IceTrojan

So much for the restructuring... it was a good idea, but "Discussion" topics continue to be posted in the "Deals" section. No matter how many times you tell people, there will be others who come along and "doh-dee-doh" themselves into posting a non-Deal.

So how about this: Making "Discussions" the mother board, and "Deals" the child board? I'm guessing a large part of the erred threads are because thread starters don't make that one extra click into the right child forum... they just get trigger happy and post. In my proposed adjustment, the default board will capture all general topics, and those who truly want just deals will be in the know and click on the child board.

Have at it.

wharvey

The issue may be that people only see the parent forum on the forum listings page. You do not see the Child Forums until you click on the Parent Forum. At that time, they may not even notice the two children forums listed at the top of the page... they move immediately to the thread topics.

Not sure moving around parent/child will take care of the problem... just means a different forum will have the off topic threads...

I still think the best solution is to get rid of the parent/child relationship. Just have three parent Forums - one right after the other. Might help. Probably will not be perfect.

William

Canarsie

I actually thought the same thing.

Besides, I believe that the majority of FlyerTalk members will make more of an effort to access the Mileage Run Deals forum if it became a child forum than they currently do to access the Mileage Run Discussion child forum.

In other words, I generally agree with your idea for the slight adjustment of the Mileage Run forum, IceTrojan.

tcook052

Meh, leave it as it is if for no other reason than to keep the mod.'s awake.

bhatnasx

Thank you for the positive thoughts, my friend - I guess it's good to keep us on our toes?

iwillflytheworld

I agree with the OP slight unmodest proposal.

Not necessarily. As the OP suggested, posters in the MR deals forum tend to be more experienced of the mechanics of the MR forum as a whole and are less likely to misplace posts.

On the other hand, many of the misplaced threads we see now are from newbies who are just looking for good fares and post in the first thread they see. Although some of these posts are OT even in MR discussions, making MR discussions the first forum they see will in all likelihood reduce our mod's work quite a bit .

civicmon

I like this idea a lot actually

Maybe should restrict the "deals" to 100 posts give or take. Keeps the "I heard there are $10 tickets to India!!!!" posts out... allows people to become more established as a poster before filling the deal forum.

Just another thought...

gemac

Nothing on earth can keep the average newbie currently discovering FT from slamming a new thread into the first forum he stumbles across, with no regard to whether it belongs there or not. It isn't that they are too lazy to make one more click, it's that they are too lazy to read about the purpose of the forum, they are too lazy to read any of the other threads already there, they are too lazy to do anything but start a thread to get the answer to their question, and pronto! Even an announcement demanding "READ THIS BEFORE POSTING" cannot deflect them from their mission, to get that new thread started come hell or high water.

I'm almost to the point of believing that we should surrender to the inevitable, and remove all the forums and just have one giant cesspool for anyone to dump in anything they want to. Naturally, this would render FT totally unusable, but usability hasn't been much of a priority here for some time.

Failing that, I would suggest that work for moderators will be required.

bhatnasx

So...how do you really feel?

itsme

I don't see many "discussion" topics appearing under "deals," perhaps because the mods move them pretty quickly. What I do see as a problem under "deals" are titles that cite base fares without making clear that they are base fares rather than all-in ones, often giving the "real" fare, that is the one inclusive of taxes and fees which we will pay, in the post itself. I would like to know the "all-in" fare upfront in the title, so I will not waste time looking at that which will be of no interest to me (e.g., "$845" in the title, but "$1,127" in the body of the post). Also, a title will announce the airline, as it should, but then subsequent posts note that the same or better fare is available on other carriers, but one will miss that if they skipped the thread thinking it was only about the airline announced in the title.

IceTrojan

A little off-topic much?

Doppy

But what if the new guy actually has a lead on $10 tickets to India that he wants to share?

Excellent post

IceTrojan

And currently the top two threads are:

UA and ITA?
Best time to buy LHR<->EWR

I'm sure the mods are probably on top of it... but why do they have to be?

magic111

This idea posted by the OP is an excellent idea for many. Doesn't impact me as I always open the parent and child forums on every visit.

Although I subsribe and read a dozen or so other forums and read others occasionly this is only one where I read each and every post religiously. YMMV