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[Renés]Delta Points: The "funny" little things you should know [DP discussion merged]

[Renés]Delta Points: The "funny" little things you should know [DP discussion merged]

Old Jul 21, 2014, 12:59 am
  #46  
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Originally Posted by CMK10
Hogwash. The way I see it: there are 10,000 or so active posters here speaking in approximately 100 forums about thousands of different topics. The posters all differ, the subject matter all differs and the moderators all differ. There will be different issues in different forums and a uniform moderation system could not work.
Originally Posted by 84fiero
Of course since I'm not supposed to discuss moderation, the foregoing should only be taken on general terms for internet forums in general

Back on topic though even if I agreed with that point, the DP post as a whole was ridic
OK... so if I were to interpret the TOS by the letter, this thread would need to be sanitized and closed. So lets not get there.

Trying to make moderation uiform across all fora is the charter of the mod corps. But as mentioned above if the same rules were followed by the dot, meaningful discussion would be near impossible as everyone would feel policed.

That said, let stop the discussion about moderation, else the moderator needs to get active.

Best regards

Oliver2002
Mod EM&PR
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Old Jul 21, 2014, 1:11 am
  #47  
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Originally Posted by CMK10
Hogwash. The way I see it: there are 10,000 or so active posters here speaking in approximately 100 forums about thousands of different topics. The posters all differ, the subject matter all differs and the moderators all differ. There will be different issues in different forums and a uniform moderation system could not work.

If you know something different or have a solution by all means share it. Especially if the Community will be better off.
Originally Posted by sbm12
I tried for several years while I was a mod. I was eventually fired for such efforts. They don't want to change, even when presented with broad collections of facts showing the problems and how easy it would be to address them.

You say that the users in each forum need to be treated differently. Why? If I post in three different fora then why should I need to play by different rules in each? Are they not all part of the same site and, at least in theory, covered by the same ToS??
I am not sure what the desire to have uniformity is all about, but with over 100 forums with anywhere from 0 to >1000 posts per day and over 100 volunteer mods, you'll never get 100% uniformity.

That being said, I think there are two different issues:

(1) enforcement of the TOS / "hard rules":

I think there has been an overall trend for mods to enforce those in a similar way across FT. It obviously can be challenging at times, but the mods have spent and still spend a fair amount of time to ensure consistency across FT. Believe it or not, mods will often even ask their fellow co-mods for advice before dealing with certain TOS violations.

(2) enforcement of guidelines / rules open to interpretation:

Moderators in different forums take a very different approach when it comes to enforcing "guidelines" - such as deciding what posts are "off-topic" - and I think that makes perfect sense.

Here's a fictitious conversation in the Fairmont forum:

A: I'm going the Banff Springs for my honeymoon trip. What suite would I get when using a suite upgrade cert.
B: Congrats on getting married!
C: +1
D: You'd get a one-bedroom excutive Valley View Suite.
A: Great - thanks. On a related note: What's the best restaurant in Banff?
E: I highly recommend xyz restaurant.


Based on the guidelines I could delete the posts by B and C as being off-topic and move the last two posts to the Canada destination forum (or delete them as well). However, since it's a rather small forum, I usually won't do any of that unless the thread drifts too far OT. The same somewhat relaxed approach just wouldn't work in the AC/AA/UA forums and mods will intervene more often to avoid OT posts.

The moderation style will obviously very much depend on the volume of posts, how civilized the forum is to begin with, the number of participants and how good the members are at getting the thread back on-topic without any mod intervention. I don't think there's anything wrong with each forum having a slightly different culture.
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Old Jul 21, 2014, 2:46 am
  #48  
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Whilst I am also now going OT, the travel / destination forum 'issue' has always been a problem.

If you want to know something about the UK, you should post it on the BA board because the bulk of us on that board live their. (Sneak it into another post to reduce the risk of it being moved.) You could post the same q under UK & Ireland but the only UK & Ireland residents who visit that board are a small minority - myself included - who stop by purely to see if their is anyone they can help. The real knowledge is with the BA board posters.
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Old Jul 21, 2014, 3:04 am
  #49  
 
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Originally Posted by benzemalyonnais
The DL forum is actually pretty good and is very active. No newbie would ever get harassed over there, although someone like DP MRing for a living would get attacked by Bubba for being a LVC....
I haven't frequented the Delta forum in probably 10 years, but it used to be a cesspool frequented by a group of racist, intolerant and abusive bigots whose lynchmob mentality was denied and indeed passively encouraged by FT management in the interest of higher traffic.

The Delta forum was badly divided during the days of "Save Sky Miles" (the original SSM debate!) and those who didn't share the views of the SSM crowd were subjected to a bunch of things that would shock most civilised users today. I personally received death threats (one of which led to my resignation as moderator of the Delta forum within a week of being appointed), racially abusive emails and a bunch of other nonsense from forum regulars because I was outspoken in opposition to them. I was not the only one who received these either - at least 2 other FTers who shared my views also received similar. I drew the line on my participation there when my teenage cousin (who had met some FTers at a DO) started getting threatening phonecalls warning him to tell me to back off my positions. Seriously? Threatening a high school kid because of his cousin's opinions on an internet forum?? Some of the people behind those attacks are now, if my information is correct, serving prison time for unrelated crimes.

So maybe the Delta forum is civilised and friendly today, but its history is one of those dark and dirty secrets that FlyerTalk tries to bury.
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Old Jul 21, 2014, 6:15 am
  #50  
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This reminds of the conversation I had some MMS fans in the comments section of the 17 or 18 part series they did on M&M. I mentioned that the series is not the most comprehensive fantabulous thing as some were surmising as the data becomes outdated pdq as loyalty programs evolve and bloggers have no interest in updating once the associated CC no longer pays commission.

So of course I was asked what the alternative was. To which I replied the M&M website and FT. Immediately the stock reply came that FT was snarky, newbies not welcome, mega threads, unhelpful summaries etc.

Now considering that half of the traffic on FTs M&M section is just UA MP members (burning probably chase UR points) looking for the aspirational trip of LH F (with FCT duck and limo) which are all patiently answered by the FTers (no matter how repetitive the question) this was rather surprising, but I suppose the impression of FT is universal no matter how heterogeneous the forum landscape is.

Does it give me sleepless nights? No.

The clash of DL&NW and UA&CO FFP members during the first mega mergers comes to mind too.
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Old Jul 21, 2014, 6:25 am
  #51  
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Originally Posted by Raffles
Whilst I am also now going OT, the travel / destination forum 'issue' has always been a problem.

If you want to know something about the UK, you should post it on the BA board because the bulk of us on that board live their. (Sneak it into another post to reduce the risk of it being moved.) You could post the same q under UK & Ireland but the only UK & Ireland residents who visit that board are a small minority - myself included - who stop by purely to see if their is anyone they can help. The real knowledge is with the BA board posters.
My preference as a sometime BA forum reader is not to have to wade through the off topic UK posts to find BA related threads. Why have destination forums if they're not used at all?
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Old Jul 21, 2014, 6:26 am
  #52  
 
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Originally Posted by Raffles
If you want to know something about the UK, you should post it on the BA board because the bulk of us on that board live their. (Sneak it into another post to reduce the risk of it being moved.)
Please don't encourage that behavior. Instead, think of ways to get some of the more helpful folks to move to the UK forum.

It also makes you wonder why the majority of folks in the BA forum don't tend to post in other forums. I think I know, but we've been told we can't discuss it here.
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Old Jul 21, 2014, 6:51 am
  #53  
 
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After reading that Delta Points "article", I feel compelled to make my usual comment that that one of the things that bothers me the most about the internet is how it has led to the rise of self-important bloggers (and many time sanctimonious) who think their opinion is worth more than anyone else. This applies to pretty much every subject matter. What is worse is that many now think of themselves as part of the "press."

Maybe its just the subforums that I participate in, but I think there are a lot of helpful, thoughtful participants and far less "hostile and snarky for the sake of it" posters than the average internet forum.
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Old Jul 21, 2014, 9:34 am
  #54  
 
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Originally Posted by Miesque
After reading that Delta Points "article", I feel compelled to make my usual comment that that one of the things that bothers me the most about the internet is how it has led to the rise of self-important bloggers (and many time sanctimonious) who think their opinion is worth more than anyone else. This applies to pretty much every subject matter. What is worse is that many now think of themselves as part of the "press."

Maybe its just the subforums that I participate in, but I think there are a lot of helpful, thoughtful participants and far less "hostile and snarky for the sake of it" posters than the average internet forum.
Agreed. DP actually thinks of itself as being an expert, when it is far from true (he just made Diamond last year-I first made Diamond at 23 and had learned pretty much all the tricks he's ever taught by then).

What I find most amusing is he goes on a tirade about FT, yet the next day posts a MR he pulled from FT on his 'Mileage Run' Blog. He also is one to push mods to delete any post that is negative towards him, yet he feels he can insult FT without penalty himself.

Any intelligent Delta FF can realize that the quality of writing simply isn't there- look at today's blogs as a prime example. VFTW puts up an interesting post about the potential direction of Delta's Revenue model, while DP's best effort is an entire post on 'Hanging up and Calling Back'.

I hope BA readers wise up and realize they can get their Delta information from much better sources, FT one of them.
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Old Jul 21, 2014, 9:42 am
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Originally Posted by Miesque
After reading that Delta Points "article", I feel compelled to make my usual comment that that one of the things that bothers me the most about the internet is how it has led to the rise of self-important bloggers (and many time sanctimonious) who think their opinion is worth more than anyone else. This applies to pretty much every subject matter. What is worse is that many now think of themselves as part of the "press."

Maybe its just the subforums that I participate in, but I think there are a lot of helpful, thoughtful participants and far less "hostile and snarky for the sake of it" posters than the average internet forum.
Yeah there are a lot of bloggers who fancy themselves the next Edward R. Murrow, which is especially commical in many cases!

I too have expeienced internet forums far less welcoming than FT. Yet it's not perfect and that is probably the only area of DP's rant with some merit (which isn't to say I appreciated that post in itsel) That said, many FT areas are very hospitable.

Last edited by 84fiero; Jul 21, 2014 at 9:49 am
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Old Jul 21, 2014, 9:56 am
  #56  
 
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Originally Posted by 84fiero
Yeah there are a lot of bloggers who fancy themselves the next Edward R. Murrow, which is especially commical in many cases!

I too have expeienced internet forums far less welcoming than FT. Yet it's not perfect and that is probably the only area of DP's rant with some merit (which isn't to say I appreciated that post in itsel) That said, many FT areas are very hospitable.
I actually find some degree of criticality on FT to be necessary- imagine if no one was criticized for writing a question that was just answered a month ago. Each forum would blow up with stupid questions and become much less useful.

DP himself gets angry when people criticize him on FT, yet he doesn't allow any critique on his blog; I find it amazingly hypocritical.
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Old Jul 21, 2014, 11:01 am
  #57  
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The replacement for "do a search" has now become "read the sticky".

As if someone new here would have any idea what the heck a "sticky" was.

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Old Jul 21, 2014, 1:28 pm
  #58  
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Well they can read latin script

View Screen Capture

That said, a link to the sticky or wiki is usually helpful ...@:-)
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Old Jul 21, 2014, 2:21 pm
  #59  
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indeed blogging is now social media, whereas it was not originally
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Old Jul 21, 2014, 4:55 pm
  #60  
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Originally Posted by Kagehitokiri
indeed blogging is now social media, whereas it was not originally
It was always social media.
Originally Posted by Big_Foot
who go to those "conventions"... Why? To learn how to apply for a credit card?
People who don't want to spend the time figuring everything out by reading. Or people who want to meet other, similar-minded folks in real life.
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