it does. And I don't have a suggestion for what to do with it.

The whole "EU Only Issues" thing is probably only going to ever amount to a couple of threads. I see the attraction, but I think it'll leave this place a ghost town.

Hehe, that billion thing is always a bit confusing, especially when you come from a country where you have not only million -> 1000 million -> billion -> 1000 billion but rather Million -> Milliarde -> Billion -> Billiarde, so that per default the British system looks a lot more convincing and "correct".

The preservation of a separate "European" English-language area has, I think, more to do with the preservation of the diversity of cultural expression on the massive new forum. It may be less apparent to our North American cousins because they have become used to a very large and very noisy forum over the years, whereas the European forums were smaller, tighter, and better related to the cultural experience of the English-speaking European regions.

Since these boards have gone live I've found it almost impossible to find and follow the threads about the Ashes series, for example, or to track down many of our old Creative threads, follow news about comic conventions and sci-fi events in the UK, or keep abreast of the media chatter that relates to UK television and cinema releases. This last one is especially tricky since North American TV threads are littered with spoilers for shows that have yet to air and films that have yet to be released here in the UK, and our inevitable threads about Dr Who and Torchwood will threaten to spoil the surprise for many North American viewers.

I doubt that there is a need for a "North American Lounge" since, to my eyes at least, this is essentially a North American forum to which the European servers were added. We are indeed a smaller cultural fish in this pond, and consequently need a degree of consideration.

Truth be told, I don't think the preservation of the English-language area of the European forums has gone far enough. Personally, I would have liked at least parity with the French and German-speaking forums, and maintained an area that contained all the old European topics under one roof, so I can still follow our traditional threads. That wouldn't stop North Americans reading and contributing to threads about the contents of Cornish pasties, nor does it prevent us offering uninformed opinion on what makes a decent bagel. But it would make culturally sensitive board moderation easier and appropriate, and protect the minority.

Bindweed pretty much seems to have got it right on.

While the US servers were each tight and there were several multi-subforum posters the EU forums seemed FAR more tight on friendships/relationships etc.

Nothing against the americans at all, they have a fun and active forum. But for the EU it always kinda felt like "we'll make the best of what we have". I lurked mainly, but the active posters REALLY worked hard with each other to build up a friendly, personable forum.

Meanwhile with the sheer size of the US forums it's, well, easy to get lost.