In general, I am against this proposal.

This is a community where we need to encourage participation... not discourage it all.

If you check the forums, you will find that many "errors" and "deals" have been brought forward by relatively new members. In fact, many of them appear to provide much more to this community than some established members.

For example, if you look at yesterday's Tokyo and Osaka hotel errors, both were posted by members who just joined this year. Other recent errors were posted by a member who joined in 2003 but has only 60+posts, so are they a new member? They have not added many posts to Flyertalk, but I would say the quality is outstanding.

In regards to letting people post their deals to a general forum and gaining access if a moderator moves the thread is not appropriate. First, our TOS states that you should be posting to the appropriate forums... that suggestion just encourages people to violate the TOS. Second, that would place the moderator in the position of determining whether the "value" of the post warrants admission to the secret club. Finally, only Randy and his team currently can grant exceptions to the CC and SPAM requirements... not the moderators. I see no reason to add that to their plate.

So, I am against any changes to the way access is granted to the errors. This question seems to come up everytime a major "error" occurs.... and some jump on the bandwagon - in my opinion - because they did not see the error quickly enough.

William