<begin puke smiley>

:Q~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

<end puke smiley>

Don't boycott Randy, just the ORP forum ;)

^^^

^ ^ ^ ^ ^

AND, I think that if the decision is made to shut Omni down, it will also eventually eliminate a lot of problem posts on the legitimate Flyertalk travel and travel-related sections of Flyertalk as well.

Sorry to see you go, Scott - just as I was sorry to see Sean leave.

Jésus, bon courage! :)

Again, many thanks to all three of you.

Agree 100% Tom. ^ ^ ^

Randy closed it down for a while, and when he bought it back IIRC said it was squarely in the hands of the regular users as to whether the respite would be long term. Or not.

Certain yahoos on there have so far managed to have signature lines for ALL members abolished recently as they could not resist political baiting and attacks using them. So ALL members are deprived from hearing about upcoming "Doos" or readily accessing super useful signature lines like links to Blondebombers Star Alliance and hotel chain compilations and tabulations etc. ALL FT'ers lose out from that as a direct result.

That is incorrect.

In Omni these signature lines were never a problem, the problems occured when "certain yahoos" took the political statements out of Omni into the rest of the board, and when "certain yahoos" started making Omni-like posts and statements in the core of Flyertalk; the miles and points boards.

A couple of these "yahoos" were members that had never even posted in Omni before.

I agree.

And it's completely unknown to me why the place is allowed to continue in it's current form, or at all for that matter.

Enough is enough.

What is "incorrect" in the 2 parts of my post you quoted and labeled "incorrect"?

And what Forum's signature lines WERE the reason Randy closed down the Signature feature if it was NOT OMNI as you claim? ?

You put Omni and the signature lines in one arguement. The signature lines were just fine until some people OUTSIDE Omni decided to mess around with them.

Omni itself had nothing to do with ending the offering of signature lines.

We do finally agree on something. :) The difference is my view has not changed one iota for 2 years.

I found Randy's previous comment on it below. After some members begged to have the Forum re-instated. Seems like some folks have now washed their hands of OMNI, and are throwing it back yet again as his problem? :(

Ok, I don't often post here but this is a subject where I can say something that might end this argument. The signature lines were discontinued because 2 individuals decided to pursue their agenda by "stalking" 1 person around and posting non-sense following the 1 person's post in various forums just to get their political signature line (which then got expanded to be more of a political "flyer" seen). If there's any mod to be "held" responsible for Randy's decision to discontinue signature lines, it was me after these events in one of my forums.

IMO, politics have no place on Flyertalk since it polarizes people and creates ill will that spills out to other places including the new low of people rating Birthday threads a 1 * :(

Agree.

It was good to see Randy announce yesterday he was looking into the small group of (IMHO) warped sickos who have made an art form of this alienating "tactic" in the past 3 or 4 months:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=359978

The same group of about a dozen FT'ers clearly email or IM each other to gang up on threads posted by those they do not 'like', and rapidly rate the thread "1" - yes even for friendly and Community bonding "Happy Birthday" type threads.

Or post inane comments to a thread almost in unison, as the case may be. Often a group of them will post the same silly quote in a conga line with rolleyes or other such heavy intellectual input, as Canarsie so ably highlighted a couple of days back in this forum.

I saw it occur last week - a Birthday thread I posted on first when it had zero "votes" went to a dozen "1" votes in about an hour. Simply as these yahoos did not 'like' the person having the birthday. I would bet $100 I could accurately offer Randy if he is interested, a core of member names who will certainly appear as rating the lowest possible "1" to that thread.

I might add none of these brave souls actually posted to the thread that I could see. Randy did add a Happy Birthday greeting himself to that thread, but it did not stop these disruptive geniuses.

This gang "1" dinging became the new "game" soon after Randy removed the reputation feature, that a number of the same members IMHO were heavily involved in abusing - causing its permanent removal. The name of the game changed - the object remained the same.

And there are also gang stalkers out there, and it has been more evident since about mid-year, as reported here, in another documented instance of a small group rating threads "1" for no apparent reason other than to be disruptive to a member:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=332171

If Randy takes away the OMNI playground it IMHO will get worse not better in General Forums, as a small core of FT'ers will have even more time on their disruptive hands, you can bet on that. :td:

The "tactic" works both ways of course.

As I pointed out in post #3 of this very thread, this thread was mysteriously rated "5" with a bunch of '5' votes before even ONE reply was posted, and all this within about an hour of the thread being started. Randy might find instructive the viewing of the folks who gleefully voted "5" so very, very fast?

I wonder aloud if those names tally pretty neatly with certain Birthday "1" voting patterns?

Wow, that would be scandalous for the same group of people to vote up a thread asking to curb doc's attack on a forum and to vote down a thread celebrating him.

We're all very lucky to have you around to point out that sort of thing would clearly be indicative of a MASSIVE coordinated conspiracy. Otherwise, some people might just naively think that (quelle horror!) more than one person shares the same view.

BTW, Glen, my birthday is coming up. Should anyone wish me well with a thread, feel free to vote it 1*. Somehow, I'll summon the courage to soldier on.

Hey, feel free to "wonder aloud" any criticisms for that matter. It's always so much fun when you do that. It really makes the weekends sail by!

Again, I think with enough therapy, I might survive the knowledge that some people on an Internet Bulletin Board don't like me.

[/heavy intelelctual input]

:rolleyes:

Robb, there is a time and a place to make your feelings known. (Although I don't believe there is ever a time or place to make a cowardly, anonymous, attack.) A thread wishing somebody a happy birthday is not the place to go after somebody you disagree with.

Randy has indicated that he might ban those involve in the birthday thread attacks and I think he would be 100% justified in doing so. Besides the fact that their behavior was despicable, it also weakens what could be a valuable FlyerTalk function.

Personally, I hope you have a very happy birthday -- and there is absolutely no sarcasm in that.