I couldn't possibly agree with you more. Having been the recipient of cowardly, anonymous attacks by doc and his "family" I certainly know how those feel! I've also been the victim of slander and thinly veiled innuendo by Glen before, so nothing new here.

One observation, though. If you'll search the history of the "Welcome Back, Doc" thread, you'll see a lot of talk about a hypothetical "Happy Birthday, Doc" thread. I can easily imagine a number of people voting that thread down, knowing that history. In context, it's probably not quite a cowardly, anonymous attack.

Thanks, I appreciate it!

So robb - can we take this as a statement that you did not rate the doc Birthday thread as #1?

A 'yes' or 'no' is all that is required I guess.

This is not a single-incident occurance. The "Let's dump on people we don't like" attacks have been going on for quite some time. The 1-starring has been happening, even on very harmless Community Buzz threads, for several months.

I never complained about it until I saw it hit the birthday threads. Remember, it wasn't just Doc. Analise, who is never confrontational and whose only sin is apparently having political beliefs that the attackers don't share, had her birthday thread single-starred by six people!

There are many people who post on F/T with whom I disagree. There is not a single one of them who I would be happy to hear did not have the opportunity to enjoy his birthday with his family.

Mary2E, with whom I disagree on almost every political issue, has become a good internet friend. Last Christmas, I had the pleasure of being able to send her something from Nazereth to brighten up her holiday. When I fly into EWR for a connection in November, Mary -- and possibly Analise -- will be coming to the airport just to say "hello" while I rush out to have a smoke between flights.

At our PBI-FLL Meet in May, people who were very strongly split about Delta's SkyMiles changes -- and believe me, the debates were as bitter as anything you will find on Omni -- found that they very much liked each other in person.

In real life, despite the fact that I am a very Conservative Republican (and a member of Israel's center-Right Likud Party) I have had a long term relationship with a wonderful woman who is both an Italian Communist and very active in Israel's extreme Left.

In other words, it is very possible to disagree with someone but still have respect for them as human beings. Hiding your identity and grouping together to insult them on their birthdays shows no such respect at all.

Are you accusing the "Legendary" family?

Is this the family that you are referring to?

After the reputation debacle and your subsequent suspension, I would have thought you'd had your fill of being Flyertalk's #1 inquisitor.

I thought Randy was taking care of this...?

He said he was and I have no reason to doubt his word. From reading his post I gather he was just as disgusted with the birthday threads and the misuse of the rating feature as was I or any of the other posters.

Why don't you just let him do just that, then?

Add me to the list of people that has noticed 1 star ratings on only certain people's threads. It's not in Omni, it's just about anywhere these people start threads. Some of the threads are from last year, and magically, they have a bunch of ratings after someone brings them forward for some reason or another (not necessarily the OP).

It became obvious several months ago. There's a forum in which no one has ever rated a thread. Suddenly a certain persons thread had stars. I found it hard to believe that all of a sudden the regulars on this forum decided to start rating. I then looked around. Magically, many of the threads this person started have ratings inconsistent with the norm for that forum.

1 star on a birthday thread is absolutely disgusting. How can anyone be that mean spirited? It's childish, at best. I only hope that Randy starts looking around, not only at the birthday threads, but at other threads from certain people and check the norm for that topic. I, for one, will gladlly give Randy a list of the ids I feel are being targeted. I'm sure others who have noticed this have their own list.

My opinion is that most FTers don't use the rate thread feature. That's why it sticks out when there are stars. Dovster is right, the rate thread feature has been substituted for reputation points.

If you don't believe me do the test for yourself. Look at non-omni fora for star ratings. Do a search on the threads started by these ids. You will start seeing a pattern of low ratings on their threads. Compare it to threads with high star ratings (very few). The pattern is very noticable. The 1 star threads have quite a number of ratings, the high star threads have far fewer. There IS a group of people that pull up threads and give them only a terrible rating.

I think this is far worse than the reputation points fiasco. It's close to the anonymous dinging and signing someone else's name.

Mary

Ratings feature seems to equal trouble.

I have not consistently rated threads; however, sometimes when I notice a thread that is really of interest to me, I might give it a few stars. If there are other times that I notice a thread that was a waste of time for me to read or doesn't really seem to relate to travel and travel-related issues, I might give it a 1 or 2 star rating.

Based on the discussion that is occurring here, I'm sure that there are some people that are guilty of attempting to cause controversy, but IMHO, it is a childish issue on BOTH sides. Who cares if someone gives you a thumbs-up or a thumbs-down on your posts?

I'm not familiar with any guidelines on how the ratings feature is to be used and I would hope that everyone makes certain that they aren't jumping to emotional conclusions.

I said it before, we are like monkeys, give us a feature in this new system, and we will find a way to create mayhem


I say remove ratings, and bring back reputation

Bigjim, the point of the rating threads is to give an indication to others if a thread -- in your opinion -- is particularly worth reading or simply a waste of time.

I believe this should be based on the information in the thread itself. Until now, like 99.9% of the people on FlyerTalk, I have never bothered rating a "Happy Birthday" thread. There is no point -- we all know what it contains: Birthday greetings.

In the case of Analise and Doc, I gave both threads 5 star ratings. The only reason I did so was to lower the impact of the gratuitous insults given to them.

Do I care if somebody gives me a thumbs up or thumbs down on my posts? Not at all. If I feel my post was valid, that is enough for me.

But I do care when people, who have not posted and are simply enjoying their birthdays, suddenly find that a number of people -- hiding behind a cowardly cloak of anonymity -- are condemning those who would are offering them birthday wishes.

If somebody truly wishes that Joe Blow does not have a happy birthday, and wants to express that churlish feeling, he should at least have the courage to post that fact and not hide under a virtual rock.

I would be curious to know if the same group of people is behind this as with the reputation points and dinging issues.

jfe, I completely agree with your first statement. With your second, I feel that we should, indeed, have reputation -- but that it should not be anonymous.

The ratings, however, are a different issue. They are not there to say if you agree or disagree with a particular post or poster, but rather if an entire thread is worth reading.

And herei lies the problem with your typical oz-hunt. He weaves together twenty things, and than tries to imply that you've done them all if you've done one.

I can't imagine who has the time to go around gang-dinging threads in a concerted action. Oh wait, yes, I can