Gastrocnemius

Why not leave "live" trip reports where the OP posted them, and move them when the trip is finished?

My view, FWIW, is that all other TRs should be in the TR forum

Christiansson

I spend some time in this forum, and almost exclusively in BAEC, simply because that's my interest, and I have limited time. And as someone noted, that's probably my loss. However it's actually the forum's loss that the threads that would be interesting to me, like the c-w-s thread would not been read by me had it started in the TR forum.
I'm not arguing right or wrong here, but from a general perspective every organisation of information that does not cater for seldom users/consumers or which requires extra understanding and/or knowledge will drive it towards elitism. It always divides participants in the ones who are in the know and those who are not.

That's fine, really, it's not that big of a deal. I'll probably swing over to the TR forum a few times, but if I can't easily find BA related reports, it will lose my interest.

However, by doing things this way, unless there is some ongoing effort to educate people in this forum, there is alway the risk that there are more people like me - sorry about that ;-)

I think the idea of moving the thread after a while, maybe after it's "finished" seems like a good middle ground, but that's of course just my 2cents. Like the rest of my post.

corporate-wage-slave

Welcome to Flyertalk Christiansson, and apologies that you were not greeted at the time of your first posting (it's impossible to spot for those of us using the App). It's great to see you here, welcome on board. and I hope we can see plenty more of you here.

On balance I probably agree with you. I don't pretend to know all the answers, but I did feel that participation in my thread dropped enormously the minute it was moved over. Difficult to describe, but I could almost physically feel it. I was interested in AeroWesty's numbers since I hadn't tracked it myself, but that's exactly what it felt like. The TR forum is more of a once a week dip for the regulars, whereas BAEC is very "here and now" to a larger congregation. So live TRs/diaries kind of straddle the divide somewhat. On the other hand, Mods don't create content, that is down to the congregation, and to that extent you get the forum that the participants create for themselves.

The poor Mods have to make the call, they'll get criticism whatever they decide, it really isn't much fun for them and it is a lot of unexpected work too. But I must admit I won't be doing another diary after all the hassle it caused.

Dave Noble

So... should debate about United, Thai, Delta et al be allowed because some people cannot be bothered to actually go to the forum where that topic should be covered?

Should those that are interested in TRs miss out because those there do not go searching for misplaced TRs

SaraJH

I really don't get all this fuss about trip reports living in the trip report section!

I only joined this forum recently and in my early days I frequented the Trip Report section as I was planning a trip and wanted to see pictures of different carriers J class offerings, as an aide to deciding which airline to travel with. If these reports and pictures had been in their respective airline sections then I wouldn't have seen them. For me this is a strong feature of the trip report forum. Plus it inspires me to go to new places and (whispers) try new airlines.....

Yes, of course I could still see these reports after they have been moved but say I was mid trip and a live report was running and reporting from where I am, it would be a useful real time reference for attractions, restaurants etc that could be used during the trip. Again if this was in its airline section it would be missed.

Christiansson

Thanks c-w-s, appreciate that.

And I know, I've been on everything from programming to espresso making forums these past 20-25 years. So I just thought I'd share some of my views, but as I hinted, things change, I'm lazy these days, information wants to be free, 7sec attention span and all that. The harcore audience is the same though ;-) as the small group of people who wants to be on top and try to put others down, and the police force, and the.... ;-) but you all know that I guess.

Thanks again for the welome, and it's a great forum with great content and people, and I thoroughly enjoy being here, hence I was wanted to share my view to add to the content.

Calchas

I am not sure if imageshack does this, but imgur will show you a graph of traffic against date for each image which—given that most people who read you report will also load the pictures—is a reasonable metric of readership. If you are interested in that kind of number crunching.

+1

I think the vast majority of persons on this board and at least a few from the TR forum are enjoying your diary and the discussion thread it produced, the short lock down notwithstanding. I am looking forward to the next instalment.

If the outcome of the little argument on venue appropriateness is that c-w-s, of all the contributors on this forum, is dissuaded from making further "trip reports"/"diaries"/"travel advice", it will an extremely unfortunate loss to the forum.

Christiansson

Yeah if the content is interesting for the audience, it's pretty easy to see if folks read it, if they don't then they aren't interested I would assume. And if they aren't interested, well then it doesn't matter I guess, but if they are then it does. For me it's pretty simple, a forum is an interest group and by definition if people are interested in the topic and what you are writing then it's valid. Now if FT wants to regulate who should post what where, then as I said, that's fine by me. I happen to disagree, I thought I was pretty clear it was my view, and that I don't assume to impose that on anyone else, but I wanted to highlight one of the consequences which, regardless of your view, will happen. At least I've seen it a lot, maybe FT readers are radically different but I really don't think so.

corporate-wage-slave

I should point out that I suspect my online foray this week was always going to be a bit of a one-off. I don't really think there is a market / interest level for my daily schleps to and from NCL - and my regular trips to Frankfurt lack the sexual frisson that BahrainLad manages to locate. It's all too tedious to read about I'm sure. Most TRs seem to have a lot of champagne and never-ending lounge stays, and that seems to be want FTers look for, as least if you look at what is out there.

Dave Noble

FT has been set up such that different topics have different fora where they can be discussed. As such, the set up is that there is a United forum for discussions on United, one for BA , another for Qantas etc.

The FT rules includes on regarding staying on topic ( http://www.flyertalk.com/help/rules.php#stayontopic ) and this applies to all fora

Trip reports are not on topic for a BA forum but are for the TR forum

FT would be awful to use if there was just 1 big forum for all topics.

kered

That is such a sad reflection on the way the BA forum is these days.

So much wonderful content & contributions, by so many great members is lost to the forum, because of all the politics, backbiting, snipping & general "yucky-ness" that is so prevalent of late.

This forum is a sad, sad shadow of what it once was. Despite the very best efforts of a few, who are trying their damnedest to cling on to what once was a great forum, the fun, camaraderie & feeling of a happy community has been sucked out of it & what remains isn't really worth bothering with anymore

matthandy

I realise that this post will involve discussion of moderation, but if the BA forum mods would permit me to explain it might be helpful to a wider audience.

As the moderator that locked the thread I want to explain why the lockdown was necessary. I don't think that many of you realise how much time and effort I had to put in clearing up all of the meta-discussion posts (some rather nasty). I locked the thread to stop the run of comments on the move which only would have had to be cleared up later. In other words I locked the thread to stem the flow and make life easier for me. I was very clear when posting on the thread that the closure was temporary. It also was no reflection on the OP or those of you whose posts were within the rules. Calling a time out is just sometimes the best way to go. I invited anyone who had concerns or questions to PM me and some of you did for which I am very grateful. I hope that those that did went anyway satisfied with my response.

This all happened whilst I was at work in Germany. I started clearing up the thread but it took many hours. I think that I spent about 5 hours in total tidying the thread and dealing with the disciplinary issues and responding to people's PMs. I sent over 35 PMs in that period. I also had to go to lunch which meant that the thread was locked for a longer period that I had hoped. I'm sorry, but FT isn't my life and I chose not to miss lunch with my colleagues over keeping the thread locked for another 40 minutes.

Honestly, it was the worst day that I've ever had as a moderator. I don't believe that many of you can appreciate the amount of stress that was caused because of this issue and the amount of work (volunteer) that I had do to bring things back around. Not withstanding the fact that I was actually supposed to be doing my job at the time too.

I hope that this might help some of you understand that your actions have direct consequences for the moderation team as well as other users on Flyertalk.

AeroWesty

I hope that some sort of intelligent compromise can be reached so that this doesn’t come to fruition.

Mods are also here to give us a guiding hand in that creation. As I ventured above, all it would take is a statement of expectations for the live reports, and the vast majority will self-guide based upon those expectations, relieving the administrative staff of many of the previous headaches on the subject.

I understand the BA forum is one of the most popular and widely-read forums on FT. What kind of content does the congregation want? More threads such as 6F suggested here:

… interspersed with live and engaging travel diaries from both the business-oriented and the hedonistic alike, or threads about 20-year-old peanut packets and what belongs in the bin that are beginning to fill the void?

I sure know which I would vote for, and from viewership numbers, I doubt if I’m in the minority.

Then why aren’t you up in arms about this thread?

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/briti...er-thread.html

According to FT rules you quoted, the above thread belongs in the Mileage Run Discussion forum, and has so for years. Let’s ship that one off too.

Aztec_Flyer

Whilst accepting the difficult job that the mods, ambassadors and the other upper echelons of the FT team do for us - the vast majority of them unpaid for their community efforts - I do think that moving the live TR type threads after they have finished is the way to go.

I have a very similar travel profile to CWS and it was a very entertaining read to see it through someone else's eyes so to speak. I don't think I would have followed it as closely in the TR forum as it tends to be somewhere I drop into when I'm looking for a review of an airline that's new to me whereas the BA forum I drop into at least daily.

If the approach is open to debate then I'd like to cast another vote in the direction of moving them when they've reached their natural conclusion.

Dave Noble

Indeed. maybe it should. however the issue isn't about an old thread that may be in the wrong place but to do with new threads being just dumped in the wrong place

Is it that onorous for people to post in the correct location. If posting a trip report, why on earth should it not go into its correct location?

It just seems that there are a few people who have a screw the structure of FT , I will just stick stuff anywhere regardless of how wrong it is to put it there; being too lazy to want to use other forums is hardly a justification