We ALREADY have a General Travel Forum.

It is called FT Travel.

Maybe Community, Trip Reports, Itineraries and Coupon Connection should be moved, maybe not. Bottom line is that Randy has dedicated a huge amount of resources to a board called FT Travel. Having a General Travel Forum in FT Miles is not only inappropriate, it would defeat the entire prupose of having an FT Travel board.

I personally have no problem figuring out where to post items. Maybe I have a better comprehension of the written langauge than most.


[This message has been edited by CameraGuy (edited 09-14-2002).]

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Possibly!

Who knows?

On the other hand, even if so, therefore what? Are you saying that if someone should agree with you that they comprehend and if they do not agree, that they fail to comprehend?

Can't one clearly understand/comprehend, and yet disagree?

And aren't we talking about others, and what's best for them?

I surely think so!

And if others do not easily comprehend, how does one rectify the situation?

Clearly, Punki, and hopefully everyone, is concerned about the best interests of all, and FT in general.

-Mark

I thought about explaining my position again, but I think arturo just summed it up in another thread.

originally posted by arturo [This message has been edited by missydarlin (edited 09-14-2002).]

missy,

Thank you for the quote from Arturo. I think it sums everything up very clearly.

chexfan,

A belated thank you for your post. You have posted what MANY agree with.

It would seem that in the countless times that Punki has brought this up that most do not agree with her. It would also seem that if she continues to go on about this that she perhaps write to Randy directly to express her views as this forum is obviously NOT achieveing her goals and could even be construed as flamebait by some.

I will only post one personal disagreement that I have. Over the last 3-6 months I have seen more mewbies than ever before come to FT and stay around. This is very evident on pretty much EVERY major airline topic and is quite obvious to most.

That is true, Missy, Randy, can do whatever he wants with his website.

He is, however, a very intelligent man who is constantly evaluating and re-evaluating this wonderful cyber world that he (by his own admission sometimes unwittingly) has created. He has also, both privately and publicly, encouraged FlyerTalkers to bring up issues that they feel are important for the development of FT and has on many occasions, again both privately and publicly, expressed his gratitude for the contributions of the general membership.

That is, BTW, the reason that holding this discussion in public is of great value--it allows an opportunity for all of the fine minds of FlyerTalk to work together to develop concepts, strategies and solutions.

We now have a problem on FT--many people make inappropriate posts in MilesBuzz, many of those (IMHO innocent) posters get flamed and discouraged from continued posting, and that encourages an atmosphere of aggressive behavior on FT in general.

doc is absolutely accurate in his statement that it doesn't matter what we who understand the system do or do not know. Our concern as committed regulars has to be with enhancing the site for others who are not as familiar with it as we.

The cause for the current problem is two fold:

1. The most restrictive section of FT--MilesBuzz--is placed in exactly the position that most people will be drawn to post general questions. This almost invites newbies to make a mistake which will be followed by a flame, hurt feelings, aggressive behavior and general ill will.

2. For years MilesBuzz was the general topic section of FT so it is only natural that posters who may have been around for years but only very occasionally visit the site, might not be familiar with all of the recent changes. They post where they have always posted and get flamed and moved. Now that just doesn't develop good PR.

What are the possible solutions to this problem?

We could move MilesBuzz to a less enticing spot which would discourage general posts or we could add a General Topic post to FT Miles, or we could completely reconstruct the design to make FTMiles a section exclusively an area ristricted to posts about miles, moving Community, Coupon Connection, etc. to another board.

I believe that simply adding a General Discussion forum to the top of the page above MilesBuzz makes the most sense because in enables, enhances and encourages.

There may be some far more clever solutions to the problem at hand and I invite you all to propose yours. To ignore or deny the problem, however, only adds to and exacerbates the situation.

[This message has been edited by Punki (edited 09-14-2002).]

You seem to be amongst the VERY FEW who think that anything is broken. You also seem to want to ignore the facts that have been presented against your position.

So, It would seem that you are just going to keep asking the same questions OVER and OVER again.

I still think you would be better off if you would accept that FT is not exactly for you.

I looked at the locked threads in Miles Buzz over the last 5 days. They are:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/007537.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/007519.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/007531.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/007530.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/007529.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/007528.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/007527.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/007527.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/007524.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/007521.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/007513.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/007359.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/007486.html (known to be off topic)
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/007506.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/007503.html
http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/007505.html

Only a few threads prompted "negative" comments re: placement, three times from ozstamps, once from Beckles, who criticized the content of the post as much (if not more) than the placement of it.

Randy, in the next to last thread, wrote this:

As for a general category and its placement being a good idea because it:

I'm sorry, but I don't have any idea what that is supposed to mean. You say one should add:

Uh, yeah, it's right there. There's an icon "Travel Buzz" at the top of my monitor. [sarcasm on] I don't know if it makes me feel enabled, but I see it. [/sarcasm on]

[UBB edit.]

[This message has been edited by SMessier (edited 09-14-2002).]

I have been watching this thread for a few days and want to make the following observations:

BTW and FWIIW, I agree with most of what punki is trying to conceptualize.......I think she and Randy need to talk.

But in the spirit of friendliness, why do you, cameraguy, take this so personally and seem to constantly attack her idea.... you made your points.

punki, keep up your crusade

So, what you are saying is that Punki has the right to her opinion, yet I do not have the right to mine?

Punki's "crusade" is misguided. FT is NOT broken. Having the same person say so over and over again does not make it so.

For the record - of those three, one was from a senior FT'er of more than 2,000 posts who stated clearly he knew he was posting in the wrong Forum and accepted that. I agreed with him on that, as did Randy, as did several others - not mentioned above.

Another was a light hearted comment to a poster well known to me, who has been active here since November 1999, who also knew he was posting in the wrong place. He omitted to mention he'd already asked his question to FT Admin - the obvious place to direct it, and Randy closed the thread after my post. In that thread I submit my reply was much more polite and friendly than that of Plato90s above it, but that comment is overlooked in SMessier's detailed log.

The thread starter, [a regular FT poster] despite being here for nearly THREE YEARS to this day makes it clear he has no clue where "OMNI" was moved to, hence his wrong posting in Buzz, backing up Punki's assertion perfectly, that NOT everyone ... long term members included, has followed or understood the changes of 14 months back:

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/Forum1/HTML/007519.html

And the 3rd I have no idea which one it was off the list above. Was it a response to a newbie, as neither of the 2 gentlemen above as remotely in that category. I suppose none of this matters if done politely? I regard all of the posters on this thread as senior members of FT. All of us on FT in that situation I really think owe it to Randy and the Moderators to gently steer NEW posters to a more suitable Forum if we see their post very early on. They cannot be everywhere at once.

As to FT Miles my personal experience is I almost never visit it. Yes I accept it is only a couple of extra mouse clicks away, but I simply do not go there for some reason - to any Forum there. No idea why, and perhaps others like Punki think the same ... I do not know.

Might just be my computer - but to post there requires typing FT name and password all over, even if I have just posted here. Is that occurring to everyone? I just spent 15 mins looking at Forums there that do not have a lot of names of posters that are very evident on Buzz, Community, Coupon Connection etc.

So on that quick look it does seem a lot of folks do not post there as much as they do in "Miles". For whatever reason. That is their choice, as it is mine, but it does seem to indicate other frequent posts appear to avoid that section of Ft for whatever reason.

Why does NOBODY ever use the "FT Events" special facility and calendar? Right now there is ONE FT event listed for all of September. It too is easy to get to -- there is a tab atop every page for goodness sake, but FT'ers have clearly voted with their actions. THEY TOTALLY IGNORE IT. They post their "Events" in Community.

http://www.flyertalk.com/new_calenda...calendar_key=1

"FlyerTalk Connect" is basically the same story:

http://www.flyertalk.com/new_calenda...calendar_key=2

Techgirl decided to start her non-official "Events" thread in Community to get around this problem. Finally, why does basically nobody add a photo to the Photo Gallery?

http://www.flyertalk.com/photosfr.shtml

There are only a few dozen from the last few years and only about 4 from the past 12 months. It is simple to do, we all have scanners and digital cameras pretty much, but like the "FT Events" - folks clearly do not like it or use it.

So not everyone finds it 'natural' to visit or post in "FT Travel". Or "FT Events". Or "FT Connect." Add me to all three lists.

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~ Glen ~ Calling all United 1K Members - please join .. www.1Kflyers.com



[This message has been edited by ozstamps (edited 09-15-2002).]

For the record, I have no problem with pointing out to someone that a thread is posted in the wrong forum. I had also hoped that my inclusion of negative in quotes would show I did not necessarily consider the as being hostile.

(Although Punki's (very tasteless, imho) calling those who point out that something is misposted as "post nazis" seems to indicate she believes that any such reminder is inappropriate.)

My apologies if I missed listing other FT'ers who, along with those I had listed, pointed out that MilesBuzz was not the best place for the posts involved.

[Edited for grammar.]

[This message has been edited by SMessier (edited 09-15-2002).]

SMessier - I was not taking issue with your post and the well indexed thread list, please excuse me if it looked that way. I hoped I was just illustrating that at least a couple of those who posted incorrectly this week in Miles Buzz were long time FT users and did so knowingly.

One for mainly religious reasons, which Randy was fine with, therefore it survived unlocked for a time despite some others disagreeing with his call. The other as the FT'er says he simply did not know where to find "OMNI" which was where he knew his post really belonged.


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~ Glen ~ Calling all United 1K Members - please join .. www.1Kflyers.com

oz, thanks for the clarification, and I in turn apologize if I gave the impression of seeking to single you out in my "list."

As you point out, some of the misposted threads were by users who knew this to be the case.

Using a perhaps somewhat tired sports analogy, "unless one is batting 1.000 and playing errorless baseball, there is room for improvement" no?

-Mark