C'mon guys. This is getting REALLY, REALLY old.

This board was my favorite on FT for a long time because of the incredible information. Now it seems to be the sandbox of choice for folks who can't seem to figure out that an insult can go unanswered.

I've been around online communications for probably 20 years, back to when I was in High School, running a BBS (remember them?) from my bedroom.

Over that time, I've been insulted more times than I can remember. But I very rarely respond because I hope that I've demonstrated who I am and my credibility. And when I'm wrong, I apologize. It's amazing the effect that "I'm sorry" can have on an argument.

This is really reaching the point of pathetic when we can't go a month without some sort of flame war spreading to various threads.

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"I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own."

Well said. What ever happened to just being nice to people?

That's goes DITTO for me Jon Toner!

It's getting so high school sometimes on this board. I mean, if you have nothing nice to say: THEN DON'T!!!

There are times I could go after people either as myself or COmmander catcop, but showing restraint at least I'm stopping a flaming war.

JON: hope you don't mind me saying this but maybe your kids and the kids of many of the Flyertalkers can teach some of us about restraint and acting like adults.

I'm sorry but I had to speak. I take full responsibility for this post.

But if you think about flaming, please don't.

Let's have a peaceful Thanksgiving and leave the flaming to the turkey (or whatever you cook.)

Thank you.

Jon, I have a serious question. Where do we draw the line. If you are suggesting we don't respond when Doc drags up an old thread, for no useful purpose. Why should we ignore only his? What if 10 people a day begin doing it. Like the other person did today. Or 20, or 30? Where is the line drawn. If this occurred we would never get any new info. Doc has been repeatedly asked not to do it. Should peer pressure not be employed to discourage him? If your response is to "just ignore him". I wonder does that not create an Animal Farm situation. "ALL ANIMALS ARE EQUAL SOME ARE JUST MORE EQUAL THAN OTHERS". Therefore if you have more than 3000 posts you are free to post in EVERY forum with drivel? I tend to think of it as a Neville Chamberline apeasement issue. If you give away one country, then the axis wanted another,and another. It never ended.
Now I will concede, there is a good chance my thoughts are wrong. I feel bad about the disruption. I was the first to critize Doc for dragging up the old post. I tried to do it in a polite way. As a matter of fact, I definded Doc in this thread last week. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/003707.html
I wish the other major poster on the boards would stay out of defending Doc. As I said, the most prolific poster on the board, does not need your help to respond.
Having said that, Jon what is your thoughts. Where does one draw the line?

Cigarman:
In all earnestness, why do we even need to draw a line? While bringing topics back from the bowels of the message board archives to add a smilie face doesn�t strike me as adding much to the board, anyone (regardless of post count) has the ability/right to do it. The wastefulness of doing this is on par with the wastefulness of sitting poised at a computer with Nepalm ready to fire.

Churchill once said appeasement is the policy of feeding the crocodile in hopes that it eats you last. I don�t consider my views on this as one of appeasement, as there is little peril in condoning this behavior. I view this more as a �live and let live� philosophy. Lord knows there is enough to get upset about � an extra couple of posts brought back from the dead just doesn�t rate as high, even on a 14.4 connection, with apologies to CameraGuy and others with a slow connection.


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"I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own."

Jon we are going to have to agree to disagree. Although, I do conceed you have a point in the current sense of being more peaceful.

Continuing my crusade:

Folks, here's another reminder that if you don't like what someone has to say, you can always take it off line with private e-mail. No one wants to follow these public p*ssing contests.

You don't HAVE TO read anything. Can't we just refuse to post anything nasty? Can't we all just get along?
The CO board is one of the nastiest places on Flyertalk, and that's sad.

Boy am I a popular member here today! If all of you keep on mentioning me, newbie's may think I am important or something.

Seriously,

We need to face facts here. Those facts are that there is one common denominator in all but one of the "Flame Wars" of the past year. That is reality. We now have to decide, either as a group or as individuals if the best way to handle this is appeasement (Jon, I disagree that remaining silent while ONE member carpet bombs this forum is not appeasement) or standing tall.

My opinion is that appeasement DOES NOT WORK. We had a skirmish here a week and a half ago. It could have remained here, but ONE member decided to cross post the thread in three other forums. After that skirmish, it got real quiet here for about a week. All of you must agree that the CO forum was quite pleasant and INFORMATIVE last week. This was NOT a coincidence!

What happened to this pleasant and informative tone is simple. ONE member decides to start with the bombing again. Slowly at first, A link to a press release, then replies to his own thread, then a link to a YEAR OLD thread. This IMO was a calculated attempt to �Test the Waters�. Start slowly, if no one objects, start carpet bombing again. I would contend that this is the childish behavior.

dgolds makes a valid point. Why not conduct the objection to this behavior via e-mail. Normally that would suffice. But in this case that has been tried. Not only did that attempt fail, but it failed miserably. The �Smilie Me Too� and �Pad my post count� posts in this forum INCREASED after my attempt.

BoSoxFan45 suggest we just ignore the offending posts and threads. That is not nearly as easy as it sounds. If I choose to ignore a particular TV show, I simply choose not to watch TV at that time. That is not possible on this BB. Picture this: I open FT, see a light bulb for the CO forum. Open the CO forum and see a thread titled �Jon Toner in the Wall Street Journal�. At this point, I have NO IDEA that this thread is ONE year old. I open the thread, see the date and STEAM. I already know who brought this forward, but I scroll to the bottom anyway and STEAM some more. Multiply this reaction X10 (Average number of times per day this has been occurring). Now you see why �Ignore those posts� does not work.

This is a community and communities have disagreements. That is a fact of life. We need to ask ourselves if the information and friendships we gather here are valuable enough to protect. I think they are. That is why I have taken the stance that I have.

We have an �In the News� Forum for link to articles and press releases. We have �FT Community� and �Trip Reports� for �Smilie Me Too� posts. Can�t we leave the individual airline and hotel forums to discussions!

Camera Guy: One of the more difficult features of a democracy like FlyerTalk is that no one gets to be right. Some enjoy the behavior you object to, others despise it. But since we're not making the rules for the forum (Randy is), we don't get to decide the best way to handle anything.

In other words, we could argue about people's behavior until we're blue in the face and it wouldn't make any difference in how people behaved on this board whatsoever.

Therefore, I again plea for good manners:

- If someone posts in a way you don't like, please address it via private e-mail so we don't all have to listen to another flame war.

- If they don't come to see it your way, please agree to disagree and then move on.

(I mean "you plural" like y'all here, not "you Camera Guy.")

I have argued on numerous occasions for FlyerTalk to become a moderated board to help stop the unpleasantness but I think the majority disagrees with me on that. Doc has asked on numerous occasions for standards of conduct to be outlined. Until that happens, we get to make up the rules as we go along. That means disagreements. I suggest we all try to live with our differences in as pleasant a way possible.

To paraphrase what I posted elsewhere. At the end of the day all of us here contribute something to the overall entity that is FT. Whether it be me, you, Cigarman, Doc, Camera Guy or Arturo, etc we all add things, and all may choose to read them or ignore them.

There are heaps of things I think are utter cr*p on FT and I simply ignore them, and heaps of things that have in my 5 months here saved me $40,000-$50,000 I suppose, (like now owning 14 x UA "Systemwides" for starters!) so it is a "filtering" technique needed from us all. We learn lots about about interest in travel, and better still meet some wonderful people.

What other web board could you post a note saying you are stranded in a city somewhere and "does anyone have time for a drink or dinner at late notice", and get a response? dgolds certainly responded thus when I was stuck in SFO at very short notice a week back, and only as I was already down in the bar with a bunch of other FT'ers did we not catch up! Talk about an instant response. I had a great evening with a bunch of FT'ers in Seattle on the way across, was met quite unexpectedly by MrLimo at LAX, and met 45 FT'ers in DUS, and had 2 of these best flights of my life flying over and back with MileTex drinking Dom Perignon all the way.

I personally really enjoy reading the latest updated news posts that DOC is a genius at garnering. And updating. If it is CO releated news I am sure it also gets posted here. Great. I get a lot of very useful info from the news aposts. Some here may NEVER visit "In The News". I never visit "OMNI" basically, or the SwissAir or Bass Hotels boards, so we all have the right to ignore what we don't want to see or have no interest in. There are very silly threads (IMHO) posted often on the UA board where I mostly hang out, and I ignore those too. Go look at the UA boards - the threads no-one is interested in get almost no response.

I am not defending Doc, dgolds, Cigarman, Camera Guy or anyone here. I don't have to, as they all have their own opinions, and have 100% the same right to express them as anyone else here. If I post a thread on the CO board you do not agree with, and think is boring, well that thread being ignored by the majority speaks volumes for its content. I posted to the Diners Club board only yesterday, for the very first time, and got a lot of useful responses. That is the beauty of FT. A wealth of info, shared freely and rapidly.

If ANYONE posts or brings forward a thread here that others feel is naff why not simply ignore it? The atmosphere here in the CO Forum can at times very pretty darn toxic! More so than ANY other board - in my experience. There does seem to be a "repel all boarders" herd mentality at times. I must observe it is a lot better now than it was a few months back. People will stop posting things of little or no interest if there is no response. Piling in and kicking the death out of the poster does not seem to me to achieve much, other than to greatly upset the more conservative FT members who also form the core of this Forum.

If this were North Korea, none of our posts, good or bad, would be possible, and I sure am thankful we are able to have such personal freedom, and openness of expression.

(Or did Bill Gates decide that now is exprezzion?)



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~ Glen ~

[This message has been edited by ozstamps (edited 11-21-2000).]

CameraGuy: I wouldn't worry about newbies thinking you're important.

I am a firm believer in "standing tall", when you can influence events, and I'm stubborn as a mule on many ideological fronts. From our various chats and e-mails on Little League and other issues, I hope you've seen this.

But "standing tall" in trying to change others' behavior when you ultimately have no authority, control or influence is basically jousting with windmills. I have played done the Don Quixote bit myself, and it is such a waste of energy.

I am reminded of one of the more ... colorful ... expressions from my grandmother, "Don't try to teach a monkey to read - it wastes your time and it p*sses off the monkey."

Perhaps the software can provide a solution by indicating the ORIGINAL POST and LAST POST date.

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"I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own."

(Duplicate post --- DELETED)

[This message has been edited by Jon Toner (edited 11-21-2000).]

Camera Guy said:


Camera Guy ... Yes, that was a very good point, and as Jon points out, right NOW there is not a "first posted" date along with the "last updated" timer. I can see both sides here, and on a slow connection yes, that does get exasperating. Randy's people say there is a whole new Board being tested, so maybe that will solve that problem? I access FT from cyber cafes now and again, and might only have limited time to scan things, and when it is costing me $10-15 a hour I know how annoying opening something slowly can be - especially when paying that kind of money.



[This message has been edited by ozstamps (edited 11-21-2000).]

Normally, I avoid these types of controversy. HOWEVER, I need to say to people, such as Camera Guy, whom I was lucky enough to sit with at Catman DO two, IMHO, you are wrong. While I understand the issues of slow modems, etc., I have a cable modem and don't have this problem. Camera Guys' theory would suggest that the quantity of posts should take into account the slowest modem speed of our members. This would penalize me, and my ability to browse a huge amount of posts promptly. I'm sorry if he does not have this ability, by why should that effect those of us that do? MOST IMPORTANTLY, I don't see how this justifys CENSORING what Doc or any other member of flyetalk posts. Censoring is exactly what taking away Docs judgement on what to post or, not to post, does. I for one, do not want anyone deciding what I should or should not read. Respectfully, I reserve the right to make that decision.
This is Randy's board. If anyone has a problem with posting on it, take it to Randy.
IMO, he is the ONLY one who can fix it. Starting flame wars among members, 99% of whom are here for information, is useless and counter productive. In the time it has taken me to write this, I could have browsed 10 topics.
The ultimate solution would be for the "new" board to allow any member to selectively filter all posts from any poster he or she wishes to and in this case, they are a responsible for censoring themselves. This is the way it should be.
All of the above is my personal opinion. I do not intend to insult anyone, and I hope, Camera Guy, who I think of as a friend, will understand my desire to make my opinion known.