The issue is not about a post which any FTer finds offensive. The issue is about a post which Randy (or designee) finds offensive enough to take some action.

The question then is what should the action be. If the action is to simply close that thread, then it is an open invitation for people to hijack threads that they do not like.

I see no problem with Randy (or designee) asking a FTer to edit their comments (especially when the comments clearly violate the TOS). That, to me, is far preferable than locking the thread.

This may work in theory, however two issues arise, 1) in many cases these threads snowball once hijacked and are seldom caught at the first sign of a so called hijack. Even if it is caught in its infancy, it would take Randy or designee time to contact the poster who is/has causing the problem, request his/her edit, have the poster in question make the edit etc.. in the mean time there are numerous posts to the one in question and the thread is hijacked as you call it. However the problem then becomes having a bunch of people who subsequently responded edit their posts which takes even more time.. Its much more efficient for Randy or designee to lock it.. if it truly is a worthy topic it will come back to life. I can't recall one topic shut down that probably didn't deserve it.. Maybe there was, but I dont' recall it.

2) I truly don't believe most of the threads that are what you call hijacked are just that... hijacked.. I think they stray way off topic at times but oh well that is just the cost of doing business here or someone posts something that another FT doesn't like, or feels is offensive and either a flame war, arguement or something happens but it happens gradually and feeds of each of the preceeding posts. I don't believe that FT'ers go out of their way and intentionally say I'm going to shut this thread down by hijacking it.. Off topic oh yeah... intentional hijacking.. I don't believe so..

I think that it is workable, and have seen at least one other board where this approach works.

In terms of the extent of what some FTers may go out of the way, consider the fact that there are already duplicate "pfp" handles created solely for the purpose of harassing other FTers.

Ah, now that's a totally different subject. I agree wholeheartedly that multiple handles from those that participate here should be banned. People using them to harass, to be humourous, to pretend to be people they are not, or pretend to be entire families. All are major detractors from this community.

I believe that each participant should have to pay a fee on a major credit card, or send a driver's license copy, or do something that enables Inside Flyer to verify that they are a real person, and not a duplicate handle BEFORE they are allowed to post. Then you wouldn't need so much moderation. People behave differently when they do not act with the shield of anonymity.

You are absolutely right, Trojan Horse, that really good moderation definitely requires rapid attention to questionable posts. The moderators could handle almost any problem by temporarily editing the post, at the same time that he/she offers the original poster the opportunity to go back and re-edit it him or herself. To accomplish this efficiently, each forum should have a minimum of two moderators and all of the moderators should work together as a team to develop an overall moderation style for the board, with the administrator serving in an advisory capacity, rather than as a day-to-day moderator. This method actually works very efficiently on every other bulletin board I have seen and I can think of no reason that it wouldn't work here as well.

This reduces the frustration of having perfectly logical, civil threads shut down and only impacts the offending poster, rather than all contributors to the thread.

NJDavid, I know how strongly you feel about having a positive identity for every poster and in a perfect world I would agree. Without getting into the endless debate of whether or not people would actually give a copy of their driver's license, pay a fee or whatever to join the community, I have never noticed that the lack of identity of posters was a really serious problem.

There are, of course, random occasions where an unknown party jumps into FlyerTalk and begins posting raving obscenities, but as I recall, the majority of the posts that have been clear TOS violations, included personal attacks, eventually developed into flames wars and/or resulted in temporary or permanent bans, were made by individuals who were well known (both on-line and generally in person) to most long-time FlyerTalkers.

It would appear, however, that this thread has wandered far and wide from and not really addressing my original questions, so I think I will repost my questions with a new title which may clarify my concern.

I apologize for any confusion that the wording of the title of this post may have encouraged.



[This message has been edited by Punki (edited 04-22-2002).]

Punki questions: Answer: FYI, that's from:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum75/HTML/000008.html

That's pretty clear to me, but for those that weren't around at it's conception, they might not know and a better descriptor would be in order, IMHO.

Itineraries are quick chance "passing in the night" sort of things. Community is for more organized get togethers.

IMHO, everything about your children, favorite sports team, religious preference, job situation, political agenda, etc. belongs in OMNI. That's what it was created for and orginally was quite functional until some folks just started flooding it with anything and everything that passed over their news reader.

I believe that as folks get to the point that they don't have as much frequent traveler stuff to learn here anymore, that they start posting more and more OMNI stuff (but not always in the OMNI forum ). For these folks, rather than a frequent traveler resource, FlyerTalk becomes a big part of their day-to-day social life beyond traveling.

That's fine and good if kept in a dedicated forum, but it should not be the primary funciton of FlyerTalk, IMHO.

Prior to OMNI, most personal info was gleaned from side bars and personal comments to existing threads in the various airline program forums. Then we created OMNI to free the personal stuff from the factual resource of FlyerTalk.

I really wish people would use OMNI more for their personal posts, and others use OMNI less as a dumping ground for any general news item that they personally find interesting.

And kudos for the moderators that keep moving the stuff posted in the wrong forums! I know they can't catch 'em all, but I appreciate the ones they do catch and I personally don't think they are prejudiced just because they don't or can't get to them all due to limited time on their volunteer job.

Personally, I've always commented that I think the airline forums should start right off at the top of the bulletin board. I think you'd see a lot less incorrect posting in MilesBuzz and Community if it was arranged that way. Because I believe newbies (before they learn the ropes) and others, tend to post where they first enter and see the biggest post count.

So some post there at the sacrifice of organization, just to get what they think will be the most readership.

IMHO.

PremEx posts:

I have never heard that idea before, but it has real merit. Have you suggested it to Randy?

wrong topic

[This message has been edited by TrojanHorse (edited 04-22-2002).]

I honestly rarely read anything other than Community. The reason being is that my real interest is keeping up with what is going on with people in our FT Community. If I need some advise on miles or anything else I have plenty of people whom I can email directly for the info. I believe that "Community" is here to connect the people of our Community. I agree 120% with Punki.


Why are people so...never mind you just don't get it do you?

MNSHO



[This message has been edited by wingless (edited 04-24-2002).]

Premex,
I'm 100% behind the 'get Buzz off the top of the page' concept - I agree it's location and visible post count which give that forum the 'status' it enjoys as the 'super forum' - and that concurrently causes it to be the depository of more off-topic posts.

How's this for Community?

svpii, what the hell are you doing up at 3:22 in the morning???

<edited for bad speling>

[This message has been edited by geo1004 (edited 04-24-2002).]

Duh - I think you must be up before your brain started working. The two hours differential between PamiBeth time and FlyerTalkTime goes the other way.. my post was made at 7:22 PamiBethTime..

geo = dumb-dumb

Maybe that's why I'm not a Chairman's Preferred like PammiBeth?

[This message has been edited by geo1004 (edited 04-24-2002).]