Can Community Get A Raise?
 

Is it too late or can the Community category (or just CommunityBuzz) somehow be moved up to appear on top of the forums list? Since the order of the forums on the forum listing is how the forums in the My FlyerTalk list appear, this is the only way to move the CommunityBuzz board higher. Thanks.

The new boards are looking (and moving) great!! Thanks for all your effort in bringing the boards back to life and making this a great community.

I concur
 

Community used to be a very active forum. With the revamped board it is very quiet. It is so far down the list of forums, it is very hard for people to happen upon it. Community is such a wonderful part of FlyerTalk that I would like to see greater emphasis on it with a higher order in the forum hierarchy.

I concur with Goingaway's suggestion....

William

Heh, the title of this thread made me think that someone was calling for FlyerTalkers to go on strike to demand a 50% increase in our wages. In response, Randy Petersen would double our membership fees. ;)

FewMiles..

Poor Randy. Nothing he does is going to keep all the folks happy all the time. :)

The current listing seems to be logical - to me at least.

OMNI is listed last on the drop down. 50 Forums lower than Community. Something has to be last after all.

Out of interest - has that had rating any effect on posting in OMNI?

Please move it back up
 

People getting together was one of the more fun parts of FT - please move it back near the top - Thanks

I would agree that Community is probably somewhat too far down the listing but on the other hand, it takes time for people to get more familiar and comfortable with the new system of organization so I think that the slow traffic right now is probably a function of that.

United is a busy site too.

How dare FT list it way down under "U"?

Can we please have it up before Air Canada and Air France? ;)

Or move them around so Air Canada comes before US Airways.

Only Randy Petersen Forum is listed under 'Community' and there are more posts there than for quite a while. So that forum certainly gets found.

Folks readily find whatever they are looking for it seems? And if that is too difficult they can make any forum they like to be part of "My Flyer Talk" so they can't lose it ever again. :D

First & Last are easy to find - It's in the middle where you can get lost
 

Did you really count them?

I would imagine that activity for the top and bottom of the forum list have been fine, along with places like UA or specific hotel/airline forums which people specifically look for. I know I've visited OMNI a number of times with the new board, simply because its so visible in its last place position, when I had never been in there before.

CommunityBuzz in its current location is buried - yes, it's under Community which is displayed as an open list when you look at the all forums, but that's in the middle of the pack and is sometimes hard to find. I have it on my My FlyerTalk page and know where it is in the forum list, and still I find myself scrolling up or down with the "i know its in here somewhere" thought -- I think CommunityBuzz is an important part of the FT community and as such, deserves better placement.

As for the Only Randy Peterson thread - I'd be surprised if that and the technical issues and suggestions, etc type threads weren't getting traffic right now. Also, those threads are much more visible and available with the new board than they ever were with the old. It's a time of transition and there will be more questions, opinions and suggestions from that process than before the boards were switched.

Out of interest - has that had rating any effect on posting in OMNI?

No one seems to want to answer this, which of course is 100% germane to the argument. ;)

Will newcomers find Community?
 

If I've checked correctly, everyone who has posted on this thread is an FT long timer who has benefited from Community. We know what a benefit FT Community is; we will search it out regardless of where it is placed.

My concern is that newcomers be able to find it. I don't want Community to become the "Oldtimers Club". I want us to continue to be a vibrant, ever changing and evolving, group of folks who are passionate about travel and love to get together in various parts of the world to share our enthusiasm.

I personally believe that Community is now out of range of the places newcomers explore - airlines and hotels.

I agree 100%. I would also move Itineraries up as well. Both of these fora are of potential interest to ALL people on FT and facilitate the personal contact that isn't available over the Net.

On the old layout I used to check Community daily. Now, even though I've been on FT for 18 mths I forget to look for it. In the new layout a large part of the screen is taken up with low volume fora i.e. Travel with Children, GLBT Travelers, Womens Travelers. IMO these could be grouped under a heading Special Interest Travel. Similarly the Buzz fora and Newstand could be put under a News heading. If AA and UA can go under a heading why not these smaller fora?

Just a few thoughts but definitely bump Community to the top.

Edited to add : I realise that you can subscribe to Fora and threads as pointed out in Canarsie's excellent thread. I haven't got around to doing this yet despite reading FT a lot. In addition, old habits die hard and I like a quick scan around to see what catches my eye. I suspect many other less frequent users are in the same position.

I'm with those who say it's a new system & it will just take a bit of time to get used to and then folk will go on as frequently as they did in the past (it's not like it doesn't exist for goodness sake!). And if you're an 'old-timer' you'll find it and if you're new you'll eventually (and no I'm not talking 2 years from now) find it too. And again you can always make it part of myflyertalk, which makes it part of your daily activity.

Glen, maybe no one replied because you were just being an oz.

Possibly.

But more likely no-one replied as I am a 105% correct oz. ;)

Those post-padding little "game" threads seem to have gone more ballistic than ever on OMNI. One Moderator there admits he alone has posted nearly 1000 times to the ONE thread.

As mentioned above Randy's forum is listed among the 'Community' heading on the drop down and there are more posts there than usual from what I can see. I count over 10,000 views to just 3 threads about those childish "reputation" points. Randy posted only recently that page views in his forum were always low. So 10,000 is is a lot of interest.

So if any cogent argument were mounted that Community is somehow now 'hard' to find, folks equally could not find ORP as they are both listed in drop down alongside each other. The view figures seem to show quite the opposite.

The 'Oz Fest' thread in Community has had over 1800 page views since the new FT came on board. So it does appear folks CAN clearly find Community if they care to, as SkiAdcock says.

More pertinently - can someone please post here some actual evidence that Community is not as busy as previously? I have seen none at all so far in this thread.

If there were ANY validity in the argument that being on top of the drop down means more posts than being at the bottom.

I have speculated that OMNI (lucky last) is busier than ever. Then lets look at the TOP forum on the list .... Miles Buzz. My advice is that it is QUIETER than before. So there goes the 'placement' theory right out the door on both counts if these assertions are not debunked by someone in Admin. ;)

Folks will find whatever Forum they want. There is always the neat "MY Flyertalk" folks can all add it to if they are so concerned about it as mentioned by SkiAdcock.