Perhaps it's just me, but what I see here is a yearning for "days gone by". The simpler life of the "old flyertalk". But... to continue my cliche-fest.... "you can't go home again".

Flyertalk isn't the small, cozy, simplistic place it used to be. Some will always mourn for that, but I think most agree, that the tradeoffs for what we have now far outweigh the losses.

The changes are here. Period. Flyertalk is a much bigger ship (or plane) now, and while it may not be possible to maneuver like the little cessna it was, it's going to be able to meet the needs of far more people, and take them much further than before (and with premium cabins!)

I wholeheartedly agree with Chex's (25 yr old rambling) assessment of the situation.

I think the added forums are of great value to the board, and I don't believe that we can encourage the growth of those boards while at the same time allowing "weeds" to grow willy-nilly all over the place. I certainly don't encourage "flaming of newbies", but if we dont guide them in the right direction from the start, bad habits are more easily formed. Most of the redirection i've seen given given to newbies has been quite polite. If it hasnt, then maybe we as individual flyertalkers should take it upon ourselves to explain how things work, rather then just let them disappear, if that is what the concern is. I'm sure that the volumes of new information found when they WERE in fact given the correct forum far outweighs any confusion. And if someone is going to get their "feelings hurt" and leave rather than take advantage of and contribute to ALL the available resources, its really going to be their loss.

So to attempt to answer the specific questions posed:


1. Is there some reason that FT Miles cannot support a General Travel forum?

I'm sure it CAN, but since we have an entire section of FT dedicated to travel, as well as a link to Travelbuzz from the website, will just create another place for people to mispost and have to search through for information, causing (IMO) more confusion, than if they just searched TravelBuzz or the related travel forum.

2. Is there some reason that the General Travel forum cannot be at the top of FT Miles?

Because (again IMO)it will encourage misposting, rather than guide the "newbies" to the correct forum or section of FT, where they will be able to take advantage of all the great information that we have there.

Finally...

Perhaps the question is best asked to Randy in private, especially considering that even in original post on this thread it was suggested that he or his staff would be best equipped to answer the question. If a suitable explanation can't be found in the 9 pages of discussion we already have on this topic, then I think we can all agree its probably not going to happen.


Edited for late night spelling...ack!

[This message has been edited by missydarlin (edited 09-14-2002).]