kokonutz - your thread title ask "When does a Do become a commercial venture,' but it seems like all you've done through the whole thread is tell us the exact answer (in your opinion) to that.

This is not a matter for the TalkBoard. As has already been pointed out, if the moderators feel there is a breach of the rules they are the appropriate enforcement arm of FlyerTalk. Feel free to contact them and the Senior Mods by PM if you feel the need.

As this is not a TalkBoard matter, and the poster has already determined his own answer for the question in the title, I move that this thread be closed.

Well, I'm going to end this conversation since you have decided to be blatantly untruthful. People are certainly being compensated through the offers of free flights and hotel rooms.

If you are going to be deceptive about that, who knows if you're going to be deceptive about the "non-profit" and charity aspects.

I'm about to leave for a 4-day mileage run with very little internet access available & I haven't read this whole thread & I hate to "Post & Run" - but my 2 cents is:

1) What happens online is within FT's realm.

2) What happens offline isn't.

3) No one forces anyone to spend any money they aren't willing to spend.

4) No one does anything completely for free (even if there's non-financial rewards - there may still be other non-tangible rewards) - as they said in the "Princess Bride" - "anyone who says otherwise is selling something" (and that in-tangible reward may be better recognition within a community or a feeling of self-satisfaction of giving back).

5) These things have grown...I remember when I helped Viajero Joven organize a mileage run seminar years ago. We had 20 people & used complimentary meeting space at the county library. When you have 400+ people, you need commercial (hotel) space, meeting rooms, sleeping rooms, food offerings, etc - costs are there, simple as that.

Again - hate to Post & Run, but will come back to this thread a little later on....

Excuse me?

I have been 100% clear throughout, go re-read my posts. I have simply been contending that no one is financially better off as a result of their participation in the event.

Some folks may well get comped flights, sure, though I did not get a free flight to Chicago in October, and I will be in New York anyway this year. I've explained above that I did get two nights covered at the luxurious Holiday Inn Elk Grove Village, which was not something promised to me when I agreed to speak.

But no one comes out with more money at the end than at the beginning, everyone who gives their time to prepare, organize, present to a sold out crowd is giving far more than they are getting, in fact they aren't geting anything of value at all to them, they're simply not coming out of pocket as much to be able to offer their insights and perspectives to the community that's attending, and that folks seem to want.

I don't understand where I've been anything but upfront, clear, and transparent throughout and to post that I've bene untruthful seems frankly unreasonably and at odds with my 10 years' of participation here.

Chicago Seminar Do 1 last October was not affiliated w/ MP (which didn't exist until a month ago) nor FTET (whose only event last year was the Frequent Travel Awards). It still isn't AFAIK.

I'm starting to wonder if a lot of this discussion by some is because of their problem w/ MP & FTET ;)

Also, I disagree w/ koko that an admin fee which covers the costs of the meeting space, meals, av equipment, and sometimes hotel rooms or air for the speakers at a seminar do makes the event a 'commercial venture'.

Re: his suggestion that TB consider a subforum in CB for seminar dos. Not something I'd vote for. I've been a member of FT since '03. I haven't seen any for profit seminar or commercial dos posted in CB. Heck, I haven't seen that many seminar dos posted in CB over the years. Certainly not enough to justify a subforum.

450 FTers attended ORD Sem Do 1. They evidently thought attending ORD Sem Do would be of value to them as Flyertalkers & worth the admin fee, which was disclosed up front, just as it was this year. Nothing was hidden. If they didn't want to attend due to the admin fee they didn't have to do so, just as koko chooses not to.

It should be noted that I have no financial or other vested interest in the seminar dos, whether run by FTers or by FTET. My only involvement in last year's ORD sem do was to agree to run the charity raffle. So I don't have an agenda to promote, just my opinion.

Flyertalkers are what makes Flyertalk, and Flyertalkers determine what is in the best interests of themselves, whether it be

* sharing information in forums,
* attending dos for the social aspect of it,
* attending dos in hopes of getting travel info in informal settings, or
* attending seminar dos in hopes of getting travel info in a more structured environment.

All of those are fine IMO, and it is not up to me to tell another FTer which method of utilizing Flyertalk is in his/best interest.

Cheers.

By your logic TalkBoard Members and FT Moderaters are certainly being compensated through sometimes costs of meals/flights being comped. So perhaps they do not deserve our THANKS for their generous gift of countless hours of service?

THANK YOU moderators and Talkboard members for benefiting the Flyertalk community, not for the sake of profit.

THANK YOU Do organizers for benefiting the Flyertalk community, not for the sake of profit.

Ah ha! The corruption starts at the top! No wonder not many are backing koko's sentiment.

:rolleyes:

Kokonutz, I have answered question after questoin of yours, on this thread and on other threads. Quite patiently. And the same questoins, asked fifteen different ways when the answers don't seem to match your priors or theories.

There are things in your post above that are downright false, that have been explained as false in the past and yet either you just ignore explanations contrary to your priors or go on posting them despite knowing that they've been explained as false.

These "Founders of Frequent Traveler Education Foundation" of which you speak... tell me who are those exactly and which ones of those are on the agenda for the Frequent Traveler University event in New York? Because to the best of my knowledge no one who is a founder of that organization is also speaking at the event! And as for my own participation, I've already explained that I am not paid for it, that I am in New York anyway, and I'm even out of pocket 100,000 miles already helping folks get there that weekend. So this conspiracy theory of who benefits or notion of things being done for self-serving purposes, it's been long ago debunked. In this thread, and on other threads where you've asked questions and I've answered them.

You have this theory that the event is somehow to promote a commercial business, but I'd love to know how that works exactly. I have offered my time as a service to help folks book award tickets, but people who come to this sort of a seminar are decidedly not my clientele or target market. These are the people who want to learn to do it themselves. And I don't think I've ever taken a participant on as a client, instead even when I've been approached by people at or from the seminars I've responded with my own tutoring (gratis!) to help them get the bookings they want.

It's interesting that you begin with "just wondering and worrying about precedents" and "this isn't about anyone or anything in particular" and then reveal that you very much have an axe to grind.

And you're throwing around accusation not only just based purely on supposition but on supposition that's previously explained to be false. You're making some serious accusations of bad faith which to me are wholly undeserved, against members of a community that I believe deserve better or at least some benefit of the doubt after all these years. Yet in 10 years I really don't remember seeing such a patronizing post as your last one.

Hopefully I'll just get over it, though right now I'm genuinely depressed because I really do try to offer my very best for frequent flyers, an opportunity to gain from whatever I have to offer, and I've done so at expense of time, cash, and miles out of my own pocket. As bhatnasx observes no one does anything truly selflessly, I'll be the first to say that I have very much enjoyed the friendships and associations that have come out of these events! And I've enjoyed that my friends that I have made have done well, and improved their travel, hopefully I've had something to do with that. And I probably do enjoy telling myself that I'm the kind of person who does and enjoys that, it matches the sort of person I want to be so in that way it's at least partially selfish. but it's also why it does just hurt to be kicked in the face for it.

Koko hit where I was going:

Koko is only slightly more cynical than me, but I'm reading this the same way.

While the Do itself may not be "commercial", it certainly smacks of building up the gleff brand as an expert which may be monetized in other ways. And that's fine as I would certainly consider you a subject matter expert on this stuff. To me, the appearance is definitely partially commercial.

Does this belong on the community board? I don't know, and honestly I really don't care. I don't get involved much with moderation or TB stuff. But this thread caught my eye and I am definitely surprised at the evolution of Do's to the point where members have to buy access to other FlyerTalkers.

One I'll toss out into this discussion is that with any of these events there is an inherent trust that must be placed in the organizers that they are spending the monies collected on the event and not other bits. Even when the balance sheet at the end of the day is $0 after some charitable donations are made that doesn't necessarily mean that there are not some personal benefits that could occur.

If you can find a facility that will offer up space for 350 people for free then no charge. Part of the "problem" is that the events have become much larger. I hosted a session for ~20 people at the EWR PClub a couple months ago. That was easy and fun but hard to find a space where we could all sit and talk and work without disrupting the rest of the club. Had there been 40 of us it would have been impossible. When you get a group this large together there will be costs. Just like when you all go out to dinner there are costs. Should I not be permitted to collect the cash for a dinner event in advance? Of course not.

The only time it potentially becomes a problem in my mind is in the scenarios I described at the beginning of this post. If the organizers choose to spend the money on "other" stuff and claim it as part of the event there isn't much to be done other than to know that you no longer trust that person.

You're not buying access to other FlyerTalkers. You're buying access to a nice big warm conference room so you don't have to sit out in the snow.

Perhaps next time the organisers shouldn't be so kind.

gleff, sincerely, please don't get depressed.

I agree with you that you have given a lot to this community. Thank you for that.

And I wish you every success in your commercial ventures!

And while I do have concerns about the FT(no relation) Education Foundation(ie, just because an entity is non-profit does not mean it's not a business), that's only one small part of what I see going on here.

The bottom line is that not everyone agrees with the direction we see FT going/being taken. Simple as that. It's not personal. It's that we care about FlyerTalk and want to keep it as pure and non-commercially influenced as we can.

And remember, at the end of the day IJAFIBB! ^

Tell me the next time you're hanging in Clarendon and I'll buy you a pint or three of Guinness at O'Sullys and we can chase your blues away! ^ :D

Look, if folks want to invite me to speak and think I have something of value to say, great. I paid my airfare and hotel to the Ann Arbit Arts Fair DO, gave a 4+ hour talk there, folks seemed to appreciate it.

If I ultimately get something back from it, so much the better though I would sure appreciate ideas on how that might come to pass.

It ain't from ad clicks or blog views, that's just not going to work, if I speak to 50 or 500 people and covert half of them into regular blog readers, well 25 or 250 views even every day isn't going to amount to much. And more likely (1) fewer of them will read me, and (2) if they do they'll subscribe by RSS feed and I don't have any advertising set up on the RSS feed :)

If people are afraid that I will somehow benefit from giving a talk on how to book awards, or a philsophy of approaching rate glitches, or maximizing the benefits of Star Alliance (my 3 topics at the Chicago event last year), then it's really no skin off my back not to do it.

I could just as easily travel somewhere else, a bit more exotic, I have a lot of things on my plate and one less and some more relaxtin with mrs. gleff would be fine!

Or I could actually do one of the things that actually earns me a bit of income, I can tell you it isn't speaking at these events. And I can tell you the best use of my time from a financial standpoint isn't blogging. :)

And if anyone things an event I might speak at ought not be in the community forum because they have a theory about some second-order effects in which I develop a reputation and might make money from it, well... that's cool too.

None of that's personal. I don't have a stake in this sa perhaps you and koko seem to think. ;)

I should say, no one has to buy access to me, and for the record I usually buy more rounds of drinks than have ever been picked up on me, so if you've got a spare moment any of these days and feel like schlepping out from Dulles a bit to the closer-in suburbs I'd be glad to buy...

Cheers,
Gary

You really can't "move" that a thread be closed, yet continue to post in it.

Either you feel the discussion has run its course, or you feel there is still enough worth commenting on.

Of course the discussion has run it's course - the same comments just keep going back and forth. But until it's closed I'll continue reiterating my opinions that (1) this topic is not one for TB, (2) But while it's here, I'll keep talkin'. ;)