Sorry for creating a second thread on this subject, but the first one was getting quite long and many of the answers were becoming repetitive. I felt therefore that I needed to make a seperation in order to make posts on this subject more readable and enjoyable for those who read these.

Also, yes what you are thinking is right, I want to somewhat seperate my message from everyone else's!

Before continuing, I have one announcement. I am not resident in North America, the one reference to New York in my election profile was referring to the fact that I am often there but have not lived in NY for about 15 years, had I realized that there would be a voting seperation between North American residents and other I would have been more specific. I have posted this explanation at the request of one or two Flyertalkers who asked for clarification.

I have worked in the entertainment industry on an international basis for several years and have lived in the US, France, Brazil, Australia, Hong Kong, the UK (both England and Scotland) and Turkey over the past 15 years or so. My expertise lies in conceiving, packaging and producing entertainment product around the World (mostly for television) and I have worked at times with all of the worlds major media companies.

The most recent product I worked on, I helped take from the drawing board to significant presence in over 150 countries worldwide (yes, even sub-saharan Africa).

For the last five years or so my work has had me on a plane about every 3 days, and about 93% of my flying is not done within the United States. I currently have top status on three airlines (and alliances) and fly about 250,000 miles a year.

In short, I believe that my international media experience would be a good addition to the Talk Board.

Now to answer the questions (after taking your time with the above, I will be short in my answers).

What would moderators be doing?

I believe that Moderators should pretty much be doing what they have been doing over the last month or two. While there was some initial consternation about threads being locked and moved, I believe that this has lessened lately as everyone has becopme more accustomed to the posting patterns on FT. I also think that they have been good at closing down some threads recently that denegrated into Flame Wars.

Would you impose limits?

I think that as the concept matures, and the Talk Board gains experience, the limits on what the Moderators will and will not do will be more concrete. Afterall, it has been somewhat of a Beta stage lately.

Would you impose standards or require consistency?

I believe that the standards will be reached by consensus and it will not be up to me alone to impose them. Without consistancy they would be inherently unfair.

How would you deal with complaints or accusations of abuse?

I think that by their very essence these would be dealt with on a case by case basis.


What do you think would the ideal format for FlyerTalk? (i.e. a Philosphy of how a community like this should be organized)

I believe that to a certain extent it is already in its ideal format. Saying that however, there are certain questions that have come up in recent months as to the morality of certain issues (exploiting pricing mistakes for example) and whether tips posted here are flagged by programs and then ended. These questions have to be discussed and addressed by the TalkBoard.

I would also think that in the future that the board must grow but never abandon its roots.

As far as growth management is concerned, I believe that as the distribution method of FT is the internet, and that FT does not advertise, the growth of the board is organic in nature often spreading through word of mouth, media articles and web searches. Unless there is a planned targetted method of attracting new members, I am not quite sure how this can be managed. I can say however that as the site grows we have to be much more careful about scammers, spammers and trouble-makers. We have seen more and more examples of this of late and need to actively combat them.