We need to stop and do a reality check. We have some posting in this thread who seem to believe that the patient is in the surgery room, with life threatening injuries. That is far from reality. The reality is that Randy left a very healthy board on his departure. It has experienced exceptional growth in 2011, highly unusual for a board of this size. Can it be better? Of course. Facebook continues to seek ways to improve. So does TripAdvisor. But we need to keep in mind that the patient is extremely healthy. Perhaps we could floss our teeth a bit more, but there are no teeth that need to be removed and no crowns that need to be made.

Will a board, any board, suits everyone's needs? No, of course not. An FTer used an analogy with me as to a board being like a restaurant. It has a particular offering. Those that don't want that atmosphere or that food will eat elsewhere. But the chef isn't going to switch from offering steak to only serving vegan food if his expertise is beef. Do we lose members when we require civility of posters? Yes, we do - and we are ok with that.

If I were a contented FTer, and almost all are, I would read this thread with dismay. I would suddenly think there is much conflict and infighting going on. If this is reflective of the community, I doubt that I would stay. Be careful that you don't injure the patient by the implications of your statements.

I'm proud of the team that worked on our TS/S issue. That forum represented FT at its worst. The alternative was to close it forever or to repurpose it in a way that served the core mission of FlyerTalk. It was one of the ugliest issues that Randy left me with. He had hoped to deal with it himself, and simply ran out of time. I began receiving messages about it from participants the first week on my new job. I waited several months till I felt more confident of my ability to wade in. We spent months of hard work on it, having taken considerable input from members, and then melding together the best ideas of all. Now, members can go to a forum and receive practical information about their security questions without having the thread derailed by the third post by those who detest the entire security process. And yet the latter concerns are also worthy of discussion, and they now have a subforum dedicated to that.

I'm proud of our mods. As a group they have done extraordinary work, many organizing information in their forums so that folks can easily learn about nuances of their program. Some have developed information channels with airlines and hotels so that there is a feedback as to what members would like in both their travel experience and their travel program. Are they perfect? Absolutely not. But I do consider whether members are best serviced by forum practices and specific mods. Do we have the same mods today that we did at the start of the year? No. Will I discuss that? No. We constantly are discussing good practices for mods who work to improve.

Some of you seem to have very velcro personalities, where you want to consider some perceived ill of 2005 needing righted today. Much has evolved over the years. For example, Randy decided some years ago that only he could discipline any candidate running for Talkboard during the campaign. He took it away from the mods to eliminate the perception of personal agendas. I issued the same rule this election period. Yet some of you are banging away at what happened before any such change. Give it up, people.

Will I allow discussion of specific discipline? Of course not. Would that better the spirit of the board? No. Would it help bring posters? No. Would it even be beneficial to those involved? No. There is a documented process for discipline and appeals by which we abide. Appeals do get heard, and they are done with impartiality and not favoritism to the mod involved.

If I were some of the many volunteers who work tirelessly for the betterment of FlyerTalk, I'd read this thread and think why. Broad brush strokes are being used to criticize, and should not be.

I hope that there is genuine interest in making the FlyerTalk experience better. I'm not convinced of that by the tone of this thread. The metrics say that we have an exceptionally healthy board. Accept that as a baseline. Give up your issues with what happened two or five or 10 years ago. Find a language to present ideas so that they appear to be helpful and not punitive. I am constantly thinking about how to improve the member experience. I welcome forward looking suggestions and not past criticism.