This is a fair question. There's no real design to the way we have done this in the past. What I mean is that we did not have a plan for programs that went out of business. Now that some have, my feeling is that FlyerTalk can serve as a great respository of the past and the history of this industry. There is no other place on the Web (other than InsideFlyer) that has so much of the rich history of how these programs have evolved and of course that can be reflected in our archives of these past programs.

I constantly here from program executives that scour through these archives looking for best practices of the past, member reaction to things that had been tired and proved or disproved and as a result, it does seem to make sense to keep this information available. With the declining cost of storage and bandwidth, the cost of keeping this information available is quite minimal and since they are all within the "Discontinued Programs" forum, it really doesn't matter if there is a single program in there or dozens, it only registers as a single forum on the main menu.

Bottom line, the online world can be a great depository and at little or no worry about "space." The flip side of this is if you were to ever visit the House of Miles here in Colorado Springs, you'd learn of the file room which does take up space. It has a collection of the collateral of all programs dating back to 1981, when all the materials were printed and mailed to members, unlike today in which most of the materials are just a part of the vast digital domain, which does not seem to take up any space at all.

But the most likely reason? I am simply a rat pack for the history of these programs and in that forum i put "my stuff."

Thanks for the question.
Randy