Hejhej everybody,

I am glad to see all the feedback we got on this topic.

So far we have received a total of 32 votes. These are the current results:
65.63% - Yes
9.38% - Yes, but with certain conditions (please post them below)
25.00% - No

I am glad to see that there is a general consensus in favour of creating such a dedicated give-away thread for EBS and EBG stati.

I would furthermore like to address some of the comments that were posted above.

I understand how you might come to this conclusion, as I argued in the very same way with the senior moderators. However, the guidance given is that offering for free is to be regarded as a trade or barter if you so will, and hence is also to be regarded to fall under the aforementioned rule.

The topic of wether giving away things for free outside of the coupon connections forums has been brought up several times in the past. There has been some discussion wether this rule should be relaxed to allow giveaways for airline-specific things such as stati and vouchers as that would be keeping with the spirit of flyertalk. As mentioned in my original post above, there have been some trials in the AA forum, the Air Canada forum and the A3 forum to see how allowing such threads for giveaways in certain topic-specific forums works. Discussing this point with the senior moderators and eventually the FT Community Director is actually the reason how I was asked to became moderator for SAS, with the explicit suggestion of implementing this in the SAS forums. And it is how this consultation to allow for gifting of status within a specific thread in the SAS forums came to be. It is the idea to set up such a thread in the SAS forums as well, which operates strictly within this given exception to FT rule 10 (which normally extends to include free giveaways as well), which grants me the leeway as the SAS moderator to allow me to do this.

As GUWonder has pointed out, the appropriate forums for trading and swapping status are the coupon connection forums, which were specifically created for such interactions. The suggested status giveaway thread in the SAS forums would be separate from the coupon connections and would remain within some boundaries. There is some wiggle room which can be discussed here and which I would then gladly take in to consideration, for example wether we want to introduce some additional rules for this thread, but other boundaries, such as the of the topic of the thread being strictly for one-directional giveaway purposes, are not up for debate. Allowing trades and solicitations to occur in this thread would enable users to bypass the posting and membership time requirements for accessing the coupon connection forums, which are set by FT and exist for a reason. Allowing such activities in the suggested thread could also lead to moderation issues, which is another reason why the coupon connections have a very specific rule set and expert moderation in place to deal with any issues that might arise. Moreover, if someone is looking for such a barter, the coupon connection is arguably a better place, as it is on-topic and attracts members interested in such activities.

The trial run that allows this exception to FT rule 10, by setting up a thread allowing for giving away things in a topic-specific forums, has been limited to strictly one-directional giveaway threads. The line needs to be drawn somewhere after all, which is why this exception to the rules has some clear boundries.
I believe the creation of such a thread, with the aforementioned limitations, keeps things in the spirit of flyertalk and the SAS forums, which in itself is the reason we are even given the chance to create such a (one-directional) giveaway thread in the first place.

I hope this helps to explain the reasoning!

Given the results from the poll (75% in favour, 25% against, n=32), there appears to be a general consensus in favour of implementing such a dedicated Eurobonus status giveaway thread.

Thank you to everybody who participated, be it just voting or also discussing!

In a next step I will start working on writing a comprehensive rule-set for this giveaway thread and start implementing it.
In the meantime this thread will remain open should the need for discussion or comments arise.
I will keep you all updated on the progress, but do not hesitate to use this thread for your comments or questions.

Nick - SAS Moderator