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Travel News Forum: close, re-purpose or merge with TravelBuzz?

Old Feb 3, 2016, 1:55 pm
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Should the Travel News forum remain open as its own standalone forum?

Here is the Travel News forum. Should it remain open; or should it be closed? Please post objective reasons for either position below.

Keep the Travel News Forum Open

It provides a place where only news linked to other sources can be posted.

Travel News serves a different function than other forums. It is for news articles that can be quickly perused & not buried in other forums. TravelBuzz, for example, has topics such as 'should the spouse get the upgrade' & discussions re: that. Travel News has links to articles of interest that may or may not get commentary, but does get a lot of views so obviously of interest to FTers. Just as some will read articles in the NYTimes, Wall Street Journal, USAToday because the articles are of interest but not comment. That doesn't mean the articles have no value. They're easier to find in Travel News.

Close/Merge the Travel News Forum

It is redundant; and discussions posted in it are best served when residing in other forums on FlyerTalk such as TravelBuzz, for example.

It is obsolete due to improved technology which has emerged over the years, allowing news pertaining to travel to be easily obtained elsewhere.

It is not at all clear what types of posts belong in it.

Travel News made a lot more sense before FT had a forum for any and every thing travel related. But now FT does and Travel News is out of step with how FlyerTalk is currently organized.
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Travel News Forum: close, re-purpose or merge with TravelBuzz?

 
Old Mar 3, 2016, 10:11 pm
  #586  
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http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/misc....sted&t=1679496
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Originally Posted by GUWonder
And does "travel news" forum really get "a lot of views" last year and this year? It seems mostly to get a rather small "lot" of views given the following: the size of the FT membership base, the method of views racking up, and the historically broad range of threads about a very wide variety of travel-related subjects that had been posted in there.
not views, but threads and posts (excludes moved?) >
http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://...orum/index.php
01/23/01 1,388 6,565
02/11/02 134 245
06/11/04 8,854 52,831
01/02/05 9,637 57,046
01/01/06 13,423 69,671
01/02/07 15,217 80,494
01/05/08 17,378 92,759
01/01/09 18,972 103,513
01/26/10 20,256 112,679
02/17/11 21,666 124,838
01/04/12 22,038 128,103
01/02/13 22,317 130,835
01/04/14 22,328 131,520
01/02/15 22,595 134,537
01/01/16 22,768 135,729
03/03/16 22,810 136,027

09/11/16 22,889 136,441

Last edited by Kagehitokiri; Sep 11, 2016 at 9:35 am
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Old Sep 11, 2016, 3:25 am
  #587  
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Six months on, with little sign of improved health of this forum.

If there is no will to close the forum / repurpose the TravelBuzz forum, can some thought be given towards addressing its identity crisis?
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Last edited by Prospero; Sep 11, 2016 at 3:32 am
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Old Sep 11, 2016, 9:36 am
  #588  
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isnt having a 'directory' of 'redirects' useful by itself?
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Old Sep 11, 2016, 10:09 am
  #589  
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Originally Posted by Prospero
...identity crisis?
Sigh.

It has a group of regular posters and readers who post interesting articles and enjoy discussing. It has a long history and has returned to its roots in a structure similar to when the forum was first conceived long ago by Randy Petersen.

Are IB's servers running out of room? Is there some reason a Senior Moderator needs to regularly seek to do in this particular forum? This repeated call does seem to suggest there is some other agenda at work. There are more than a few forums that have less activity than Travel News and, fortunately, I see no one calling for shuttering them.

Sigh.
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Old Sep 11, 2016, 10:34 am
  #590  
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Originally Posted by cblaisd
There are more than a few forums that have less activity than Travel News and, fortunately, I see no one calling for shuttering them.
Not sure how you reached that conclusions considering there have been threads calling for low traffic forums to be shuttered including this most recent one.

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

Nothing wrong with periodic questioning of a forum's worth or direction, at least IMHO.

Last edited by tcook052; Sep 11, 2016 at 10:55 am
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Old Sep 11, 2016, 10:47 am
  #591  
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Originally Posted by cblaisd
Sigh.

It has a group of regular posters and readers who post interesting articles and enjoy discussing. It has a long history and has returned to its roots in a structure similar to when the forum was first conceived long ago by Randy Petersen.

Are IB's servers running out of room? Is there some reason a Senior Moderator needs to regularly seek to do in this particular forum? This repeated call does seem to suggest there is some other agenda at work. There are more than a few forums that have less activity than Travel News and, fortunately, I see no one calling for shuttering them.

Sigh.
That is not the point. The point is that these topics are better suited elsewhere UNLIKE, i.e., smoking forum posts. They would get much more traction elsewhere. They would have better discussion elsewhere.

A post discussing, i.e., the resurgence of the "free inflight snack in Y" (pick a random topic) is a good Travel Buzz topic, but a link to an article discussing the resurgence of the "Free inflight snack in Y" is better suited for Travel News, as long as one discusses the article? I think it an absurd distinction, and necessarily results in double posting on the topic, should one not want to discuss linked news articles, but rather, the "resurgence of free inflight snacks," generally.

Every other forum has a discrete subject matter mission. TN, not so much.
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Old Sep 11, 2016, 12:59 pm
  #592  
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From what I can see, there's been an uptick in the number of threads posted in the forum from six months ago. I think the claim there's "little sign of improved health of the forum" is unfounded.
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Old Sep 11, 2016, 1:18 pm
  #593  
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Originally Posted by CMK10
...I think the claim there's "little sign of improved health of the forum" is unfounded.
Utterly correct.

And there is a tendentious definition of "health" that is being used here.

It's kind of sad, really.
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Old Sep 11, 2016, 2:40 pm
  #594  
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Originally Posted by CMK10
From what I can see, there's been an uptick in the number of threads posted in the forum from six months ago. I think the claim there's "little sign of improved health of the forum" is unfounded.
I ran two sets of stats a few moments ago. The first set measured the total post count since 12 September 2015 (804); the second since 12 March 2016 (402)

No kidding, i promise you - the post rate is unchanged: 402 v 402
This averages out at 15.46 posts per week (2.21 posts per day)

All of which could easily be accommodated in the TravelBuzz and USA forums

Last edited by Prospero; Sep 11, 2016 at 2:45 pm
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Old Sep 11, 2016, 8:04 pm
  #595  
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The politics of trying to shutter a FT forum for cause are always...fascinating.

And fruitless.
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Old Sep 12, 2016, 10:38 am
  #596  
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Originally Posted by kokonutz
The politics of trying to shutter a FT forum for cause are always...fascinating.

And fruitless.
Does that include External Miles & Points?

Cheers.
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Old Sep 12, 2016, 1:35 pm
  #597  
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Sharon, do you have any suggestions on the forums description? The current wording does not match the scope and i think it would help our members if it could be aligned.

As far as I can make out (and if I have it wrong Id be most happy if someone could clarify) the scope of the forum is: General travel news and travel news relating to the USA
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Old Sep 12, 2016, 2:34 pm
  #598  
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Originally Posted by Prospero
Sharon, do you have any suggestions on the forum’s description? The current wording does not match the scope and i think it would help our members if it could be aligned.

As far as I can make out (and if I have it wrong I’d be most happy if someone could clarify) the scope of the forum is: General travel news and travel news relating to the USA
The description for the forum is:

"Travel News
Link to and discuss the latest travel news articles. it's all the news (for travelers) that's fit to read."

No restriction to the USA either in the description or in cblasid's sticky. In fact some of the articles on the first page of the forum pertain to China,Europe and the UK, as well as on other pages. Some of the news articles cross all borders.

Cheers.
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Old Sep 12, 2016, 2:36 pm
  #599  
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Originally Posted by Prospero
Sharon, do you have any suggestions on the forums description? The current wording does not match the scope and i think it would help our members if it could be aligned.

As far as I can make out (and if I have it wrong Id be most happy if someone could clarify) the scope of the forum is: General travel news and travel news relating to the USA
The moderator of that forum would be happy to discuss with you via PM, as a matter of collegial courtesy.
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Old Sep 12, 2016, 2:45 pm
  #600  
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Originally Posted by SkiAdcock
The description for the forum is:

"Travel News
Link to and discuss the latest travel news articles. it's all the news (for travelers) that's fit to read."

No restriction to the USA either in the description or in cblasid's sticky. In fact some of the articles on the first page of the forum pertain to China,Europe and the UK, as well as on other pages. Some of the news articles cross all borders.

Cheers.
Thanks, so do think the following description might provide better clarity?:

Link to and discuss the latest travel news articles, it's all the news (for travelers) that's fit to read. including news articles that cross geographical borders
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