Thanks, aBroadAbroad. I think I actually knew about that listing but just forgot about it. It is well maintained and works well.
As for the popularity (lack thereof) of flight connect - yes, it is a problem. Naturally, just making it work better doesn't make it more popular. There clearly is a risk of wasting resources if the usage doesn't catch on.
I really never have seen FT promoting any section or function before, so I'm not sure how it could be done. We usually work from things that already are popular - a thread will be turned into a forum once it is popular and diverse enough.
Is it even possible to work another way? Ie to first add something and then promote it, to create popularity? That is the progressive vs reactive discussion, I guess.
Adding DOs to flight connect will help with making the calendar more known.
From what I've seen, DO-leaders usually use tools outside of FT for support the daunting task of organizing it all. There is a perfectly fine logic to that - to focus on what you already are good at, and use stuff from others that also focuses on what they are good at.
Without knowing the capabilities of the current software, it is not possible to know how well it could support DO-leaders with some tweaking. Making the tool work for every DO-need is the wrong path to take, but it clearly could be used more even without tweaks. The DO threads usually lists a manually maintained "who is on what flight" - a function already present in flight-connect.
Anyway, I think connecting travellers is/should be a fundamental thing at FT and a site wide member connect would be beneficial to the community.
I'm still hoping this thread will catch on, but I am interested to hear posters even if it is just saying "no, don't think it will work".