zenride

...and if this is true there is no point of discussing changes.

cbn42

Coupon Connection contains content that people might consider to be a violation of the terms and conditions of the airlines concerned. Since trading coupons requires disclosing your identity, there is a need to keep it private in order to prevent retaliation from the airlines. No such issue exists with MS, which is perfectly within the T&C, and can be done relatively anonymously.

Moderators on those forums do not control the content. They can remove posts that violate the rules, but not because they feel it shouldn't be out there to "protect the deal".

The spirit of the forum is determined by a combination of TalkBoard, moderators, and users.

I agree with the first part, but I am not convinced of them being interrelated. There are plenty of blogs and other forums out there, so hiding information on Flyertalk isn't going to hide it from new users.

tom911

A vote on what, exactly?

Maybe what you want, and it's easy for the moderators to implement, is a poll. That feature is regularly used across the forums of FT. Come up with some questions and ask them to post a poll and go forward from there. When you post your proposal for the Talk Board, you can present that poll to them.

Your Talk Board members are your elected representatives. Short of you and me voting them in at election time, they're the only ones that get to vote around here.

tom911

Coupon Connection has always been considered a "reward" for contributions across the whole of FlyerTalk - not sure I buy into the idea that the entry requirements there have anything to do with security. Get in your 180 days/180 posts and you have access. No one there vets traders and if a trade goes bad (like a recent case of 6 UA systemwides not being paid back) the worse they can do is ban you from the forum.

One of the forum moderators posted this during the last vote upping the requirements from 90/90 to 180/180:
Motion Passed: Change Coupon Connection Access Requirements

zozeppelin

Thanks for the answers. I will add:

MS does violate interpretations of T&C for many entities (see recent shutdowns), both with the CC companies and cash equivalent suppliers. While anonymous, retaliation is possible (see recent shutdowns), on a clear cutting type scale (its not just the posting party that gets the axe), thus a need to protect it from the companies involved.

"Quality Control" moderation action does occur in both Lifemiles and Mileage Run deals (namely TrickIt thread or funneling tricked itins to that thread). Many posts have been moved or deleted that did not violate any FT T&C, but precisely for reasons of "protect the deal".

Can you provide the determination for the spirit of this subforum as defined by 1) talkboard and 2) the moderators?

Also, I don't mean to lump the newbie posts into this discussion, that is a side issue pet peeve. The issue here isn't hiding information (that is already done), it is sharing it better (something that is going downhill). It may be counter-intuitive, but by making the forum more "secretive", it will encourage others to share secrets knowing there will be less downside and more upside.

cbn42

I can't speak for talkboard or for the other moderators, but my personal belief is that this forum is designed to discuss information, techniques and experiences regarding Manufactured Spending. It is meant to be an inclusive community (this is mentioned in the About FlyerTalk page), not a private club.

This has been discussed earlier in the thread. It is in everyone's best interest to have information shared broadly enough that they find out about it, and no further. I believe that everyone should be free to share as much, or as little, information as they wish, and no one should be allowed to force anyone to share, or stop anyone from sharing, anything.

tom911

This forum, compared to others here, is rather unique in that it was created by the Community Director and not the Talk Board, so there was no public discussion on the Talk Board forum, or subsequent Talk Board vote, to create the forum. Might be hard to think what they had in mind when they were not involved publicly. That is a very rare occurrence on FlyerTalk. They are tasked with making recommendations to the Community Director, typically on topics like access restrictions and new forums, or deleting lightly used forums (that seems to be a rare occurrence, too).

The Community Director spelled out her reasons in creating the forum here - maybe you'll find it useful - and you can follow up with her by PM:

Announcement: a subforum for "manufactured spend" will be added

I would not expect her to be browsing this thread to answer you publicly.

zozeppelin

Nice, that was a good chuckle. To summarize:
50% of thread is debating what to name the forum
20% Stoughton trying to talk reason into them considering to make it private and calling them out on clicks for $
30% Mods / TB predicting it will be dead in 6 months (1 year ago)

The irony of course is that most of those high profiles (TB, Director, Mods) have really don't have the slightest clue. It's not their fault as this is a niche hobby that is very far from the normal BIS member of FT. That siad, a good life lesson is to "know what you don't know".

I like the idea of a poll to get a pulse (few lunatics or majority on these sentiments).

zenride

You are right, we should have a poll, if for nothing more than hoping people finally realize that change can NOT be counted on, and what we have here is not democracy at all, but rather inverted totalitarianism.

RFDMinnesota

The MS partition of FT is one of a few places where deals go to die.

It took me a while to realize this, but the sooner you realize this, the sooner you'll stop stressing about it. Move over to the private discussion boards and you'll see something closer to the ideal MS sharing forum that many of us want/wanted to see

PaulMSN

Your beliefs are wholly unverifiable. Non-selfish people will stay here, I think.

TheDapperDon

Yours are?

PaulMSN

I don't say I know why, and I don't post speculation as fact.

Stoughton

1/58 = 20%? Math is hard, huh?

rabatt

You seem to have real trouble with recognizing opinions. Most of what is stated on an internet forum is someone's opinion - not an assertion of fact.

Of course, most statements here are unverifiable for the sheer reason that no one is doing a research study on said situation.

Just because you preface your opinions with "I think," doesn't mean everyone else has to do the same. It also doesn't obscure your implication that people who move to smaller forums are "selfish."