tom911

Have you noticed the one Talk Board member that hasn't posted a single time on this forum in 2012? Last year we had two invisible Talk Board members. Per the Talk Board rules they are not required to post on this forum.

LIH Prem

No.

-David

Ancien Maestro

Bit 20/20 but would it make sense to incorporate some or all of the sister forums?

Travel Technology – travel gadgets such as laptops, smartphones, portable gear, portable power, adaptors, how to make your equipment work overseas

Travel Products – from luggage to travel clothes

Online booking and bidding agencies – Travelocity, Expedia, Orbitz, Hotwire, Priceline and the like

LIH Prem

online booking/bidding is the only one that's somewhat related to travel tools. Both are about 3rd party commercial ventures for the most part, and product reps are welcome to post there, and this way we can limit their exposure to where they can post to discuss their products.

The others are not really related. at least not in the way that it was intended. They are not commercial in nature. There's really no reps posting there. It's FTers discussing tech, etc, with other FTers. If you spend some time in travel tech, for example, you'll see what I mean.

-David

Ancien Maestro

There is another forum that has been under consideration for profit, but for the benefit of FTers. The point is there is some overlap, and some thought may be heeded to determine best organization.. is my deeper thought for raising whether the forums should be reorganized.

LIH Prem

Yes, I understood where you were going, and I don't see the overlap the way you do, but there's some leeway there.

For me, this was all about creating a firewall around certain company reps that like to bump their threads and boast about their commercial for profit products all over FT. Now they have a specific place for their posts and a specific place for FTers to go to get info and ask questions about those commercial ventures that FTers have come to appreciate and use.

If there's some fine tuning there for organizational purposes, fine, but I really don't see overlap between travel tech and travel tools, other than the names both have "travel" in them. Should UA and AA be reorganized because both use the word "Airlines" in their names too?

But yes, I do see some organizational unity between online travel and bidding and travel tools. For example, here's one that came up recently .. where would you put posts about room77.com, some of which are questions posed by a company rep from that venture?

-David

travelkid

Absolutely, but I still think its strange. Whats the point of debates and elected representants then?

tom911

We don't have election debates here. You're able to submit questions which are posted in a closed forum and candidates are not required to answer them.

travelkid

I know, but my comment was about TB members (lack of) participation, and representing the voters on a day to day basis.

Ancien Maestro

A suggestion could be submitted to the talkboard to require members to post here. We could debate the merits and see where it goes.

travelkid

Probably hard to require. I would hope it to be under common sense. But I guess common not always equals common.

Maybe rather have better routines to boot inactive TBers?

Ancien Maestro

TB can set itself out some protocol, and start requiring its members to participate. You're right, why should the voting public micromanage a board?.. they've got responsibilities, and the TB members should take the lead for each other or internal requirements.

lin821

I am sorry but this line of discussion has nothing to do this (passed) motion at hand.

If you want to discuss how TBers should participate in TalkBoard Topics Forum and/or a revised TB guidelines to incorporate that idea, you guys should probably start a new TB thread. Or just bump one of the existing threads that cover similar discussion.

With due respect, whether TBers are engaged in debates or discussion in this forum has nothing to do with the new Travel Tools Forum, what this thread is all about.

FWIW, I think April is still too early to start a campaign for any TB election, which usually takes place in November.

goalie

Debates are one thing and any TB member who does not post/comment in a debate thread needs to be called out on it. They can post "I vote no" for example (with no other explanation) but they need to post-do I agree with simply voting and saying nothing more-no but that's the way some folks are. In a forum established by a TB vote, there (imho) should be no requirement that a TB member must post in that thread/forum. In the case of this particular forum, I was against it from the beginning because there were (imho) too many unanswered questions and (again, imho) the motion was not worded well but I rec'd pm's from several members asking me to "change my view" with some saying they were glad I was against the motion but where I was elected to serve everyone, I deferred to the fact that I was recieving more yes pm's than no pm's

See my comment above

Sadly that is an individual's choice which I personally disagree with as if elected one should (imho) explain their rational for voting a certain way

LIH Prem

I think it's relatively simple. If the community or a community member is not happy with the lack of or quality of participation by a current TB member, then they should not re-elect them when their term is up. And if they choose to run for re-election, you will have an opportunity to question their participation strategy during their re-election campaign.

I would encourage you to reach out to whichever member(s) you think are not participating. Ask them why they are not participating.

I don't think there's anything to be gained by forcing anybody to post somewhere. As long as they are meeting the requirements of their position, that should be fine. Now, I suppose the TB is free to re-evaluate their own requirements at any time, and that might be worth doing, but that's completely different than what's being suggested here so far.

-David