Proposal: New forum to discuss bloggers
 

At the suggestion of kokonutz....

I propose that FT create a forum dedicated to the discussion of bloggers. This could consist of a separate thread dedicated to each blog, or even a sub-forum dedicated to each blog such that a new thread can be started for each post the blogger makes.

The benefits of this as I see them to the FT community:
1. I like to discuss with friends, not a bunch of anons, or worse, anons masquerading as my FT friends.
2. I like to discuss in a neutrally-moderated environment. Many bloggers delete any comment that does not praise them.
3. I like to be able to edit my posts.
4. I like to contribute to the FT community.


The benefits to IB:
1. I can only assume that blogs are prying more and more eyeballs away from FT. The miles and points space is continually evolving, and FT seems slow to adapt. I think this would slow the exodus.

Downsides:
1. This has the potential to be a moderation challenge.
2. Some very loud bloggers will not like the fact that they can be discussed in an environment which they do not control. Accusations of libel and slander will abound. Legal action will be threatened. However, once a blogger turns pro, we are really discussing a business no different than we discuss United or Delta.

As hobo says, I sent him here from MilesBuzz to make this suggestion after he suggested it there.

And I like it.

For all the reasons hobo says:

Let's talk about the bloggers here, not on their blogs.

Let's decide how useful the info is and where it came from here, not there.

Let's talk about and expand upon their suggestions here, not there.

Most of the info posted in blogs comes from FlyerTalk in the first place, so it only seems natural and fitting that it come BACK here to be discussed. @:-)^;)

Open to ideas in terms of structure, but I am thinking just a Points and Miles Blogger forum with threads for blogs or blog posts makes good sense. Keep it loose.

The ONLY downside I could see is that if, for example, a blogger posts about a manufactured spend topic, it might duplicate a thread in manufactured spending about the same topic. But that is easily solved by posters placing a link to that conversation.

In fact, it might even become a fun pastime: find and link to the thread that the blogger data-mined his or her blog post from! :D ^

On it's face, I think it's a good idea.

The other side of that coin is that it may turn into a blogger-basher forum.

But actually, I find those threads amusing, and would probably read a blogger forum to get a good laugh. I so wish we had an "eating popcorn" emoticon :)

But I agree that getting those type threads out of Miles Buzz is a good idea, as is having a specific place to discuss all of them - very much like the Travel Tools forum which has become very good and quite valuable.

I'll preface this by saying that I'm not very familiar with blogs and their role in travel/miles & points/etc., but what topics are discussed on blogs that don't already have a home here on FlyerTalk? Or would the idea of such a forum be to discuss the blog (and it's owner(s), contributor(s), etc.) and not the content of the blog posts?

IMHO discussing an individuals blog and what many may view as a gigantic, faceless global corporation very different things and could forsee a very contentious and adversarial atmosphere that could turn toxic more often than not if a blogger feels their livelihood under threat.

What about the bloggers that are here? Would we be allowed to discuss those FTers who do run their own blogs but also particpate in FT? That doesn't serve to foster a "community" atmosphere if some members are singled out for public debate in such a fashion.

Where would the "blogger" line be drawn? How could you, for example, distinguish between those that may do it on a part-time basis and those that make a living from it?

There are IMHO too many cons and not enough pros to create such a forum though that is merely MHO and YMMV.

That's actually the point -- the content of the blogs mostly comes from FT. But more and more of the discussion ends up on the blog. It's not uncommon to see a single blog with more comments on a topic than the original thread on FT! That's scary, and it's a problem for FT / IB's future.

There is also a need to discuss HOW information on the blogs is conveyed. It's not possible to do that on the blog owner's site, because if they don't like your comment, they just delete it. I think that in some small way, we might (MIGHT) bring some added accountability to the blogs if we have an open discussion here on FT about their practices. Think of it as the 'Better Blogger Bureau'. We could even have assign ratings based on how FTers perceive their ethics and business practices.

Face it -- blogs are here to stay (at least as long as affiliate CC income continues). I believe it caught FT / IB flat-footed and are clearly playing catch up. This is an attempt to compete.

FTG and TPG are both LLC's, right? Those two plus Milevalue have a staff, and are no longer just individuals. Thanks to the safety video, United is no longer a faceless corporation -- I could pick Jeffy Jeff out of a crowd faster than most movie stars! Plus, those faceless corporations are starting to send reps to FT and host DO's to become more personable. I don't think this line is as bright as you think it is.

Contentious atmosphere? Don't we have that already?!?

Livelihood under threat? Isn't the FT / IB livelihood under threat? Have you seen how many comments some of these bloggers get? I'm just waiting for the day that they throw up a forum on their blog! I'm not joking. The software to run a BB is opensource and pretty easy to set up.

And if they see it as a threat to their livelihood, so be it. I would say that part of the point is to bring some accountability to the blogs. If the FT community is critical of a blogger for posting suboptimal CC links, maybe the blogger changes his practices. Isn't there some quote about 'being the change you want to see in the world?'

And as I told Kokonutz, I don't really care if FT/IB takes this suggestion or not. Ironically, if FT / IB doesn't, I'll just go visit another blog that wants to foster this kind of meta-blogger discussion -- TravelBloggerBuzz.

In my mind, gpapadop has demonstrated that the need exists for a place to discuss other blogs. I imagine he started his blog because FT wasn't meeting that need. Simple as that.

I'm not even sure why I'm proposing this -- it's really free strategy consulting to FT / IB. If they can't see that their business is changing by the day and that they run the risk of getting marginalized, so be it. I should probably just go start my own blog -- and truth be told I had considered something akin to what gpapadop is doing, but never found the time. (I think his kids are older than mine, and as such he has 15 minutes more per day to spend on it, LOL!)

Who is gpapadop? Am I missing a link to some website?

It seems we do whenever the topic of blogs and/or bloggers comes up and after much sniping and griping the threads on MilesBuzz are closed, as happened here and here, so why expect a whole forum to be any different?

Travel Blogger Buzz

Which is run by: gpapadop

I should not have used his real name. Please edit that out of your post to comply with ToS.

Have to agree w/ the above. I wouldn't be supportive of this.

Cheers.

I'm not claiming it will be any different. I'm claiming that the landscape is changing, and FT / IB needs to adapt. Maybe this forum should be a subset of OMNI, so it can have relaxed rules? OMNI / Blogger Buzz?

Then again, I have never posted in OMNI, so I'd have to change my posting rules, LOL!

There so much animosity in the blogger threads in MilesBuzz, what could possibly go wrong by creating a whole forum for it? @:-)

Another great reason for this forum: to segregate the blogger-talk out of MB and into its own forum. @:-)@:-)


IMHO, hobo has nailed this one: we are seeing a major paradigm shift as it seems like every other FTer is now a blogger. The beauty of FT is that although many competitor IBBs have come and gone, it remains the repository of points and miles information and conversation. As more and more and more bloggers diversify their input and analysis the conversation gets more and more dispersed.

This suggestion is an attempt to re-close the circle and bring the information and conversation back to FT even as the bloggers siphon the information and conversation away from here.

Bloggers seek to monetize the information that FT provides just like the seminars seek to monetize the FlyerTalk 'Do' phenomenon, just like KVS/ExpertFlyers seeks to monetize award/upgrade space availability seeking.

As such, they are service providers to frequent flyers and point collectors and certainly not above criticism every bit as much as UNITED, Hilton and IB are service providers to frequent flyers and point collectors and certainly not above criticism. And just because IB Tony or UA Insider or Starwood Lurker are posters here does not mean we should not criticize IB or UNITED or Starwood.

Can anyone tell me: what are the good blogs? What are the bad blogs? What blog consistently has great ideas? What blog consistently pumps affiliates? Where do we talk about these types of points and miles service providers?

I submit that the answer is: here on FlyerTalk in a forum dedicated to these service providers.

Just because there is a face or name associated with the business does not mean it is not a business providing a service.

New forum for bashing? Bad idea, IMO.

Isn't the assumption that the only things to say about blogs involve bashing them a bit of a bash of them in and of itself?! :p

Besides, if you want to see some REAL bashing, go check out the UNITED forum where many formerly loyal UA flyers not only bash UNITED, we actively root for them to incur massive legal expenses. :D^

Does all that bashing mean we should not have a UNITED forum? Of course not. When the points and miles service providers do something bash-worthy, they should be bashed. When they do something great they should be praised.

Would you include discussion of those organizations that hold seminars in this forum, such as the Chicago Seminars or Frequent Traveler University? They may not quite fit into the definition of bloggers, but if you're going to create a forum to discuss bloggers we might as well include an area to discuss seminars and what differentiates them. I know many of the bloggers do participate in these seminars.

The same could be said of Flyertalk moderators. They're providing a service to the miles and points community, too. And when they do something praise-worthy we should praise them. Goodness knows it is a thankless task. So a forum where we could praise them! And when they do something bash-worthy, they should be bashed . . .

"Oh but they're volunteers!" you say. Some blogs have gotten big and probably make a good deal of money, others are pretty small and likely don't make much of anything (if anything!0 at all. And moderators don't make much, but if I understand correctly they've received stipends for travel to an annual conference? And some travel companies have even given them better treatment because of their role?

Seems like they meet the same test as a good number of bloggers. If we do this forum, let's also get one to bash moderators! :P

I can't see why membership in FlyerTalk should have any bearing on discussion about blogs or seminars. If you put yourself in the public arena on websites outside of FlyerTalk, we'd be discussing those sites, not a blogger's membership on FlyerTalk. I can't see any reason they should get special treatment due to FT membership.

How about making FT a premium service and let only paid users gain access to content?

Wouldn't that reduce ad revenue to Internet Brands if FT is no longer a public forum for all to view? With FT having over 400,000 members, do you really think the paid membership would balance out the loss of ad revenue? I'd be surprised if Internet Brands wants to change their business/revenue model which relies heavily on advertising to a large member and non-member base (look at some of the forums where non-members outnumber members 3-1 at times). Those non-members wouldn't even be able to get in the front door with a paid premium model.

Disagree and it happened on the threads I linked previously, especially with bloggers newer to FT than others, and fully expect it to be a topic of contention in the proposed blogger discussion forum.

MHO is FT should stay as the definitive source for information about travel and deals and not a place to come talk about other places.

Sure, why not? And just to be clear, I am merely pointing out a deficiency in the market. FT / IB can choose to fill that need, or somebody else will. I don't claim to have all the answers, so my real hope is that maybe a dialog comes from this and along with some good ideas. Because right now, I see more of the same around here.

How about a freemium service? I would pay something to have a few forums that have some sort of membership requirements. And keep the MR Deals public if you want. Just make some place that is a little more private.

I'm sure Yahoo said the same thing about being a portal 15 years ago. Companies either adapt, or they fade it into oblivion. Perhaps we should discuss what FT looks like in 2 / 5 / 10 years. I guess they bought one blog.... maybe that's the plan?

Actually, I imagine all Travel Bloggers claim to be contributors to FT. Now whether their 102 posts have really made a difference to the community is for someone else to decide......

The whole argument about separating individuals from faceless corporations is interesting. We have whole threads devoted to discussing services like KVS, ExpertFlyer, AwardNexus, etc. My guess is that some of the blogs actually have more employees than these startups! Is it that many of these bloggers are friends of ours? (I claims some bloggers as personal friends myself!) We really have to separate out the discussion -- the proposal isn't to discuss individuals, it's to discuss blogs and blog content.

I'd like to see more interest from other FTers, but the Talk Board forum seems to be an obscure place that many here can't easily navigate to. Right now there doesn't seem to be much interest in the topic to really go forward with it. Maybe that will change in the days ahead.

I can only recall meeting one blogger and that was long before he started his blog and pretty much stopped posting on FT. Haven't ran into him in years.

+1

It's revealing that the proposal was to discuss bloggers rather than blogs

Okay, I'm officially confused - Some things posted in this thread seem to indicate that people are leaving FT en masse to go talk about deals on the blogs, then others are saying that the blogs are heavily moderated/censored and that free discussion is not exactly happening like it could here on FT. These seem like two completely contradictory ideas.

Content vs Persons...
 

I don't follow bloggers so have no idea how many bloggers fish their material from FT. Maybe quite a few or a lot. I agree it's trendy to be a (travel/mile/point) bloggers nowadays. Whether every blogger that branches out of FT is a good blogger/FTers, that is another question. ;)

:D

Not to mention our TOS prohibits to discuss (or "attack") individual FTers, IIRC (someone who has more free time at hand may be able to look up the link to this TOS). How would FT admin and/or MODs maintain the balance to uphold our own TOS if such forum got created? That is what I really want to know. When every other threads got shut down due to getting "too personal", or when you got to see an inserted MOD's "friendly note" every 5 posts in a thread, what good would this bloggers/blogs forum do for FT? :p

The bottom line is how many FTers can really just discuss the content of blogs or faceless corporations, and not getting personal with bloggers. In this post, tcook052 had provided excellent real-life examples that FTers don't have a good track record of separating blogs from bloggers. I've also lost count of how many threads got closed over the years when it came to discuss bloggers and/or blogs.

This proposal might sound good at first look, to have a dedicated forum to discuss blogs/bloggers. But further down the road, only troubles await. Should we burden our thankless MODs with such an impossible task?

Do mods close threads when the topic strays from discussing UNITED to discussing Jeff Smisek? If so, I suppose I should be banned for life by now. @:-)

Again, blogs are commercial service providers to the points and miles community.

FlyerTalk is an IBB created to talk about commercial service providers to the points and miles community.

To me, this is one of the biggest no-brainers in some time.

And Flyertalk members discuss blogs now in MilesBuzz. The question is whether the topic needs its own forum.

There's a good bit of concern here that many blogs are so individual-centric, even including people that are part of the community, that it wouldn't be productive to dedicate a forum to a topic that gets so personal and even nasty.

Recent MilesBuzz discussion of blogs has even devolved into posters referencing the sexual orientation of more than one blogger. So the question here is, do we need more of that? :(

Whether you should enjoy a RV ride, koko, is not up to me nor open for discussion since it's about a specific moderation issue/action. You should have known better. :D

Having said that, not specific to UA Forum, I've seen MODs close threads when discussion turns onto individuals and/or personality, instead of topic at hand. This is one example thread that eventually got closed in TravelBuzz! Forum with quoting one MOD's note on (my underlined) TOS:

In koko's example of discussion on Jeff, according to my understanding of TOS, if Jeff Smisek is on FT and posting as a FTer, I don't think MODs will allow personally attacks on him.

So, is Jeff Smisek a FTer? :p

Don't get me wrong. I am not disputing blogs provide (certain) services.

Having said that, unless my challenge is satisfied, koko, this shouldn't be a no-brainer, let it be biggest or not.

So my challenge remains:

How many FTers can really just discuss the content of blogs or faceless corporations, and not getting personal with bloggers who happen to be FTers?

I would say no.

Cheers.

I never really understood the 'we have to protect FlyerTalkers from themselves' mentality. We are all adults here. If folks can't play by the rules they are punished. Protecting FTers from the 'temptation of making things personal' is a terrible reason to not provide forum for a particular service.

UA Insider takes a lot of heat for the stuff she (now he, I guess) posts. Because a lot of it is crap corporate propaganda where Jeff pees on us and UA Insider tells us it's raining. But that's his JOB. Same with bloggers. They create a commercial venture where they say stuff as a service to points and miles folks. They are not and should not be made out to be a protected class just because some of us know some bloggers personally or because they post here on FT. @:-)

Agreed. For comparison, look at the Newsstand forum, where news articles are posted and comments are offered. I doubt any of us goes searching to see if authors of articles posted there are members of FT and whether we should avoid commenting because they might be members. If you post in the public realm, be it a news article or a blog, your material is open to commentary and your FT membership should have no bearing on it.

I was not aware that some bloggers delete comments that they find unfavorable. I think that's all the more reason that an open discussion of blogs should be allowed here. If there's information being deleted that would be of benefit to the travel community, FT can serve as a conduit for getting that information out.

I agree as well and if such a forum was created, imho, I can only see it going down hill wikid fast

Is it fair to say you are admitting such temptation presents an non-negligible challenge to both members and MODs if this proposal became reality on FT?

Currently, even without the establishment of such commenting blogs forum, the hostility towards bloggers are already so very much in the air of FT. I really can't say this proposed forum won't become an inviting corner to share venting/ranting corner against bloggers. What good will that do for FT, really?

(bolding mine)

I am not advocating any protected class on FT. Our TOS makes it clear that every FTer is of the same protected class.

I do agree publicly shared material is a fair game. AFAIK, FTers are not shy commenting on any topic or material. However, there's often a very thin line between commenting on material vs. commenting on individual bloggers. Stop by OMNI/PR and you know what I am talking about, between discussing ideas and choking your "enemies" or some that don't agree. And OMNI/PR is a relaxed corner for TOS to start with.

When it comes to bloggers, history has proved itself that (thin) line does get crossed on FT, not once, not twice, but countless times. Does FT need to create a forum that essentially facilitates hostility?

I fully support OPs idea. I probably support the classification as no-brainer too:D

I guess a few senior mods would easily handle any start up problems- if any at all.

It's UA Insider's full-time JOB to represent their company and is why their FT handle is green and if they wanted to spend time here on their own would need a personal username. It's not the case with most bloggers who may do it only part-time and spend time on their own participating in FT so treating them the same won't work as IMHO they aren't.