On 21 August 2006, the TalkBoard unanimously passed the following:

Moved by gleff and seconded by wharvey:

The TalkBoard firmly believes Flyertalk is a unique community where members are generous and help each other and their causes.

At the same time, it is difficult to verify the authenticity of charitable solicitations and is concerned that Flyertalk not become a repository of scams and schemes.

Furthermore, we've seen the value of coordinated action through Flyertalk Cares, such as the tremendous outporing of generosity after the tsunami. Coordinated action through Flyertalk Cares is a powerful force.

Recognizing the need for consistent standards and that moderators aren't always best positioned to parse the value of any particular pitch, effective immediately all charitable solicitation must be submitted to and approved by Randy Petersen or his designee before being posted on Flyertalk. Any other charitable solicitation is a violation of Flyertalk Rules & Guidelines.

With apologies to members for whom this creates an additional hurdle to their good work, we hope to work to ensure that a regular coordinated process develops to the benefit of Flyertalk members and those in greatest need.

Voting for: attorney28, Cholula, doc, gleff, missydarlin, ozstamps, ScottC, Spiff, wharvey

I presume the approval must be confirmed by a post by Randy (or someone at HOM on Randy's behalf).

The exact procedure for receiving/granting approval has not been finalized yet.
I'm confident that Randy or someone from the HOM's will clarify this soon.

I think that this decision is a good one but I do have a question of just what constitutes a charitable solicitation and at what point HOM's approval would be required.

Let me take a real-life (and very recent) example and get some feedback on it:

On August 14, I announced that I had taken down the American flag which flew in front of my house during the recent fighting here.

The next day, CHEROKEE LADY posted the following:

I said that I could not bring myself to sell the American flag to get money for myself, my kibbutz, or my own country but I do think it should serve a worthwhile purpose. I then added:

Cholula came up with what I agree is a much better idea:


With only one minor change, I accepted Cholula's idea. Monitor immediately offered the second $100 and I agreed to put in the third $100. (Yeah, I know I was paying for my own flag. I never claimed to be much of a businessman.)

The question here is at what point would this have become a TOS violation under the new rules?

CHEROKEE LADY was not asking for money, just suggesting a way to put the flag to good use. Would this be permissable?

My response, again, asked for no money and would have taken the whole thing off of FlyerTalk and put it on e-bay. Is this now allowable?

Cholula suggested keeping the fund-raising on FlyerTalk and offered the first donation. Monitor offered the second donation. At this point, were they yet in violation of the new rule?

I accepted Cholula's idea and made the third donation. Would I have been in violation of the TOS at this point?

This brought us to the time that I wrote to Randy and asked him to review what had been suggested and give his approval/input. I advised everyone not to proceed with this until we heard back from Randy. Was this enough to avoid having a TOS violation under the new rules or would the previous posts already have put us over the line?

Well since it's done and dusted, there's not much point commenting on this, so I'll ask a question instead. Is there any kind of agreed timeframe within which such requests must be responded to from the PTB? Randy is pretty busy, I'd hate to see such things not occur because he hasn't had time to answer

Randy will undoubtedly clarify this at some point but let me add my two pesos worth here.

The original suggestion from Cherokee Lady was a simple, heartfelt, unsolicited idea for you to auction the flag through eBay or on your own.
Had the conversation stopped there, I don't think we would have needed any OK from the HOM's.

But as this idea gathered some legs and escalated into more of a traditional charity event, I suggested we contact Randy before proceeding any further. But then I also had the knowledge that TB was considering this very topic.

The TB motion in Post #1 above is really not a change in the TOS. It's always been policy to have prior approval from the HOM's for all charitable events. What we declared was that even long-standing charitable events on TB would not be grandfathered and would now have to submit for approval from Randy in the future.

So, as this particular case was handled, it didn't violate the new or the old policy, IMO, as it never got out of the planning stages.

Once it looked like a charity and smelled like a charity it was put on hold pending Randy's approval.

TB's intention here was not to quash all discussion on charities but instead to take the moderator judgement calls as to what is and what isn't a qualified event and transfer that entirely to the HOM's.

Charity hasn't suddenly become a bad word around FT and I doubt Randy will ever add that word to the censorship filter.

We are just clarifying the process for gaining approval for all charitable events going forward.

Guess that was a bit more than two pesos.

Although this decision has already been made, I 'd be interested in hearing why each of the TB members voted the way they did.

Also, gleff offers on another thread that "I'll also share that I had offered a suggestion of grandfathering in certain long-standing charitable efforts that have taken place on FT over time. That suggestion didn't have the support of the TalkBoard." Were there any other amendments or suggestions regarding the motion that were considered and rejected?

Thanks!

I voted for this proposal because I think there should be some restriction on solicitation as the bulletin board could easily become one large spamfest if the umbrella of charity were opened over all "charitable" requests.

I also supported grandfathering in long-standing charities like the AIDS walk done each year by Delta employee RussAtl21 because I know these are legit charities and have a tie to FlyerTalk and travel. This motion did not pass, however.

There were no other amendments that came to a vote.

Do the other TalkBoard members agree with Cholula's assessment that the steps taken in connection with flag-selling would not have been a TOS violation under this new motion?

One other question. Before the flag issue arose, several people had questioned where they could send donations to help Israel or Lebanon. Others replied, citing specific charities (but not requesting donations).

Would this still be allowed?

No, I would have requested that Randy approve that too. My reason; while you may be a trustworthy member of the community, there has to be some kind of verification where money goes in these things, what if someone that hasn't been around as long as you does something similar, and picks a charity none of us know, or can verify? In the few cases I permitted one of these threads in a forum I moderate I checked to be sure that the charities website was a legitimate and verifiable one, sadly the world of charities has a lot of scams and frauds, and IMHO FT has a duty to protect its members from these scams.

Dovster, while those are both good questions, they are questions about moderation and not TalkBoard questions.

Our motion was that all charitable solicitations must be approved by Randy. That's the end of our involvement.

There was not an agreed time frame. It will be at Randy's discretion how the requests will be handled.

Everyone brought different ideas to the table, but for me at least, it came down to what could be enforced with the least complication, which is why I supported the motion. The list of what if's was quite long, and seemed would cause more confusion than simply requiring all requests go through Randy. I would also think that as those requests start to come through, there is room to review what sort of requests are being approved, and then append the guidelines as appropriate.

Scott, I am not certain if you are commenting on the flag question or the second one I asked.

If it is the flag question, at what point would it be a TOS violation under the new rule? Was CHEROKEE LADY's suggestion a violation? My initial response that I would donate the flag if someone wanted to sell it on e-bay to raise money for Lebanese relief? CHOLULA's suggestion that we do it on FlyerTalk and buy the flag for Randy? The $300 that was offered?

(Incidentally, I agree with you completely about the scams. I even made a warning a bit earlier in the thread about checking carefully before making any donations. That is why, after GadgetFreak provided Mercy Corps' bona fides, I decided to restrict my offer to that one organization.)

Spiff, it is not that simple. Moderators are charged with enforcing the TOS. In this case, TalkBoard made a change to the TOS and it is important that both moderators and members understand fully what that change means.

That will not only avoid unintentional TOS violations but will also ensure that this decision is applied evenly throughout FT.