Dear Randy,

It is clear to me, and perhaps to most members, that it will never be possible to make everyone happy regarding having/not having an OMNI-like forum. And, I appreciate that you didn’t start this Board to become the playground monitor, so this entire OMNI distraction, and the spillover to other forums, must be a tad frustrating.

Why not let somebody sponsor a "lounge" offsite? There could be some kind of disclaimer such as: "Flyertalk is about points and miles, but for everything else you can retire into the lounge--accessed at www.flyinglounge.com, which is brought to you by members so and so. While your Flyertalk user name and password remain valid, Flyertalk has no official association or sponsorship of this site. Much like a back booth in a bar, you are free to discuss just about anything, just don’t carry on your disputes, if any, back here on Flyertalk."

This way, the inmates get to run their own private asylum without tainting the mission of Flyertalk. You would be taking part of your BB private, so to speak.

I know that someone(s) will point out the downside(s); one just doesn’t come to mind right now.

Sincerely, your cyber-pal, Jailer

I certainly don't think it would be a good idea to have the same passwords.

www.tireflock.com

Hmmmm. Does that mean you advocate removing all forums that don't discuss miles & points? Won't be much of FT left .

The point of Omni is a place to go to let off steam and have non miles & points conversations. What got out of hand was the constant political arguing. Many other online communities have an Omni type area with one major difference - certain topics are not allowed. For some reason our gracious host has refused to do so (as is his right).

Many of us have been with FT a long long time and have benefitted and greatly enjoyed the site that it has become. I think a few well placed rules, particularly in an Omni type area are long overdue.

As for your suggestion, I would hate to "leave" the site to gather and chat with my online friends. I'd rather adhere to more stringent rules.

Mary

I made a similar suggestion a while back, my idea was to have OMNI and OMNI Politics, where OMNI politics would be a hyperlink to another site with a code in it that would say referral=FT.

That way Randy would make some money also, but not sure if anyone ever got around to see it.

I think we all need a place where we can discuss mundane topics, such is the fact that I find Burger King's latest breakfast commercial "wake up with the King" rather disturbing

tireflock? Wow, how Twilight Zone is that.

Sincerely,


William R. Sanders
Customer Service Coordinator
Starwood Preferred Services

[email protected]

Yes, the fact that the new Burger King commercial is part Steven King and part Pink Flamingos is disturbingly OMNI.

Good point Jon, passwords would have to be changed.

jailer

While I initially thought that your idea might be a good one for people who want Omni back, I'm not sure that I ultimately agree with you.

I was going to suggest another modification, which was not to allow the same user names to be used on both boards and then I realized that would defeat the purpose of what you were trying to establish.

The problem that I have seen is that if people get in heated debates or polarize themselves on a subject(s), it carries over into the primary purpose posts of FlyerTalk- travel/points related topics - where controversy should not even enter into the mix.

I don't have a horse in this race - so take the opinion for just what it is.

Sorry to be OT, but ...?!

That sounds reasonable. Surely there's someone here with the tech know-how to set up an off-site board. Allow any FT "personalities" to maintain their FT name, if desired. Could even ask for Paypal donations to get started. I'd pony up a few bucks a month for the entertainment.

As for the BK commercial, it was very disturbing, I agree!

We been using it since FT went down for the new software upgrade

All whiners need not apply.

There are more than enough as it is

Is this an admission?

I know of three independent boards populated almost entirely by Flyer Talkers:

The first is www.moremiles.org which was started years ago by some of the original FlyerTalkers and was, IIRC, a private board, to be used as a back-up when FT was down. (FT used to be down a lot more than it is now.) www.moremiles.org was thereafter made public. It is a pretty well behaved bunch, considering it contains the likes of Kokonutz.

The second is www.tarom.net which bills itself as "Tarom, moderation and content free since 1987" which I personally think is hysterical. It hasn't had much traffic as of late.

The third is www.tireflock.com which, is a relative new board and, as you might guess from its name, is a parody of Flyer Talk. From what I have seen it is rather loose and rollicking.

It is curious to note that all three of these boards function quite comfortably without much need for moderation, thread closing and/or infighting (of course, they are very small boards, but they certainly do contain most of the characters usually involved in thread closings, infighting and moderation on FlyerTalk).

It may well be that each of these board just draws like-minded posters who are comfortable with the way things operate thereon, whereas FlyerTalk contains all of these folks, many of whom do not appear to be like-minded and apear to hold totally justaposed positions on how things should operate.

Expanding on Jailer's suggestion, and the suggestions following, maybe people who miss OMNI could check out all three boards, pick the one that they feel suits them best and post away. (Caveat: www.moremiles.org being a more conservative place, does require registration approval)

Of course, this would mean that FT would lose that traffic which may or may not be an issue, but that will happen anyway unless OMNI is reopend.

The other alternative, if maintaining FT traffic is important, would be to reopen OMNI with a new moderation team. I have already volunteered to help with that effort and have e-mailed Randy accordinginly, so we will see what he thinks.