Based on postings and comments made to me privately, I have taken the liberty of crafting a first draft of a proposal to present to Randy. I realize there is NO proposition that will yield universal acceptance. However, as I and others have previously commented, if we are to address the circumstances leading to the current situation, we are then behooved to move toward a constructive action(s),rather than a continuance of discussion only.

I welcome your response and we'll see where this goes. I encourage you to be forward-looking and as objective as possible.

Opening Proposal:

The FT community has expressed a desire to effect policy and procedural changes which will preserve an atmosphere conducive to a genial exchange of information,, foster atmospherics conducive to a sense of community, and mitigate events or influences which threaten civil discourse. To that end, we hereby propose for consideration by the FT membership and FT management the following:

1. Moderators are initiated for key forums: Major Airlines, The Buzz, Flyertalk Community, General Travel, Only Randy Peterson. All other forums would be moderated as necessity may indicate. Such moderators will be chosen by the management of FT, and the performance guidelines for these moderators will similarly be developed by FT management.

2. A User Advisory Council (UAC) will be established for the purposes of providing input to FT management regarding feature requests, action requests that fall outside the scope of established policies and procedures, and general user issues as may be directed to them by the general FT user population. The group will meet on a schedule no less than quarterly by most convenient method. Minutes of the UAC meetings will be made available to the community on the FT site after review by FT management. The makeup of this UAC is suggested to be ten members, four of whom are chosen by FT management and six of whom are chosen by popular vote of the active FT participants. The slate of FT participants who have agreed to be considered for an elected UAC position will confirm such in writing or by email to FT management. The term for any individual’s participation in the UAC will be one year. Voting mechanisms and limitations on subsequent terms are to be determined (TBD) items.

3. A new forum will be opened (the Hot Debate Room). The purpose of such room would be to isolate continued debate over topics that are demonstrating potentiality to become counter to a genial exchange of information either by the nature of content or the general tone of the developing thread. Such thread that is becoming inflammatory either in content or tone may be locked in that forum by FT, and moved to this new forum, either upon request by 5 or more posters, or upon a decision by the moderator of the initial forum. In the event that posts in the (Hot Debate Room) violate stated policies, as posted publicly on the FT site, such thread will be locked wherever it may reside.

4. In no forum, including the (Hot Debate Room), will profanity in any form be tolerated. This includes altered spelling of profane terms if such alteration results in a clear intent. For instance S**T would not be tolerated. In comparison *#@% would not be considered a violation. Additionally, verbal attacks toward any individual will likewise not be tolerated. The moderator or FT management will have final determination of whether any term constitutes profanity or personal attack.

5. These policies will be stated publicly (as they are currently) upon registration. Any posters violating this rule will be subject to exclusion from posting for a seven day period. A second subsequent offense will cause the poster to be barred from posting for a thirty day period. A third subsequent offense will result in a permanent revocation of posting privileges. Notification of these actions will be directed to the individual at the email address of record in his/her FT registration profile. No public announcements will be made.

6. e-mail addresses will be a requisite for registration rights in FT so as to provide FT management a method for individual communication. The user will have the option to suppress this address from view in their profile.

7. Multiple aliases will be allowed for the express purpose of humor or specific purpose (e.g. Santa), providing they are registered to the same individual at the same email address. Users opting to register multiple aliases must choose for their email address to be able to be viewed in their profile so as to make it obvious to all users that the alias(s) are associated with the same individual. No registrant will be allowed to have multiple aliases except under these conditions.

8. Registrants will be queried as to whether they have been previously excluded from the site, or are under current suspension, or whether they have an active alias registered under a different email address from the one being currently registered. A “yes” answer to any of these queries will result in the registration attempt being denied. False answers to this question will result in permanent termination of the user’s access upon discovery of this rule(s) violation.



[This message has been edited by svpii (edited 03-04-2001).]