City Filters Beta Test

[UtakataNoAnnex]

I love the idea of splitting Toronto threads into separate boroughs because the city is so big and has so many projects on the go. Plus, I have zero interest in what happens in Scarborough

Scarberia, Ford Nation and the rest of us..?

 

[enter username]

I find this feature very useful. It would also be nice to filter threads by construction status

 

[DSC]

I find this feature very useful. It would also be nice to filter threads by construction status

You can, sort of, see "status' by the colour of the pins on the Map

 

[interchange42]

[edit] I usually have many UT tabs open and the city tags crowd out the project names. Makes it harder to find a thread with a quick glance.

The City tags have now been removed from the tabs at the top of your windows. Refresh, and you'll see that project names pop up! (That's been a bugbear for me too!)

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[ProjectEnd]

The municipality filter is helpful, but it still needs tweaking. I mainly use tabs, but I believe that if you just go to 'next thread', it doesn't filter by city and you just go to the next chronological forum post.

My main bugbear is that if we do want to have threads for absolutely everything, we really should have a separate low-rise forum for things like SFD and townhouses. The City filters could / would apply there equally. Perhaps the test could be anything without an elevator goes there?

Maybe a separate one for industrial too. We're seeing more and more of that both within the outer suburbs of Toronto, but also all across the GTA and Southern Ontario as a whole.

@Edward Skira / @interchange42

 

[interchange42]

The municipality filter is helpful, but it still needs tweaking. I mainly use tabs, but I believe that if you just go to 'next thread', it doesn't filter by city and you just go to the next chronological forum post.

My main bugbear is that if we do want to have threads for absolutely everything, we really should have a separate low-rise forum for things like SFD and townhouses. The City filters could / would apply there equally. Perhaps the test could be anything without an elevator goes there?

Maybe a separate one for industrial too. We're seeing more and more of that both within the outer suburbs of Toronto, but also all across the GTA and Southern Ontario as a whole.

@Edward Skira / @interchange42

We are working towards having the City filter work better, so that you only get threads from whichever municipality you want when hitting Next Thread. Hopefully coming sooner rather than later!

We have discussed separating out smaller buildings into a low-rise or similar Forum as well, no elevators and/or no internal corridors being the benchmark by which we'd move a thread into the low-rise section would be the way to go.

What does everything think about these ideas?

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[innsertnamehere]

I do like the lowrise feature, for sure. It doesn't hurt to have threads for them, but the clog up the main directory.

 

[Northern Light]

I'm of very mixed views on the City filters.

I'm interested in developments in other places, but want to be able to access preferred content easily.

All other things being equal, I really do feel UT is over-reaching with places like London, ON; but if there is sufficient interest, I'm not sure why it can't simply have its own section.

I rather like the idea of setting a core limit of the GTA for the main section, then hiving off Hamilton-Niagara, South Western Ontario, Barrie and Central Ontario, into their own sections for Buildings and Infra.

I do understand that has its own drawbacks, and represents some material work as well.

****

I agree that if very small, SFH-scale developments are to be covered, they merit hiving off into their own section of threads. I'm not set on what the criteria looks like.

****

To stick a slightly off-topic note here, I really wish the 'latest content' section didn't include Edmonton and Calgary.

 

[WislaHD]

We are working towards having the City filter work better, so that you only get threads from whichever municipality you want when hitting Next Thread. Hopefully coming sooner rather than later!

We have discussed separating out smaller buildings into a low-rise or similar Forum as well, no elevators and/or no internal corridors being the benchmark by which we'd move a thread into the low-rise section would be the way to go.

What does everything think about these ideas?

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I find the city filters very helpful for navigating and fully agree with separating low-rise into another forum using those exact criteria.

I think the geography limit should be the Greater Golden Horseshoe, so basically the same as now but excluding London/Windsor/Kingston, though it is much less of a problem now thanks to the city filters.

The city filters should be sorted differently, either alphabetically, or by region/upper-tier municipality. I think right now they are sorted corresponding to their filter ID number, based on what I see from the URL.

 

[A Torontonian Now]

I'm going to take the unpopular position that I like all of Ontario included in the same buildings forum, now that city tags are implemented. Just because the brand is UT doesn't mean that coverage of Kingston or London is not interesting, and shoving it off into its own forum will make it less accessed and less viewed. It might doom this coverage to failure like the subforum dedicated for City of Mississauga consultation threads - a good idea that came to nothing because who is going to remember to click on it.

I am more ambivalent about putting aside the low-rise development. I would hate to see my own pet thread of laneway houses or a future potential multiplex thread disappear to a less viewed area, but I do agree that subdivisions and industrial park buildings, while nice to have covered with a database entry, map pin, and thread just in case of interest, do clog the main buildings forum.

And I'll again plug my idea of subdividing the Toronto tag into "Toronto-TEY" (Toronto-East York), "Toronto-S" (Scarborough), "Toronto-EY" (Etobicoke-York), and "Toronto-NY" (North York).

 

[Paclo]

Thanks for the feedback everyone!

We are working towards forum improvements and features but in the meantime I'd like to share some methods of filtering and sorting our data that some may not be aware of.

From both the Map and the Database tabs you can filter projects by category, including main category (ie. residential, commercial, institutional, etc.) and subcategory (ie. condo, industrial, education). As well as status (pre-construction, under construction, complete, etc.)

From the Database tab you can sort projects by height and storeys.

As for the tags, since there can only be one tag on the titles, it will contain the lower-tier municipality for geographic granularity and consistency. The order corresponds to the top 20 municipalities by total threads, and alphabetical after those.

For projects with known height / storeys, these numbers should always appear in thread title, and can be used as visual cue, for now, for those not interested in low rise.

We will be taking everything into account, so please feel free to continue using this thread or the UrbanToronto Redesign thread for other suggestions.

 

[Northern Light]

It might doom this coverage to failure like the subforum dedicated for City of Mississauga consultation threads - a good idea that came to nothing because who is going to remember to click on it.

I always assumed this thread 'failed' because no one could post in it except Mississauga. It was a bulletin board not an interactive thread.

 

[WislaHD]

And I'll again plug my idea of subdividing the Toronto tag into "Toronto-TEY" (Toronto-East York), "Toronto-S" (Scarborough), "Toronto-EY" (Etobicoke-York), and "Toronto-NY" (North York).

This would be useful.

 

[interchange42]

I always assumed this thread 'failed' because no one could post in it except Mississauga. It was a bulletin board not an interactive thread.

We were told that the City of Mississauga would have someone actively populate that thread with consultation meetings whenever they were coming up… but they didn't. The thread may have failed to generate much interest anyway if that were happening, we don't know.

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[DSC]

Though I certainly use the map and the (poor!) Search function to locate threads of interest, I really get to threads that look interesting because I hit the New Posts button and scan the results. (Of course, I am here far too much!)

My priority for improvements would be to, at least, sort out the indexing of thread title words, it's bizarre that even an exact and cut and pasted thread title is not found through Search" - words in title! I also like the idea of subdividing Toronto into the 4 community council areas and agree that if it is to remain UrbanToronto, info on places like London, Windsor and Kingston should be segregated in some way. Ideally, I would like to be able to search for new posts in the TEYCC area of Toronto as that is where I am mist interested in.