yyznomad

Admittedly, I don't read the travel blogs/vlogs/whateverlogs.

But have I missed something regarding some of the hate-on for some of the bloggers, including Mr. Leff?

Adam1222

Speaking for myself, criticism falls into 3 categories:
1) Misleading/not transparent content that is sponsored or somehow connected to a direct profit motive. (often selling an unrealistic vision of "free" travel)
2) A focus on quantity of posts over quality
3) A sense of entitlement or arrogance that seems disconnected from reality.

JonNYC

Jealously is a huge part of it.

Adam1222

People love making this groundless accusation. I'm not quite sure what it's based off of. Jealous of what?

Raffles

Adam1222

I guess that could be true, but it's pretty speculative. If you're trying to attack me, I attended law school on a full ride and find my profession superfulfilling, am financially secure, and get to travel the world comfortably. I enjoy my vacations without thinking how they will generate clicks and income. And I think i make the world a better place without engaging in misleading conduct.

The difference between my good faith listing of 3 specific issues, this attack is based on your own assumptions and speculations as to strangers' motivations. I personally would not trade my life for any one of the bloggers. Maybe others would. But I find the people who call criticism jealousy are just projecting their own jealousy of the lifestyle of certain bloggers.

One could easily speculate that some bloggers from the UK, for example, of jealous of those of us guided by an ethical compass who get to enjoy travel while also contributing to the betterment of the world, without worrying about maintaining relationships with financial services companies, free to speak their mind about predatory industries. Or jealous of those of us who got to spend 3 years studying with brilliant passionate scholars in a nurturing academic community, and engage on a daily basis on some of the most pressing issues of the day. I'd never say that of course.

The accusation of "jealousy" without any factual support is Trumpian. If you knew me at all, youd perhaps have read some of my recent media mentions on protections for consumers. My position on the blogging and credit card industry is consistent with my values.

yyznomad

Hmm, I guess I can see all of the above.

I never really read these *logs I guess because I think I know enough of my respective programs to not care. I rely on FT 99.8% of the time and it works out for me. The collective information on FT sure beats out the *logs, but the *logs do seem to do a good job at summarizing stuff up for the masses.

Also, considering others on FT get jealous of other FTers for flying more than them in F/J/C, this seems plausible too.

itsaboutthejourney

4) Lifting and not crediting other bloggers for content you post. I still laugh at how John over at LoyaltyLobby took a dense chart and purposely altered a few lines to see if anyone would copy it - Gary took the bait hook, line and sinker as they say.

As with so many situations outside of travel blogs: money sometimes changes people. Great to see Gary's success, but sad to see some misleading and factually incorrect posts.

gleff

A reader points me back to this thread, highlighting this spurious charge against me. Sadly I suspect better judgment would be not to engage here. However the allegation that I took someone else's work and claimed it was my own was absolutely 100% false. It gets repeated either by people that haven't bothered to fact check, or who want it to be true badly enough that they choose not do so.

Loyalty Lobby claimed I copied and pasted a hotel list they created and claimed it was my own. That is false. In my post I quoted the blog where I found the list -- (the content in question, from 2014, was in the form of a direct quote). However where I made a mistake is that I attributed it to <I>Head for Points</i>, failing to realize that he himself had quoted the list from Loyalty Lobby. So I cited HFP, not LL. I absolutely blew it. But the mistake was misattribution and was never "not crediting other bloggers."

There probably isn't another blog in the miles and points space that goes out of their way to credit sources more than I do. Sadly the person who originated this misleading allegation takes the opposite approach.. I'll now allow better judgment to return, leaving this forum as a space space for criticisms. I wanted to correct this one false claim, and will not delve further into speculation, accusations, or vitriol.

Best,
Gary

Adam1222

Wow, so brave! Coming here, engaging by insulting people, and then saying you won't engage and leaving!! May we all have the same moral compass. "I dont care what you have to say but I'm just going to come here and name call." I'm not going to say any more about how (consults thesaurus) self-righteous and petty this rhetorical move is.

Best,
Adam

JonNYC

You're coming off like an obsessed and petty fool.

Adam1222

Not sure how I'm any more obsessed than you, or how your comment is any less petty. Please explain, though. My criticism has always contained specific points of disagreement where I think bloggers have erred. I'm not sure how it is "obsessed" or "petty" to call out nasty comments and petulant behavior from a financial services salesman on a thread about that salesman's product.

Note, also, I'm not suggesting Gary erred in correcting what he saw as a factual error (which wasnt mine). Rather, the response, which included gratuitous insults that had nothing to do with that error, was inappropriate, immature, and petulant.

If you are suggesting that criticizing Gary Leff's comments that he willingly came and posted here makes me look like a fool, please clarify. It really does little good to just name call without any engagement-- which is what both you and Gary seem to be doing here. (Indeed, that's a pattern- you made the same unsubstantiated accusation of "jealousy." and when challenged to explain yourself, you refused.) Some might say trolling a forum about a financial services salesman and only commenting to make contentless attacks against people with substantive criticism is petty and obsessed.
I take it you're the one who is reporting to Gary what people say here? That sounds like a completely non-obsessed thing to do.

I honestly would love to hear what you think posts like yours contribute here. You can send me a private message. I'll give you my email or phone number even. You seem very invested in the success of financial product salesmen!!!

GUWonder

Is repeating content in part from other bloggers or other FTers without making correct mention of the source really the issue being made of that? I mean a lot of the info/news/items which we discuss or benefit from are an amalgam of what we get from others/elsewhere, most of which probably goes uncredited in whole or in part.

GUWonder

That may be part of it, or maybe it's not. As with the credit card shilling on AAdbaUS flights, perhaps some question or otherwise dislike the business support model that heavily rests upon credit card selling and dislike it for reasons that have little or nothing to do with jealousy?

... and yet I find the blog useful as a source of entertainment and of information. And it's not like print media -- even those storied legends such as the NYT -- and TV/cable channels -- even the "news" ones -- are unfamiliar with how to try to captivate their audience and be a vehicle for selling and selling out their audience members. Business support models of some sort make it easier for information and entertainment to make the rounds, and it's not like capable adults are incapable of reading what they want, making judgments as they want and proverbially changing the channel/page when they want. If the lack of disclosure is the issue, call for more government-mandated regulation and disclosure requirements.

oliver2002

The FTC has laid out and enforced guidelines what bloggers are supposed to disclose. Sadly no one in the credit card selling 'travel' blogosphere bothers to follow it.