zozeppelin

I disagree and suggest you take another look, or enhance your statistics.

What is the average post count and length of membership of the people posting for say the last month?

Notice a sharp decline in the regulars? How many thread starters still post here? How much "new" information is being shared or created?

This shift is no accident. It is a response to the following (in my estimation):
a) signal to noise ratio has plummeted (too many people not reading the wiki let alone the thread, not wanting to try anything themselves, gimme gimme attitude and thus all the spam posts)
b) many avenues closed (we can argue/guess as to why)
c) blogs poaching for profit
d) too many face palm stories highlight a very real acute risk to our hobby
e) ignored repeated requests to clean it up and impose some etiquette / restrictions

e) has of course not happened, so what did happen? people have left. gone to their own private forums or travel codex or saverocity or (insert other restricted forum) where they know the information is safe from google and bloggers and limited to a fixed set of eyes. So now we have what we have - a whole lot of talk here and not much more

And of course hat tip to those vets who do continue to post here and be good sports (ADK, stoughton, etc) - you're better men than I.

tom911

I can't really answer any of those questions because this is not my home forum. If you've compiled some type of data, I'd be interested in reading it.

I spend much more time in the airline and hotel forums and just pop in and read a variety of threads here to catch up on what is happening in the world of manufactured spend. I notice some members on the MS forum only participate here and nowhere else. I'm not in that group and don't have the familiarity level they would have with the heavy posters in this forum.

I first posted on this thread 8 months ago when some members were calling for entry restrictions. You'll recall I posted my thoughts that the Talk Board was the appropriate venue for addressing access restrictions, and also that I did not support entry restrictions, the same stance I've taken on prior Talk Board motions impacting other forums here. This is not the first time entry restrictions have been called for and probably won't be the last.

I only see three routes forward here:

1. Convince the Talk Board that entry restrictions are needed (maybe you could come up with a different proposal compared to the current one asking for entry restrictions due to snarkiness - if they make it the traditional 180 days/180 posts many members here, including you, would lose access, so be careful what you ask for )

2. PM the moderators and share your thoughts on how things can be better here -- they deal with thread control (merging, moving, deleting) - but we can't comment about specific moderation issues here

3. PM the Community Director and share your thoughts with her about anything forum-related

Don't really know what else to suggest at this point.

UncleBill

First some context. This is actually my first post so take it for what it's worth. I have invested 20+ hours in reading through old posts and if it has a wiki, I have read it. I have developed my own strategy (nothing unique, but I think it works for me) that I will start testing very soon. I will start slow and ramp up as I get the hang of things.

Now, I am going to stick up for the new guys here. Let me start by saying that asking questions that are covered in the wiki is inexcusable, period. However, getting started with these forums is a daunting task. There are 10 year old threads with hundreds of pages of posts. When I first started reading, I was constantly asking where do I start? How far back will still be relevant, I don't want to miss anything, but I also don't have eight hours a day to catch up. I think that's why you are seeing so many "humble" questions.

My feeling is that archiving posts and updating glossaries will cut down on noob questions.

Just a thought.

farwest101

? You've got a warped sense of reality. MSers aren't the target audience, we're the enemy. We're the ones who turn the tables on carefully crafted plans to squeeze as much profit out of potential (clueless) customers as possible. And only when there is a wall of MSers overwhelming the profitability of whatever scheme was intended, do corporations pull deals. And that's why open discussion is counterproductive. General discussion is great. Details are for PM and private boards.

And that's why there should be a posting quota for noobs - FT requires significant posting history to get access to Coupon Connection, but the information available in the MS forum can be 1000x more valuable and 1MMx more sensitive.

That noobs are even allowed a voice in the decision is astounding to me. Were noobs asked if they should be granted access to the Coupon Connection? Were noobs consulted when FT unilaterally discontinued CC a few months ago? Were noobs consulted when CC came back?

tom911

Welcome to FlyerTalk

tom911

You make a very good point here about the value of the material. I don't recall anyone raising that perspective in the Talk Board thread asking for entry restrictions.

Coupon Connection is considered a "reward" for contributions to other forums of FT. Can't recall anyone raising the argument, in the Talk Board thread, that the Manufactured Spend forum should also be considered a "reward" for contributions among the other public forums on FT. Is that your view?

Why is the material here any more valuable than the Mileage Run forum that is not entry-restricted, though? The Talk Board voted down an entry restriction there. Over the years we've seen spectacular deals there for international travel including a $28 fare from SFO to Paris. I'd say that forums pretty valuable, too, and some of the best deals have been from posters with a handful of posts. Talk Board did not implement an entry requirement to keep newbies and bloggers out and deals still get posted.

Every member on FT can comment on topics of the day, be it on the Talk Board forum or an airline or hotel forum. It's been like that since my first day here and I hope it doesn't change. The AA forum recently had a lengthy discussion about the tone of the forum and some of the best posts came from new members. The Talk Board forum has always welcomed comments from a wide variety of posters and they do have some limited control over FT as our elected representatives. Why should they tune out the comments from newbies in their debates?

Unless you're on the Talk Board, though, you won't be voting on entry restrictions. In the end it's their point of view that matters and they can vote however they want to. They're the decision makes when it comes to entry requirements.

They were able to contribute to the discussion about raising access restrictions on the Talk Board forum on the topic prior to the vote in 2011, so I'd say "yes". At one point that forum had no entry restrictions and over the years it changed to 90/90 and 180/180.

That forum was closed within hours of AA auditing traders. There was no public discussion on the Talk Board forum either at closing or reopening for newbies or veterans to contribute to. There was a very short-lived thread in Coupon Connection where those that had access did contribute until the forum was locked down. It was only there for a couple hours until the forum went off line.

Newbies and those with 50,000 posts have been able to contribute to the public discussion of Coupon Connection any time it's been raised on the Talk Board forum over the years.

smoothmunkey

It seems that there are (at least) three different reasons people want the MS forum restricted:

1) Frustration with newbies being lazy and asking questions before reading;
2) Concern over newbies "getting stranded" - ready, fire, aim situations; and
3) Public exposure of plays (whether through blogs, easy access for newbies, the infamous Google indexing, etc.).

The problem with some of the solutions is that they will magnify/create other problems: (1) restricting access to the MS forum will just delay the lazy questions; whereas (2) restricting posting would enable newbies to read and learn before being allowed to ask questions; but (3) restricting posting will deprive the forum of some useful data points.

Just my two cents - now I'm off to go MS an extra two cents

zozeppelin

I appreciate your level headed opinion. Unfortunately I think the irreversible damage is done. I don't see any pilgrimage back regardless of what TB does. But lets be fair, its not like this was Ticket Oak for MS back when this still resided in miles buzz (speaking of dead, remember that forum?). But at least it was readable and mostly full of people thinking, trying and sharing.

Back to the point, we can debate value, but the sensitivity couldn't be any more different. This is fundamental.

Fix an error fare for a day and it could come back the next. Fix a MS avenue and its gone, period.

Fare basis, routing rules, fare rules all come and go, sometimes daily. There dozens of OTAs incase your favorite goes AFT. Some famous/easy dumps have closed, but many come back. Stores only reprogram POS terminals only when they have to. It's not like they debate daily whether they should sell VR with CC today. This rapid turn of complex fare information must be difficult/costly to keep up with for the airlines, so things slip through the cracks. If you're going for status, assuming 500 mph with 100k target, that means 200 hours in the air. That is a finite number a year, not to mention limited vacation for most, so if you miss on one, oh well, wait for the next. A good MS'er will scale scale and scale some more. There is no finite goal in sight. A good MS'er doesn't stop at 200 hours, because the next 200 is worth just as much.

Milage running is transacted virtually across an ever changing landscape of OTAs, meaning everyone (special CC aside) has about the same ability to play the game with many options, and rapidly. MS'ing at scale is transacted usually locally. There are only so many avenues. Once they are closed, you're SOL. So Joe calling the airline killed "that" deal for "that" "day". But Joe making a scene at WM kills "the" deal "there" "forever". Big difference.

tom911

Good point. We see a lot of good points raised in this thread, but in the end we just keep going in circles. After 8 months it would take nothing short of a miracle to get anything to change, be it entry requirements, which seems to be the most requested feature, or deletion of questions from newbies that drives some posters crazy.

I just don't see anything happening. We have the same members posting over and over again calling for change but they're not the ones in the positions to force change. Two of the three forum moderators have posted here but those were single posts back in December and February about forum decorum. Those are the folks you need to get on board, but they're not participating in this thread (and they're not required to). Currently the only way to interact with them is by PM. How many here have done that?

Unless you get the moderators to interact with the members here and Talk Board to vote to change things, you're just going in circles. I've offered all the ideas I can offer at this point so I'm going to sit on the sidelines and let those that consider this their home forum consider to discuss it.

FlightNurse

Tom, what moderator is going to fix laziness? None, my issue has nothing to do with snarky comments, I'm not thinking you are reading my postings correctly or I'm not writing them clearly enough. It's the lazy spoon feed newbee's that is my issue, they do not want to take the time to read a thread or wiki to get the answers they post. But someone times snarly comments do wake people up...

farwest101

Mileage runs by nature are ephemeral, limited and rarely repeatable - and take some skill to know how to take advantage - which severely limits the numbers who can take advantage. And with airlines going to spend-based award programs, many MRs are going the way of the Dodo as they aren't all that valuable any more - I would never waste my time on a MR these days.

By contrast, MS relies on repeatability and discretion to continue. And that benefits almost everyone. The only ones who benefit from open disclosure are the [redacted] pushing CC links to line their own pockets and lure nimrods to "click here, here, here, here, here etc etc". Even noobs are better served by keeping things to generalities, because the deals would last much longer if discretion was used. How many wish VRs at OD were still here? How about HI cards? How about VRs at drug? How about OV? How many WMs have stopped accepting vgc? Reality is those trying to do MS today have a much harder time than just 6 months ago - and from my perspective, it's because of too many nimrods lack any sense of discretion, and too many greedy pimps don't give a damn so long as their CC affiliate income continues to roll in.

FlightNurse

First off congrats on taking the time to read the threads, you are ahead then most people. It is nice to see where the game has been and where it is going. You have more insight then 90% of the people in the MS games...

BTW, Welcome...

greggarious

Maybe we could make this forum like OMNI - access only granted after being on FT a while

JerMah

This.

toxicity

Yeah, and for anyone that has been around here for a while, it's very easy to see that the current level of post quality is 1000x worse than it's ever been. Lots of clueless posters diarrheaing all over their keyboards, and it will only get worse. Nothing of value has been discussed at FT for weeks now.