Dovster

I can guarantee you this had nothing to do with F/T being sold. Randy did not ask us not to take this action before the sale nor did he ask to take the action after the sale.

To the best of my knowledge Randy has no position on this issue one way or the other.

It actually has come up in the past but recently the situation has become more and more acute, with a tremendous number of posts being made in various Omni games and threads such as "Countdown from 100,000".

(One poster has 10,032 posts in that thread alone -- more than half of all his FT posts -- and posts there consist only of entering a single number.)

wharvey

Did the Talkboard talk about whether they would consider other "non-travel" forums to not count? I know that Coupon Connection posts do not count... what about others?

I think this is a great start.... and I totally agree with being retroactive. Otherwise, post counts will still be "over inflated" and send the wrong message to certain members.

Good Work!

wharvey

I would have actually not "grandfathered" people in. Seems like those 600+ people could do with contributing on other parts of Flyertalk.

Now, I do not want to see people just post padding to get access back... but seems like - if the board truly agrees with Randy that OMNI is an earned benefit - we should not be "giving" it away to people who have not qualified.

Just a thought!

Mary2e

How about a different solution?

I seem to remember a few years ago it was necessary to remove the game threads because it was thought they were slowing down or causing some issue with the way the site was running.

The act of pulling the thread immediately dropped everyone's post count who posted there. I guess it was the equivalent of deleting the thread.

When it was put back the post counts did not return.

Wouldn't it be just as easy to simply pull those threads in where people have thousands of posts and then put them back?

This might be easier than having to deal with exceptions and grandfathering.

Or, better yet, the easiest of all would be to remove the evangelist title all together.

Dovster

Early on in the discussions, I posted the following on the private forum: "If we are going to remove them, I would go a step further and remove all Omni, Newstand, and TS&S posts."

However, as Cholula noted in the other TalkBoard Topics thread:

"Dov would prefer to include a lot more non-travel forums than just OMNI.

However, there is scant support for this among the current TB Members."




If I recall correctly, the posts were not re-credited because the original game thread was never put back. Instead, it was started up again. Besides, it as cblaisd posted on the other thread, "There was one poster today who, in the previous 22 hours, had posted more than 500 times, often once a minute, in one of the OMNI "count" threads." It seems to me that at that rate HOM would be doing nothing but pulling threads and putting them back.

Grandfathering is not a problem according to HOM and as far as the "Evangelist" title is concerned, that is not the only issue. The contention of many posters (and, as I said, I really don't know if it is right) is that seeing a high post count under a member's name lends credence to the belief that he is more familiar with travel, points, and miles than another poster would be.

If that is the case, then it holds true with or without the "Evangelist" title.

GUWonder

There are top-tier members of frequent flyer programs who know very little -- or even incorrect things -- about the programs which they heavily use. If people can't discern between a well-informed frequent flyer and a not-so-well-informed frequent flyer of even that sort, I doubt this is going to "help" them either.

Personally I think this motion -- and the votes on it -- has less to do with "helping" FTers understand the meat and potatos of travel than it has to do with other, more personal things.

[For example, ego, opinions about other FTers, relative appearance, etc.]

Dovster

Please be kind enough to inform me what those "far more personal things" are.

I really do not know but I think the odds are very good that considerably more than half of my posts are in Omni. My TalkBoard term is up in November and I probably will have no title under my name if this is approved.

GUWonder

Is there going to be a vote about which threads in OMNI such motions/procedures apply?

GUWonder

See prior post, where the answer to your question is now more explicit (by way of an edit).

Dovster

Sorry, but even with that edit it makes little sense to me. You posted "[For example, ego, opinions about other FTers, relative appearance, etc.]"

Again, I will be one of the members whose post count will drop heavily (even though I do not generally post in any of the Omni game threads). So how would that help my ego or my relative appearance? As far as my opinion of other FTers is concerned, that is based on what they post, not how many times.

RichMSN

Bingo.

I fly one airline and stay with one hotel chain. I'd come here 10% as often as I do without "fun" places to go like TS&S, TravelBuzz, OMNI, and CommunityBuzz. But since OMNI exists, I always look in on the Northwest forum every time I come. It keeps me coming back.

But OMNI is definitely looked down upon officially and unofficially and there is a significant subset of FT (my opinion only) that look down upon those that post in and enjoy OMNI.

I applied to be a moderator in the airline forum I frequent. I was told I was not a good candidate because more than a certain percentage of my posts are in OMNI, regardless of the tone or content of those posts.

So I'm sorry to see members of the current TalkBoard, especially Dov, line up with this line of thinking. I still think that a post in Omni giving Rachel career advice is more valuable than the 400th thread complaining about children in an aircraft or the 6,000th thread complaining about people pulling on a seat.

But hey, just keep picking on OMNI. It is an easy target, after all.

GUWonder

Your agenda is your own, were you to vote in favor of this motion (besides advancing it as a motion).

I don't claim to read your mind about what motivates your opinion on this matter, but I think a lot of the opinions on this matter are a product of what I noted earlier.

Dovster

I do not look down upon those whose post in and enjoy Omni (assuming, of course, that they always share my opinion on every possible subject). In fact, I think you are very well aware that I am one of those who post in and enjoy Omni (and I have the advantage of agreeing with myself on every possible subject).

I do, however, accept that Omni contributes almost nothing to the travel knowledge of FT.

Personally, I think the same is true of TS&S (which is basically a "Let's dump on the TSA today" forum); Newstand (an Omni-in-Training); Community Buzz (really a "happy birthday" and "let's meet" forum); and the Lounge threads (social clubs).

This doesn't mean that they are all worthless. I post in all of them regularly -- but they are not contributing much to travel knowledge. If we are not going to count Omni posts, I would prefer not counting posts in any of those either -- but that would guarantee TB's failure to pass this motion.

(BTW, I think the odds are somewhat against TB passing it anyhow, but that is just a guess.)

GUWonder

Picking on OMNI and people who post on OMNI seems to never get old.

I haven't accessed OMNI in a couple of years (i.e., since then just have some posts there from when the threads get "banished"), and yet without OMNI being around for my earlier days, I'd never have gotten around to contributing 10,000+ posts to the travel forums either. And a lot of people "from OMNI", including those with whom I routinely disagree/disagreed there, have contributed substantially to maximizing my travel experiences -- so that angle of OMNI-bashing won't come from me.

GUWonder

I strongly disagree with the above item. OMNI is the "sugar" (or "feces") that attracted/retained certain travel bugs (or flies) enough to keep them around to help improve my travel experiences and maximize the miles & points game. Much the same can be said for the other threads you noted above too.