The comment seems a non-sequitur if not also rich advice in a relevant context. Did something disappear in this thread in the past couple hours between nsx's post and yours?

Votes from TB members are public, once voting has concluded.

Really guys - some conspiracy theorists we got here! Lobbying on such a minor issue on FT?!

I would love for a better mobile site as well as an Android app back (and hits time, that works well). But I don't see why one has to come at the expense of the other

Why you sad about that? It's a done deal and ready to go in that the software is already developed and ready to be rolled *if* FT chooses to implement. They/we don't have to

I was most surprised from that thread that BA is the busiest forum @:-)

I'm sad that there's been very little thought given to this by those pushing for it, yet when people bring up concerns, they are told there is "inside" information, or their concerns are minimized, and there's been no plan presented. I also think this will cause many, many issues in some forums, but some are unwilling to consider, or even listen to those concerns.

Or with "conspiracy theorist" taken as interchangeable with "lobbyist" on the issue, yes.

Helpful post this is, so who can "like"/"helpful" note it in 2015 or 2016 or whenever this feature gets enabled for the FT masses? Will it still be "liked"/"helpful" then?

But it's not like it's been implemented or even for sure will be. If you're opposed I understand being upset if it's implemented. But considering the vote hasn't happened (finished?) yet, and it seems TB is leaning *against* it, why the sadness?

As for the inside information, this thread got a bit too unwieldy for me to even follow. What do you mean?

Did you miss nsx's post?

As well as his older apology for misusing the term:

Since it's been made (more or less) public now, I'll connect the dots and back up nsx's claim that it was nothing sinister. Carol had conferred with the IB admins and confirmed that there was an existing plug-in that IB would be willing and able to use in the event the TalkBoard voted to implement this feature. In preparation for any "yes" vote that might occur, she had (independently of the TalkBoard) asked IB to temporarily turn this plug-in on as a test so she and the TalkBoard (and, incidentally, the forum moderators) could see what it looked like.

nsx's original (bad-word-choice) "insider information" post came after Carol made this announcement but before the plug-in was turned on, so he knew little about what the options were other than what Carol had said: that a plug-in existed, so if the TalkBoard were to vote yes, the implementation was technically feasible. Of course he couldn't say that here, because the information from Carol about the plug-in's existence was said in confidence. Simple as that.

IB then turned the plug-in on as per Carol's request, the test proceeded, and then Carol asked IB to turn the plug-in off.

Simple as that. Nothing malicious, sinister, or conspiratorial here. IB has always left the operation of FlyerTalk up to Carol, who has (so far) respected official votes of the TalkBoard, and nothing appears to have changed.

So you're saying that the "like button" then called an "informative button" and now called a "site-wide reader feedback button." which you've been pushing is now something you're back-peddling on?

Now as to the "inside information"-you are the one who used that phrase and afaic, when someone uses that phrase, they are privvy to something that others are not and that doesn't come across as being up front and honest-it's really that simple. Whether it was not meant to be presented that way is another story but that's how it comes across to me

And as to not giving answers and "not understanding why you would expect me or anyone to present a fully specified list of features and functionality when the whole point of this thread is to find the most useful set of features and functionality and then discuss whether or not we want to move forward to a trial of some sort."- Isn't it the job of someone proposing something to have answers in hand. I'm not saying to have all the answers to all the issues & questions but at least have the basic abc's as that imho is the job of the presenter and not the job of the audience to be doing the presenter's homework

I guess that depends on whether one regards this as a collaborative design effort or a group critiquing one person's design.

As to back pedaling, I always feel free to modify my opinion when I get new information. Don't you? Isn't that the point of this thread? Or do you regard it as somehow unfair to the critics if the initial proposal changes in response to member feedback?

Here's what I just posted on the reopened OMNI thread:

It sure sounded to me when nsx started this thread that he was primarily interested in soliciting member feedback and ideas for whether something like this should be implemented and how it should be implemented. We've had almost a thousand posts of discussion on the idea, some of it productive discussion. I don't see how this could possibly be considered "backpedaling."

See my previous post and the respective included quotes of nsx's previous posts. If you do not believe that my post and the posts of his that I quoted address your concern, then I suppose there is not much point in continuing to discuss this with you.

No, it's not, not when the person posting explicitly opens the discussion with (emphasis mine):

When this thread was moved about a month ago, an admin pm'd me about the move, because I had participated materially in this discussion when I first joined.

Part of the experience upon which I drew my former advocacy for a like post button here came from my residency on other boards owned by IB, running software identical to FT's, but with the like feature enabled.

Since FT'rs never really had the opportunity to truly test this feature, let me briefly describe how it works:

When a reader clicks the like icon, a pop up window appears, enabling the reader to type a brief message to the poster about why they liked the post. When the poster logs back in and checks "MyFlyerTalk", the message appears, along with which post was liked. In this particular IB iteration, the specific number of likes is not shown to other users, but the accumulation of likes is reflected in the number of "bars" showing under the poster's name.

Everyone starts with one good reputation bar. Every 100 likes adds another bar up until 5 bars, after which it takes 200 likes to earn subsequent bars, and perhaps 300 or 400 more likes to earn the final 10th bar, after which no more reputation bars can be earned, regardless of additional likes. Believe it or not, when one reviews the contributory content of users with the full 10 bars... those bars are for the most part well deserved, because the likes cannot all come from the same people. Here's why:

Suppose Jackal genuinely liked my post on this thread, and clicked the button and told me so, and then Jackal also just so happened to genuinely like another post I made on another thread in a different section of FT. Jackal would be prevented from liking me again, until he liked enough other posts by other users first. This prevents friends from liking each other back and forth over and over.

So what if the post I made in the other forum is of more helpfulness than the post made in this forum? Too bad. Jackal still cannot like it, because he already liked one of my posts once, and cannot like another one of my posts again until he has found other posts by other users on the forum worthy of liking. But if my post in the other forum was really that helpful, Jackal woudn't have to like it, because presumably other people who found it useful would like it, which is how the system balances itself.

That all being said, after being a resident on FT for going on two months now, I no longer believe a like system of any kind should be introduced on this forum. I made a new friend on this forum, an experienced flyer who pointed out to me that people who fly a lot are typically A type personalities. They are outspoken. Assertive. Aggressive. That's why the companies are paying them to go wherever they are going all the time.

This is certainly one of the most fractious boards I've ever participated in. If I made a post commenting on how many times UA has changed the color scheme of their airplanes over the last 10 years, eventually someone is sure to ferret an argument out of the comment, myself included. But unlike a lot of other boards, the arguments made here are more often well considered, informative, and engaging, rather than just name calling. I appreciate the tension between differing ideas, and find this very thread to be one such example.

Another distinguishing feature I've found with the FT forum is the TalkBoard... a panel of persons that appear to have a role that is somewhat different than "Administrators" or "Moderators". I'm not entirely sure what role the Talkboard plays in the guidance of this site, but if the virtues and values that are self evident in NSX's posts and handling of the discussion of this issue are of any example, then we are in very good hands. Thank you NSX!

Amen to both.

I am still trying to figure out how anyone would gain from launching a conspiracy to implement this feature on FlyerTalk.

Can we please return to discussing the reasons as to whether or not a �like� or �informative� or �site-wide reader feedback� or whatever button should be activated as a feature of FlyerTalk instead of speculating on conspiracy theories and hidden agendas?

Thanks, Canarsie.

You would think this was setting the UN/NATO/EU Budget for 2015/16

It's a button. Use it or ignore it. Is it that difficult?

As to 'cliques', just "clique le bouton" to join one

Yes all seems to be putting the cart before the horse to me.

Lets casually ask for member 'thoughts' on something tried and tested and discussed at length in secret by others, a minor detail not disclosed initially, until it was kind of blurted out by accident, and then the wallpapering began.

Isn't that how Zimbabwe 'works'?