Originally Posted by Randy Petersen

Still not sure why the fascination with others. Nice work on the numbers here though not sure of the purpose. Actually it seems to indicate that members on Milepoint are happily adjusted to social sharing with others in a friendly environment and yet still are posting some very impressive content. Funny thing about your list. It would seem to indicate that there would be about 641,510 +/- posts of relative information (after deducting your list of social sharing) after 2 1/2 years on Milepoint. One might say that's pretty respectable since a quick comparison to FlyerTalk after 2 1/2 years according to the Internet Wayback Machine indicates FlyerTak had 282,315 +/- at the same point:
http://web.archive.org/web/200101232...m/boardsfr.htm

I'll leave the number crunching to you but I think it fair to say good for them with what seems like very positive success in whatever it is they are doing—it helps the average frequent flyer and there's really nothing wrong with that.

So, why don't we do this—quite worrying about any others and continue to work on building FlyerTalk for the better. One of the marks of great communities is they hold their heads high, wish other efforts well and always look forward to helping the next member with some information relative to their travel.

Originally Posted by Globaliser

It was to examine the validity of this bald assertion made above:-Just how "well" is MilePoint (and how useful is the 2.2 million posts metric), when:-

• at least two out of every three posts on MilePoint has been made in the threads that I've listed (whose utility is obviously questionable);
• the top poster on MilePoint has alone made over 150,000 posts;
• the top ten posters have collectively made over 500,000* posts;
• the top 20 posters have together made over 720,000* posts; and
• the BA board on MilePoint attracted a grand total of 67 posts in the entire month of November 2013?

As for the politely-worded suggestion that we FTers should simply mind our own business, it's worth remembering that when MilePoint started, a significant number of BAEC board FTers did participate for a while. A few of us are still there, trying to answer the occasional question about flying on BA or (more often) how to use BAEC Avios to fly on other airlines. Why? Fundamentally to help others who are less well-versed in the intricacies of travel, which is one of the foremost benefits that IBBs bring to their respective fields. But most have dropped out because there's so little point in MilePoint.

Participation in IBBs is not exclusive, even when there are competitors. There could have been a place for both FT and MP alongside each other, whatever the power (or not) of incumbency. It's not unfair to ask what went wrong at MP, and to wonder whether and how it could still be fixed. I think that deep down, those of us who ask that question do so because we care rather than because we sneer - particularly when it's being asked by those who still visit MP. But spinning the numbers in the way that you do, while ignoring the underlying reality which they show, doesn't answer that question at all. It's just misleading to make a post count comparison with the total number of FT posts thirteen years ago, when the internet was still a playground for geeks, email was only just beginning to take off, broadband was a novelty for most, and access was much less easy than it is now.

* These numbers include about 30,000 from the BoardingArea news feed, which appears at no 8 in the list of top posters.