thepaul500

In no particular order...

1. Mobile app. Get with the times.

2. Trick-it thread removal. Get rid of it. It's worthless. Ban discussion of tricks from this site. The only thing you have there is either people complaining about revealing tricks, or people selling tricks via PM.

3. The words mistake and error need to be banned from the mileage run forum. Moderate these to removal all questions if it is a real fare or not. This would give us a leg to stand on in future DOT/legal actions.

4. Allow a method of questioning moderator actions, or an appeal process of some sort.

halls120

+1. The mobile site is awful.

+1. To both of the above.

lougord99

Please stop forcing my iPad to go to your horrible mobile site. I Don't want to use your mobile site. Please give me an option to turn it off permanently.

Wx4caster

I do hope we are free to speak openly in this forum, especially since my first suggestion is along these lines, at least for the forum where I spend 99.9% of my FT time. Granted, I wouldn't say "terrible", nor would I liken the moderation to North Korea. I'm thankful for the volunteer work that the mods do ^

That said, I'm not sure that I've ever had a "provocative" post, and with only ~750 posts over 15 years - I tend to only post when I feel strongly about an issue or have something constructive to add to the conversation. Yet, I'm surprised by how many times that my posts disappear shortly after posting with no explanation, while scores of contentious, unnecessary, or non-sensical posts live on. I also have seen an uptick at what is, IMO, over zealous merging of threads - often there is some very timely information that I know needs to be merged eventually, but warrants a day or two on their own to get the info out vice being immediately buried. And lastly on the topic of moderation, while I appreciate the efforts to maintain topic-focus and decorum (usually stemming from a small set of well known perennial agitators - who's posts and threads I happily ignore), I have seen the amount of leash given shrunken to a near choke hold. So, I guess I'm saying that in most cases, I wouldn't mind a little bit more leeway given rather than shutting down discussion or removing tangential, but related information.

I understand the need for a no cross-posting rule, but I wish threads contained a "possible related threads" reference list that we could post links to, i.e., we post in the most relevant thread, but add a link to this thread in another thread's reference list if we feel the info is relevant there as well. In theory the search tool should make this unnecessary, but I never have good results with the search tool - especially if I don't know just the right keywords. The reference list could function similar to a wiki - only viewable if opened.

Another suggestion is to require new users (e.g., less than 20? posts) perform a search (or searches) prior to starting a thread. (I just noticed an earlier suggestion to require moderator review before starting a new thread by a new user - I think this is an EXCELLENT idea)

Finkface

This. x 1,000. Every single time I open the site, I am directed to the stupid mobile skin. Let me turn it off once and for all.


'Nuff said. Plus a 'thank you' button to cut down on all the polite 'thank you' posts, generally from new users. I know I did it when I was new as I thought it might be considered rude if I didn't thank those who took the time to help me. A 'thank you' button would show that I had read and appreciated the advice.

And this. Way, way too many one post wonders who missed a connection and the big, bad airline isn't helping them. Lots of great advice available but the OP is never heard from again to answer these questions. Or they want to fly to Australia in F next month and want someone to magically make award seats available with no info on origin, class, number of seats or what miles they have, plus what they have found themselves already.

Other than that, as far as the mods, I think they do a pretty good job. I haven't seen an excess of uber-anal moderating, nor have I seen a lot of stuff that is let go to the point of abuse or attack. This is a great site and it ain't broke, so let's not get carried away with fixing it.

Clint Bint

1.OMNI/SPORT
2.Banned posters be given the opportunity to rejoin after a decent period on the naughty step.

pinniped

I think we have to keep both good OMNI and bad OMNI. If those go away, then people are going to bring their political baggage into other fora. "But why don't they just go to some other board to talk politics?" I don't know, but I don't want to run the experiment. I don't think anyone else here does either.

I'm not sure how to do this, or whether there's anything that the moderators themselves can do, but I remember many years ago when MilesBuzz was a very busy forum with lots of good promos, tips, etc. across many programs. For example, I don't spend my time in the United board...but if they had a good promo, I'd read about it in Milesbuzz and then go get more detailed information about it in the United forum. I wish there was some better way to use Milesbuzz to highlight buzzworthy events from all programs...seasonal promos, big rules changes, active status challenges, etc. (Not just credit card signups, but obviously if particularly unique offer could find its way to Milesbuzz too.)

24left

ABSOLUTELY AGREE.

And it is getting tiresome and driving people away.


The challenge here I think is demographic mostly, and experience and personal preference secondary.

There is a cohort that feels the needs to post every moment of their lives on every form of social media. Some were told from an early age they are special snowflakes and thus perhaps interpret that anything they think should be everything they post. I am not sure how to limit that in a forum like FT.


Also:

1. +1 on the mobile app. Either get rid of it or make the improvements as mentioned upthread

2. I would also agree that it be easier for new members to find (or be prompted if less than 30 or so posts) to read an easy "How To Post, What to Post". While some longtime members have been helpful on some forums providing guidance to newer members, I see many newcomers having the same challenges I did trying to figure it out.

3. Agree with the suggestion for using the Search FT or Search Forum functions. I’ve noticed that some posters just won’t and will start a new thread when 3 or 4 on the exact same topic already exists.

4. I understand the need for ads on the site. I do not understand why they need to pop up blocking what I was reading. It is actually rude. I know some people will actually contact the offending advertisers and tell them that their incessant ad format is driving them away from every considering doing business with them.

It is unfortunate that FT cannot be paid subscription-based so as to eliminate ads altogether.


5. As for the "way it used to be”….I’m sorry but there is no way to rewind the clock. I've noticed a few members, on the main forum I'm on, have recently been posting comments etc about how much better things were 10 years ago.

I'm pretty sure that just as the world changed, so did FT.

The "tricks" that used to be posted openly have now disappeared off FT to the darker corners of the universe, for obvious reasons. Plus, airlines now have better software tools to monitor these things - perhaps to prevent fraud. Yet, there seems to be a lot of members who are angry that they can't do what they used to do openly.

For those of us who are new to FT, being constantly reminded that things were better back then is a wee bit insulting if one were thin-skinned, but it's also absurd to expect FT or anything else to go back to the way "it was”.

Thank you

YOWgary

Reddit's /r/travel forum have integrated a keyword scraper that responds to new posts with "I see your post is about Phnom Penh, perhaps you'd enjoy one of these five wiki posts about travelling in Cambodia."


It's utterly absurd that any mention of moderation is forbidden - I have seen users threatened with suspension simply for saying "Hey, that _____ thread was a bit off topic, does anyone know where it got moved to?".

...though I do note that the discussion-of-moderation rules are applied much less stringently when the posts praise the mods.

In any case, we're supposed to be making constructive suggestions, so here's mine:

No changes to moderator's rights or responsibilities, but any time a user's post is deleted, moved, or merged with a new post, the user receives a one-line message explaining what's happened and why.

That's it, that's all. Just an ounce of transparency, no more posts getting 'disappeared' in the middle of the night.

jdrtravel

Right. And millennials are entitled and lazy and terrible to work with. This is getting super old, find a new song to sing.

747FC

I'm old enough to remember that cable TV was originally touted as being commercial free. We know how that went...

Proving the point exactly...

pinniped

My only complaint about moderation is that on some boards, you aren't allowed to add to an existing thread if it's seen as "too old".

I get it if the original post contains completely outdated information. But I usually search before I post, and I wouldn't append to a completely useless thread to begin with. If the original question or review is still valid, I'll just add to it instead of starting a whole new thread.

But the threads are often locked, saying "start a new one." I'm not sure why this is...seems counter intuitive.

(This is a pretty minor complaint in the grand scheme of things.)

TomMM

I once had a post deleted because I mentioned "strike" in response to a question about the possibility of a flight being cancelled. When asked, the moderator explained that the subject of "strikes" was controversial and could stir up emotions. Umm, OK but LH was getting ready to go on strike and person asking the question was flying LH.....

Boggie Dog

I also.

aeroman380

+1

Well, this would pertain to trip reports. I like when people respond to threads and update me daily in threads like RTW iteneries.