Multiple posts of same msg. in multiple Forums
 

First a disclaimer, I'm not the FlyerTalk police - just a regular user who is trying to figure out the rationale of multiple posts. I've noticed that many times, people post things in more than one forum. I can understand that as many times, things relate to multiple things: ie, some bit of new information might be relevant for "The News" forum, or it could be about a particular airline and go in that forum, or maybe "Only Randy" forum should be the place.

But, I think that we have gone to far. It looks as though a user name 'Havane' has posted a message about "First Class Beds" in a total of 14 different forums! Yes, the same message, over and over again. I am not trying to pick on 'Havane', but perhaps illustrate this as a prime example of where we might need some guidance from the powers that be at FlyerTalk.

As a user, I regularly check the active forums (you can tell by the lit up lightbulb where new msgs. are) and seeing this same message over and over again is a bit tiresome.

Randy, perhaps you can spell out some rules for multiple forum postings so we can make this a better run bulletin board.

Agreed. Its also bad because then there are 14 different discussions taking place. Maybe the webmaster can sweep these into one place.

Concur with steve100 and pgupta011.

I agree that 14 of the same thing is excessive, and it's hard to follow a particular discussion. BUT, just the other day, both dilbert and I posted similar messages, under differnt threads, within 14 minutes of each other. To get FT involved to move things around, may be a lot for them to do; so each of the two seperate threads are referenced in each of the first.

I happen to really agree. We are in the process of designing and posting a new front end which will link to a policy of practice and also taking advantage of listing the various forums and explaining exactly what is the purpose of those forums.

We've also got another thought, and that is to "deputize" a few voluteers who would be able to supervise those types of things. If you click around these boards enough, you might find comments that would cause us to be sensitive in this area, since it might be viewed by some as censorship. But, with a mission statement and rules of order, hopefully we'll be able to get in line with a standard practice by all those who visit.

Again, thanks for the comments and nudging us along.

What I had in mind was that if the same person had posted the same message in multiple places, the administrator could collect the responses to those (if any) and move them all to one place. No censorship.

I agree.

Further, I believe an email should be sent to the offending party with a "form letter" reminding them that a post should be only done once.

Sometimes ( I have not found the need) it may be worthwhile to post once and put a reference somewhere else). When this happens, if no one add comments, then it will serve to refer for awhile, then just fade away.

Post that exceed the above should be consolidated, as suggested. I know this is a problem as is causes extra work. Repeat offenders may have to be executed, or worse, be banned from the site!

in the "good old flyertalk-times" (last year) we = the flyertalkers, did regulate this ourselves (sometimes by communicating over the issue on the board, sometimes - if it was somehow delicate, by personal emails).

And this didn't work out to bad.

More official rules ? I still admire the "shortness" of the 10 commandements - compared with pages of small print now, if I buy an airline-ticket or want to enter a (flyertalker) board to chat.

Rudi, the "good old days" policing must be leting down its guard, as this multi posting is becoming a problem. This is both true of posting the same thread in multiple places AND those that keep hitting the reply button so as to post 2-5 identical replies! The second problem can be caught, if we all would go back, before logging out, to any thread we contributed to, and deleting any "stutters". That include the big man, Randy Petersen. Could this be a site problem, rather that one of its participants?

I concur that both of the problems ranles mentions are big annoyances. As mentioned in my thread in OMNI, I think it is very easy to accidently make multiple posts in a thread - and very easy to delete them again.

Meanwhile, I think mulitple posting of the same thread is a wilfull waste of people's time and very, very irritating. I think it is something that should be strongly discouraged. The chap that posted the same thing in 14 Forums last night wasted a lot of my time.

Please remember that outside North America, local telephone calls cost money (is this true in continental Europe, Rudi?). That means that mutiple posts and multiple forum posts waste bith time and money for readers like myself.

I strongly urge all readers to take care not to post multiply, to delete their own multiples and to point them out to others who may have missed them. I urge the administrators to take any steps necessary to stop multiple threading including a policy statment and action by the webmaster to unite such threads.

Thanks and best wishes,
James

Alerting others of their multiposts would be easier if it were a requirement for everyone, to belong to this forum, to have their e-mail in their profile.

Maybe it's a little simplistic and/or naive, but perhaps a simple message right up front that directs users to PICK ONE most appropriate topic and make clear that multiple posts are PROHIBITED would do the job!

I agree, but notice you too do not list an e-mail address

I don't think you should make people have their e-mail listed in their profile, but it should be a requirement for registering for FlyerTalk.

Sorry, that is what I ment. To facilitate communications, ie. Please remove your multiple posts, 14 at last count, of the same item as it is an inconvenience to others and may be against the rules or Please note that your response to X has 7 identical replies in a row, please delete them at your earliest convenience as a consideration to others.