Excellent question
KiwiFlyer.
I'm going to give a bit of an oblique answer to your yes/no question here.... yeas
and no.
As airlines consolidate and merge there's going to be shuffles in terms of forums. LH should have a controlling stake in BD by early next year and no doubt diamond Club will be merged into Miles & More... and no doubt there's going to have to be a bit of a rejig in terms of the forums here on FT.
Equally content changes too. When airlines are looking to save money things happen that prompt threads on FT about cutbacks - witness the discussion regarding UA's Transtlantic buy-on-board. In sunnier times we get thread about
real enhancements - UA introduce hot meal in Y on flights of 35 minutes or more. And with free champagne. Or not!
So why the 'no' in my 'yes and no' answer?
Basically because I don't see FT as being that complex a beast. I'm very much in the IJAFIBB camp and whilst things change, they also stay the same.
Pretty much quoting something I wrote in the TB forum a while back:
FT, as an IBB, isn't that complex an operation. The only real questions are:
1 - What servers will be used.
2 - What software will be used
3 - The look of the board
4 - What features of the software will be turned on or off.
5 - What forums will exist and how they will be organised.
6 - The rules for use
7 - How the rules of use will be policed (aka moderation).
In terms of TalkBoard '7' is off limits so that leaves the rest. 1 and 2 are pretty obscure really and whilst not technically off-limits are now I guess very much within the control of Internet brands rather than Randy.
So that leaves TB to consider 3, 4, 5 and 6.
- Let's stick a red ribbon at the top of every page on 1st December for world aids day?
- Let's allow pictures to be posted in all forums?
- Let's turn off signatures?
- Let's split the XXX forum in 3?
- Let's create a XXX rail forum?
Now - that's just a random list of ideas. Quite possibly not very good ideas, maybe excellent ones - but the very stuff that the consideration of is the reason for TB's existance.
My biggest frustration with TB has been the tendency when an idea is presented of:
- taking debate onto all kinds of tangents - in the MTW debacle there was extensive discussions as to whether it would be right to approve Hamas as a FT approved charity which just wasn;t the question.
- fudging issues - in the MTW debacle when it came to vote time votes were cast with all kinds of criteria being applied - criteria that just did not tie in whith what the motion actually said.
- playing politics - in numerous debates proposals have been scuppered by members holding generally good ideas hostage to obscure points. I recall a comment when the Charity Guidelines were first being proposed and the idea was suggested that 'a member of TB will be allocated the job of a vetting the request' - to which one Fter noted this would be a deal killer for him because as a Jew he could be asked to approve a charity with regards to an earthquake in Iran. Which is all quite valid as far as it goes - except it doesn't really go very far at all requiring as many starts to line up as it does.
- navel gazing - process, procedures. As a casual observer it seems Tb seends more time looking at how it works rather than just doing work.
And the biggie -
not voting on issues. Issues are raised, we get the debates, the tangents, the fudge, the politics, the navel is gazed at... but in terms of an actual answer to the bloody question... er, no, we don;t get that at all. To give just one example - closure of the travelling with pets forum was suggested on 7th October. Good idea? Bad idea? Well - whatever - why not just take a vote and answer the actual question.
And... erm, I think I'm heading off on my own tangent here. There will be changes on FT, but it's going to remain as a bulletin board. TB just need to stick to answering questions by applying a bit of common sense and simply thinking 'is it a good idea'. If elected I'll be happy to answer the questions and would like to see TB being more active with votes.