moderators and thread movement and ext links
 

First, I think all the thread movement is a bit heavy handed, but so be it. The rules for posting in the first forums should be relaxed so unless you are way off base, any topic is ok. Just my opinion ...

The reason for this message is that if a moderator moves a thread and closes the old thread, can they not post a message in the old thread with the new thread so you can just click on it and stay on topic, without having to go and search for the thread in the new forum?

Another thing .. all my old links and bookmarks no longer work with the new BBS. Fortunately, in order to make them work, all I have to do is change the string "webflyer" to "flyertalk", which is fine for fixing up my personal bookmarks. However, external links which were posted using "webflyer" won't work. Can we fix that and make the webflyer web server just forward links to the flyertalk web server, by doing the string replacement for us, so the old links just work as expected?

Thanks,
David

Are the closed thread choices "heavy handed"? Without any logic is more accurate. Here is one Randy posted to saying he was delighted to see it where it was, and moderator closes it down a few posts later. Nuts. Seemed like a suitable general topic to me.


http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/004888.html

Hey, good idea!

First, I most certainly appreciate very much the introduction of moderators to FT. They became, albeit sadly, somewhat necessary, IMHO. Let me please assure everyone that I am simply attempting to offer some hopefully constructive suggestions with this post.

I could not agree more with the opening statement that "... I think all the thread movement is a bit heavy handed..."! Is this absolutely necessary?

I was personally somewhat astounded to see the puzzling choices made, and I also suspect that far more confusion and even hurt feelings may have resulted than any other organizational and or learning benefit to anyone! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/frown.gif

Among the the MANY threads locked and moved was one I'd personally started, "Federal Frequent Fliers May Be Freed to Keep Miles." Now, it's to be found "In the News," as determined by a new moderator. Though perhaps from some technical standpoint it may in fact refer to a recently published article addressing some legislation undergoing consideration and likely to be passed, the manifest point here is/was the current ability and more importantly, IMHO, the potential impact of this and on FT'ers and their families and friends ability to utilize their FF miles. This was posted, as I often do, as a jump off point for discussion of the proposed legislation! And I thought the ensuiing discussion was possibly somewhat useful as well as pertinent! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

Among the threads I found this morning still rightfully (?) remaining in the BUZZ and surrounding the aforementioned locked and moved "Federal Frequent Fliers May Be Freed to Keep Miles" post were:

Anyone ever been on the Re-Unification Express in Vietnam? avgas 3 07-22-2001 05:48 AM

Type A - Discount Certificate versus Type B - Voucher LAX UA 1K 5 07-22-2001 04:34 AM

You know someone's a bit too excited flying int'l first/business class if he/she: Wiirachay 19 07-22-2001 02:42 AM

Forget Latin Pass - lets have a BAHT PASS run. Become a UA "1K" for $750 in 10 days! Pages: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 ozstamps 524 07-22-2001 02:41 AM

Amazing Passengers relaxedPax 23 07-22-2001 02:17 AM

Free travel privileges as airline employee BD 3 07-22-2001 02:13 AM

Celebrity sightings ... Pages: 1 2 3 Beckles 95 07-22-2001 01:00 AM

One-way car rental -- NO CHARGE on Avis. Jon Toner 2 07-21-2001 11:28 PM

Federal Frequent Fliers May Be Freed to Keep Miles doc 19 07-21-2001 09:53 PM

New FTalk Luggage Tags RichardMannion 9 07-21-2001 09:16 PM

Limo Service to JFK from NYC jongar 3 07-21-2001 08:47 PM

How to search by fare basis codes?


So I have a another question please if I may. With the exception of the now aging but ever so useful and entertaining grand "Baht Run" thread by the famed OZ, what really belongs here? Anything?

I assuredly do not know, and so I started this thread earlier this morning to try to find out:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/004894.html


As one who supported the recent move, as well as FT in general, I'm already having some minor second thoughts and re-evaluating it as a result. I might also add that I truly understand that these are essntially judgment calls and that any reasonable FTer may easily be second guessed and/or slightly disagree on some, if not many of these judgment calls. I raise the point here again, only to possibly assist moderators and posters in kind of fine tuning the actual need and time to take action perhaps only when it is critical.

Couldn't moderators have permitted a brief "grace" period here at least? If not emailing a thread initiator some advance notice, or a warning of some kind, could they not have simply added a kind note of suggestion to an existing thread?

Would this have not, in sort order, produced the same desired result? With no hassle? With no lost bookmarks? With no potential aggravation? I think so, by hey, it's just my own opinion! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

Now it is even more eminently clear why I stated previously that I personally do not want to serve as a moderator! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

FWIW, I thought that it was primarily the occassional unwarranted personal comments and attacks/flames that were "hurting" FT, much more so than any marginally misplaced posts, and that ultimately this is what truly lead to a need for moderators!

So I'd personally like to see most moderating efforts ideally directed at such matters as these and other more critical issues. And even then, perhaps "less is more" in this particular regard, IMHO! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

Again, I most certainly appreciate very much the introduction of moderators to FT. Thanks for offering the time and effort. And to be absolutely clear, please be assured that you have my personal support! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

Some answers to some of the questions:

1) For the threads that where closed, a message was posted into what forum it would be moved. To actually go back and reopen and re-edit and reclose the thread with the exact link to the new forum becomes a long techinal process. Unfortunately some of the threads that were moved had been going on for some time... in duplicate, in the Buzz and the respective FFP. I apologize if it caused you any confusion to pick up the discussion in the respective FFP forum.

2) My understanding the change from webflyer to flyertalk domains is one that happened when the flyertalk domain was started. This is one more for the tech guys to handle than the moderators.

3) Closing topics "without logic"....perhaps one was closed in error, but the other closed topics were very appropriate. Even the moderators can be moderated by higher powers.

4) Thread movement heavy handed... only a very few have been moved, a very small percentage when compared to the whole. No attempts were made to hurt, insult, or reduce any contributions to FT by any member with the thread changes, it is simply an organizational move to keep the boards tiddy. Yes there will often be a judgement call, so please roll with us in the opening days of having moderators on FT.

5) As for some of the questionable remaining threads in the Buzz, we are working the solution to transfer them to other sections of FlyerTalk. There are some tech issues to be worked out to transfer them to one of the three other boards.

6) If/when another version of the "Baht Run" is started, it will be moved into the Mileage Run section of FT. Again, a judgement call is made based many issues.

7) We will attempt to notify you of any threads that are moved, but given the volume of work in any given day this may not always be possible, especially if the reply count to a thread is low.

8) Grace peroid.... well, hopefully we learned something over the last 3 years. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

9) Loss of bookmarks is a tech issue, and a question to be directed to the tech guys & gals.

10) Remember, that FT is also a database, so we are also responsible to keep it "organized" as much as possible.

Please also see http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/004894.html for some additional info on what is BuzzWorthy.

Remember, the moderators are here in a voluntary role to keep things running smoothly. If you have questions, please email us to help sort out any issues. We're all going to be going through a learning curve.

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M1

There has been some historical tradition of placing news article linked threads in "News". In retrospect I'll stipulate the Federal Flyers thread could be "Buzz" related.

The two moderators overseeing Buzz have to balance intuition and previous FT experience. This is a bit of a Beta test, before additional moderators are brought on line.

Personally I encourage feedback, whether posted on-line, or emailed to me. Community moderation standards are somewhat undefined as of now. Given time, hopefully consistent patterns will arise.

While I do not object to threads being closed and moved to the appropriate forum:
- Better guidelines need to be provided where to post something. The thread mentioned by M1 is a start but there are too many gray areas which are not addressed.
- Enforce this consistently. Why not move the UA baht thread in Buzz to UA or Mileage Run where it belongs, if you are moving other threads to the airline forums? In other words, if you are doing this, do this consistently.

[This message has been edited by PG (edited 07-22-2001).]

PG,

My first glance reaction to the Baht run thread would be to move it to UA, if it was something newly started. Since it probably ranks in the top ten most responded threads in FT history, moving it at this point might be confusing, and heavy-handed.

A question therefore for the community is whether "legacy" threads that by current defnitions are out of place, should be moved to their more appropriate home? Are we better off only moving items that are relatively fresh (those first started say after July 10th)?

M-Two

I don't know what is confusing, if the last response mentions that it is being moved to XX forum and the new URL for the thread is http://www.flyertalk.com/ItHasMovedHere

Adding the URL there would allow the user to click on it, and update their bookmark if needed.

Maybe a better way to proceed would be to generate some discussion about proposed changes, publish the new rules and guidelines (which would likely displease some people), and enforce the rules (in that order).


[This message has been edited by PG (edited 07-22-2001).]

The following excerpts are taken from the FAQ page of Flyertalk ( http://www.flyertalk.com/faqstext.shtml

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FlyerTalk administrators have the power to censor certain words that may be posted. This censoring is not an exact science, however, so certain words may be censored out of context. Please realize that the censoring, if any censoring is being performed, is being done by a computer based on the words that are being screened. Words that are censored are replaced with asterisks.

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What are moderators (TalkAssist & TalkModerator)?

TalkAssists are volunteer members on FlyerTalk who can give you advice on which forum to post a specific topic, alert regarding an occasional unruly member, and help you along the way toward getting to most information out of FlyerTalk. We also have TalkModerators who control individual forums. They can edit, delete, or prune any posts in their forums. If you have a question about a particular forum, you should direct it to your forum TalkAssist or TalkModerator. Not every forum will have a TalkModerator, so feel free to contact [email protected].
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Again, there are no current hard-fast rules for moderators, hence the test peroid with three of us. We encourage you to provide us with your feedback, on the board or by email.


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M1

Thanks for bringing this up - it just dawned on me that this might happen.

Please leave OLD threads where they are. The reason is that if I want to find an old thread, I´ll search for it in the forum(s) where I remember it being posted. For most messages, that is the buzz (now miles buzz) or general travel (travel buzz).

If you started rearranging all these old threads, I would need to have it search every forum, which takes much more time than searching one forum!

Also even more links to threads would no longer work.

Yonatan

In my opinion, you need to treat all threads the same... to leave some and move others just begs for the question "What is the difference?".

This is especially important as we continually add new people. If they see a "legacy post" in Buzz when it should be in United, they probably believe it is ok to post United stuff there...

As some said before, be consistent.

William

I'd like to add that certain things should stay in the Buzz if they are extraordinary, even if they may clearly belong in another forum.

Baht Run or Latin Pass are such extraordinary things. These were not everyday occurences and I would strongly doubt that if Latinpass happened today anyone would have found it in the Latinpass forum. Baht Run was also extraordinary and could have also been put in a large number of forums (UA, LH, Mileage Run, or any other * Alliance forum for that matter).

I fully agree that a good rate on a hotel, or a mundane article may not apply, but sometimes things are bigger than that.

Since I started this, I'd like to respond.

First of all, my post was also meant as constructive criticism. I think doc also expressed many of my concerns.

I recognize the need for moderators, but I'd like to avoid heavy-handed action. I think a moderator only needs to get involved in extreme cases, but having additional moderators allows us to do it a bit more proactively than we used to do it in the past. I thought that the main thing was to keep a lid on the personal attacks and stop those things from getting out of hand.

Well, I think that's we should only move threads if they are really really off-topic. I think we have to take a different direction with the first forum in the the forum list, and relax the rules for that forum.

Secondly, I think it's imperative that if a moderator moves a thread, by locking/closing the old one with a message, it's imperative that you go back and add a link to the 'closed/moved' message in the locked thread with the link to the moved thread. Those of us that post "correctly" do this all the time .. I would just look at it as part of the job, and if you don't want to take the extra step of copying the link from one window into an edit window in another window, then just don't move it. It's just too hard to follow the thread around otherwise.

Remember, if you're moving a thread, it must add value to move it, and part of that value-added is to link the closed thread to the new thread. Otherwise, moving it isn't adding any value, in my opinion.

Anybody that posts to FT (or moderates FT) should use the same rule of thumb. Does my action 'add value' or not? At some point, everybody forgets this, especially me http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

Yes, that's really more of a technical issue and not a moderator issue. I should have posted this in 'suggestions' or separately.

Skipping number 3 ..

I think it's going to take time to get it right and strike a better balance. My opinion is that moving or closing a thread should only be done under the most dire circumstances, and then only to add value. Some of the topics that have been moved to 'in the news' should have been left in 'buzz'. My opinion: relax the standards for 'buzz' or whatever the first forum in the forum list happens to be. Heck, you could even add a 'coffee break' forum and make that one first in the list if you want to. People will always post general topics in the first one in the list no matter what you do, and moving them makes it harder for the community. Obviously, this is quite subjective, and I've seen some that had only specific value to a specific hotel chain or airline, but, it doesn't really matter, because once posted, it doesn't add value to move it.

The 'federal miles' topic should not have been moved. Even the one that Randy mentioned could have been posted in several places should not have been moved. If there's even an iota of doubt, don't move it. How about the 'get xxx miles for xxx program' .. They all got moved into the xxx forum, but the target audience of these things is broader than xxx airlines. I was surprised those were also moved.

Just because it's related to a news story doesn't automatically mean that it belongs in 'in the news'.

I guess I just don't see the value added in moving them.

Well, for one thing, where would you move it to? Sure 'mileage run' is appropriate, but so is buzz. Again .. what value is being added by moving these things around? If it's the organization of the data base, it might be more appropriate to add a one item post to where you think it belongs that contains a link to the 'real thread'. I've often wished we could post single item threads that you can't respond to if they contain a link to the real item. A data base allows a cross-section view of the data, allowing a user to search on their own criteria. Unfortunaly, the FT data base organization doesn't currently lend itself to cross-forum searches, so we don't have that functionality. The presence of moderators moving threads around won't fix that.

I think we need to take that into account. If you can't notify the community, don't move it.

I think part of the problem here is that there's always been a disagreement about what constitutes an off-topic thread. Several months ago, there were a relatively minor number of members that thought it was necessary to post a 'this topic belongs in xxx' in any post in a forum that they thought was off-topic, while the rest of us remained silent. The silence, in some cases, wasn't because we didn't care .. we did, and believe me, it was annoying to have to re-read a thread only to find the only new information in that thread was "this belongs in the xxx forum" .. what a waste of time that was .. why? Because a post that consists of only "this should have been posted in xxx" adds no value to the information. Thus, posting a "please don't post messages that consist solely of -- this topic belongs in xxx -- would also be a similar waste of information".


Skipping 8, 9 and 10.

Yes, and I appreciate it, but I think it's going to take time to strike the right balance.

When you are working as a moderator, the hard part is to not let your own bias affect the work since this is all so subjective. That's a difficult thing to do. The moderators will also have to moderate each other.

-David

this thread is the most humorous and hilarious post by our dear moderator http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif) but sadly not for our community

--
dear moderators,

i think you all missed the point. what we are arguing here is not to justify your movement. it is about whether they should be moved at all.
check out the discussion in buzz and listen to what ken said. but PLEASE DO NOT MOVE THAT DISCUSSION HERE!!! please!


[This message has been edited by pegasus8228 (edited 07-22-2001).]