tcook052

Go ahead and you can join the long list of others who've already said as much. That it didn't change my opinion in those cases and seemingly isn't going to change yours in this one is the irony.

kokonutz

I understand this is your perception, just as it is cblaisd's perception. But I don't see specific 'personalized pot shots.' And both you and cblaisd refuse to cite any specific posts as examples.

So, again, I guess it just 'seems to be' but is not in reality.

RichMSN

It's just more evidence that you have Thought Leaderyness and others don't.

lwildernorva

I've just been wondering where that went. . .

kipper

That is true for any forum one cares not to read.

GUWonder

The EMPR forum has had some posts in it that provide information that I consider valuable for analysis. Just saying. And the same goes for OMNI (PR or otherwise) and the airline and hotel miles/points forums.

Kagehitokiri

some of us prefer 'more' forums and/or threads, for organization

others do not (talking preferences of posters, not mods/TB/IB/etc)

bhatnasx

I'm opposed to closing that forum. There's nothing wrong with discussion on this & one of the main points of FT (at least my viewpoint when I was on the TalkBoard) was that FT provided a place for travel-related discussion that doesn't take place elsewhere.

As many of the bloggers that are discussed go their start on FT and basically more or less owe their careers (and the majority of their content) to FT (and of course Randy), then it's fair game to discuss what they're doing over there.

Closing this forum would be a bad decision, IMHO.

GUWonder

In the spirit of the season, I endorse this message.

sbm12

I believe this is a delusional view of what is being posted in the forum.

Most recently there is a discussion of Facebook ad targeting (nothing to do with bloggers) and baseless speculation on why one blogger decided to change his travel plans, including discussion of his boyfriend's hometown. If that qualifies as substantive then FT has dropped even further than I thought.
Absolutely. Though, as noted above, many of those would also fit very well in one of the other fora on this site. The reddit thread would work very well in Manufactured Spending, for example.
I'm not as convinced that many of the newer bloggers started here, but that's also less relevant IMO. The question should be, "What is the value these discussions add to the FT community?" The threads about individual bloggers struggle to come up with anything other than "(S)he's just a schmuck pumping CCs and lying to readers." Or complaints that they're not writing about the topics a reader wants to read. It boggles my mind that those are considered valuable, particularly when the content is mostly from just a dozen people.

kokonutz

This discussion (about The Points Guy blog's facebook ads) was one of the most relevant, interesting and informative that I've seen ANYwhere on FT in a while. Digital advertising is a relatively new and constantly innovating phenomenon. The notion that many P&M bloggers are sponsored content providers, and the extent to which they are, was one of the reasons for starting the forum: who can you REALLY trust in the space, and on which issues are providers bought and paid for by affiliates, vendors, etc? What content is content for its own sake and what content is actually secretly (or not-so-secretly) an ad? In a world of sponsored content advertising, what could be more helpful in separating a good deal from an ad than that analysis?

And particularly since TPG is now literally owned by a credit card affiliate, learning how finely (or in TPG's case broadly) P&M bloggers/CC affiliate companies tune their digital ad buys is also interesting.

Others may not be interested in those things...I sure am, being all thought leadery and whatnot...but it certainly is substantive discussion of reliability. @:-)

The One Mile at a Time blog has no fewer than 5 posts that make reference to Lucky's 'horrible' event that led to a major change in plans. So people are discussing the content of those posts. Which is another reason the forum was created in the first place: to discuss the content of points and miles content providers.


So put back in context, both of your examples really ARE substantive analysis of external points and miles resource post content, style, logistics and reliability. In these cases content as well as reliability.

work2fly

In light of this thread, when I read the posts speculating about OMAAT's horrible event, I asked myself if the posts were germane, derogatory and/or unduly personal. I pretty much came to the same conclusion - the posts were appropriate.

Adam1222

A blogger posts that something terrible has happened, and apologizes for a lack of posts
People post in a forum about the blog saying I wonder what it was, and note that the post volume has not
Nothing derogatory, nothing wishing ill will, somewhat sympathetic, and a number of comments from community members sharing their own personal experiences about family illness. You know, things that are perfectly okay in a community.
Speculation, of course, but if we closed down every forum on FT that involved speculation, it would be a small community.


To claim the discussion of bloggers' sexuality is somehow improper, regardless of context, is homophobic baiting. The discussion of sexuality has been related to the ethics of an LGBT blogger traveling to homophobic countries without giving any indication of the human rights problem. Whether you agree with that or not, that is indeed an extremely worthwhile discussion to have, and Flyertalk is the perfect place for it. And I think as a result of discussions of it, Ben at OMAAT has begun addressing that topic more and more.

For example, last week, a trans person was denied entry to Dubai and detained there because of her gender identity. One of Ben's staff members covered it. I honestly don't think it would have gotten a post had there not been criticism by me, endorsed by some others, about the oddity of an openly gay man extolling Dubai as one of the best places on earth.

The idea that all talk about "sexuality" is outrageous or improper comes from a narrowminded view that discussing issues of sexuality is necessarily mean-spirited or gossip. That is incorrect, and a relic of homophobic culture, as recognized by the numerous courts who have held over the past 10 years that discussion of a person's sexuality is not slander/libel per se. As one of those courts stated, the argument is that "the flawed premise that it is shameful and disgraceful to be described as lesbian, gay or bisexual." As one of the people who has raised sexual orientation in the EM&PR space, I find it offensive to accuse members of the forum of "calling someone gay." If that actually were the case, it would have been moderated. But I just searched for LGBT in the OMAAT forum, and posts I found were:

1) A discussion of a blog post about a "romantic weekend" in the Maldives and the fact that homosexuality is actually illegal there - http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/25932340-post1457.html
2) Whether it was odd for a Floridian LGBT blogger to not post anything about the shooting in Orlando (notably, the Points Guy and other blogs did)

The first one actually led to the blog in question posting about homosexuality in the Maldives. (And a Talkboard member referred to my posts on the topic as "exemplary in their calm rationality and good humor.") I've actually learned quite a bit from other peoples' views on these subjects, even if they disagree with me. FT has threads that consist solely of people saying what they ate today, or what's in their beer fridge. EM&PR contributes as much or more to the community. A forum about blogs that have radically changed this community, that produces substantive criticism that makes its way into the blogs, is valuable. While there are certainly some posts that border closer to namecalling, it seems critics are being awfully selective and mentioning sexual orientation as a boogeyman, when a look at the actual posts shows those were some of the most substantive posts in the thread. You can find garbage in any forum.

The EMPR forum is one of the few places where people who have been in the miles and points "game" for a long time still make up a majority of posters. Other forums are mostly filled with people looking for help these days, rarely offering any. Flyertalk should be a place to discuss the good and bad of all aspects of the miles and points community.

As with any forum, no one is required to visit it. People feel very strongly about some of the bloggers -- positively and negatively -- and both for good reasons. For example, Alaska admitted that it changed Emirates redemptions largely because of a blogger. Why on earth would that not merit a discussion -- a critical one -- on Flyertalk. I think the blogs are better because of the EMPR forum; although they dont admit it, there are often changes in the blogs that clearly parallel the discussion,

Blogging has become an aspect of the travel business. People say good and bad things about these businesses -- just like they do about any other business. If there are questionable ethical practices engaged in by a hotel, its discussed on Flyertalk. Why would we not treat a multimillion dollar blog the same way? Shutting down the forum essentially because people are too critical of businesses which have radically changed the community and hobby -- expanding the number of people involved, but hastening devaluations -- is counter to the whole purpose of Flyertalk.

Everyone finds different things valuable. I personally find photos of the view from random hotel rooms useless, I find people asking for help they can find on google to be of little value, and I find people complaining about flight delays or predeparture beverages to not contribute. No one is forcing anyone to partake in the EM&PR forum, If you don't like it, stay away. Don't deprive others of something *they* value.

GUWonder

Some of the newer bloggers in this space are indeed less rooted/reliant on FT than those in this space before them. FT management and others dedicated to this place should consider what that says about FT today and what that means for the future of FT. As a newer generation replaces the old fogies, the discussion of EMPR hitting individual FT members is likely to drop in frequency.

Public figures -- and the EMPR players seem to have mainly decided to be just that -- will get criticized, as that's part of the game in choosing to be a public figure. Given how charged some of the discussions are on FT when it comes to EMPR and travel stuff, let's just say that I think OMNI PR should be viewable by all as the same sort of dynamic plays out there in some ways and is merely indicative of the state of the community and the internet era dynamics than it is anything extraordinary.

sbm12

Really? You never thought to just consider the "why am I seeing this" link and figure it out yourself?? Nothing really new there, though I suppose that's not necessarily a metric to use.

But that's not really what the discussion there is about. The prior topic was all about how much he pays for FB ads and before that questioning if he pays for trips or not. Putting aside that I simply do not care, I'm trying to figure out why those topics are valuable in the context of this community. How does knowing a site's ad budget affect people here reading the content?