Yet another argument in favor of shutting down OMNI and/or banning political threads. The moderators got beat up for bias and unfairness, and one by one they QUIT!!! jfe, whom you keep attacking as biased*, was the last man standing!

I love the way people keep volunteering OTHER people's time, money, and resources to support a political forum. :rolleyes: (Someone on this thread actually claimed that there were probably plenty of people willing to volunteer to moderate OMNI. Even if true, how long would most people last in that position, given the high volume of posting in that forum and all the cr*p the mods have to deal with?)

*I'm NEITHER agreeing NOR disagreeing with your assessment of the moderation, just pointing out how you are actually SUPPORTING Randy's decision to shut down OMNI.

:D

These Original Members are right on top of things. ;)

^

I'm sure there would be no shortage of volunteers to moderate OMNI with or without politics.

I really don't see what the problem is. Skip threads you aren't interested in, if the TOS are violated, moderators can close threads / delete posts and warn -- and ban members if necessary. First time you get a warning, second time you're out for 6 months or whatever. And maybe whining in Randy's forum about OMNI should be a "warning" event, too. ;)

Wow. An awful strong opinion for someone who a). just registered last month, and b). has not achieved the requisite number of "main" forum posts to enable participation in OMNI. I mean it took me at least 2 months of absorbing the miles/points side before I even became aware than OMNI existed.

Could it be that you had another id in the past?? Naaaaaaaaaah. :rolleyes:

My only regret about the loss of OMNI is that I will never know when belle3388 finally takes her Swiffer out of the box. :(

Well said, Doppy, you managed to say exactly what I was thinking... ^ ^

N674UW

While I'm sure nobody will care what I say, in the big scheme of things - I think we lost a important (but small) part of FT.

I rarely if ever wandered into a political type thread in OMNI, and would maybe go to OMNI as a whole every few days.

But, OMNI was greatly helpful in a number of important things in my life:

1) Changing jobs a few months ago and getting advice on relo packges
2) Information regarding WashDC and my relocation
3) Getting adjusted to the DC area
4) Finding inflatable furniture replacements
5) Buying my plasma TV

I think it's these type of things that most people in OMNI want to discuss. I agree that if the political discussion can't be kept to a civil level - then toss it out and make it a forum like PremEx said. A "Help me..." type of forum.

I just think that many people in Flyertalk want to help others - and be helped. Sometimes that help is beyond just miles and points, for this is a community - one that supports it's members and each other in more ways than one.

Just my humble opinion.

I agreee wholeheartedly. I felt like I really got to know people through reading and posting in OMNI first, when I didn't have enough knowledge to contribute in other forums. I could normally find information I needed by searching so I tried not to post repetitive questions. So OMNI was a place where I could post some off-the-travel-topic things and get to know my way around the forums and to get to know people

Once I felt more comfortable, I began to post more in the other forums and even attended my first do in August (after I thought you people were lunatics for flying around meeting strangers).

For me, OMNI was a bit of a bridge that allowed me to build relationships and comfort to begin being more of a contributor to the community.

I would still love to see OMNI continue, but completely understand why it was pulled, though....

Punki, it sounds like you are advocating Free Speech. What a concept! You must be one of those crazy Americans who believe in such tripe. People can't handle free speech. It's too rough. That's why we, your thoughtful loving Government have outlawed it.

The above paragraph is heavy sarcasm and I'm sure Randy doesn't intend for Flyertalk to appear that way, but I think this decision is a mistake that leads people to think that.

I'm surprised no one here has predicted the future of all those horrible political discussions? If they can't post in Omni, where will they post? I can see the next post in the United Forum. "United will get their act together after Bush is re-elected", followed by a reply "Kerry will win, you scum-sucking swine!!". If the moderators can't stop that in Omni now, how will they stop it when it spills into another forum?

Finally, I'd like to offer a not-too-well-thought-out technical solution. We know that this BBS offers a choking solution that stops us from posting twice in a minute. I wonder if that can be applied on a per-forum basis? That way we could limit posts to Omni to once per hour. That would accomplish the following:

1. People would have to put a little more thought into their posts knowing that they couldn't come back to slam their critics for an hour.

2. The total number of posts would go down, saving bandwidth and disk space.

3. It would stop a lot of those silly posts games and hopefully add to the productivity of Omni-lovers.

Moderators, would that work? I might even volunteer to moderate Omni if this solution were in place. It would make Omni much more manageable.

Great photo! Do you know the whale's fate?

I suggest you post some of your (travel- or scenery- or event-related) photos on the San Francisco or (if more appropriate) California forums. If there's an existing photo thread (there might be on San Francisco; don't remember offhand), add to that, or else start a new one.

Some people might still post 24 times per day on OMNI. :D

And, it's the content of the posts rather than their frequency that was objectionable.

Still, though, I think some sort of posting limits (in addition to the throttle that already seems to exist) aren't a bad idea, especially if it's on an OMNI-type forum (like "FTers helping FTers"), to help limit the resources sucked up by non-travel related posts.

Mary I have to agree with you. Like many other OMNI folks from a few years ago, I stopped posting much because of all the politics and religion. The over abundance of these topics lead to the heated debates, the name calling and the ill will of the community. If those two topics were banned, then no doubt the community would be fun again. I would even volunteer to be a moderator of a board of that nature.

Only one big problem I have today, wherever am I going to find my hangover cure... :confused: who knew you can drink in London to 3 a.m. when the pubs close at 11 p.m. :D

I agree. With the type of moderation that had been applied to OMNI during this US political period, you may as well just shut it down. I don't agree with your implication, however, that having the two other moderators quit was a bad idea.

As I mentioned earlier, I read FT for well over a year before registering to post and discovered OMNI during that period. You'll notice by my low post count since registering that I'm not really that active even now that I've registered. But thanks for the personal att..... errrrrrrrrr... concern.

Just how many handles are you going to try and use here on FT?

This is what, the third already?

:rolleyes:

I thought the same thing? :confused: