With all due respect, magiciansampras, that's precisely what we did.

I hope a little history lesson will put every one's mind at ease.

Originally, Randy had the idea of using the community spirit of FT for the powers of good, ie, raising money for charitable causes. IMHO, Randy's got a big heart and FT's efforts in response to 9/11 and the Tsunami a couple years back reflect that.

At the same time, he wanted to enable FT members to be able to do the same: approach the FT community with charitable causes that WE are passionate about. But this, of course, is against the TOS as more or less spam.

So he asked the TB to create a process for allowing case-by-case exceptions to the spam TOS for charitable appeals by FT members.

The TB came up with first and informal and then later formal guidelines for Flyertalk Cares charitable appeals.

IMHO (since I got the fun job of helping to drafting them) the guidelines do a fine job of balancing the need to do SOME vetting of proposed charitable appeals before granting a spam waiver against the goal of keeping FT from being cluttered with charitable appeals.

To wit:
Some vetting:

• A TB member investigates the charity to achieve some small level of comfort that the charity is legitimate and not either an outright scam or a way for someone to line their own pockets.
• TB members then vote for an approval to the spam TOS exemption for that specific charitable appeal.
• It is not meant to say ANYTHING about the worthiness of the cause or as a recommendation to give. It simply says, you may post that piece of 'spam' and if other FTers want to participate they can choose to do so or not. FTers are a diverse group and what may be a passionate cause to me may offend you, but that's NOT the point. The point is that it is a legitimate charity that a FTer supports and would like to spread the word about.

Keep the clutter down:

• FT Cares solicitations are limited to a single thread
• That thread is to be clearly marked so if no one is 'tricked' into clicking on it
• Thread bumping and other TOS rules are strictly enforced.

As for the vote being noted here both in terms of a motion being made and the charity being approved, well, that's done so everyone can know what the TB is talking about.

IMHO only, it can also help possibly catch a FT Cares proposed TOS exemption for a 'charity' that the TB is being snowed about.

So, now with all that in mind (and after you have reviewed the FT Cares Guidelines we approved this Spring), how do you suggest we improve the process?

Would it be better if the threads in this forum just said "FYI: XYZ under consideration for approval"? Would it be better if there was no notice at all and it was simply presented as a fait accompli?

Speaking only for myself, I think it's fair to say the TB is always open to improving our processes! ^