Randy Petersen

This forum is designed to allow the candidates to address any and all questions posed by members. For the sake of organization and efficiency, all questions will be posted by FlyerTalk administration. We will post every reasonable question and will refrain from editing except to improve readability.

This forum is about the issues and only those things that happen on FlyerTalk.

You can find more info the candidates and their platforms at:

http://www.flyertalk.com/talkthevote/

A reminder that members will be selecting 5 new TalkBoard members: The current terms of TalkBoard members Cholula, gleff, kokonutz, lucky9876coins, and Markie* are ending.

* Markie served a partial term, filling in for resigning member berlinflyer (mid-August 2009).

If you have a question-at-large for the candidates, please send email to [email protected] or PM 'TalkTheVote'.

Thank you.

aviators99

I was hoping to be able to be the first candidate to "campaign" from 37,000 feet, as that is where I am right now. But there are no questions up yet for tonight, and we are about to start descending! Maybe tomorrow.

schley

I was going to put this in the Change, No Change question but it really is more appropriate for this thread as my though is an ADDITION and not a change to anything existing.

I would like to explore the idea of giving annual awards to posters voted on by the community. Each year the community could vote for the following (as examples):

1. Most helpful poster
2. Most knowledgeable poster
3. Most gracious poster to newbies
4. New poster of the year
5. Best Moderator (Yes this will be competitive)
6. etc etc.......

We could do it board wide or also add awards for the most active forums like UA, SPG, OMNI etc.

This would be something posters could be proud of and have it denoted in their avatar. Shooting for the stars with this idea but the awards could be given out at an annual DO. Randy could maybe give these award recipients either a free airline ticket to the DO it will be presented at or some type of GC, UG cert or whatnot.

This could be something the entire community looks forward to and help bring the board even further together.

aviators99

I really like this idea!

jackal

What a neat idea! I would definitely support looking into ways to implement such a measure.

Actually, the right place for this post would probably be in the just-posted Question 8 thread. You were just a little too on-the-ball!

I can see a lot of resistance to the idea of a Best Moderator award, though... I suppose they wouldn't mind if it were voted on by the moderators, though.

RichMSN

I see problems with the implementation of this. First, you'd have to do something like this board by board -- some of us post only on one board and some very helpful people on one board (I'll use BA since I never go there and it's a very active board) would be unknown to many other people.

There's also the issue that not everyone is well-liked, even if very helpful and whether this well-intentioned idea would turn into a personality and popularity contest. And if there would be hard feelings (unnecessary ones) as a result.

Also, I wonder who would implement and run such a thing.

I think a more modest effort like acknowledging people in TalkMail or in forums themselves could be done, but something like this would have to be carefully considered with the possible positives and negatives completely considered. I'd be willing to have this conversation as a member of TB, but would hold my judgment on a vote on such a thing until such a conversation has fleshed out.

aviators99

It would be easy to do with nominations board-by-board, with posting samples provided by the moderators of each board. Then the entire set of moderators could vote, based on the samples provided, and any other research they felt like doing. It would be run like the Oscars(r).

schley

You mean like we are doing right now running for Talk Board? People are going to vote for others that they can identify with, or they will simply remember who they WON'T vote for. I think people tend to remember the negatives about others more so and when you look at any election some votes are protest votes. They won't vote for you or me simply because they remember something one of us may have posted that they can't get past. It is reality.

However my idea isn't an election with candidates running. It is recognition for posters who go above and beyond. There are no losers, only winners as I see it.

I agree issues would have to be worked out through a discussion but I would like to see some form of this whether I'm selected for Talk Board or not. I just think it is a good idea and one I would throw out there as a general member for the elected candidates to discuss if I wasn't elected.

RichMSN

I'm not sure I agree. Even with recognition events like "Employee of the Month" you always have to weight the backlash from those who wonder why they're NOT employee of the month. Human nature.

Art234

I do like the concept, however, I have concerns about implementation--and how would we assure that awards are given on the merits, rather than popularity (or deprived due to someone being disliked)?

It is an interesting idea though--or something similar.

Sorry if I sound incoherent-I am in FRA on the way from the Mega DO to Naples--wife is asleep in the seat next to me in the lounge.

MSY-MSP

I just wanted to post a quick reply to let you all know why i haven't responded quite yet. I was out at the StarMegaDO and just got back home(had connection issues with my laptop). I want to think more about the recent questions that were posted and then i will provide some comments on them. However, i think that I at least owed you all an explaination as to why i hadn't responded.

LessO2

While I think it's a great to come up with ideas to advance FlyerTalk, I think this has the more potential for more friction than reward in the long run.

First, I think the performance of most moderators is based similar to baseball umpires. The less you talk about them, the better they are perceived.

That's not to discount any of the moderators' time and effort (remember that they do a lot of work that we usually don't see that DOES greatly benefit FT). I don't think there are tangible measures that everyone can see and/or understand.

As for "poster awards," I'm not in favor of that, either. I think it boils down to popularity contests, subject to timing and other things that feel like a "lottery" to me. There are just way too many characteristics and situations that can, in the long run, erode the spirit of FlyerTalk.

I DO think that "spot rewards," for certain posts and posters, would be a good idea. Say if a moderator, or a simple contributor to FT, felt that someone just went way above and beyond to address, discuss or explain an issue in a thread, that should be considered for something like free luggage tags or some other reward. But judged on a case-by-case basis, meaning that a nomination doesn't automatically mean a reward. And with the understanding that there's no quota or timelines for giving away rewards.

MSY-MSP

I have to say i 100% agree with what you are saying here. I think this would be the proper balance between rewarding great contributions to the community without creating an undo burrden on the community.

jackal

Some of the candidates have come up with some valid objections to the idea. I still think some sort of form of community recognition is a valuable thing (otherwise, there would be no such thing as "employee of the month," and thousands upon thousands of companies do such a thing).

Perhaps a strict system involving voting and narrowing down the votes would indeed be overkill, and limiting the award to a single poster takes time and effort and can, as some have indicated, feel exclusionary.

Keeping it open to a wider number of people and recognizing the knowledgeable, helpful, and welcoming posters sounds a lot like the FlyerTalk Ambassador program. We should look at that first, and we can look at more and unique awards down the line when the dust from that has settled.

LessO2

Thanks for your take.