qwertyuiop

Thanks for the positive remarks so far, looking forward to hopefully getting more positive feedback from others.

I thought i'd go through a few of the relevant criteria for a dedicated forum and offer up some insights.

Will the forum be (or is it now) beneficial to FlyerTalk?

Yes. It's obviously not going to be the biggest forum around here but a dedicated place will be of benefit to quite a few members. First and foremost it will be of benefit to VA FF'ers - of which there are already a few around here from what i've seen in other threads/ forums.

It will also be of benefit to others who are members of partner programs (eg. NZ, VX, VS, EY and others) who do often have questions about VA services, lounges, destinations that do come up in other threads. I'm sure VA members would be happy to help them out.

Will the new forum benefit a relationship with FlyerTalk? E.g., does the forum provide value for FT members, such as a friendly ear highly placed in the company

Well, i haven't seen them around here yet - the lack of a forum might have something to do with it - but VA have the best social media team of any Australian airline (OK, so the QF bar is quite low) and they are excellent at answering questions, solving problems for members, and being helpful (see: the authenticated VA reps on the Australian Frequent Flyer forum and twitter for example) and i'm sure they'd be interested and available to do the same here.

Is FT the best place to discuss this subject?

Well, there is already a forum on Australian Frequent Flyer but there are for several of the airlines already represented here so i don't see that as duplication. I think it's a good fit for FT - VA would be one of the larger airlines in the English-speaking world that does not have a dedicated FF forum here.

Is there a passionate following? This is essential in order to provide dedicated expert helpers to get questions answered.

Well, i'm happy to put my hand up and i am sure there are others in the same boat. If you look at the example of the AFF forums, the VA forum is the second most popular airline forum there behind only QF with over 10,000 posts.

Is a critical mass of posts and readers anticipated or existing? We need adequate traffic to keep everyone visiting frequently. One living forum is more valuable than two mostly dead ones.

Frankly, it wont be the most popular forum here but there is a large enough group of dedicated people to keep it ticking over. Despite the absence of a dedicated forum VA related questions do come up regularly in other forums here and they are regularly answered by the FT community.

Is this the best place on FlyerTalk for this subject? This is the classification issue. The answer depends primarily on achieving and maintaining critical mass. It also depends on whether or where the discussion might (or does) occur in the absence of the forum.

Some of it has and does occur anyway - you'll see VA references across hundreds of threads across various areas of the board here. However (see my original posts about the relative size of VA to other airlines represented here) in the absence of a dedicated forum, VA will struggle to gain the critical mass that i'm confident that an airline of its size could.

Others my have things to add or agree to disagree with these thoughts.