Dovster

My motto reads "FlyerTalk is like an airplane -- it either goes forward or it comes down. It doesn't have the luxury of standing still in the air."

We like to say that FlyerTalk is all about points and miles, and that might have been true once, but it no longer is.

The change started slowly. At first it might just have been about what seats are best on a 777 or what the lounges were like in CDG. The next step was the emphasis on the FlyerTalk community. We started to get interested in each other as people and in learning about what was happening in each other's lives.

Meeting each other in person was the next logical step and we started having "Do's".

Later, we had specialized forums that catered to people with special interests and needs.

Then, unfortunately, we got a bit scared. There were fears that FlyerTalk was growing too quickly. We started demanding that someone prove that a forum be successful before we would give it a try. The result was that most proposed forums never saw the light of day.

I did manage a breakthrough on that during the year I was on TalkBoard. Although the sticky on top of the TalkBoard Topics Forum demands "evidence of copious posts/threads that somehow don't seem to fit in their current locations" the fact is that forums did manage to get approved without such proof.

Frankly, I think this is crucial for FlyerTalk. It is what allows it, like the airplane in my motto, to go forward.

I would like TalkBoard to work on the following basis: If its members think that a proposed travel-related forum could be helpful to the membership, they should approve it -- even without any proof having been supplied.

Moreover, in the case of flag carriers, I would vote in favor of a forum if there were 25 members who are members of its FF program and state that they would be active posters on its forum.

We saw how the El Al Forum proved very successful, not only for Matmid members but also for people flying into Tel Aviv for the first time -- even on competing airlines.

Unfortunately, a similar request for Alitalia was turned down by TalkBoard.

Korean Airlines and Asiana Club were approved but backers of a Malaysia Airlines forum have been unable to get a vote from TalkBoard.

Given the kind of support I mentioned above, I think that any flag carrier forum would help both FlyerTalk members and FlyerTalk itself.