Nobody reads Tech Issues Chat Board. Kill it!!

Since your tech staff never reads the Tech Issues board and never bothers to reply to serious issues raised there, I request that you kill it off.

Why have such a board if your own tech staff refuses to use it?

See my post on that board, along with several other poeple who have legitimate complaints.

I run an IT Dept. If I treated my primary client base the same way your tech staff treats your client base, I would be fired.

Three minutes to post a response appears to be beyond the scope of your tech staff's skills.

[This message has been edited by HungryTraveler (edited 08-14-2001).]

If I would run a FlyerTalk board as succesfull as Randy runs FlyerTalk I would be very proud.

I have no complaints about the Tech board and the way the FT staff reacts to our problems. They have addressed issues as fast as they can get to them. You must realize that they are still catching up on a backlog of problems resulting from the switch to the new board. Perhaps with a little patience on your part, your problems will be resolved to your satisfaction.

The question remains, however, are we really all getting our monies worth here?

C'mon, let's all try to be a bit more patient please!

I second the responses above: this is a free service. We are Randy's guests on this board and as such we should be grateful for all the effort that he and his staff put into this.

Let me say to begin with. I did not invite the open forum for this attack. A member of FlyerTalk did and there's one rule I have.....don't, and I repeat don't, piss on my employees. I hope that is perfectly clear.

Now, HungryTraveler, since you appear to be the absolute saint of IT. Let's get a few things straight. Just because someone doesn't always answer a post doesn't mean they aren't working on the problem, especially since that same problem may be posted several times in several places by several people. Some people on this board understand it's easier to not make a public sensation of their 'grave concerns' and simply post an email directly to the admin, which allows us to spend the time directly on the problem rather than paying lip service and time checking the boards. Your assertation is that no one on this tech staff has ever done anything and no one has ever been served from posting or communicating with this organization. I'll let the constituency answer that since I'm sure you would agree I would be bias with my answer. You run an IT department. Answer me this, IT man - Is that IT department wholly staffed by volunteers who have other jobs to do within the organization? It just may surprise you to know that all the tech guys have projects assigned to them that are important to the nature of my real business - publishing and information for profit so that i can give back to appreciative frequent flyers, like some of those on FlyerTalk, a free and volunteer staffed asset like FlyerTalk. Similar to those who would criticize some of the moderators. They are putting in their time for FREE, and yet anyone who benefits from this wants to complain? Ah, the masters of the universe speak loudly.

Since you are very concerned that this board isn't anything that represents your high level of expectations, then I'll be looking for no additional posts from you. Or, you can simply email me and ask that you and your posts be deleted from the database of FlyerTalk. That way when you return to your castle in the IT sky, no one will know that you've actually rubbed elbows with the rest of us way down here.

Again, you made it public and you made it an attack on people doing the best they can do - dealing with software they did not develop, software that has its limits at times, trying to get answers back from no less than five other IT departments of the companies whose services we use, technology such as bandwidth which they and even the software doesn't control and caveats from any Web farm arrangement. But I happen to really, really like them (my employees) and will accept a one week 'time-out' as per the TOS of FlyerTalk for responding in a personal matter to this. I am wrong and am sorry.

I'll be back one week from today, but in the meanwhile, I know that every day the tech guys are paying attention to something on FlyerTalk. I just wish we could afford someone like you HungryTraveler, that apparently has never ever had unexplained downtime and that posts every three minutes an update on the situation. I'm sure you are very proud of a perfect IT department, Bill Gates could use you as could eBay, AOL and others who have from time to time, had the same types of problems we deal with daily. BTW, AOL took two days, not three minutes to answer my last tech question of them, and they are god awful rich with money.

You wanted an answer, you got it. Good day and I'll see you all in one week's time. I apologize and will certainly not risk strike two in the future - but please, don't attack any of the volunteers (tech or moderator) who work to make this a better board, especially if all you've done is hold your hand out....

Thanks a lot Hungry Traveler! Now we are without the contributions of Randy for a whole week.

Given that this is a frequent flying board, and you seem to have few contributions here other than to complain about technical issues and question the competence of the people who are working hard to provide FlyerTalk as a free service, it is only a matter of time before people begin to question whether positive, constructive contributions to this community are beyond the scope of your skills.

Now that you have an answer (hopefully one that satisfies your standards) from the big boss himself that yes, indeed, there are people addressing the technical issues, perhaps we can get back on topic, if you please?

Sincerely,
FewMiles..

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FlyerTalkers' Resources on the Web: http://fewmiles.tripod.com/
Unofficial Guide to AAdvantage: http://fewmiles.tripod.com/AA/
Unofficial oneworld Info Desk: http://fewmiles.tripod.com/oneworld/

Dammit, HungryTraveler, you shouldn't have to put up with this!

I vote that we give HungryTraveler his money back. Hell, DOUBLE his money back.

With all due respect, this is PRECISELY the type of attitude that is killing MANY peoples' willingness to volunteer. I am not just talking about the internet, I am referring to society in general.

I am President of Little League in my town. This is an unpaid position. And I don't even have children in the league. I get phone calls as early as 6AM and as late as midnight, many from people who have never met me in my life.

And they simply cannot WAIT to share how positively indignant they are that an umpire "missed" a call ("missed" being defined as made a call against their child).

Sometimes if I am on the road, I don't return their phone calls for a day or two which drives them crazy. How can I be so neglectful? It has come to the point where I refer to my career as "my OTHER 50 hour a week job".

Flyertalk exists because of the hard work of Randy and his staff, and I guarantee that Flyertalk is a significant EXPENSE with virtually no revenue stream (of currency, that is).

So frankly if it takes a week or a month to deal with some software glitch, I may be inconvenience, but I am still grateful as HELL that this site exists at all - even if it does not reach someone else's high expectations.

Randy, THANK YOU for FlyerTalk. Warts & all.

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"I will not be pushed, filed, stamped, indexed, briefed, debriefed or numbered. My life is my own."

Less than 20 posts and you come up with this?

Dorian

Randy, your case was appealed and a judge and jury of FT'ers have decided to commute your sentence to time served. You are being released immeadiately and will have to do 100 hours of community service on the FT boards during the next month as punishment for your outburst.

I was in the process of posting the following this morning when my computer crashed. Now I see that events have overtaken my intentions, but here is what I was about to say:

"A good way to assure that nobody on FlyerTalk will want to have anything to do with you is to throw rocks at Randy. At least, nobody on FlyerTalk except for the very few who think it's acceptable to come into someone's home and insult the host."

Now, as for you, Randy: TOS be ****ed! And I don't agree with your interpretation anyway. It's your store, and you don't have to give yourself a week off or anything else for responding to a personal attack. To pretend that you have to is just silly.

(Unless you're on a RTW in First Class )

Rich, I agree with you that the way Randy responded to HungryTraveler doesn't require him to take a time-out. But maybe the key phrase is indeed "give yourself a week off". If Randy wants to be Caesar's wife, that's commendable - and it may also be that he might just need a little time off.

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The Delta Flyers' Guide

Maybe Randy just would like a week off from these silly pestiferations? We can commute his sentence AND welcome him to a vacation from our distinguished co-posters.

Probably HungryTraveler has just spent the last month fixing the Delta website glitch which kept us from viewing preferred seating, caused when somebody didn't know how to spell "preferred".

i am mostly interested in good deals. philosphy is ok, i guess. just went against my judgement & posted a reply to tomorrow is aug 15. on omni. what is the problem? i have posted on tech, & i have seen improvement. it works!

[This message has been edited by clacko (edited 08-15-2001).]

Mr. Petersen, I am disappointed in the temperance (sic and ) of your response to hungrytraveler. Given that you are providing this board free ( )and that it takes your time and your staff's time away from the paying customers, for which hungrytraveler is apparently ungrateful ( ), I wish that you had given him an angry-enough answer to be worth a two-week self-suspension -- most people I know would be even more upset than you were, if they read a complaint like the one that started this thread.

Please keep up the good work ( ); the majority is solidly with you.

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"Yes, but at least mine will be found in a first class seat." -- Peattie and Taylor