Obviously at the risk of repeating myself, you seem to want me to disappear or just enjoy pretending I'm not here. It's been pointed out, many times to you and others that while IB is solely responsible for the tech and advertising of FlyerTalk, that I still run the day-to-day operations and unless you got an email I didn't, I haven't been fired from that role as of a few minutes ago. So, if your question is about general direction of tech, then there are forums for that. If its about FT in the bigger picture, come visit me in ORP. But it just may disappoint you when I say that there is no specific vision. I enjoy FlyerTalk as a community of like-minded travelers. I don't feel the need to have some spreadsheet that say our vision is so many posts next years by X number of members and sell so many ads. Sorry, that's not the nature of FlyerTalk to date on my side of things. How about this vision which I'll borrow -- "Do No Evil." Seriously, on a training chat with a number of volunteer moderators (and we'll get to your seemingly distrust of them later) last night, someone asked me what my current goals were for FT and while i outlines broadly some things for our volunteers, I told them that in the near side of things, I really wanted to go back to the idea of Ambassadors. We've had a lot of growth on FlyerTalk -- new member enrollments are up 67% so far for the year and as a result, so is the number of posts by members. I'm fairly comfortable with the overall direction and program of volunteers (and while you'll have your opinion, among the industry, our program is regarded as world-class) but am bothered by doing a much better job of managing two things: 1) a welcome environment from moment one on FlyerTalk and 2) easy access to answers to a newbies questions. As for #1, members do a fairly positive job of welcoming members but in the busiest and the least visited, i think it's either being overwhelmed or underwhelmed and as such for new members. We've really got some excellent general members and I'd like to find a useful and rewarding manner in which to take advantage of their generosity of time and positive contributions for FlyerTalk. Fact is we have a large number of volunteers to become Moderators but I really don't want to grow that group for the sake of growing it. As a result, maybe there is a way to create other types of opportunities for these kinds of volunteers. FlyerTalk when you step outside, is very, very intimidating. And #2 and it's not new but balancing the need for "Experts Only" and a "Beginners Slope" for members of FlyerTalk.

Anyway, you get the idea I hope.

As for non-mods, maybe civics is a good answer for you. In most large communities, there are appointed or elected groups of the general population to serve as funnels for being heard. You will never convince me that you have something to say that isn't already being heard. Is it best to have a forum where it is 200,000 trying to be heard against a handful, or the current system of 80+ that are very represented of the general membership to funnel the dialogue so that is is heard and not just managed.

Question: Just why is it that you never seem to feel that you are heard? Is this just a FlyerTalk thing or does it reveb in other parts of your life. Just wondering because you seem to always stand out on things like this and certainly continue to think that Mods have reptile skins. I've just never noticed any difference between a volunteer and our other members.