For the community in general, what is the purpose of flyertalk?
* to provide information and assistance to other travelers
* to create a forum that is inflammatory and fun for others to read (and thus generates revenue for the owners)
* to provide members the opportunity to have fun and grow their egos by allowing them to poke fun at each other and demean each other, especially OPs. Or in other words, to make ourselves feel better by making others feel worse?

Is the forum here to give people an opportunity to help others or so that people can entertainment themselves by lowering others?

If it is the former, do our current rules of conduct encourage that purpose?

I know that the purpose of other communities is at least in part the latter, but does that make it right for our community?

What types of activities further the goals of the community? Which detract?

I am often embarrassed, on behalf of the community, when I read some of the posts. Does that ever happen to you? Are you spending so much of your life with this community to help people or tear them down?

I just wanted people to think about the impact of this forum and whether that is the impact we want to have.

Mods: Please move to correct forum if this is the wrong one.

I think the overuse of is one of the worst things. And the fact that there are some posters who seem to always be looking for an excuse to bring someone down.

For an outsider looking in, like myself, the community doesn't really come across as particularly friendly. I just cringe when I see now, and immediately mentally classify anyone using it as an idiot.

That said, my own personal experiences with FTers have been great so far.

Good questions to raise and discuss IMO.

Just not sure where the best home for this thread would be in terms of readership and content.

Guess we'll let it play out here until we get a better suggestion.

Thanks.

________________________

Cholula
CommunityBuzz! Co-Moderator

It's a forum. It is on t'interweb. You have to expect all sorts to crawl out the woodwork and not be surprised when they do. If I didn't think there was good advice here I would foxtrot oscar. This is pretty tame compared to other forums I go to. There are characters here and you get used to them and either engage or ignore. All in all there is good stuff here.

That is probably the best choice.

Whether it is true or not, it has been said that it takes more muscles to frown than to smile.

Similarly, I find that it really does not take much effort to be civil and courteous to other FlyerTalk members; in fact, I would think extra effort is needed to purposely be discourteous and rude to fellow FlyerTalk members.

If I can make another FlyerTalk member smile, give another FlyerTalk member information that is valuable to that person or somehow otherwise brighten that person’s day, that in turn really makes my day — and it is not at all difficult to do.

If you do not already do it, try it for yourself and see...

+1 Agree on all you are saying here.

Most of the posters are very good and we just have to take the good parts of this. I learned a lot from FT and are willing to give back my knowledge to the new members.

FlyerTalk is a great community, but as with any community there will always be disagreements and the occasional village idiot.

I can count the number of FTers I've had moderate disagreements with on less than one hand, but there isn't a single FTer I think is a genuinely "bad person" or someone that's in this solely to put people down. Everyone has their good days and their bad days.

From the handful of FT DO's I've now attended, almost every single person I've met has been nothing short of fantastic and welcoming to all. FT is an extremely diverse group of people and I think it's great that we can combine all our ethnic, cultural, religious, political, etc beliefs and differences so well.

Here's to another decade and more of FlyerTalk. ^^

SMF Rider

It sounds like you've had an unsatifactory experience which we all have had.

A downside of FT is that you don't get to see who you're interacting with. You cannot therefore see their facial expressions and receive all the clues you receive in real life. Another downside is that the process is less forgiving to misunderstanding. There's language. There's humour. There's culture differences. There's different degrees of irony. There's also people that are only around to take and not to give. There's also the odd nasty person. The combination of those elements I think mandates that you must be more forgiving when you feel slighted. It may be someone who intended it, it may be someone who didn't. That brings a third imperative. Give people the benefit of the doubt and learn not to respond negatively. I wish I could take my own advice ............

And that also means that you must, when you have pangs of guilt about what you posted - that's a positive sign that you're a decent person - so send a PM and apologise. And if you feel that someone has misunderstood you ... send a PM and explain gently why. Don't start a war. The repercussions will last almost forever.

I feel I've received more than I've given. I've received loads of information and guidance that has enabled me to travel further in greater luxury and stayed in hotel conditions that I wouldn't otherwise have experienced without FT. I've been to places in F that I couldn't previous done in economy. Several times. So I'm very thankful.

I saw a version of this posted by another member of FlyerTalk (apologies to not remembering their name). I now have it inscribed in my brain:

"The Perfect FlyerTalk member: he or she is unfailingly polite, stays clear of board politics and petty squabbles, contributes to a broad variety of topics, and is passionate about the programs whose forums they frequent the most."

We know them when we seem them online and there sure are a large number of them.

you would probably get the most viewing and most comments in Omni

; hey! I resemble that remark!

Good Advice uk1. Although I have received some responses that did not seem supportive or seemed to have an unfriendly tone in the past, that wasn't the reason why I started the thread. It is the tone and content of the responses to other posters. Some posts seem very inappropriate to me and from other responses I can tell that they bother the flyertalk member who is the subject of the post and other members of the flyertalk community. Some active posters seem to get their kicks from tearing others down, showing OPs up or criticizing other posters. A number of times posters have questioned the veracity of the OP when there was no indication that the OP was not telling the truth.

I have received much benefit from flyertalk, but sometimes I don't feel like I can say I am proud to be a member of this community. I realize this type of behavior abounds in other forums, but that doesn't mean it is appropriate here (or elsewhere). What happened to civility and treating others with dignity and respect?