I read with dismay the snappy, rude responses to "A new guy from school." A number of years ago I was treated in a similar manner as a new poster. So I stopped posting here, and provided info to FrequentFlierForum instead. They were quite nice over there. Then, about the time that the nastiness migrated to there, the moderator here did an admirable job of cleaning out the nasties and creating an atmosphere of civility. So I began to post here again.

I do hope we are not regressing to the way I and others were treated years ago. Note that the new guy from school was new to the forum and was asking a question he thought legitimate. There was no way for him to know otherwise. But man, was he told! So now we have lost a poster. There is no way to know how much he might have been able to contribute once he gets addicted to this stuff.

So why do we post here? I post and maintain my website below to help people travel who would not otherwise be able to travel. I get a lot of beginner emails to my website. I always try to be polite and direct these beginners to the correct places to find the info they seek.

I avoid acronisims. I do not expect people to know even what UAL means, let alone which airlines own the mileage plus or AAdvantage programs or whatever. (Even I don't have those memorized.) And guess what. Many of my original beginners are now contributing actively to my website, and thus to you.

Again. Why do we post here? Who do we want to help? Do we want to help people not experts on miles, or do we just want to have an "in" group club?

I do hope the moderators once again take an agressive, proactive stance on mean posts. It appears that, sadly, a fix is needed once again .