That is simply incorrect. It takes some effort setting it up and that's it.

Sometimes it is simply not possible, as the recent cases have shown. There are ways to cover your tracks on the Internet. You would have to spend a very high amount of time and effort to really trace someone who covered their tracks.

Apparently you have not read my post. The e-mail address you use for registration would not be the same as the one displayed in your profile - IF you choose to display an e-mail address in your profile at all.

I agree. I just don't think you are going to have the same quality of information here if you require any kind of fee or Veri-Check/credit card verification system. Most of those who post now and enjoy FT may be all for it. How enthusiastic will new sign-ups be? So you'd have a certain size membership, which would then naturally diminish over time, and departing members would not be replaced at the same rate by new sign-ups.

As nice as they sound, a fee system or positive ID check are just not the right solutions for FT. I'm not even sure that FT, per se, has a problem. As I said before, there are one or two problem posters who are trying to create a scandal here, and they need to be dealt with.

Also being overlooked is that instituting a fee/credit card check system does NOT reduce trolling or flaming. There are other IBB's which have subscription fees, and they STILL have to deal with trolling and flaming.

Obviously, this is a very valid and most important consideration, but this would be taken care of by the fact that you would make parts of FT visible without registration. The details, of course, would have to be worked out, but one thing does not necessarily contradict the other.

Responding to the mention of moremiles.org: I think they took it a bit to the other extreme - it is very difficult to become a member of that site, plus, it really does not serve that much of an additional purpose compared to this site. "Network effects" are at work here and once someone else already has a certain critical mass, it becomes hard to compete with something like that which already exists. If you restrict registration too much for a new site, you will never reach the critical mass that you need.

My proposal would be to take the critical mass that exists and to slowly start to monetize it in a better way, without doing damage to the core business the critical mass is supposed to support, while at the same time getting rid of some of the trolling problems.

It can be done, and it would actually make Flyertalk MORE attractive to advertisers and cooperation partners.

I disagree. It would surely reduce it. It would not totally eliminate it, but it would eliminate the element of "anonymous trolls" we are currently dealing with.

Perhaps I should also disclose that I used to work at a large portal and that I have gone through the same kind of discussion before.

It has been done and it can be done.

I belong to a site that requires "professional" certification, costs $400 a yr, positive ID, real emails, and posting with your real name.

The flames abound in that groups equivelant of OMNI

I very much doubt that TalkTeam, Enquiring Mind, or ftomnibox would have made the posts that they did if they had to do it under their usual user names.

Moreover, if they did use their regular tags it would give the readers more of a basis to judge their accusations. A respected, serious, member of FT would be seen in a completely different light than someone who has a reputation for being a troll.

Personally, I don't like the idea of banning anyone -- including somebody like ftomnibox/consience. However, that is not my decision to make and if Randy does want someone off the board, this would give him a way to make certain that this person is not back the next day with a new tag.


[This message has been edited by Dovster (edited Feb 01, 2004).]

Well, but then if the issue is TalkTeam, Enquiring Mind and ftomnibox, then deal with them.

Aside from jan_az' board, I know another popular board which charges and yet still has a lot of flaming and trolling.

Now, does making a change from free to subscription-based reduce trolling and flaming? I don't know - maybe, maybe not.

But the fact is that you can't do anything about mad people who lack self-discipline to not post insulting, offensive and aggravating statements. That has more to do with upbringing and emotional state of mind than socio-economic indicators, IMO.

That is a problem of moderation, then. The example you cite does not support an argument of "sites with verification and payment have the same problems, so why bother" argument at all.

A little excursion:

I know this will probably rub some people the wrong way - but if I were the one that would have had to pull the trigger, I would have banned a lot more people already. With a site like this, you have to set a signal sometimes and just outright kick people if they start challenging you. This is not a democracy. This is a free site that belongs to Randy (as far as I know).

People forget that. Just today I read people saying "I have every right to do so" etc. No you don't. You have no right here if Randy decides you don't. This is a free site and Randy can do with it what he wants. You can - as I am just doing it - make suggestions on how to improve the site. But they are what they are - suggestions. You can argue with other posters. But if Randy decides, it is enough - you have no right to complain.

That's the way it is. Again, this is not a democracy or a debate club. Any right that you have on this site is derived from Randy allowing you to post here.

If Randy decides that what some describe as "seagull management" is the way he decides to run the site - perhaps not answering e-mails or be inconsistent in enforcing standards (I don't know what experience they have made) - then that is the way it is. People may be annoyed with this, and I can understand their disappointment, but they have no right to complain. Again, even though he seems to be the friendly, grassroots type that would like to involve everyone and give them the feeling that it is their site - it is not. It is his. I think many people feel they have spent so much time on this site that part of it is theirs and this is why they get so bitter and angry when something does not go their way. I would have probably kicked these people to set a signal (I am saying this even though I know that some of them are my favorite posters). It is a little bit like in a company - if I am the boss and some employees start behaving like they think they are free to do whatever they choose, I will have to fire them at some point, even if I think they are valuable to the company - just to show the others: This is how far you can go and not a step further, and I will not hesitate to fire even my favorite employees if they cross that line.


Coming back to what you said about the site where people pay a lot of money and they still have flaming problems: That site apparently does not make it clear in their terms and conditions that paying money does not mean you can do what you want. You will still have to abide by certain standards and once you start insulting other posters, you risk losing the rights to post that you acquired when you paid your subscription fee. Tough luck. Kick one or two and you will see that others will become more hesitant, after having paid money, to lose their posting rights.


The problem here right now is that you cannot really act like I just described and enforce the standards, because people can easily always come back and cause trouble again or even be vengeful and REALLY try to cause trouble.

Hence my strong support for requiring positive identification as outlined in my proposal, if I were Randy.

That is exactly the point. If you require positive identification, then you CAN do something about them - you can exclude them from your site once they appear to start feeling they are bigger than your site and try to claim it as their own by their behavior, end of the story.

All that being said, since I am not the one who has to run the site, I am just fine with things being the way they are, as it contributes to my entertainment and I have no hassle with it .

The whole discussion just brought up my consultant/previous job experience side .

Me, too. But...



This is all IMHO: I've been here long enough to make an educated guess that Randy does not subscribe (!) to the notion that it's "his way or the highway".

Rather, while he retains the right to ban people, of course, he DOES seem to try to be "fair" and non-arbitrary. There are rules, and if you follow them, he will not ban you just because people don't like you or whatever else. That would include complaining about things you feel are legitimate to complain about.

I mean that "private property" stuff and talk about "you have no rights here" is all fine to talk about, but Randy has stated that he does not want to stifle opinions, and has invested a lot of time and resources into fine-tuning the terms of service, so would he just rip it up in a moment of anger and just start banning people left and right? No, I would bet not.

Well, the board of which I'm speaking has a Terms of Service, just like FT, and an even stricter moderation policy, banning far more people than FT, and STILL they have problems with flamewars, so again, it's not clear to me that restricting membership on the way in (with fees and subscriptions and veri-check ID's) is going to accomplish that much, if anything.

I know Randy has a different approach to this and I commend him for his patience. I am just saying that I would have been less patient .

How are you going to do that, though? You can't exactly give people a psychological test as a term of membership. Additionally, while legally as owner you can probably ban whoever you want, from a board-morale standpoint, you can't just start arbitrarily banning people without it coming back to haunt you, like on some other moderation-heavy boards a lot of people here have bashed. You have to try to be "fair" in the eyes of the FT community, or else you create more problems in the aftermath. That would mean establishing rules and then respecting them, including Randy (while at the same time retaining the right to breach the rules if he feels he needs to).

I don't think I said "arbitrarily". But I am on a board where they are very strict and quickly ban people if they really did something wrong. This does not stifle discussion among members, but one thing I have seen there is that once the board owner comes in and says "end it here", they really do - because they know otherwise they are out. One or two people have tried to say "I dare you to ban me" - they have never posted again, and the others have taken note for the future. It is like with children, they will go as far as they can if you do not stop them at some point.

I agree with the positive ID idea. Implementation is not easy, but... sometimes life is just like that, not easy.

I also think that FT should have two versions, one freebie version, and one full version that should cost $$$$$. But, heck, Im not the owner of this circus so... what do I know...?


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Gaucho100K