gleff,

Thank you for your explanations.

The title of this thread aside, I have been getting more and more annoyed by inconsistent moderating. You defend the moderating, but here is a thread to which you contributed twice, and then another moderator closes it.
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/009266.html
Should you have not posted to it? Should the other moderator have left it open?

Flyertalk is fun. The occasional flame wars detracted from it. I am under the impression that moderating was a response to that. There were plenty of misposted threads before moderating became so intrusive. There were usually polite instructions from others that the thread was misposted, and the post would usually die away.

The inconsistent moderating has made it much worse (in my opinion.) Let me appreciate that the moderators are in a catch 22 situation. If they close or move a thread, they really should say why. But most often, when they say why without Churchillian eloquence, they look quite arrogant. That appearance of arrogance is a real turn off, and makes Flyertalk much less fun.

sosafan - anything to do with Pudding Guy is generally free of Forum rules.

OT: Twice in 72 hours Otto and I have agreed! I believe that Nostradamus predicted the end times on less than this

While the majority of FTers are from Canada/ USA, there are others from Europe, OZ and the Far East and we should all remember that terms like 'Nazi' have different meanings to North Americans and Europeans. It says volumes about the original poster that differences in sensitivites was ignored. And yes, I have been to a few of the camps myself including Dachau, near MUC, a sidetrip I highly recommend to anyone visiting that fine Bavaria capital.

The real tragedy is that you seem to need a contraversial topic line to get the attention of many posters in order to generate real debate. I think that the moderation is more intrusive than two years ago. Is this bad, my vote is yes. With agressive debate comes contraversy, but a lot of information and good ideas come from that debate. Much of that is eliminated as the debate is closed by moderation. We are talking about what FT is and is becoming. It doesn't look all that good to me. Again I am not talking about individual moderators but the over all moderation process that FT is using today.

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dallasflyer

I have never commented on the job the moderators do in regards to keeping things on topic except for 1 instance in which CBLAISD did an *EXCELLENT* job of moderating. I would like to take this opportunity to commend the moderators for the job that they do so well & willingly for the benefit of our community. So to all the Moderators...THANK YOU!!!!!!

While I do appreciate the moderators efforts, I too feel that Flyer Talk is currently over-moderated.

When flaming is involved, I would far prefer to see the offending posts removed, allowing the threads to coninue, with a strong warning to the offending posters, that if they continue on that thread, they will be timed-out (sadly, there are those who just can't resist coming back again and again, rephrasing their attacks until are somehow convinced they have "won" something).

When the post is in the "wrong" place (and that is often very subjective) I would prefer that the Flyer Talk policy be to leave the thread alone if there is any possible justification for so doing. There are times, albeit not often, when it almost seems as though the moderator stretched a little in the opposite direction to find justification for closing the thread down and/or moving it.

IMHO, too much thread closing and moving interferes with the natural flow of conversation and makes FT a little less entertaining and more restrictive.

Of course, eveyone else is entitled to a wholly different opinion and the right to politely express it.

Don't forget there were only three moderators for all of Flyertalk two years ago. MilesBuzz, Community, United, American, and Hilton were monitored. No other forums.

Randy made a unilateral decision to significantly add to the moderator ranks. The burden on the original three moderators (myself, Burkey, and Essxjay), timewise and abuse-wise, was enormous. Old-timers will recall the flame wars pre-2002. They were spectacular.



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Craig6z
Buzz & United Moderator

No it's no, imo. It is occasionally subjective, but long-time members particularly know what's welcome, helpful, and appropriate to the categories Randy has selected

Quote:

<font face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif" size="2">
IMHO, too much thread closing and moving interferes with the natural flow of conversation and makes FT a little less entertaining and more restrictive.

Again, as many past posts on this too-often-rehashed topic will show:

And while "entertaining" is a nice by-product, I'm not aware that Randy wants an "entertainment" venue. I believe he's made it clear time and again that he would like to offer a place where information about "points and miles" can be best shared.

I do not feel there is over-moderation (and thanks, moderators, for doing a great job), at least compared to some other IBB's I frequent. There may indeed be more moderation in comparison with two years ago, but I wouldn't know first-hand.

Sorry if I'm too blunt here, but lately, I find FT is becoming less fun, but I don't know why. Maybe it's ME, since I am not traveling nearly as much as I used to. But it is certainly NOT because of over-moderation.

I guess I'm devoting a lot more time to other pursuits these days, and frankly, I'm really enjoying those pursuits.

I think the moderators do a WONDERFUL job.

If anything, they close too few threads.

Keep up the good work and ignore the whining.

In fact, I have a suggestion for the whiners:

Start your own IBB and moderate it any way you like.

I most definitely agree that FlyerTalk needs order, but my vote would be for a more Latin variety of order, rather than a German variety. Again, just a personal opinion and everyone is certainly entitled to have a polite opinion.

I believe, cblaisd, that an excellent argument can also be made that "entertaining" is more of a necessity to the continued success of FlyerTalk, than a by-product. If it weren't fun, most of us wouldn't still be around.

When people first come to FT, they are anxious to learn everything they can about their programs and devote themselves to so doing. After time, they really do learn just about everything there is to know about their programs. If FT is not entertaining for them, the most knowledgeable FTers will simply leave (as many extremely knowledgable folks have in the past), taking their vast amounts of knowledge along with them and that lessens the value of the boards, IMHO.

You've made your arguments about "order" more than once to Randy; do you recall how he's responded?

And "Latin" versus "German"?

Some of those flyertalk.de folks might not like the implications in your comment.

FewMiles..

Well I would assume that those of you who have had the privilege of traveling to Germany as well to countries that have a Latin influence, i.e., Mexico, Spain, South America, must have noticed that the Germans tend to enjoy their structure and order far more that the Latin types, who seem to more enjoy their siestas (and, of course fiestas). Folks would have to stretch pretty hard to find offense at the fact that Mexico is a lot more relaxed than Germany.

Yes, cblaisd, I do recall how Randy has always responded to me over the past 5 years. He has always, both in person and on-line, been extremely polite, thoughtful and appreciative of my input and even actively sought it on many occasions. Randy, is a very mature, intelligent, gentleman who is most capable of understanding that growth can come from politely sharing differing points of view.

As my most honored older brother Rudi often says, "We won't learn anything from anyone who always agrees with us".

When we do differ in our opinions, however, we must always remember that growth and understanding will only happen when we thoughtfully express our own feelings and positions, rather than attacking the opinions and positions of the people with whom we disagree--we aren't running for office here and don't need to sling mud. Unfortunately, it is the attacks on others that have driven away some of the most valuable and, IMHO, interesting posters.