mudpuppy

Because we're posting here, where TB members will actually read our comments, rather than there, where they perhaps will not.

+1, especially the second point.

SkiAdcock

Agree.

MSPeconomist

Moreover, the post in the Gaming forum by rwoman suggested (very sensibly, I might add) explicitly that interested people should come here and post their opinions in this thread.

CDKing

I had no idea it even existed to begin with.

baccarat_king

Now you know. Please go post something.

csyoung49

I troll that forum, I don't necessarily post in it. It does have some outdated information but sometimes you find out something you didn't know.

iluv2fly

Exactly. Thought it was very obvious.

Doc Savage

The existing forum seems to serve its purpose for a group of FT members without intruding on the rest. "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

Cheers,

Doc

bdschobel

Amen.

Bruce

Iggyz

I actually found Gaming Loyalty Programs Forum by chance. My thought is many online aren't aware that it exist and it's wealth of information. I've not come across private or public forums that have the same wealth of information.

Without Gaming Loyalty Programs Forum - I wouldn't have given Founders Card a second look. Having access to that product through forum - has opened up many opportunities and
savings I previously didn't have available to me.

In past I only put Amtrak forum to use here.

If forum is shutdown - information should be publicly available in an archive.

Keep in mind that just because there aren't a lot of post - this doesn't mean many aren't using the information within.

Without forum and Founders Card - I wouldn't be getting more benefits out of Amtrak - Hilton - miles earned for stays - % earned higher, Sheraton / Starwood, Harrah's - status match has given me awesome benefits at a St Louis casino, Avis, Hertz and others.

Dovster

I said this when proposing the Smokers Lounge Forum and I will say it again: We have to forget what made FT great and concentrate on what will keep it great.

Great bargain from FF programs are a thing of the past. The same is getting to be true with hotel programs (which have not quite been as devalued as those of airlines). This does not mean that we should abolish the airline and hotel forums, but it does mean that we have to offer people what they want -- and that means information about aspects of travel which interest them.

Yesterday, on the Smokers Forum, I started a thread about smoking in restaurants in Israel. So far, there have been only two responses (and one of them is from me). Does that make that thread a waste of space? No, because so far 216 people have viewed it. If we gave 200+ FTers answers to a travel question which was on their minds, we have performed a good service -- even if nobody else ever looks at that thread.

In the old days, we judged a thread by how many replies it received. That is no longer important. On many subjects, views are key. Should Total Rewards decide that it wants to rent more rooms at the Planet Hollywood in Las Vegas, and announce that it will give Diamond status to anyone who stays for 7 or more nights before the end of this year, there really will be nothing to discuss about that announcement, but it certainly would be of interest to a lot of players. Hence, there would be few posts but a lot of views.

The IBM Selectric typewriter (the one with the ball) was a fantastic innovation in its time. Anybody who typed was interested in it -- even those who could not afford it. Today, it is in the dustbin of history and we talk only about computers and printers.

Let's not make FT the modern Selectric.

MSPeconomist

I suspect that many views in the new Smoking Lounge forum now are the result of curious FT members checking out the new forum by opening a few threads almost at random to see what's there and get a sense of the tone of the discussion. The real test will be how the statistics look after some time. I'd be reluctant to draw any conclusions based on forum activity--however that is defined--just after a new forum has been created.

wharvey

DING DING DING.... we have a winner!

tom911

Using this criteria, the Talk Board will never, ever close any forum. Maybe that's the direction they want to go. Really hard to tell.

Additionally, if those that have recently advocated for both a Spirit and South African forum can point to threads across FT with 200+ views, seems like they should have a new forum today based on the "page view" criteria.

Would you suggest to the Talk Board that they include these "views" in the annual forum statistical report? Right now it's threads and posts.

Dovster

Definitely. I would, however, prefer that "unique views" really be unique. As I understand it, if a person looks at a thread on ten separate days it is counted as 10 separate views.

I would think that a better metric would be counting any click on a thread as a view only if a new post has been added to that thread since the last time that the member clicked on it.