Randy,

Although this may get me in trouble, I want to speak up now before something we all care about is gone.

I respectfully request that the registration process for Flyertalk require the provision of full name, address and telephone number.

You can keep this information confidential, as do many other participatory sites. You can promise to not sell or disclose the info.

I do not make this request lightly. There are many places on the internet to post, chat flame, spam, troll, etc. I do not want to see Flyertalk become just another one of those. I believe we are now on the verge of that happening.

If people do not want to register with their name address and phone number, they can still have some priveledges on the board. They can read all of the sections, and post to OMNI and/or any number of "open" areas. But the Airline, hotel, car and other forums have become places where high quality exchanges can take place. Members of the industry have recognized this and are participating as well. All it will take is one "abuser" to make frivolous and/or falsely identified multiple posts and what we have will be no better than everything else on the internet. Your innovative suggestions regarding members adding members and winning prizes will dramatically increase the speed of the demise of Flyertalk if action to protect it is not taken now.

I for one vote for doing whatever is possible to retain the quality, and ask now that you and your very qualified team do whatever is necessary and possible to make sure that all participants are who they say they are. I am willing to sacrifice a little bit of my privacy to your team in order to ensure we keep Flyertalk the place we want it to be.

I await your comments and those of my fellow flyertalkers.

Without putting too fine a point on it: Ditto.

An EXCELLENT idea. Just look at the Yahoo boards. Yikes!

Or, short of implementing NJDavid's excellent suggestions, how about a "Bozo Filter" which makes selected spammers, flamers, trollers etc invisible according to the individual taste of the reader?

I've never actually used software or a board with a "Bozo Filter" but it sounds useful.

And I stress this is not to imply that anyone reading my post is a Bozo. It's just a useful term. :-)

Jim

Generally, I agree & would supply the info to Webflyer but would want it kept confidential.

There is far less privacy than you think folks, as the recent quick apprehension of the alleged Melissa virus guy shows that you are easily traced to your posting site.

99% of the stuff I pick up on Webflyer is helpful and reasonably accurate. Occasionally we just have some fun, especially when the airconditioning is off or the monsoons are out. Sometimes we get postings from folks who don't follow the objectives of Webflyer, and would be better off going elsewhere.

What concerns me is the occasional vitriol about specific vendors that could possibly subject both the poster(s) & the board to liability.

I wish we had a way of identifying members who have special competence with certain programs and knew that these folks would review & comment on the postings. Probably Randy could identify those parties through the advisory boards for both Webflyer & Insideflyer.

The quality of information and high "signal-to-noise" ratio makes this board one of the Few among the Many on the Net. NJDavid's proposal is a reasonable one to help prevent the board from sinking into the idle chatter and flames that seems to be the fate of online discussion.

I'll keep it short and sweet. DITTO

Larry

A OK with me. Limiting new posts per month by one person could also be considered. Multiple replies to any one topic could be considered. Unlikely this will change the abusers, and I think there may be some.
xx new posts by one person in a month, all of value to those reading the topic, great! XX posts to hear oneself talk, not so good. Please consider eliminating the number of posts from the profiles, I do not think it serves any positive function after 10.

[This message has been edited by ranles (edited 07-23-1999).]

First of all, I agreement wholeheartedly with NJDavid�s sentiment that steps be taken to prevent any future degeneration of the quality of this board.

But will requiring demographic data solve that? Won�t that be fairly easy to spoof, if I�m someone intent on engaging in a little mischievous posting? Or would submitting the personal information be coupled with a verification process of some sort?

Major ditto.

On a recent BA thread where none of the posters have an e-mail address, it almost seems like the poster is talking with himself/herself!

Requiring some kind of verification data, be it e-mail or address, will not deter the most tenacious abusers-- I think everyone knows that, but I think it will be one step toward avoiding a flame war if we can put a "face" onto the amorphous posts.

I will be blunt here. I would welcome any friends into my house. However, if one decides to show up multiple times a day and just plops down on my couch with no real purpose, that person would be a persona non grata in my view.

I am sorry to single out any one person here, but I am awed by the number of posts doc makes.

For example, doc makes 18+ posts a day (1101 posts in 2 months) on average. I welcome the meaningful remarks and contributions doc has made. But can anyone make 18+ posts quality contributions daily while not take up valuable bandwidth?

(Doc, I wish I could have discussed this with you privately but I don't know how to contact you!)

Good topic for everyone who visits these boards. On this end, we have no plans to expose the back end of who is who, in fact I remember wanting to personally answer a particular post to someone who didn't link their email address. While I suppose I could have went into the system, I elected to post the response live, though I would have preferred it to be private. I hope my actions in that example set the tone for how we see this board being evolved. As for qualifying those who register, I think there is a group of board owners who are active in communicationg new trends for this and we are involved in this effort to preserve what the board is today...for tomorrow. I realy like the current mix of information, help, fun and an occasional outbreak of sophmoric behavior. I sense that there are some very, very involved board members who see and hear alot in this area, I welcome additional input both on the board and personally. I guess we'll all hope that we'll age as we grow.

kyklin - I don't see your point. Your point could well apply to others too. There is a lot of useless bandwidth generated by many (in my opinion), and what I consider useless could well be useful/entertaining for others. I think it is best to leave out these personal remarks.

As discussed earlier, Email is part of the verification process.

[This message has been edited by pgupta011 (edited 07-23-1999).]

It was not my intention to single out any one individual. I just don't want to see "sophmoric" qualities be the reason we are not taken seriously. I feel that everyone is entitled to participate...but one "vote" per person. And no voters from the graveyard.

Besides, how will awards and bonuses be distributed if not to verified individuals?

That is easy, don't give bonuses/awards (what are these?) to anyone who cannot be verified.

pgupta:

I respect your feedback. But is/should there a sensible limit? Since one can only consume (and not generate) bandwidth, surely there is a difference between one person posting five times a day versus 20 times a day versus 40 times a day...