Originally Posted by
RichMSN
And I posted this response:
Speaking for myself:
It’s not a requirement at all — it’s a suggestion, a recommendation. I have never once felt bound by someone filling out such a laundry list for me to consider whether a new forum is warranted or not warranted. You may have agreed to it. Past TalkBoards may have agreed to it. However, I have never agreed to it and I am not bound by any such agreements.
I was elected to TalkBoard to represent members of the FlyerTalk community at large and I do so by making proposals and voting on proposals according to my conscience and based on feedback from members and other members of TalkBoard.
Others may consider that list a requirement. I don’t.
I don't think any of us feel "bound" to it.
But I'll reiterate the excellent point made by
nsx not long ago, with some additional emphasis:
The forum creation criteria are not a "procedure". They are in effect a request that people proposing a forum do their homework first to maximize the prospects for a proposal. On several occasions the TalkBoard has had to do the homework ourselves. Sometimes the problem is that quantitative data is simply not obtainable.
Speaking for myself, when dealing with a subject with which I am unfamiliar, having these details makes it far easier for me to understand a proposal and make an educated decision when it comes time to vote.
I don't hold it against anyone when they don't fill out the questionnaire. The lack of a questionnaire, though, may simply mean that I may end up not throwing my weight behind a particular proposal because I don't know enough about it. Sometimes the answers to those questions come through additional discussion in TalkBoard Topics or elsewhere, but often, these seemingly-unsubstantiated proposals seem to fizzle and die when they might have had a chance at being heard with just a little more information.
That said, I have a feeling that
koko is not going to let this proposal simply wither and die, so the lack of a completed questionnaire in this case is less of an issue than in other proposals, and as he has previously mentioned, most of the questions the questionnaire would answer have come out either in his various posts or general discussion here.
In any case, there's far too much meta-discussion in this thread about proper procedure. Let's get past that. It now remains to be decided by the TalkBoard whether this forum is something that will move FlyerTalk forward as being the best resource for frequent flyer program and other travel information.
I do see both sides' arguments, but I am not wholly convinced as of yet that this is both a necessary and a net-positive move for FlyerTalk. I share the same concerns that Sharon and others have posted previously: that it will both fail to gain critical mass (in the idea's current form) and also turn into a cesspool of vitriolic posts. So far, the proponents of the idea have failed to convince me that my concerns are unfounded.
Perhaps the idea itself needs to be revisited and the scope broadened to ensure the forum is able to sustain broad and positive discussion. The idea of merging it with Travel News has been bandied about previously. I'm wondering if something along the lines of "Travel Information Sources Reviews and Discussion" (someone
please clean that idea of a title up) would be a broad enough topic to sustain interest--not just to discuss blogs but other travel information sources, too--the Dog, The Flight Deal, TripAdvisor, etc. Limiting the scope to just blogs seems to be not enough potential content (I think some here are vastly overestimating the number of people who care enough about commenting here versus on the blogger's own site) for a good discussion forum.
My current musings, anyway. I await being convinced otherwise.
