Obviously, many FT'ers have different interests and come to the boards to illicit different, but particular bits of information and also to provide diverse input!

Merry, among others, has previously bemoaned that the initial focus of FT has perhaps been lost, or at the very least, diluted.

It stikes me that the board could possibly be roughly divided into 5 distinct primary types of posts or even areas :

1. Miles / Points

2. Airfares / Hotel/ Rental Prices

3. Travel Information (not miles or prices)

4. Community

5. OMNI

in approximate order of importance to me!


Has anyone ever given any thought to possibly segmenting the board into 5 such dintinct categories or sections?

One could perhaps ideally choose to go directly to an appropriate "section" of interest, possibly even on separate servers or portions of a server.

So an airline, for example, CO could have separate "sections" for mileage bonuses, and for special fare deals, and for other news informational type posts and so on!

It may be of potential considerable help to those who are frustrated either by slow connections and /or who are overwhelmed by the massive amount of posts and material!

As the boards have grown, it seems that there are many folks to support each distinct "section."

On the other hand, the more sections, the more difficulty in general there likely is/will be in properly posting to the appropriate section!

Or alternatively, if this is absolutely not feasable, we could have each poster select an appropriate numerical categorization to define their post. Perhaps this (1) as for miles, could also be displayed within the title?

Just a thought!

Anyone think this might work? Or that it might help? Or not!

I think the only even semi-workable proposal there is to ask people to make their thread titles crystal clear. Segmenting individual airlines in to 5 sections just isn't feasable. People can't agree on the appropriate forum to post topics in now when they only have Buzz/T Talk/Spam/Omni/News/Community/Airline to choose from. You are talking about giving them about 600 options! The situation would change from people being overwhelmed by the massive amount of posts to overwhelmed by the massive number of places posts could be.

What might help is if/when webflyer sets up a sister board to deal with more general topics like specific cities, where to eat in..., where to stay in...., whats the airport in... like, etc. A comprehensive FAQ for topics that are visited again and again might thin things out.

Other than that, I actually think most of the specific airline/hotel/car/credit forums are well focussed and easy to use. UA might be an excpetion (and I don't read CO), but, for example DL, BA, Amex, Hyat, Hilton are all quite user friendly.

To echo one of James' thoughts (and I know it has been suggested many times before), it would be extremely helpful if there was an ability to edit thread titles. Seems to have been a recent increase of misleading or confusing titles.

i think most of what you are mentioning will be taken care of with our next relaunch. We are moving to additional technology that allows multiple boards from one central database: You'll find that "General TravelTalk" will be moved to a new board called "FlyerTalk Travel". There will also be a new board called "FlyerTalkAirports", "FlyerTalkDining", FlyerTalkLibrary" and "FlyerTalk Community". There will be others to come and they will be linked by graphics but the entire part of the separate forums will not be featured in every board. So, in this case, travel informatio nad airfare, etc. information moces to other boards and those current forums in that area are the start. That means for the most part that "FlyerTalk" will convert to only miles and points information, though each is easily still within one click of the board you are on. At least the separation of church and state will be attempted. It will take some monitoring to get us all through where is apprpriate the comments you want to make, but we're close on this one - just going through final tests right now to make sure that every thread from the current board can be posted into other linked boards.

Does this help?

[This message has been edited by Randy Petersen (edited 02-08-2001).]

Randy: That sounds great. Is there a way you can segment out news stories / press releases into a separate area as well? I find myself getting overwhelmed by the sheer volume of them of late.

Thanks for listening!

Randy do you have an approximate time when the new board will launch?

I have read different posts and you have been discussing the new board quite a bit and it sounds like it is right around the corner.

Side note: If the color choices are between hot pink and hot orange then I would prefer hot pink

doc I understand where you are comming from. I usually hope that most of what I am looking for will show up in The Buzz. Unlike you and your contless free time, I do not go into individual airline forums. I go into other forums but I do not have time to check individual airlines and scan through the various posts.

Believe it or not, my time is actually not "countless" but I do not sleep an awful lot and I am online most off the time! You make time for whatever you feel is really important!

Thanks very much as always, Randy!

I bumped into Randy Tuesday morning at the Denver RCC. We discussed the new software and from his verbal description, FT users are going to be pretty happy.

Randy is making a considerable financial and staff investment in this upgrade. It's going to be quite different from what we see here now.

I really don't have a relaunch date, that being driven by my tech team. Most of the time to date has been with fully testing all the various options we have so we could compare the boards to choose from.

i do know two things - my requirements to my team is 100% of threads being moved, no archives, no past and present, and also, I want the spell checker to really work....if only for my spelling problems. Two of the team members are currently off site for the next few days going over the details of the move. We're likely going to have to shut down the board for a day (probably a weekend) to move everything, test, retest and test again before bringing it up active again. My guys do know that i want this yesterday...

Thanks Randy.

Now you will let us know in advance of shutting the board down. I know I am new but I am addicted to this site. A day or two without FT will be tough.

Shucks a spell checker?? DOC .... Maybe you won't be able to use illicit again like you did in the top line of this thread.

Randy this bit confuses me. Are you saying there will be, or WON'T be, archives to old FT threads available? Seems a backward step if old threads are not able to be referenced at times, as it often covers posting entire long answers to newbies with queries etc.

------------------
~ Glen ~

I believe that Randy is saying that there absolutely WILL be!

Other ways to further segment the board without losing input and member might be:

1) Division of the FT boards into a paid and another second "unpaid" section. Folks could lurk at both but post only in in the paid if they do!

2) Alternatively, there could be two (or even three or more) rooms, where folks would get along well (frat's and sorority stuff does come to mind :eek . If one did not sit well with the others, for whatever reason, they could gravitate to another "room." There could also be "sponsors" if necessary for one or more of them.

These ideas are obviously not mutually exclusive and I do NOT necesssarily subscribe to either of them. I can live with most any FT arrangement, as I feel I can adjust personally! Hopefully we all can and will!

Any thoughts?

Randy: Can you give a week's or so notice of the changeover day so I can arrange to be somewhere from which I don't have access anyway?

May I suggest a visit to http://www.flyersplaces.com/