And I can't express it any better than these posts:
Here.

And this post:
Here.

And this post:
Here.

Again, did you miss the question that did you or did you not willfully pad your post count or were you really interested in going to AMS. If you were really interested in going to AMS, like the others, then really what is this all about?

But I have to admit, I haven't had such a laugh in a long time. Let's see, your solution, even after 16 days of thinking about how you would invent a better mousetrap would be to solicit the TalkBoard for a recommendation (I took about 1.6 minutes... you might read this excellent book Blink.). Let's review (tick-tock, tick-tock) what took you 16 days to come up with (tick-tock, tick-tock). That sound you hear, is the clock ticking for the tickets to expire AND for the winners to have a respectable amount of time to plan on going. Remember, time off from work, purchase connecting airline tickets ... under the expensive two week booking window ... get a pet sitter, you know, things that are truly wonderful when other respect that time is important to making decisions.

RichMSN's 16-Day Well Thought Out Plan for AMS tickets (the TalkBoard solution):
- A minimum of 48 hours must elapse after a topic has been raised by a TalkBoard member either in the public TalkBoard Topics forum or in the private TalkBoard forum, before any member of the TalkBoard can make a motion regarding that issue. This is a minimum time and it often lasts longer. For instance, it took 190 days for the TalkBoard to come to a common agreement on the recent guidelines. Uh, RichMSN, the tickets for AMS were only valid for a bit more than a month before all winners had to be back.....
- Once a motion has been made and seconded the President shall post a sticky poll thread in the TalkBoard forum calling the question and announcing the vote. Regular motions shall be kept open for a period of two weeks from the posting of the sticky poll...
- The purpose of posting voting topics in the public TalkBoard Topics forum is to solicit member feedback on any motions that are up for a vote and to allow for comments after a vote is made.
- Then a few members would surely have opposed anything the TalkBoard would have recommended and then the TalkBoard would have had to defend their thoughts on this after a week or so of comments and then we would have had to start all over.

Guess what, while your advice is teetering on the hopes that the TalkBoard could come to some agreement of the best recommendation for this, the members I selected are already leaving to go to AMS and more than likely will all be back before your solution ever had the proper consideration. Looking at the guidelines above, we're talking a minimum of 16 days - A MINIMUM. I'm not sure what political party is accused of being for more government, but this seems to be similar.

Fault my approach as much as you want, but at least my guys will actually be able to use these wonderful gifts on behalf of FlyerTalk, while yours may just have been mired in "bureaucratic red tape." Like I said, some walk ... others talk.

But RichMSN, all humor aside, you have to admit, even my solution got you involved, not once but 12 times. Pretty cool huh? And you know what is even cooler, I never thought for once that you were post padding.

And for those tuning in, I'm actual a big fan of RichMSN and have enjoyed his participation in the recent TalkBoard Debates and am glad that he again ran for one of the open positions on the TalkBoard. While we may see things different in this case, I want to make absolute sure that every member that reads this understands I have the same respect for members whose thoughts differ from mine as I do for members whose thoughts are similar. RichMSN is, has been and I hope will continue to be a valuable member of FlyerTalk for a long, long time.

And RichMSN, don't think ... Blink!