srdshelly

I certainly found MilesBuzz more useful before as a go to place for what's new, rather than primarily an advice forum. I would check daily at MilesBuzz, maybe several times a day, to try to pick up on the latest opportunities, not knowing in which airline, hotel or credit card they may occur. I'm really not willing to take the time to check each airline, hotel or credit card forum serially very often on the speculative chance something useful may come up. I go to those forums for specific information I want to know, not for general catching up. I guess I'm one of those bad guys now that rely mostly on the bloggers to keep up with that aspect of it.

And I think the appeals for help are hurt too by being isolated, because some readers are not interested in going to a forum just about dedicated to that, but would be willing to jump in at times when we have some expertise when we come across such appeals mixed in with the other topics that used to be part of MilesBuzz.

texdoc

I agree some way to up-vote hot deals would be good and then a way to see all the hottest deals.

flyerwanabe1

Milebuzz in its current form is useless as half of the thread as requests for help. As other suggested, it is better to have a separate forum for that.

PainCorp

On a good day it's half, I just went in there and shook my head, that place is over run with cheapskates that need their hand held after reading the blogs.

FAllWay

I meed help with certain things but i think most of these guys/girls are asking for all work done. Need seperate forum for these requests.

PainCorp

Yeah, if you have done research, there should be no issue helping. There are far too many people that say "I want to got to Hawaii, tell me what to do." I actually thank new people that post what cards they are looking at and what bonuses they see. To me, they should come with a plan, and only require suggestions of tweaks (ie, there's a bigger bonus, you can't get that card again yet, you can only do 2 citi cards, etc).

mareh

I like the idea of putting all of these posts in one "Help" thread, located in Miles Buzz. Page one of the thread could have some simple "rules" indicating the information a poster should assemble for themselves before posting.

TrojanHorse

Why do u people even bother answering those same questions over and over

if no one ever answers then hopefully they will go away

CMK10

Because I believe in the spirit of community being the most important and best part of Flyertalk and because it doesn't take me long to answer a question.

Kind of like how this thread had been gone away for a month and you brought it back?

tom911

Does this proposal on another thread adequately address your concerns? The poster is a Talk Board member. If you want something else crafted, you might raise your concerns in that thread.

Defining the mission of MilesBuzz; Adding a Flame Free Q&A Forum?

SkiAdcock

Just as a fyi, there is a motion underway regarding a new "Information Desk" forum. If it gets approved, I think some of the complaints MilesBuzz regulars have about newbie threads cluttering MB/changing its scope will disappear. So would recommend posting comments there:

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

Cheers.

CaptRobPhD

Junior Guy here...

Don't think I've made many open ended newbie questions like some of those mentioned by OP, and it's unclear why those types of posts are so common. I do know that as a newbie I DO research in those areas I generally need information about but I am not a 'perfect searcher'. The problem with research, however, is it becomes circular as more people put more and more information here: Ask a question about A, get the token post by a high timer "asked and answered 'here; a little searching saves lots of time/resources'", conduct research/read post referenced only to find it 7 years old and having 1000+ replies [may of which are zingers or outdated], so start backwards from newest and stop after 'a couple years'' worth of posts, then repost original question saying couldn't find answer, then get another token post [I did that scenario recently and my fussing did get a little change in the process ]....

Granted, there are some who are just too lazy to search for the information they need or others who find the process cumbersome or confusing when they do attempt in good faith to 'do their homework'. Regardless of the reason, it's doubtful such posts will cease or slow and also doubtful there will also be many useless comments regarding OP query. If the intent it to make this site useful for everyone and these are these types of posts are the biggest drain on resources (time, software, hardware, 'patience'), then aside from an Information Desk perhaps there could just be a very top thread [heck, make it on the sign-in or enrollment page!] -- so blatantly obvious to even Newbie that he or she cannot miss it -- ask a routing/generic question here and look for some docents [not necessarily Moderators but not really general membership either] to redirect posts or answer questions outright. Even do a little 'tip jar' shenanigan: start the page and then put a few purposeful 'non-question questions' by trusted agents to draw people in towards it and hopefully make it self-sustaining << -- a marketing issue. Operationally, not sure how these can meanwhile be prevented: chip shot responses just add to their popularity, Mods are forced to spend more time cleaning and transferring [the standalone page could be the single 'sweeping' area for Mods' redirects], automatically delete/archive posts after 14 or 30 days -- OP probably doesn't care by that time or others didn't care enough to respond/found it irrelevant.