Markie

Over the past couple of years an increasingly vocal group of Flyertalkers have expressed concerns about the number and size of merged threads.

Notable amongst these are the Hyatt Review Threads. These have been merged historically by the Mods in Hyatt in order to keep comments, questions and experiences in one location. At one point there were several threads about the most popular hotels making finding anything next to impossible.

Not being ones to turn our backs on change, the Mods in Hyatt (Peter and Mark) are proposing to change the way we handle merged threads.

We are intending, over the next 6-8 weeks to close the current review threads for the most popular hotels, and mark them as "pre-2012". We will then create a new review thread for these hotels for 2012 reviews, comments and questions on the property.

The master list of review threads will be updated to have links to both the new and old threads.

During 2012, we will continue to merge property-specific posts in to these 2012 review threads as before. At the end of 2012 we will review each of the 2012 threads to see whether it needs to be closed or whether it can continue as a 2012-2013 thread.

Please post any comments or questions below and we'll look at them frequently and try and respond quickly. Baring any major issues we hope to start the process detailed above, in the next two week.

Regards


Peter and Mark

RichardInSF

The threads "as is" suit me just fine, but if change for the sake of change is required as a Talkboard show of (pseudo-)power, this approach sounds OK.

Markie

I have just done the Grand Hyatt New York, so people can get an idea of what this means for the forum.

FlyerChrisK

I for one appreciate this.

todorovic

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry 9000 (Bold): BlackBerry9000/5.0.0.1067 Profile/MIDP-2.1 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/102)

I can see the problem if the merged thread has many hundreds (thousands) posts but personally I'm fine with the way things are. If the change is required I'd suggest that the reviews from the immediate previous year are kept as the part of the current year review thread since those reviews are the most relevant.

sophiegirl

I would appreciate a consolidation, but agree with todorovic on keeping any 2011 reviews.

Also would like to add encouragement for people to actually post new reviews. I use them often, and many of the smaller property reviews are hopelessly outdated or do not exist.

DHalltheway

To be honest I like the present format but I have no problem with change if you feel it is best.

I'll review some of the properties I stayed in recently, as per Sophie's plead, even though I am not a review person in general.

Stewie Mac

Mark me down as another one who sees no real need for consolidation... Although I can see some justification for calling for it in threads like PHV, which have tens of pages of posts from >8 years ago.

Also would ask to keep 2011 posts in there as well.

And I keep going back to the same places, so feel start to feel guilty when the three most recent reviews in the thread are all from me

sophiegirl

:-:
Much appreciated! and I like your wordsmithing..."plead" sounds so much nicer than "whining"...

And stewie...your review are endlessly readable....^

peteropny

Thanks for the suggestions - keep them coming!!

Some comments

What were proposing only has ro do with some full service properties that have lots of posts - we have not quite decided what the threshold is yet - initial thought was 400 posts but that may be a bit high but certainly more than 200.

Starting the new thread with last years posts in it - we hadn't thought about that - good suggestion - well have to take a look at the numbers on the most popular properties to see if it makes sense or are we doing this for nothing.

CrispyRice

I'm new to Hyatt this year, but have several stays booked in the next couple months. I've found the consolidated review threads of each hotel very, very useful. I do tend to skip to the end and start there, because I don't think there's much to be gained from a review from 2003, for example. But the past year or so is definitely helpful.

But I like the set-up of one thread per hotel, with reviews and common questions for that particular property.

kenbo

I will throw another vote in the hat for starting the new threads with 2011 posts since those can still be considered "current."

Markie

We're looking at this idea - typically to see how many cases there may be where the 2011 posts have little value as these would increase the editing requirement. However, it is still very much on the agenda

Thanks for all the comments.

jpdx

I don't see any need for this change. It's counterproductive, imo, as it makes things harder to find. Some things from years past are still accurate, while others aren't. I really enjoy reading through old comments about a property, and I think FT doesn't have to do everything to cater to the slow reader with limited attention span and a desire to be spoonfed. I would suggest that anyone who can't figure out that a 2012 post about Diamond benefits at a particular property should carry greater weight than a post from 2002 should probably not use the internet unattended.

todorovic

While I generally agree with you and think that the change is not needed, I think that there may be some legitimate reasons why long threads are not welcome by some. One of the issues I run into is trying to read long threads in the cell phone browsers. The max number of posts per page on the mobile site is smaller than in the regular browsers on the general FT site and trying to figure out whether I should go to page 27 or 29 in the long thread to find the info I know is in there is not my definition of fun (search doesn't exist on the mobile site).

P.S. It would be great to hear input from more FTers who regularly (or not so much) use Hyatt forum and review threads. This should not be by any means a sounding board only for moderators and ambassadors.