In response to jpishgar on merging the UK/USA parts...

[daglesj]

Yes we may have separate UK type stuff for prices and competitions...but what exactly is the activity from the UK part?

When I look at feedback and comments on the UK side its next to zero.

Why? Because we in the UK know we are talking to ourselves there, as all the action is on the US part.

Really we don't care about the UK only stuff to any large degree. We can get that elsewhere from The Reg/The Inq etc.

If I look at the .co.uk news list and the .com list its 98% the same. I am not missing anything important. Whats the point?

What the two of us from the UK don't want, is to be relegated to the UK comments with just spammers for company and having to manually choose to move to the US side everytime we want to post and be heard. That is really annoying. Not a smooth user experience. Maybe let us be able to 'lock in' to being just able to use the US site as default?

This is the only site I use that does this.

Save the site some cash and dump the .co.uk part.

It won't be missed all that much. It's a small world nowadays. Most of the UK centric stuff appears to be Smartphone/network deals which are pretty boring anyway.

I can look prices up myself.

 

[daglesj]

The harsh reality of what I'm getting at?

Take a look at the UK News comments list. More zeros than anything else. No one bothers but the spammers and the casual drifter.

The UK Articles isn't much better.

 

[Proximon]

I've never understood it either. I can help someone from the UK just as easily as I help people from NZ, Bangladesh, Australia, or anywhere else.

As to the save the site cash argument.... well, chances are money is being made from the UK site that would be lost otherwise.

 

[daglesj]

Oh yes I'm sure the site is making ad revenue from UK based ad campaigns but do those companies know that no one is looking at their ads?

Someone isn't doing great out of the deal I'm sure.

Most odd. Oh well...

 

[jpishgar]

We may revisit this in the future, but note that we did take steps to bring the two closer and improve accessibility in the latest forum platform update. Previously the two were sequestered from each other, and crossover was incredibly difficult. Now, you can view forum subcategories associated with each easily. Again, we may take a look at this once more in the future, but for now, no major change is planned along these lines.

 

[daglesj]

Okay then I'll just keep on having to scroll down the site and click a couple of times to get to the right place to see 99% the same content everytime I visit. Yes it is a pain.

I don't know of any other tech site that I have to do that with (Anandtech/HardOCP/Android Central etc. etc.) and maybe it's why no one hardly visits the UK version? I click the Bookmark and I'm there for the rest of the Internet, just not Tom's.

We shall see.

 

[jpishgar]

I'll forward your thoughts along to the higher-ups and make sure your opinion is known on this subject. I know the other sites you mention don't offer customized news feeds to varying regions the way Tom's does, but the segmentation of communities at least as far as news commentary goes is indeed a pain.

 

[daglesj]

I'll forward your thoughts along to the higher-ups and make sure your opinion is known on this subject. I know the other sites you mention don't offer customized news feeds to varying regions the way Tom's does, but the segmentation of communities at least as far as news commentary goes is indeed a pain.

Thanks for that. I would say if you check the UK and US news feeds they are 99% the same. Having my own countries news feed (even though its pretty much the same as the US one) isn't really all that cool when I'm the only one looking at it.

I think a lot of effort (or maybe not if the feeds are pretty much the same) is going in for very little benefit. It's just creating confusion and most likely people going elsewhere.

 

[jpishgar]

Much obliged for your feedback and input on this matter, friend.

 

[daglesj]

Much obliged for your feedback and input on this matter, friend.

And I truly appreciate that.

If we can all save ourselves some effort then its a bonus.