Fawlty Tower :-O

Hi,

so, I've been wondering: Why can the "manufactured spending" forum be read be anybody, regardless of whether they are registered on Flyertalk or not and regardless of their membership time and posts?

Obviously, I'm a long-term lurker (member for several years but only a few handful of posts), so I'm glad that Manufactured Spending isn't the new OMNI, which, by the way, I think should also be open based on seniority (say, two years membership) rather than the "manufacturable" post count only.

In any case, however, making a forum such as this available to the public kind of defeats the purpose, doesn't it?

I've literally read all the threads on this forum and in almost every single one of them people complain that a) things shouldn't have been said so publicly, b) some newbie is trying to trick people, c) rant about "bloggers" who read our board and use the juicy tricks to get clicks with the result that d) the good things come to an end much too quickly.

I mean, no kidding, there are threads out there whining about manufacturing methods that have been gone for months, if not for years. On the other hand, there is almost no interesting bit of information on the current and exciting possibilities out there. It just makes no sense.

So I wonder: Why bother at all with this forum? I for one will never share either my time-tested or any of my new-found routines to get miles as long as every person can find them via Google and every blogger can just copy them and use them to get ad revenue for his blog. I mean, with no due respect, this is not the "blogger welfare" forum here, is it?

This should be a place where enthusiasts share their "tricks of the trade", post exciting and breaking news and refine existing "technologies" - and it is pivotal that we need a confidential environment for that to happen effectively.

New members shouldn't be excluded per se, but they should be "known & trustworthy" (through long-time membership and contributions to the board).
Anything else is a waste of time and board space. What we have now goes against the whole spirit of a "community":
On one side we have the old-timers bemoaning the old times and (absolutely rightfully) ranting about bloggers.
On the other side we have disingenuous newbies that just registered on Flyertalk yesterday to get the latest scoop and exploit it for profit.
In the middle, I suppose, we have genuinly interested and/or lost members willing to learn and contribute and give something back - which they can't or won't because all of the above.

Eventually, all participating parties must be disappointed and are prone to leave the community instead of being given a chance to contribute and reinforce the true spirit of MILESMILESMILESMILESMILES!!!!!1111 which is what truly gets all of our hearts pounding faster, our blood pumping and our toes tapping!

So let's do it! @:-)

mattburga

I'm new to posting here, but totally agree. Lock it down or delete it.

It seems obvious that companies will read this and kill hacks promptly.

I'd rather find my own point hacks or hear about them in a less public fashion.

CUTiger78

[QUOTE=Fawlty Tower :-O;20252021] ... (member for several years .... [QUOTE]
Since when does less than 2 become several? DYKWIA much?

neuro0

Because FT is here to make money from advertisements. The more traffic it can get, the better.

lwildernorva

[QUOTE=CUTiger78;20252208][QUOTE=Fawlty Tower :-O;20252021] ... (member for several years .... Just in case this ridiculous idea gets adopted, he wants to stake a claim to access to the information that would go private.

If this is the way FT is going, and it is, I'm heading out. It's an attitude of "don't tell everybody, but tell me." If you're trying to keep information private, why tell anybody, especially folks you know only through an internet forum? Kind of like the old joke: I only trust two people, you and me. And I'm not so sure about you. . .

garykung

If you need to make a Motion to TalkBoard, you will have to make it there.

Fawlty Tower :-O

You obviously Don'tKWIA. Who could blame you... :-) But you probably shouldn't infer either. Not that I need to explain myself to you but I was a (silent) member for several years, lost/forgot my login at some point, was out of the game for a few years more and then decided to return this year out of curiosity. As I said, mainly lurking, reading hours on end, but then again, that's not a crime here, right? Cheers ^

Well, that just makes no sense. As I said in my first post in this thread, I also don't have access to OMNI (for example). But do apply some simple logic: Nobody who tries to collect miles through all those schemes in earnest can advocate for a public space where these ideas are published purely for ad revenue or clicks, just to be killed a few hours later. The life of a trick should be worth more than the few additional click it generates when published publicly. ;-)

If you are someone who knows secrets, you will always prefer that they are kept in private groups, rather than public fora, even if you are not a member of the former. You might, after all, get a chance some day to earn your way into the group, whereas if everything is public (and therefore dead) anyway, the whole thing is just an exercise in futility!

Miles and secrets, ur doin it wrong. It's Ben Franklin who said "Three may keep a secret, if two of them are dead." Good thing we're not trying to keep state secrets here, just finding a place to have a quiet talk and exchange ideas.
Or are you that person who stands in the middle of the town square and discusses his ideas and problems with his friends using megaphones? I mean, who does that, except for politicians and crazy people? There is really no advantage of doing that, except to attract unwanted attention, and the same holds true for Flyertalk and the public availability of this forum.

It is also not correct that keeping certain things private is a new development on Flyertalk. If that would be true, you would have been "heading out" for a long time. There has always been OMNI (which was publicly available for while, some time ago, I seem to remember, which sparked the craziest outrage). OMNI has otherwise always been a closed group and I think that's okay (even though I don't have access to it). There has always been the PM system (as in "private" messaging), or are you advocating that all PMs are published on the homepage now as well?

So, sharing stuff in small groups, more or less privately, is not a "ridiculous idea" and certainly not a new one. You have all that backwards really. The internet has always been a place where small groups of like-minded people have found a place to discuss things that were of interest to them, in relative isolation: If you weren't part of the group, you didn't get the messages. It is really a fairly recent development that everything gets "liked" on Facebook and twittered about or, for that matter, shared publicly with everyone, even and especially people who clearly only want to exploit the ideas of others for their own financial gain (blogs, ads) and who have no interest whatsoever in the actual topic of frequent flying and will shut the whole thing down eventually. This whole thing is extremely shortsighted and will be the death of every community in the long term.

And since when is that a bad thing? However, I think it should be rephrased: Don't tell everybody, but tell people who don't want to destroy it, people with genuine interest and people who have earned it. HOW you determine that is your problem, but one thing is certain: Making it public is the wrong way. Do you leave your front door open for everyone? Nay, have you actually removed your front door and all windows, so people can just come in and take what they want and destroy your house in the process? Come on...!

Is that really true? Or are you just saying that because you are equally disillusioned with the whole thing, like me? I mean that would make Flyertalk no better than our "good friends", the bloggers, who steal ideas to publish them for clicks/views (which ultimately define their ad revenue).

hellodali

Lots of visits from Office Depot IPs won't increase the CTR

Fawlty Tower :-O

That is very true! The number of page impressions made by a teasing blog post exploiting a thread on FT are absolutely worthless, both for the community and for ad revenue.

Generally, I think trying to finance websites, especially websites with valuable, original content, through advertising is an outdated model, even more so in times of ....... Plus, Ad Muncher, NoScript & Co. I mean, if Flyertalk holds a fundraising campaign to keep their servers running and cover other costs (just as Wikipedia does once a year) and otherwise caters to the community, not to advertisers, I am sure they would earn a lot more money from thankful FTers than those fractions of cents they make from those people who click on advertising banners by mistake or are mad enough to go on the interwebs without an adblocker in the first place. Various successful projects have shown that, the Wikimedia Foundation is just one of them. Then again, having sponsors for certain things, like the FlyerTalk Awards, is absolutely legitimate and I support that. I just draw the line at "manufacturing clicks and traffic" without keeping in mind the long-term impact on the community (which is kind of ironic, seeing as we're in the "manufacturing miles" forum, but oh well ;-))

lin821

You may learn a thing or two from the previously failed motion to restrict access (only by login) to MR Forum:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/talkb...run-forum.html

Fawlty Tower :-O

Thanks lin, that's certainly interesting. But what exactly would you like me to learn from that? That a motion can fail even if it absolutely makes sense, is frankly necessary and even has the overwhelming support of the community?

If I may quote one contributor (Sagy) from there:
If anything, that's disheartening to say the least.

This notwithstanding, that thread makes a number of excellent points and noteworthy contributions from the likes of HansGolden. I especially like his "interdependent levels" statement which really shows that a community like this can really work, even without shutting out curious newbies who are willing to learn.

kipper

To gain access to OMNI, one must not only have 180 posts, but must have been a member for at least 180 days. That's an average of 1 post/day, which isn't a lot.
At least a few of the bloggers whom you seem to dislike are long-term, contributing FT members, so restricting the forum may not do that much to eliminate this information being posted on blogs.
New members being "'known & trustworthy' (through long-time membership and contributions to the board)" means that you'd exclude new members. How can a new member have long-time membership to the board?

brettalb

Surely login access only seems reasonable. I can think of only one reason why not to do that.

Stubtify

Login access stops who from seeing things?

Bloggers? No.
Corporate watchdogs? No.
Newbies? Well... maybe, but they can just go to the blogger for their info.

You have to assume with FT being around for so long that all the big names (chase, Amex...) all have someone who has a FT account.

Blocking it off solves nothing. Spinning it off into it's own subforum has only emboldened posters to think they're invisible. Its made it worse in my opinion--with a separate thread for every little "deal" the information is packaged up nice and neat should anyone want to keep an eye on everyone here...

Mary2e

I think that fragmenting FT any further will do anything for the forums.

IMHO, credit card churning, bonuses, manufactured spending is a fad that will disappear when the companies get tired of paying out tons of miles for little to no return.

I think it will go back to the way it was with some card companies offering special deals, but no where near what is going on now.