tiger tiger, thank you for your inquiry. Here is the specific thread that got me wondering about the new policies.
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum95/HTML/001884.html
Smeisser it is in fact true that new people have become frustrated with FLyerTalk and simply left the board entirely. I teach Frequent Flyer programs in several national forums. I always include the FlyerTalk website in both my handouts and my seminars. I also have "Punki" travel cards with the FT website that I hand out while traveling. As a result, I have recently received several calls and e-mails from people asking me travel related questions. When I referred them back to FlyerTalk (after answering their questions to the best of my ability, of course) they tell me that they have already tried that, but their post got lost so they weren't going back there.
This paragraph honestly confuses me:
<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">The problem with a friendly/enabling environment, is that -assuming such a holy grail exists- many (myself included) are often too lazy to read even the most minimal instructions, and will post anywhere it is easiest/most convenient to do so. In fact, I'd bet that even if FT had only 2 forums, some would post in the wrong one. Design an FT that even a fool can use, and only a fool will use it. There is an amazing amount of information here, and this requires, for better or for worse,
a great deal of organization. You seem convinced this is futile or pointless or counterproductive. I shall have to disagree.</font>
Your arguments totally support my position, and then you turn around and say you disagree? Having "The Buzz" at the top of FlyerTalk Miles worked just fine for years and my bet is that it would still work just fine--an assumption supported by the fact that that is where people naturally post general travel posts. An assumption further supported by the 138 misposted threads and 2,000 misposted responses, plus the ones that I mentioned on the first page that have not yet been moved.
I absolutely do agree that we need organization and I also agree that people will always take the line of least resistance. It is for those exact reasons that it makes perfectly logical sense to set up the board in the way most people are most comfortable using it and yes, I do think it is futile and pointless and counterproductive to continue to attempt to force people to do something they are not inclined to do--especially in an environment where the real goal is to get them to volunteer to stay.
On the other side of that coin is this question: What could we possibly gain by trying to force people to post somewhere that they don't even know exists? What reason would here be for making it hard when it could be so easy?
You go on to write:
<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">138 topics/2000 posts have been moved. Yes, so? Is this inherently a bad thing? Whenever I have seen a locked thread in Miles Buzz (except for the nasty ones), a new URL to the moved thread has been added. If this is not enough for someone to find their thread, what is?</font>
Yes, I honestly do believe that anything that drives people away or angers and frustrates them is inherently bad for FlyerTalk.
You are right that the 38 threads that have been locked and moved do carry a URL trail. There are also, however, 100 additional threads that have simply been moved to the Aisle of Lost Threads without being locked and without a trace. These are the ones that cause the serious confusion.
[This message has been edited by Punki (edited 04-12-2002).]