I received my gift certificate a couple of days ago from IGOUGO. I already have enough for another.

Also, I received this note from the staff.

<<Hi Mark,

I wanted to let you know that you've been promoted to spotlight guide status at IgoUgo. Your photo has been placed in the home page photo rotation and the featured guides section where you're journals will be more prominent. Thanks for writing great journals! Great photo of yourself by the way!>>

Thanks for the help folks! I just finished another journal on Chicago and added several entries to Madison if anyone is interested. Please drop me a note if you read/rate them. I'll blanket your journals with ratings in return. MarkR37

I have a suggestion for all of you who are active with this site. I am starting to refer people who I correspond with at IGOUGU to this thread in hopes that we can get a larger group of active guides and readers. The more we can network the more points we can accumulate.
MarkR37

[This message has been edited by MarkRichmond (edited 05-07-2001).]

Mark,

I have just gone through your journals again to find the latest entries, thank you for coming to my new ones as well.

This "support group" is absolutely fabulous. I think we need to get more people to be active guides and readers. It seems to me that so far only about 5+ out of the almost 20 on the list are active, which is a pity.

As I was telling Cat333, there seems to be a little disadvantage to having too many journals. Newcomers will get into our journal list and think to themselves "Geesh, no... no way am I gonna review ALL THESE!" http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/biggrin.gif ...then get on to someone else with less journals!

As a start anyway, people with new entries should either email us on IGoUGo, or post a message here. What do you think?

Cheers.

Good idea, maple. I know I'm still working on Nmagann's journals. Perhaps I'll move on to some others so they can get the points and come back to Nmagann.

Good idea, anyone who emails me gets the treatment like you http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif.

You are a journalholic Dr Max. You write almost as fast as I can read them. Keep it up and congratulations on being #4 on the Journal Content Rating!
MarkR37

Oops, I was just looking at the list after MarkR37's comments, and realised that estnet is pulling me from the back by the tail! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

I am gonna have to take a flight to somewhere new, then come back fast to write more new journals! Yet another excuse for a personal mileage run since I have been officially grounded for the next few months pending an overseas stint year end! You guys are going to be in for a real treat once I get to Europe for a full year!!!

Mark: get in a few more journals and I will rate 'em. That should get you to top 5. It's so exciting to have FTers shining at IGoUGo! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

Must get back to nmagann now... http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif
Maple

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Spare the miles, spoil the flight!

HI There, I am new to flyer talk and was referred by Mark. I will be glad to read journals. I have some names from the board and will start tonight. I am pretty new to IGOUGO also but have several journals. Thanks dglawless

Thanks for coming over dglawless! Everybody please warm up your clicker fingers because this man has a bunch of journals and he will pay you back. Please email when you read them. http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif

MarkR37

Well, I've been through most of what's listed (but it just keeps growing and growing!)... so I thought I'd add my updates, too.
http://www.igougo.com/planning/journ...p?GuideID=4076 is the URL of all my stuff (remember to log in first, before going otherwise you can't rate ... that's right, isn't it?)

Old ones:

* Anime Expo '98 (***)
* Melbourne Anime Festival '99 (****)
* Melbourne Anime Festival 2000 (***)
* A Day in the Grand Canyon (***)
* Melbourne - A City of All Seasons (At Once!) (****)

New-ish ones:

* The Whitsundays and Great Barrier Reef (****)
* Hawaiian Discovery (*****)

New ones, done today:

* Contiki Wild Western Tour - San Diego and lunch at Tijuana (N/A)
* Contiki Wild Western Tour - Arizona: Pheonix, Sedona and the Grand Canyon (N/A)
* Contiki Wild Western Tour - Las Vegas via the Hoover Dam (N/A)
* Contiki Wild Western Tour - the Sierra Nevadas and Yosemite National Park (N/A)


BTW, I also got a letter from the editors! ^_^

> Journal Name: Hawaiian Discovery
> Journal Entry: Polynesian Cultural Centre
>
> Hi Kun-chan,
>
> Great journals on your trip to Hawaii and the other islands. Sounds like
> you had a nice relaxing time. I like how you wrote your journals in true
> journal writing style. Thanks again for writing on our site!
>
> Cindy Chew
> IgoUgo Editor

Such fun! I have not been to the fantastic pleces so many of you have, and it takes me FOREVER to write a journal, but it is still fun! I have just finished a new one -- and had such a thrill to have dglawless rate it even before I finished!!!

I dropped some note to those who I knew viewed my previous (puny) journal and before I knew it I got to watch all be rated ***** (thanks to Kunoichi!!!). What fun! I am not sure I even care that they can be traded in for miles!

Anyway I too am working on the referal process, and after they rate mine ( http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/wink.gif) am sending them this way. It serves as a good excuse to whet their hunger! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/biggrin.gif

Thanks for the feeling of community!! Such fun!!! (know I said that before, but it is!!!)

Thanks everyone

I'm off to Singapore so will get caught up on reading journals probably when I get back (10 days) so those of you who emailed me in the last day or so I may not have net access for a few days.

Just a reminder - only ratings of journals done in the first 90 days count toward points http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/frown.gif

It sure would be great if there was some non cut and paste way to do the journals off line, big sigh, my otherwise reasonably fast connection seems to slow to a crawl when uploading to igo and I'm doing it at off peak times.

Welcome Kun-chan and dglawless! Geesh, I have spoken to you both before on IGoUGo, and now I see you on FT! What a way to go , MarkR37! http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/smile.gif

HI There, I know I am knew here but have a bit of info from IGOUGO. I visit the frequent flyer forum and IGO sent a message to members there and warned about rating journals higher than they deserved. They said they would delete journals that were "over rated". You don't get any extra points with high ratings from viewers. You only get points for "views" not ratings. It is easier to read and not rate anyway. The only ratings that matter as far as points are the ones from the editors of IGOUGO. So as you are reading journals you may think about just reading and not rating or rating fairly. Just thought I would pass this on. Apparently they have removed journals of people that are overrated. I often read and not rate and you get the points that way without endangering the status of the IGO member. I sometimes rate them but not always. I do read lots and love IGO! Thanks to you that have read my journals and thanks to Mark for referring me to your great forum.

dglawless,

Then, I would say that your advice is tantamount to a "warning" from the IGoUGo panel. Thanks.

But this is also rather controversial, not the warning/over-rating bit which is fair, but the rating bit itself. I realised this morning that some guy has come around our journals and rated them all 4-stars when some journals actually warranted 5-stars. Referring to the high content chart as MarkR37 mentioned, I realised that (apart from myself) many others have fallen sharply. For example, estnet, whose journals were clearly well-crafted and deserving of 5-stars, was suddenly awarded a tonne of 4-stars, the effect of which threw her out of the league. This is IMHO unfortunate as we all know she did very well and had put in a huge load of effort.

Whoever did that, you may be entitled to your opinion - agreed - but do not withhold 5-stars just because you fear the IGoUGo panel would misunderstand your good intention. Especially those journals that were awarded high content journal ratings by the IGoUGo panel - nobody should withhold 5-stars on them for any reason but personal opinion.

My $0.02

Maple



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Spare the miles, spoil the flight!

This is a neat site. I just joined and added two journals (pen name - "flyin_illini"). I've noted the names of people on this board, and will start reading the journals written by FT'ers. I'll probably add a few more journals myself after a while.

Somehow, I doubt I'll make it to 25,000 points, but this is a good site nonetheless!