I almost never post anything other than travel topics anymore, but I'll make an exception here.

I've been here for quite a while. History is a great teacher. Let me tell you what will happen on Flyertalk now.

Some people have announced that they are leaving the board. They probably will do so. A few may lurk for a while, some may come back for a minimal involvement. But their expertise and the spirit that they loaned to this board is gone.

Some will say that they should have ignored the revolting things that bothered them. Some will say good riddance, we need no old-timer, prima donna, self important jerks. Some will lament about how sorely they will be missed. Still others, new to the board will wonder what's going on, not realizing the loss.

The good folks that run this Bulletin Board will take only the bare minimum action they deem absolutely necessary (perhaps editing a member's post or asking a member via e-mail to 'cool-down' or 'lay-off'.) They will do nothing about moderators or fees or mailing addresses or any of the other pleading recommendations that have been made over the years. It is not in their best interest to do anything that will lower the hit-count of the board. They are in business here, and they have every right to keep their interests above ours.

There will then be a period of self reflection, where our hosts will just allow the debate and dialog about the events to work itself to a crescendo and then peter-out. In a few days, the conversation will go back to miles and points and things unrelated to miles and points - just like nothing happened.

Sadly however, something has happened. The signal to noise level will have lowered substantially. The quality and intelligence of this community will be considerably lessened. We will have died another little death - the latest in a string of them.

Close your eyes. Imagine you are at the PIP dinner in Hawaii. Look around the room at the joy on the faces. The beauty and quality of the birth of a special community, and the caring people who (for no profit) organized the event. How many of those people are still here? How many of the ones that are still here choose to participate to the level that they once had?

How do we live with ourselves knowing two of the four organizers of that event have had all of the garbage they can tolerate and have publicly announced their departure, a third was insulted and has threatened leaving over an e-mail he felt was at best misdirected, and the fourth so scarce on these boards that I'd almost forgotten to include her.

Make no mistake about it, this community is dying. It has allowed inappropriate and off-topic members to overtake those of quality. It has descended to a game where the loudest and/or most frequent voice wins, and where a continuous lack of action by our hosts is touted by some to be continuous acceptance of retrograde behavior. It has forced the quality people among us to choose between joining in the sniping or running away.

Flyertalk is dead, long live just another internet bulletin board. Welcome to AOLYahooCompuserveYakEIEIO. Long live Flyertalk.

NJDAVID - It is called evolution. There is no question that some of the escapees will be sorely missed. Quite frankly, some of the
defectors will not be missed. This board will move on and evolve. It does not belong to any individual or group of individuals. It is for those that wish to particpate. Some of the board's members will post wildly unpopular messages. Some will post nonsense. Some will post messages that are invaluable. That is the nature of any such board/community. We are all adults. We must make our OWN decisions as to what we wish to read and which conversations we choose to join. Unfortunately, this community,like many others, has posters who have no message at all. They invade our space and waste our time. Sure it is easy to say "Ignore them" . However, that is quite often easier said then done - sometimes we must wade through their junk to get to our diamonds. But that is life. Not all speech can be popular. Some defectors mean very little to my presence on this board. There are several members of this board that view any sort of dissenting opinion as offensive, personal, flaming etc. etc. etc. etc. etc.. Quite honestly, some of the biggest nonsense, in my opinion, are the threads which contain a comment and then a thousand "I agrees". That is a waste of bandwidth - and I have been guilty of this as well. Multiple handles - who cares ? Not me - But keep in mind - I also do not care who comes or goes from this board - I welcome all and all ARE WELCOME. Number of posts - who cares - I don't - Length on the board - who cares - I don't - Perhaps their will be a new breed or new era that evolves on this board - I am not a prognosticator - But I never mind a deep breath of fresh air - It feels good - even though I must eventually exhale part of it - I sure as heck cherish the part that I inhale - Come one, come all - just be real and join us in our evolution - their just may be a new spirit - Kazman - not going anyhwhere - THANKS RANDY

NJDavid: please stay out of what's left of my mind. Your analysis fits mine almost exactly. History is a great teacher...

Having said that, I also agree to quite some extent with kazman. Many of the aspects of the evolution (it's that other popular tenet I don't fathom) have been evident. Our membership grew considerable post-PiP. We evolved but we still had the spirit of a community. The adventures of PuddingGuy certainly expanded our membership expotentially and we still retained a good bit of our community spirit. People came and people went but it was quietly (does anybody know whatever happened to Ricechex/Beth in SAN?). Fading away as opposed to being driven away. I would hope we can all see that distinction.

And not all evolution is good evolution. The first one that popped into my mind was the deformed frogs in Minnesota ( http://www.pca.state.mn.us/hot/frog-latest.html -- Blondebomber probably has better resources on the subject). And I believe FT has its own sort of deformity. If we simply accept it (ozstamps) to remain among us, our FT evolution changes by losing people who helped make FT different AND better.

For, as a community, we are telling them that we are willing to trade value for ozstamps.

I don't remember my genetic evolution too well (ok, I didn't pay that much attention tropicalflyer please correct me and thanks for your kind offer), but ozstamps is a radical variant that transmutates the course of an evolutionary path.

The other analogy is that FT has a cancer and, left untreated, the patient will die. Of this I have personal knowledge.

I came to FT for information. I stayed because the providers of the information became my friends, part of my ohana (family) and part of my daily life.

I couldn't care less if FT evolves and grows and people come and people go. I don't care one wit whether you chose to ignore posts of some people or flame or get terribly greedy and go in pursuit of miles and points at the expense of the FF programs. FT is a different experience for ALL of us.

But when we as a community value ozstamps more than those he has driven away, the evolved community that we built holds no real value at all.

It is long past the time for ozstamps to go. Our hosts could care less. Apparently, so does the community...

Now excuse me. I must call Indurain and figure out what we are going to do on this fine sunny day in the Valley of the Sun. Also need to return phone calls to PremEx and Catman and I think the Dantos can expect a call from raeban to see how Helen's trip to Italy was...

FT will go on. But who cares?

[edited for clarity (sorry, not brevity!), to fix formatting, and familial peace]


[This message has been edited by onefreeman (edited 03-03-2001).]

onefreeman: I would take exception to the comment "so does the community". I think MANY of us care about the makeup of this community and how it behaves. However, I would point out that other than self-discipline, we functionally have no control. And too many of us lack consistent degrees of self-control - especially the individual or friends of the individual under attack.

Someone does own this board after all. So how exactly is it that we would remove a destructive force without the participation of that ownership? I say that not sarcastically, but honestly.

I think we have to move out of fantasy land here. By that I mean:

* We don't expect self-discipline that could effectively shun the offender.
* We don't expect reason from the unreasonable.
* We don't wait for the offender to have an epiphany that would change the way he views himself.
* We don't expect that Randy is going to give us the authority to vote someone off the island.
* We don't expect that Randy really wants to get into reacting to an ad hoc subset's opinion of who disrupts the homogeneity the community.

So what is a realistic, creative solution that can

* protect our community spirit,
* protect our ability to participate in information sharing without ongoing vicious attack?
* protect our members from themselves when they both don't want this kind of thing on the boards and can't keep themselves from fueling it ( and I don't intend to make this a disparaging characterization.. it's HARD to "turn the other cheek").

I'm serious. The old adage "if you're not part of the solution, you're part of the problem" I think is particularly germane.

There are a couple of ideas being floated elsewhere on the board. Certainly there are good ideas yet to be expressed. There's a ton of IQ power in a variety of forms here. We have conflict resolution experts, senior experienced managers, and loads of life experience where we have all had to deal with irritants where we have limited control.

We've all responded in the past 48 hours with sadness, anger, bitterness, attempts at levity, but predominately genuine dismay that this fine community is being scarred. I would like to see some serious and thoughtful suggestions as to policy and procedureal changes that could create a long-lasting positive impact and perhaps inspire our departing members to reconsider. I believe Randy would be responsive to a well-formulated and professional approach to this problem. I don't claim to be the source of this idea mill, but I would certainly welcome the opportunity to participate.


[This message has been edited by svpii (edited 03-04-2001).]

Great and welcome commentary, svpii. I realize my feelings are neither unique nor universal. I am well aware of all of the angst floating on the board now. Where was all of that angst last August or September or October or November or December or January or February.

Ozstamps hasn't changed a lick in those months, yet the outcry against him has always been minimal (so has the support except for his hundreds [or thousands] of supporters who never post but only 'email' him). And whatever outcry he has provoked have been met with cries of 'just ignore him', 'walk away', 'he's the new improved ozstamps', 'can't we all just get along'...

And because so few got it, the garbage continued to pile up and pile up until some said enough is enough. And they are gone because, as a community, no action was taken. Please do not equate 'just ignore' as a course of action. It is turning your back to the problem.

And for crying out loud, how do you ignore someone who posts in every fora at a profligacy rate that is 10x that of the next closest??? (well, sorry doc, make that the second closest!)

And that is the nub of it. If they cared one wit about the community, they would have taken action long ago. The only voice of community at WebFlyer was Bryan Sacks and he's loooooong gone.

FT is, and always has been, a commercial enterprise. Merry was the first among us to leave the early founders because he could only stomach so much of the patently false proclamations of our hosts that 'they care'. Nick, you were right. You saw it before all of us. And see what it has wrought...

And who among us remember how much verve, wit and intelligence Merry brought to our boards. Anyone else miss his sense of humour, irony and sarcasm?

So the strong bold action of our hosts is to exile someone for a week. As if that would cure anything (it does however allow us to converse without ozstamp's ad hominem attacks and other forms of BS [see Jon Toner's Over and Out thread])...

It took the very public and very sad resignations of some of FT's brightest lights to even get the community in an uproar.

The time for real action by both the community and our hosts was long ago.

And that's the essence. After all your cogent points on this issue, you can still consider it 'an ad hoc subset's opinion' that ozstamp's has disrupted the board...

ozstamp's has despoiled this board with his presence and I certainly did expect Randy to take action.

What a naive fool I am...

[edited for formatting and familial peace]



[This message has been edited by onefreeman (edited 03-03-2001).]

Not at all, onefreeman. It's just that Dagny hasn't crash-landed in the Gulch just yet.



[This message has been edited by essxjay (edited 03-03-2001).]

Now before anyone goes taking any sides - this is a welcome and thoughtful discourse onefreeman and I are having here - nothing more.

There were a couple of points I wanted to address. One, the issue of "where was the angst last (pick a month)"? My answer: irrelevant. OK, we were as a communnity dense, lazy, busy, shy, apathetic - whatever. The point is, that when the vast majority saw the consequence of this inaction, they responded in a big way. The situation has everyone's attention NOW. So let's address it NOW. I won't say anything as trite as we can't rewrite the past - OK, yes I will.

In negotiations, if I believed that lines in the sand meant much or that it was "too late", geez - half my deals would fall apart. To let a good deal go undone or a problem go unsolved because you didn't notice it was there to do earlier is malpractice. You just have to work harder, faster, make concessions, whatever. But forge ahead you do.

As to the issue of my use of the term 'ad hoc subset': I merely meant an extemporized, situationally-based group that will change identities with every new person someone doesn't like or every situation that is meaningful only to a select few. Face it - there are what? 500 people registered here? And there are what - 150 truly active ones? And of those there are what - 75 or 100 who are rallying around this particular issue? So by definition it's a subset. I didn't mean to establish any personal characterization in the use of that term. And just because it's an ad hoc subset's opinion doesn't invalidate that opinion. Remember - I'm in that ad hoc subset too

I'm being as non-emotional in this as possible - as is my training. Randy owns this. Even if you think you could ("get rid of OZ or else me and all my friends are outta here and you've got jack") - you hope you never have to get what you want by brute force. Those kind of deals come back and bite you in the .... And if you lose - well, you just lose.

In Randy's position, I would have concerns over precedents and sustainable policies. OK - then let's give him policies and actions that work for us AND we believe should be acceptable to him - and give him the benefit of the doubt as to his motivations.

If you're disappointed Randy didn't come to certain conclusions independently and take actions you would deem obvious, is that reason to do nothing at all now? Do we just throw up our hands and say "those were the days, my friend"?

I maintain there's a settlement to do here - that's probably best conducted privately. But it is the community that must drive a reasonable approach to evolving this board. Take a single reasonable proposal - e.g. a term sheet - to Randy and get his response.

I mean no offense when I say that to do that, we must set aside our personal angst, anger, and axes, and participate in something constructive and forward -looking.

I may be wasting my time. In the absence of support in this concept, I will have no alternative but to accept the default evolution to FT rather than participate in a community-driven evolution. For I think surely we all recognize this is resulting in an evolution - whether we desire it or not. You can either let it happen TO you, or you can drive it in a direction that's acceptable to you.

I for one would be willing to establish a meeting - perhaps when we're in NY - perhaps before - a business meeting - for just this purpose. All comers welcome.

onefreeman: I have tried to email you but I keep getting it kicked back - could you email me w/ an alternate email address? Thanks..

[This message has been edited by svpii (edited 03-03-2001).]

onefreeman, I just cannot resist one more post after reading your fine messages. Last September, I asked in a post on the Randy Forum entitled "Ozland Napalm why he, Ozstamps, came into a happy community and napalmed, sougth to destroy, it. I said to him, "I know who you are, and what you are, but I do not know why you are." I knew then and am even more certain now. The events of the past six months speak for themselves. It is too bad but I think your conclusions are correct; I know they are for me. We are all the losers.

Much as I dislike Ozstamps, I cannot help protesting the vulgar distortions of his
forum name in public; private is just that, private. He can and should be addressed by the name he chooses.

Gee, I am sorry all this happened. It was a grand band of brothers and sisters.

My very dear Nathan we are still very, very grand.

[This message has been edited by Punki (edited 03-03-2001).]

svpii: Received alternate email and sent you a reply from an alternate email. We should connect now

Nathan: My friend I have missed you. You are quite correct about my abuse of ozstamp's handle and I regret the error of my ways. I have previously edited my posts to correct my offense. I do sincerely apologize to you and to all...

I think that svpii and onefreeman are hitting on some important points here, as do several other people on other threads.

My concern is around leadership:

• Many people have pleaded in posts for Randy to take a strong leadership role and if nothing else treat this as the lobby of the House of Miles, and to paraphrase Rudi we've brought our grandparents for a visit.
• True leaders cannot and do not demand respect due to title or status or wealth or strength of voice. They earn and command it over time through deeds. The people who are leaving are considered by many to be our leaders, thus the outroar. Notice that only when PremEx decided that he had enough, and Rudi appeared to be offended by Randy did all **** completely break loose. Catman's departure was unfortunate but not the first time, therefore there was less commotion over that event.
• Many of us expect our leaders to stay and protect us, even at their own personal cost - but upon reflection I don't think it is fair of us to do so
• New leaders will emerge. They always do.
• Leaders, however, can only do so much without authority. And in this society, only Randy doles out the authority.

So, to come back to NJDavid's original question: What will happen now?

If Randy is truly and personally hurt by the loss of the leadership provided by those that left, then I think we will see change. If not, then all the new leaders of the community that emerge will still not have the tools at their disposal to efficiently deal with this situation, or other difficult situations that will follow even if ozstamps left today and never came back as the set of participants evolve.

[Edited for UBB errors]

[This message has been edited by ElmhurstNick (edited 03-03-2001).]

In my opinion, most of the trouble of the last few months was, in fact, a war over leadership.

A new poster came on board, and through sheer number of posts and aggressive style, established himself as the leader. The fact that just about no one else wanted this kind of leader led to the hostilities.

This was a war over territory.

Now, the old leaders (at least, most of them) have left. The war is over. I'm just not sure who won.

I would suggest that he tried to assert himself as the leader. And with less aggressive tactics, he probably would have succeeded if he had found a niche for himself. But the "United guru" niche was already taken by PremEx.

None of us can just go and successfully declare "I'm the leader of this sandbox" without earning the respect of the rest of the community, unless we paid for the sandbox in the first place.

It's easy to appear to be the leader of a group if you're at an end and the group doesn't know where it's going.

The challenge is actually leading the group somewhere.

For years, many have said our direction should be becoming the internet's high quality travel forum, with travel veterans and novices - a place to really speak for the frequent traveler in conversation with the industry's service providers.

The first diversion from that goal was the plethora of clickthrough schemes and conga lines that invaded the board, but that was at least confined to it's own SPAM corner. As Marty correctly reminds us, Pudding Guy's exploits brought in a whole new wave of diversions. People who had no tolerance for opinions other than their own, People who were vulgar and obnoxious, People who didn't fit the goal.

The community begged our hosts for a mechanism to deal with these diversions. As none came, travel veterans started to dissappear or severely curtail their participation. If the past ratio was 6 out of 10 posts from real experienced travelers, 3 out of 10 somewhat novices and 1 out of 10 from someone with no business being here, the current ratio would be something like 3 - 3 - 4. And keep in mind that this ratio is now applied over a much larger group. It's that signal to noise issue again.

This is not rocket science here. It's simple group dynamics. The larger a group gets, the greater the necessity for formal rules and an enforcement process. What worked for us when we were a amall town of 50 has failed us miserably now that we're a community of 1000 or more - Just as anyone would expect. "Honor Parking" lots (where you park your car and put $5 in a box) work well in small towns I've visited in Maine, but they would fail miserably in Manhattan. Not because they are not a good idea (people are basically honorable and will do the right thing) but because as the number of people in your community grows, the likelyhood that you will have one or more persons who will flaunt the rules grows as well. That's why we have police and jails.

So, we are not a leaderless group, we are a ruleless group. Is it really any wonder why many have said, "sorry, not worth my time anymore, let the loudmouths do whatever they want, we're outta here"?

"I'm just not sure who won."

There are NO winners, IMHO, and we have ALL lost!

And your commentary may, sadly, be quite accurate in my view.

Hopefully though, we can learn well from this and move forward in a more tolerant and egalitarian manner!

-An optimist!