gemac

The Hotel Deals subforum has been around for a few months, and has generated substantial traffic, more than many forums (forii?). Separating Hotel Deals from Mileage Runs has had the desired effect, and has met with approval by the members who use the Mileage Run forum as well as those who use the Hotel Deals subforum.

Unfortunately, the effect of having Hotel Deals as a subforum is that it often masks activity in the Mileage Run forum when viewing from the Miles & Points Forums page. If the latest post in either is in Hotel Deals, that shows as the latest post in both forii. If there is extensive follow-up discussion of a mistake rate in Hotel Deals, the succession of rapid-fire posts there means that we can not tell from the Miles & Points page if anything is going on in the Mileage Run area without clicking into the Mileage Run forum to look.

I often will spend a considerable time on Flyertalk, and hop from forum to forum. After visiting a forum, I will return to Miles and Points, and refresh that page to see what is going on in forii that I have been gone from for a half-hour or so. That works with most forii, but generally not with the Mileage Run forum, because the Hotel Deals post is often listed twice, once as the latest post in Mileage Runs, and immediately below that as the latest post in Hotel Deals.

Thanks for looking at this issue.

ozstamps

When TB first looked at this one suggestion was to make it a stand alone forum.

I for one supported that idea, for some of the reasons you now give.

I'd be interested to hear from other regualr users their thoughts on this now a few months have passed.

jpdx

I oppose the suggestion, because I believe that this forum is pretty useless. In my opinion, it was a mistake to even start the hotels forum. I realize that some members pushed for it, because lemex' deals were "cluttering" the MR forum. But look at the hotels forum now. There's only 5 pages, and they mostly consist of old lemex deals, as well as "help me find a room in Aspen" requests that were locked by moderators. Now that the lemex method appears to be dead or dying, the few good hotel deals that occur could easily be housed in the MR forum. I wonder if the moderators could chime in on this one; I'd assume they would see the hotels subforum as a nuisance.

90minfromJFK-CDG

I agree with jpdx.

Moreover, the hotel deals subforum seems to go against the communal spirit of FT. The forum is full of requests from non-participating FTers who want a cheap vacation in location X and have no intention of becoming productive members of our community. Furthermore, the commercial tilt of some of the posters and the 'games' that are being played do little to suggest that the hotel deals subforum is being used as little more than an advertisement for certain oft-linked sites.

gemac

I would agree that there are not a lot of threads on the Hotel Deals Subforum compared to the Mileage Run Forum, but some of those threads get a lot of postings. Some forums get more threads started, but some get less, and most get less postings.

Hotel Deals did have a problem for a week or so with people posting that they wanted a great deal in location X. The moderators took corrective action, and that problem has been largely solved, although it will never go away entirely.

I prefer the Hotel Deals separate from the Mileage Run Forum. I really don't see how it helps anything to have them combined. The odds of finding a great hotel rate that coincides with a great Mileage Run are fairly high.

My biggest problem with the situation the way it is now is that when a mistake rate thread is running hot and heavy in the Hotel Deals subforum, it is impossible to tell if there is any recent activity in the Mileage Run forum from the Miles and Forums page. That isn't a big problem, more of a minor annoyance, but if it could be fixed, it wouldn't be an annoyance at all.

jpdx

I can see your point, gemac. However, a similar argument could be made with respect to some of the big flight mistakes (currently: the LCA deal), which also dominate the MR forum and obscure the smaller deals. Maybe the appropriate response would be to institute a Past Deals/Fare Gone Forum, where threads could be moved. This would also address the confusion and frustrations experienced by many newbies when the Fiji/Tahiti/LEB deals resurface ("Is this still bookable?").

gemac

This would solve my problem, and seems like a good idea to me.

wharvey

Would the Talkboard consider revisiting the status of the Hotel SubForum?

I would like to see it be a full forum for one major reason... as a subforum, often a thread in that forum shows as the most recent thread in the Mileage Run when you look at the forum list page.

So, there may be a recent thread in Mileage Run... but it gets "overruled" by the Hotel SubForum.

Thoughts from other members?

William

ozstamps

William as you will recall, and the public record voting link below shows, it was you who seconded the motion this was to be a sub Forum - not a full forum.

There was a 7 page TB debate on the matter and I for one always was in favour of a FULL standalone Forum, and another motion was duly made that may have encompassed that result had it succeeded. The point you now make was raised as a real issue even back then.

This was only a year back, and my suggestions to TB were below. As your second was not withdrawn as was requested might be considered, we voted for a sub Forum - and got one.

I was the lone TalkBoard member to vote against it, as I felt (and still feel) a FULL forum was the better option:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=516558

You now ask for the TB to now consider agreeing to what you very strongly argued and voted was NOT the best option?

If a strong majority of TB voted with you as they did only a year back you would now need many sitting TB members to totally change their positions on this is my take.

I hope you get your support - it was what I always thought was the best option right from the get go.

wharvey

Well Glen,

After some time and seeing how the forum has progressed, I have changed my opinion...

I believe that forum has earned the status of being moved from a sub-forum.

I do not have access to the private discussions, but if I recall, the majority also based their votes on the recommendations of the Mileage Run moderators.

At the time of the original vote, I believe the way the Talkboard voted was the correct decision. I now believe the time has come to "tweak" that decision.

I certainly hope you are not implying that we should not change our viewpoints once we have taken a decision. If that was the case, then the Religious Travelers forum would not have been created...

My viewpoint has changed over time, and I hope some members of the Talkboard are open enough to consider this request.

William

ozstamps

Hey - as I said I was the lone person who felt it needed to be 'tweaked' a year back. And voted accordingly. You and the others voted differently.

I do not need convincing this was the best policy, but 5 others on TB will need to agree for it to get up.

bhatnasx

As both a TB member & a moderator of the Mileage Run & Hotel Deals forum, I would see no issues with the Hotel Deals forum being seperated from the Mileage Run as a standalone forum - or even leave it as a subforum if there's a way to technically make it so on the Forums Display pages, the Hotel Deals forum does not override the Mileage Run forum's top thread.

I do believe that it is a valid forum & takes away clutter from the Mileage Run forum.

bhatnasx
Mileage Run, Hotel Deals forum Mod (& TB member)

empedocles

You meant to say so Hotel Deals does not override the top post in MR on the main page, correct?

tazi

Can we get back to the topic now?

I think it should be it's own forum.

wharvey

Well, since the usual suspects have again decided to take a thread off topic... I am closing it until Craig and I can decide what actions to take.

I am also soft deleting the offending threads until we decide what to do.

I hope the Talkboard takes the opportunity to consider this... in spite of the short discussion.

William