General statement. While I may have quoted you, I was referring in general to others' actions.

Anyone who chooses to respond or responded to the decision to stop Omni post counts by breaking the TOS should accept the consequences of their actions and perhaps not act childishly (yup, childishly - and that is not directed to any one personally but in general to anyone who pursued this course of action) in the future when things don't go their way.

In so many words, some people decided: "I'll show Randy - I'll break the rules!" or "How dare Randy make a decision without consulting me? (Doesn't he know who I am?!?)" or "Randy, *I* am the membership and *I* am unhappy, so *you* better snap to and reverse your decision, mister!" Some folks chose to engage the TalkBoard with the latter two and got even more indignant when some members of the TalkBoard who did not agree with the concept of badgering Randy to change his mind didn't jump right up and say "Yassir! Is there any other pandering you would like me to do today?"

In my opinion, those actions merit the Teddy out of the Pram responses (thank you Jenbel! :) ) and that's why I made them. Other FlyerTalkers may react differently, but I think there's a fair number of FlyerTalkers outside the vocal minority in this thread who feel similarly.

I can't recall if I responded previously, but I believe posts in all forums should count and TOS violations should be enforced. I'm sorry the motion wasn't put forth as such.

Or, alternatively, all forums that are not miles and points related shouldn't count either.

IMHO, what has caused this to boil over is the lack of enforcement of the rules. My apologies to Randy, but someone had to say it :)

I fully support you in denouncing anyone using the above tactics. ^ Randy is very fortunate to have you watching his back.

Well, sort of. As a practical matter the posting rules are different for OMNI. OMNI wouldn't be as fun or addictive if every post needed to meet every letter of the TOS. This leniency adds value to FT, IMHO. It also means that posts in OMNI aren't equivalent in (average) value to posts in other forums. So the current policy makes sense.

IMHO anyone who is post padding for the purpose of bragging about post count is subtracting value from FT. Yes, even if the post padding occurs in OMNI. If the current policy discourages such activity, that's a benefit to all of us. There may, however, be more surgical methods to discourage post padding.

It's not even so much watching his back. It's common sense and courtesy, as well as realizing that volume/posting frequency does not necessarily translate to "what the membership wants".

Imagine someone who throws a Tupperware party with reasonable frequency has about 1000 people come over to his house. Occasionally, some of these people buy Tupperware, not all do. The host decides to change the wallpaper in the bathroom and 2 of the guests go ballistic. They go to the person who sits on the local Tupperware board of directors and tell him that he better straighten out the host - how dare he pick new wallpaper without consulting everyone? Some people liked that old wallpaper! Nevermind that some other people hated the wallpaper, many didn't care, and still others really like the new wallpaper. "I use that bathroom!" "It's the principle, damnit!", 1 person says. "I occasionally buy Tupperware or think about Tupperware in this guy's house! Nevermind what a great place it is or how there's lots of other amenities - that wallpaper change should have been run by me!"

Do you think the guy on the local Tupperware board of directors is going to tell the host "ya know, some people really think you're incapable of making decisions on your own. Why don't you put the old wallpaper back up and let the people who come to your Tupperware parties decide how you decorate your bathroom."?

Meanwhile, a couple of people (possibly the angry ones who approached the Tupperware board of directors member) decide to start using the host's kitchen as the bathroom to show their displeasure. :(

My goodness. Which one of these best describes your analogy?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fallacies

If you are going to have the Talkboard ask it's boss to reconsider himself, I might pick something a bit less, well, hammered-into-stone than a 4 year old decision which was recently affirmed and implemented.

Much less one that has zero negative consequences for Randy, and a ton of upside as time rolls on.

I'll go with "none of the above".

Do feel free to pick one or more and add further value to the discussion... ;)

I'm going to have to partially disagree with you. The posting content rules are more lenient, but I definitely remember a few people being suspended for post padding in 1 single thread one Saturday evening. The reason was post padding, not another TOS violation. I believe Randy has also said that the FT TOS apply in Omni too.

I will also differ with you about the general value of a post in all of FT. I value the information I obtained in Omni equal to the infomation I receive in Hyatt, or any of the other miles & points forums I frequent. It's simply information that I prefer to get on FT versus another board. because I feel the participants are a pretty knowlegable and well rounded group not found anywhere else. Plus, I owe the FT Legal Clinic a small fortune for their help :)

I still don't understand what are the perceived upsides of this policy decision.

I am a latecomer to this thread. Did Randy publicly announce a decision not to count OMNI posts somewhere on FlyerTalk? If so, could somebody provide me with a link.

Assuming he made this decision, I applaud it. I, for one, think it makes sense to restore an exclusive and solitary focus on posts likely made in advance of FlyerTalk's core purpose of furthering our collective understanding of "miles and points." I hope to see my aggregate post count reduced accordingly to discount an embarrassing number of OMNI posts. While I will continue to partake in the debates and discussions in OMNI going forward, I have no problem in not having my post count artificially inflated by my dalliances there.

I will avoid repeating my earlier-stated position on this matter as I believe I have discussed it ad nauseum in this thread.

The electron trail is here: http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/showthread.php?t=789784

Said best in the post below yours. But beyond that, there is no downside, except for the people who (as Spiff pointed out) chose to toss temper tantrums in other forums over it. I'd submit that's not a downside to the decision per se as it is a liability brought by those very members (which would rear it's ugly head at some point or another anyway).

FT, at it's core, is about miles and points. What Randy really ought to do is whack post counts out of everything that's not miles and points. Including this forum.

Yes, the official rules are that the TOS applies fully in OMNI. But that's not the practical reality. It's like a 55 mph speed limit sign in the middle of the desert with only one cop to patrol half the state. People tend to speed. :)

Yes, OMNI threads can be very valuable. OTOH, nobody's post count is going to change much based solely on valuable posts in those threads. People are (I assume) upset because their post count will go down a lot, and that didn't happen because they handed out detailed legal advice to thousands of people or otherwise providing high value to other members.

Speaking of which, maybe we should drop posts in this forum from the count as well. :p

Hey, I've always said that I don't care if my post count drops. It's just a number. As a matter of fact, when I was about to cross 10k posts, someone pointed it out. I had no clue.

But I've never seen any major board's off-topic post areas posts not count, nor treated like the poor stepchild of the forum. FT is unique in this regard :D

If it is truly to be only for points & miles, well, let's either get rid off all those unrelated and pesky off-topic forums, such as community and the regional areas, as well as Omni. Then counting the posts won't matter.

I have 2 gripes with this whole thing... dealing with a problem by removing a feature instead of dealing with those who cause the problem

AND

Treating Omni like a second class citizen, when it's just as valuable as any other non-miles & points forums. In some cases, it's more valuable :)

FT being only about points and miles would be dreadfully boring.

I'm for it, though. I'm for eliminating all the non-points-and-miles forums altogether, cause I'm curious as to who would remain if that happened.

Wirelessly posted (BlackBerry8700/4.1.0 Profile/MIDP-2.0 Configuration/CLDC-1.1 VendorID/102 UP.Link/6.3.0.0.0)

I agree with Mary 100 percent. This is really an enforcement issue.

Very well stated. I certainly hope someone can come up with a workable compromise. Personally, I wouldn't mind counting all OMNI posts or none of them, just as long as I don't have to count them myself. :eek: But I give Randy the benefit of the doubt because he's smart, he's kind, and he knows a lot more about FT in general and OMNI in particular than I ever will.

Oh, Mary, did you not acknowledge earlier on when referring to OMNI that "The posting content rules are more lenient..."?

Despite your comments below, OMNI is not treated by as you portray it and as you observe, actually is given special distinction not available to other members. I'd think that was more the "favored child," and the "first class citizen." Aren't those two groups more often than not given to leniency?

Just an old OMNI debate method i picked up after watching you all these years..... sorry, could not resist!

And really, I don't recall in my announcement of the change 4 years ago that it was due to members causing any problem. In fact, i thought my reasoning is that i'm still stuck in the good old days and would like to make sure that as new members come on board they are welcome and will find answers to their questions from a solid group of members who know first and foremost that we can help everyone become more knowledgeable about their travel. Only later can we help them with their legal questions, their decision to go with Sirius or XM Radio and just what does anything have to do with nothing.

Can't you for a moment just see me as i really am - a geek about the topic of miles and points and still trying to ad little harm to those who love the dialogue among members within OMNI.

If you agree with me on this one, I'll have MapleLeaf send you a picture of his visit to the House of Miles today.

I hope you don't take offense that i don't partake in the "sky is falling" information sometimes passed along here, but rather i deal more in the facts and reality department and I personally am not aware of all "the bad blood, animosity, heated barbs, extra work for MOD's deleting posts, giving warning, etc. that your recent actions have caused these past few days?"

Facts: I have only received 3 PM's at all regarding the down side of this decision, two of them were sent by the same member who i asked in another thread to write me personally. But nothing to brag about on the other side either. I have received only 3 PMs supporting my decision. To date, i have a single PM from a mod saying that despite something that volunteer read in a thread, the volunteer's experience is that it is posting as usual and the volunteer has not seen anything similar to what was described by your post. As well, the only thread among Mods in their forum is the one started in 2005 which helps Mods detect when members are making posting runs for CC or OMNI permissions, but that is nothing new and actually nothing out of the ordinary.

So, based on my personal PM/email and topic buzz among our volunteers, things rather seem normal around here. As for the heated barbs, well, i have seen some of that in the TalkBoard Topics thread, like this one, but really, haven't they ben heated bards about Virgin America forum and other topics? Again, nothing out of the ordinary here!

Hopefully everyone has gotten their excess rhetoric out, while on the playground. Let's be respectful of one another. Obviously this is a divisive subject, but it doesn't mean we can not engage like educated adults.

Attacks on one another, whether veiled or blatant will be strongly dealt with by the moderators. It is recognized this is a political forum and the rules of debate are broad, however the FT TOS are still the "Rules Of Order".

I agree 100% with mary2e's comments. very well said.

And some do not want to get vocal about it. Why doesn't someone set up a simple "Yes-Count OMNI Posts / No-Do Not Count OMNI Posts" confidential poll just to see what the general consensus of FT members really is?

I think this is an excellent idea. @:-)

Perhaps the poll should be placed in OMNI, where most FT Contributors would be sure to see it :D

First, pardon me if this has already been stated--and more succinctly--by a previous poster in this thread. I just don't have the time to go back through them all right now.

Having been a member of countless forums, and moderator to a few, here is my $.02 (not to be confused with .02 cents for those of you who work for a wireles provider :D ):

Post counts mean something to some, and absolutely nothing to others. However, as a generalization, forum members see post count as a measure of individual contribution to the forum. While not always the case, the higher the post count of the poster, the higher probability that the information being posted is of value and is correct.

Forums that, by design, cater to a specific topic--like FT--tend to want to maintain that generalized view of post counts. By counting off-topic posts that usually have very little to do with the forums originally designed content, post counts become bloated and no longer have much relevance in determing valuable contribution.

Now, I understand that "valuable" is a very relative term, and some find OMNI posts quite valuable personally. But, I think it still all comes back to the forums original design.

I wasn't around here when FT started, but I doubt it was intended to be a place to blow off steam and discuss whatever came to mind. OMNI is a part of FT, not the other way around.

So, there's my long-winded vote for not counting OMNI posts in the overall post count.

Based on the percentages of FT members who bother to vote in the Talkboard elections, it's all but impossible to get the "general consensus" of FT members.

It appears that the horse is enroute directly to the glue factory
 

so Randy has reaffirmed his current decision to enforce the decision of not counting post counts. I assume this means the TB vote & this discussion is a moot point?

Why would anyone bother to PM you when you appear to be completely set in stone with your decision? Sending you a PM would be about as fruitless as someone trying to persuade me to vote for Hillary Clinton. ;)

With Randy's recent post in ORP, how about we table this motion and try and come up with something that addresses many of the different underlying issues that can make FT a better more stable community for the long haul and so we hopefully don’t have to revisit this issue, every single year.

Otherwise, I can see it happening that in 8-10 months or so there will be another motion. This time to recommend that the OMNI posts count, again and the cycle will repeat again until we attempt to address the underlying issues. (During my research, I found that starting in 2005 it came up at least once a year in the TalkBoard forum for debate.)

I don’t know how as a community we will do it and I’m sure after I get some sleep I can come up with a bunch of ideas, but either way it should prove to be an interesting debate. :)

Let me preface what I am about to post by saying that I am one of the strongest advocates of not counting Omni posts. Indeed, I feel that no posts on the non-miles and points forums should be counted, that mods of the M&P Forums should identify threads within that forum (like the Delta Forum Lounge Thread) which should not be counted, and that all of this should be made retroactive.

I have posted all of that before and am re-posting it now only for one reason: to make it clear that what I am about to say has nothing to do with my own personal preferences on this issue.

The fact is that TalkBoard should express its opinion to what it feels is best on any issue which effects the membership and not only when Randy makes what it considers a "colossal blunder".

Nor is Randy TalkBoard's "boss". He may be the boss of the moderators who he appoints but not that of TalkBoard, which is elected by the membership.

There is a long-standing argument about how TalkBoard members should make decisions. Some FTers feel that it should reflect how a majority of posters stand on a particular issue. Others (and I am one of these) feel that TB members are elected to use their own individual judgment.

Randy has repeatedly said during TB elections that he is only one member with one vote -- and that is the way it should be. It would be a ridiculous situation to have a TalkBoard elected to advise Randy and then expect it to tell Randy only what he wants to hear. What possible good does that do for anyone (including Randy)?

TB should give Randy what it considers to be the best possible advice it can offer, even if that means telling him exactly the opposite of what he wants.

Randy, of course, is free to accept or reject that advice.

Randy created TB as his "sounding board" and, if he so chose, he could dissolve it. It's unlikely that he would, but ultimately it is his call.

That Randy permits his advisory board to be chosen by a popular vote does not alter the status of their appointment -- that they hold office at his pleasure. So, to simmer and stew over whether he's the boss of TB is fruitless. @:-)

No, TB is not a sounding board -- it is an advisory board. It does not exist to listen to what Randy is saying and then tell him how it sounds to the board members.

The membership elects TB to give Randy its point of view.

If it were to be a sounding board, then Randy should appoint all of its members, tell TB not to come up with any suggestions of its own, and only to react if and when he asks its opinion.

We have elections annually. If someone feels that TB should only tell Randy what he wants to hear, he should campaign on that:

"I will never disagree with Randy, who I consider to be my boss, and will always vote the way he wants me to."

Frankly, I doubt that anyone will get elected on such a platform but if he does at least the membership would be getting what it wanted.

That's a finely split hair.

Here are a few choice sections of the Talkboard Guidelines

So it sure looks from that like TB advises the host, provides input to the host, and is tasked with responding to requests from the host.

The host can quell any discussion that the host wants.

He can, in various ways, rig the election.

He can appoint members and extend them at will.

He can unilaterally remove a member.

He can unilaterally decide on replacements.

Now, I don't know how you define boss. When someone has the unilateral authority to hire, fire, replace, and direct the discussion of the board, most people would consider that role to be somewhat inclusive of the term "boss."

The mod thing is flamebait. Randy has all those same rights (obviously) with the moderators, with the difference being that he's decided to stick to his own judgment for their appointment rather than electing them from the body politic.


On the contrary--what possible good does it do to ask the boss to reconsider a decision that's now been made, re-affirmed, and implemented over the course of 4 years?

Which is ultimately (besides the ownership and delegated contractual stuff from IB) why he's still the boss.

There is a huge difference between what you are suggesting and what is currently happening. What's currently happening, were it repeated over different subjects over a long enough period of time, would cause most bosses to start ignoring the advisory board.

I don't think Randy would do that, because I think he's a more patient soul than most. I fail, however, to see the utility in the current motion outside of absolutely thumbing one's nose at the boss. See "A Few Good Men," the "objection sequence."

You misconstrue both the meaning and intent of TB as Randy's "sounding board." Being a two-time board member yourself, it should not come as any surprise to you that TB exists for the purpose of fulfilling the mandate spelled out in the TB Guidelines.

Because, of course, Randy permits his sounding board to be elected by the membership.

Why "should" RP appoint his advisors any way other than he likes?

He made a unilateral decision to permit the general membership to do the cherry picking for him. While you and others may not like his unilateral decisions, that's just the way it is on FT.

BTW, it's rather disingenuous to suggest that RP would ever "tell TB not to come up w/suggestions." If you can support such an assertion I would be very interested in hearing what you have to offer.

How do you feel about TalkBoard voting on new forums?

Not too long ago, Randy told the TalkBoard that he doesn't want it to approve any new forums until it comes up with a formula for establishing them.

He repeated that here, on TalkBoard Topics:

Yet almost every TalkBoard member has, since then, either demonstrated his willingness to approve a new forum and/or stated he would do so without having this formula in place.

Five of the nine members voted for the VX Forum (Cholula, Punki, lucky9876coins, Techgirl and Kokonutz).

Jenbel, when asked if she would vote for a forum absent such guidelines, said "I'm happy to continue to consider forums on an ad hoc basis." She proved true to her word when she voted in favor of the Travel Products Forum.

Bhatnasx and Spiff both voted for the Travel Products Forum, showing that they, too, will not let the lack of a formula stop them if they feel a forum is a good idea.

The only one not to vote for a completely new forum since Randy made that statement is Gleff (although he did vote to make Travel Photography into a stand alone forum). He has not stated publicly whether he would or would not vote for a new forum absent such a formula.

So here we have a case where Randy specifically said he did not want TalkBoard establishing any forums until it comes up with a formula for it. Eight of the nine members have demonstrated their willingness to vote for a forum anyhow. Randy, in turn, has accepted their recommendation and the Travel Products Forum was established.

Did they do this to "thumb their nose at the boss"? I don't think so. They did it because, in their opinions, it was the right decision. If they feel that allowing Omni posts to be counted (which, as you know, I think is a bad idea), they should let Randy know that by voting in favor of it.

Obviously, any member who feels that Omni posts should not be counted should vote against it -- but it should be based on his own beliefs, not merely to go along with what Randy believes.


But that is exactly what a "sounding board" does. It never comes up with its own suggestions -- it exists to listen to what the person in charge has in mind and gives him feedback on his ideas.

I can not say that is the case with TalkBoard because I don't agree with you that it is a sounding board. I do feel it is an advisory board, which is a different matter altogether.

I'm mostly staying out of this debate to see what others have to say - but I've stepped in once before when the motion was misrepresented, and I'll step in here and now, because the motion is being misrepresented again. The motion under consideration is not 'Should OMNI posts be counted?' - the motion is about asking Randy to reconsider his decision on whether OMNI posts should count. That's a different thing from what you have just implied it is.

Thank you for the correction, Jenbel.

In that case, the motion is an extremely silly one. Presumably Randy reconsidered his position several times already -- as recently as before making his latest post on the issue.

What TalkBoard should be doing is let Randy know what its advice on the issue is. Does it favor having Omni posts counted or not? Randy may not accept the advice but at least TalkBoard will have taken a position -- not just told him to "reconsider".