Lehava and Jailer:
I would hope you understand that the issue is not gemaine to OMNI in the way you might think. The whole issue starts with those members - and there are many of them - who do not subscribe to the same options you put forth, that is, Ignore User, and don't read a thread that is outside of your interest and participation in a topic.

You ask, "how is that hurting you?" In reality, it hurts FlyerTalk quite a bit in the amount of time and effort it takes to investigate each and every Report Bad Post in OMNI. As with the prior question, I did do some research and don't mind sharing that with you.

In 2005, despite the forum being closed for a short time, I received 329 Report Bad Posts just for OMNI. In 2006, that statistic rose to 437 Report Bad Posts. Now, only 23% of the time did i take some action, not always on the board, usually behind the scenes with individual members. But in pretty much 90% of those 437 reports last year, i had to go into OMNI and read through many times a very long thread to get the gist of what was going on within that thread, who might have made the key post that led it to being off-topic. The average time of doing so - about 5 minutes. So 5 minutes times 437 instances. I think that is over 36 hours devoted to that task. Over a year that really isn't that much, but it certainly is time I'd have liked to devote to more pleasant things that putting on my striped shirt. Granted, most of the time I don't take any action, preferring to let things sort themselves out. But that does not mean it is ignored. The biggest challenge is that what one person seems as a violation as a TOS or a name calling or other, may not be seen that way by myself or others. Then beyond the RBP we have to dialogue of why or why not we see it differently. That is even more time consuming than anything. And as for what does it hurt? Well, what about members who feel insulted and then fight back rather than use the system. Doesn't it hurt them? They may earn a suspension or other action. And what about the times when threads turn racist (an individual member posts something perceived as racist) and the damage done to FlyerTalk as it may or may not reflect on FlyerTalk. True, we did not make that statement, but it is on FlyerTalk. And for times like that, well, the only way to get better at that is to patrol OMNI 24/7 in real time rather than the reactive method we use now. Who's going to fund that? Are you prepared to pony up the kind of money it would take to man patrols 24/7? Likely not. So the current system works fairly well. We allow dialogue to generally serve its own needs and to allow a fairly liberal playing field, choosing only to interject when members play the racist card, interject politics into threads that are normal Q/A about consumer advice, etc. or think that they will truly be able to convert a Republican into a Democrat or a Democrat into a Republican and all in the name of something that will never be.

The idea of limiting posts on OMNI, is not for the general member that does enjoy and contributes to a normal conversation. It is for those who are often the subject of the 437 RBP. BTW, the 437 was a 32% increase from the year before.

Question is, would you devote nearly a week of work to a single forum on FlyerTalk, not for the purpose of contributing and enjoying, but just to read and referee? I do it because i am committed to FlyerTalk, but the bummer is that it hurts me a lot because it takes all the time that i would have liked to use personally to enjoy FlyerTalk - just like you do.

Anyway, i hope this helps understand it is less about OMNI as a vibrant forum on FlyerTalk and more about some of its members, and using the Ignore User button does not seem to be an option.