I assure you that I meant nothing exclusive by my remark about the Glory Days of Flyer Talk. Certainly there are many glorious things that happen on Flyer Talk today and it would surely be a far less exciting and interesting place without the ever present possibility of making new friends. Many of my very favorite FlyerTalk Friends are relative newbies who were not among the original group and I have always found the so called "Oldtimers" to be among the most welcoming, helpful and encouraging of FlyerTakers.
There are, however, marked differences between the FlyerTalk of Old and the FlyerTalk of today. I will try to explain what I meant by the "glory days" of Flyer Talk.
In the beginning FlyerTalk was all very new and exciting--like in a new love affair, where we only see the good in one another. Back in those days, every personal meeting, even a meeting of just two or three FlyerTalkers, was a big deal to all. We were always excited to come together whether in cyberspace or in the real world.
The spirit of the board then was totally open, welcoming, gentle, appreciative, friendly and encouraging, with only very rare exceptions, which were quickly handled by the participants and then forgotten. Above all, everyone seemed to give everyone else the benefit of the doubt.
Even when people made mistakes, the spirit of FlyerTalk then reminded me of the old Mormon commercial--when the bad men came and robbed the stage coach and the people asked God what to do, God said, "Teach them a lesson. Forgive them."
Over the years a less friendly spirit has crept into FlyerTalk. Now there are those who appear to be driven by jealousy, anger, resentment and an underlying desire to prove that they are somehow "more right" by proving and/or insinuating that others are somehow "more wrong". The sad reality is that in such an atmosphere nobody wins and everybody loses. As a result of this unpleasantness many of the most interesting posters have left in anger and frustration and many more have simply drifted away.
As anybody who has been married for a significant length of time can tell you, it is impossible to change anybody but oneself and the only hope for returning to the wonderful, friendly atmosphere that once reigned on Flyer Talk is for each of us to do everything in our power to make certain that those things we ourselves do and say make Flyer Talk a friendlier, more gentle and more caring place, without trying to point fingers at or blame anyone else.
Does this mean that we will always all agree or always all get along? Of course not, we are all only human and all come with our own set of carefully developed prejudices, faults and blind spots. What we can do, however, is change the way we respond to those things that bother us.
Think of how much better a place FlyerTalk would be if everyone made a sincere and honest effort to resolve their differences through private e-mail, or if we all just held our tempers, alerted Randy of questionable posts and let him handle them. He is actually very good about checking into problem posts and always appears very grateful when posters choose this route rather than exacerbating the problem by adding their own flames to an already unpleasant thread.
One thing that is certain is that anyone who attempts to change someone else by flaming their posts, is definitely a part of the problem and not a part of the solution. The only solution is for all of us to make a sincere commitment to be part of the solution and be as nice as we possibly can to everyone else.