onobond

Has anyone suggested anything along your interpretion "dry heavily moderated fare focused threads". I know I haven't, but I have tried catching the opinions of many posters complaining about fare requests with little or no own research. Scroll back in this thread and check out the last weeks in TPR and PFD threads. The other complaint is the high noice/signal ratio in both threads (same references).

Early in this thread, I was ascribed to advocating
,
something I've had to deny over and over again. What I suggest is to leave the discussion around the fare construction, price alternatives for different starting points, booking tips etc., with the fare thread, but refer all OT discussion to a separate area (Deals discussion thread), but still identifiable by destination as 'XXX deals discussion".

There has been few posters expressing thoughts on the other suggestion of letting every fare/destination have it's own thread, but NOT having these threads spread out all over the BA forum, but assembled under the headline thread "Tp-run deals". I might have made this unclear from the start by calling the fare thread/s 'subforum/subfora', a term some posters seem unaccustomed to, but even after changing to 'threads' there seem to exist misunderstandings of the actual meaning.

From the start my terminology has been that I am introducing suggestions for change to improve signal/noice ratio, accessibility to deals in a Mega-thread with 5284 posts per year, and where a random 25 day review exposes 390 posts discussing at least 30 different deals, but in a random order, resulting in hardship trying to collect available information on an interesting deal. I'm in no position to dictate anything here, and nothing I have posted can be attributed to language or spirit along such a line, so please, no more accusations of that kind.

I'm happy to hear that you are "very open to new ideas", so could we work along that and find solutions instead of just saying no to any change? May I also be so bold, to please ask you what the benefit is in discussions of hundreds of deals, in a thread with 5+ K posts, without adequate possibility to search for available information concerning every single deal ? What other changes could you think of besides what I have suggested?

KARFA

My concern is any changes should be supported by a reasonable amount of posters and users to both threads, and I am not seeing that support for your suggestions which you have explained at length in this thread. Some are frankly not possible without broader changes at community level as noted by Prospero in post 48. I fundamentally do not agree that the TP run thread is as broken as you noted, and therefore I do not believe the changes needed really need to be as radical as you propose.

My suggestion FWIW to improve the threads are:

• current TP run thread as is but with updated wiki linked to posts with more details on current fares, probably requires a few people to help commit the time to ensure it stays up to date, no change to ability for folks to discuss things as they do already
• current Premium fare thread with updated wiki like Henky used to do, needs one or two people to step up to agree to maintain
• a broad "find me a good deal thread", again relies on people who are willing to help though otherwise it becomes pointless

Iamnotlost

I don't know if it would be practical for whoever adds something to the wiki to then monitor the entry to make sure it is still current and take it away when it is expired? Or if that might put people off putting things in there and then feeling responsible?

I think maybe part of the issue may be that people use the thread in different ways. I guess some people are just looking for the current good deals and others are interested in a more general way. I have the time to read quite alot of random stuff which can be in various categories like

• I don't understand this but I'll keep reading and one day I might start to understand
• this is boring I'll skip this bit
• that's interesting ,- hadn't thought of doing that
• darn it, now I'm going to have to book that

It is pretty easy to fast forward past the bits I'm not that interested in (like runs to places I am avoiding). Admittedly it is harder if I'm reading on my phone - so maybe it is about where and how people are accessing the thread as well.

alex67500

Exactly this. I think from the cloud of suggestions, it's the most likely to gather support. I would add one thing, it's that the find my à good deal thread would need to appear in the sticky notes at the top. The laziness of some knows no end

Ned1968

I would just add a separate REQUEST thread and use that thread to help people meet their specific requirements. There are plenty of people who are happy to help, and sometimes the answer ends up being of more general appeal, but more often than not the result is neither a TP run nor a wide open premium deal

rossmacd

The only change needed is to create a "Find Me a Fare" thread - which can either be for TP runs or for just regular premium fares. I would advise not using this for Y or Y+ fares since they are typically most advantageous to the poster travelling from their actual location (not positioning beforehand).

This way, the lazy or unable to learn types can post their question there - whether they get any help is another matter. The excellent information at the very top of the TP Run thread is more than enough to help people help themselves, or at least give a very good introduction to the tools that can learned rather easily.

LondonAndy

Prospero

We're leaning towards the following solution:

Premium Fare Deals
Tighten up the thread's mission statement

• listing of deals and flash sales on BA and BAEC partner carriers;
• exploration of options permitted by fare rules relating to each deal
• we will ask that fare requests not be posted in the thread

Clinic thread: Please help me find the best fare
New community help desk

• sharing tips and tools to use towards finding the best available fares
• we can post the fares we have found and request better alternatives
• scope limited to BA and BAEC partner airlines

We can review this again later in the year once it has bedded in.

onobond's proposals for added child forums are far reaching and demand for this will need to be tested, so the new clinic thread will help us determine/quantify the demand for oneworld fare discussion in the BA forum.

Misco60

Will the Tier Point Run thread be tightened up in a similar way? And the Clinic thread include requests for TP runs as well as best available fares?

It's the TP Run thread that is currently being flooded with lazy requests for others to do all the work.

rossmacd

corporate-wage-slave

I'm one of those helping to draft something here. Firstly I don't think any of us "own" a thread, and we need to give a collegiate margin to those still finding their way. If the information was that easy to find out then most of the obvious questions would not be asked. I do accept some people are a bit lazy when doing research, but that includes some of the regular posters here! For every person that asks a question there may be a dozen or more lurkers who are actually doing research and feeding off the replies, hopefully helpful ones.

Secondly, to address your specific point, what I have in mind, though it could easily be crowd sourced in to other directions, is a set of basic "how to" posts, with a feed to a more detailed thread or wiki with lots more details. Then after the basic guide, there would be the question/answer posts, a bit like the EC261 thread.

Now one of the "how to" posts could give a starter's guide to constructing a TP run, pointing to, inter alia, the TP thread and wiki as a source. But at the end of that it will say something like "ok, you now have the information to build a TP trip. If you aren't happy with the cost by all means put down the details/dates below, and someone may help you". When you get down to that level of detail, then it's not too onerous to say "yes but move it a day to save £10". If someone in that thread poses a question then there is no compulsion on anyone to answer. But the focus of the "Help me" thread would be to be a clinic to anyone trying to get a good fare - be it to see Aunt Nora, be it to get an extra 4980 TPs, in a cost effective way. And avoid those hopelessly open, detail free, research free questions. And I wouldn't want Noddy TP questions to crowd out the "How to" thread.

Misco60

It's important that the BA forum on FlyerTalk remain a friendly and welcoming place to newcomers, and that the barriers to entry are not set too high (or high at all). We were all new here once, and we have undoubtedly all learned a great deal from other members. I know I certainly have, since a ticketing error on a BA codeshare initially led me to this forum (which then helped me from blue to gold in two years).

However, I don't think it's too much to expect people to at least make an attempt to learn the basics of earning tier points and using ITA Matrix before asking for help with putting together a TP Run. All the information is already in the forum dashboard, so perhaps all that needs to be done is to make it clearer where to find that information.

It is also clear that some members love putting together itineraries for others, so by moving all requests (whether for premium deals or TP runs) into a clinic thread everybody wins.

sxc

Prospero

@sxc, I agree with you re. limitations of mega threads.

Just wondering, is there any way the existing Mileage Run Deals and Premium Fare Deals forums can pick up the slack?

alex67500

I disagree. The only problem I can see with the new thread is that's it's BA fares only. TPs are such a BA-specific topic that it doesn't belong anywhere else. If we made sure that "newbie" requests ended up there, then the other two threads (TP run and PFD) would be much neater. My tuppence.