To paraphrase what I posted elsewhere. At the end of the day all of us here contribute something to the overall entity that is FT. Whether it be me, you, Cigarman, Doc, Camera Guy or Arturo, etc we all add things, and all may choose to read them or ignore them.

There are heaps of things I think are utter cr*p on FT and I simply ignore them, and heaps of things that have in my 5 months here saved me $40,000-$50,000 I suppose, (like now owning 14 x UA "Systemwides" for starters!) so it is a "filtering" technique needed from us all. We learn lots about about interest in travel, and better still meet some wonderful people.

What other web board could you post a note saying you are stranded in a city somewhere and "does anyone have time for a drink or dinner at late notice", and get a response? dgolds certainly responded thus when I was stuck in SFO at very short notice a week back, and only as I was already down in the bar with a bunch of other FT'ers did we not catch up! Talk about an instant response. I had a great evening with a bunch of FT'ers in Seattle on the way across, was met quite unexpectedly by MrLimo at LAX, and met 45 FT'ers in DUS, and had 2 of these best flights of my life flying over and back with MileTex drinking Dom Perignon all the way.

I personally really enjoy reading the latest updated news posts that DOC is a genius at garnering. And updating. If it is CO releated news I am sure it also gets posted here. Great. I get a lot of very useful info from the news aposts. Some here may NEVER visit "In The News". I never visit "OMNI" basically, or the SwissAir or Bass Hotels boards, so we all have the right to ignore what we don't want to see or have no interest in. There are very silly threads (IMHO) posted often on the UA board where I mostly hang out, and I ignore those too. Go look at the UA boards - the threads no-one is interested in get almost no response.

I am not defending Doc, dgolds, Cigarman, Camera Guy or anyone here. I don't have to, as they all have their own opinions, and have 100% the same right to express them as anyone else here. If I post a thread on the CO board you do not agree with, and think is boring, well that thread being ignored by the majority speaks volumes for its content. I posted to the Diners Club board only yesterday, for the very first time, and got a lot of useful responses. That is the beauty of FT. A wealth of info, shared freely and rapidly.

If ANYONE posts or brings forward a thread here that others feel is naff why not simply ignore it? The atmosphere here in the CO Forum can at times very pretty darn toxic! More so than ANY other board - in my experience. There does seem to be a "repel all boarders" herd mentality at times. I must observe it is a lot better now than it was a few months back. People will stop posting things of little or no interest if there is no response. Piling in and kicking the death out of the poster does not seem to me to achieve much, other than to greatly upset the more conservative FT members who also form the core of this Forum.

If this were North Korea, none of our posts, good or bad, would be possible, and I sure am thankful we are able to have such personal freedom, and openness of expression.

(Or did Bill Gates decide that now is exprezzion?)



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~ Glen ~

[This message has been edited by ozstamps (edited 11-21-2000).]