Jenbel

Because everytime we let a forum which fails remain open, it gets harder and harder to give new forums a chance to succeed.

Nice to see an unfamiliar poster posting in here!

opushomes

Even sitting in Santiago, Chile waiting for an airplane, I see no value to this forum. As one of the originators of the idea pointed out, I am older than her, My opinion has not changed from that expressed before the forum became an official FT one.

A vaca muerta is still a dead cow.

NickB

It is not just that. There is also an issue about information dissemination and production. Multiplying an infinity of minuscule fora makes it actually more difficult to find information.
If I have fifty items and I try to organise them, putting them in perhaps ten boxes of related items will make my finding them easier. If I put them in 40 boxes, it largely defeats the purpose of having boxes to organise the items in the first place.
With fora, it is not just information retrieval which is hampered by excessive dispersion. It is also information production: if a forum is only regularly frequented by a handful of individuals, there is only the collective knowledge of that handful of individuals to be tapped into whereas in a larger group, you have a greater pool of knowledge to use. To be sure, quality can somewhat compensate for quantity or even more than compensate in some cases, but only up to a point. You surely need a critical mass of contributors and posts for a forum to be viable as a repository of information on a topic.

Now, all of this does not make sense if what we are talking about is not aimed at producing and exchanging knowledge but rather to provide a cyberplace for similarly minded/interested individuals to hang out together. But if that is the sole or overwhelming purpose, then why not create a social group instead, which seems a much more apt tool for that purpose?

That said, as a number of others have already pointed out, it may be premature at this stage to come to a decision without giving the forum some more time to establish itself although, I must say, the beginnings do not augur well at all in terms of traffic.

Spiff

No, thank you.

That just encourages junk threads and post-padding.

tcook052

No doubt as will this thread spur a sudden increase in participation on the forum in question...

Jenbel

And if it doesn't, we really know no-one cares about it!

I don't think there is actually anyone on here (maybe Hunki?) who has spoken up to say 'I use it and I don't want it to go'. That's in marked contradiction from the Religious Travellers forum, whereby we had a lot of members who said they used it, even though there were very few posts in it and most of them didn't actually post in it - which I'm still trying to work out how that works btw.

Instead, the criticism seems to be that it needs time. Well, it might do, but with so few/no people willing to speak up for it... then no amount of time we give it is going to make any difference whatsoever, if no-one actually values the forum or uses it.

ClueByFour

Yup. Boldly predicted by the OP .

ozstamps

What grandeloquence fluffery.

Here is the last 30 days of posts in the Dollar Rental Car forum.

Are you and Clue moving to close that lame dog?

Of course not. No political point scoring possible with Dollar. @:-)

http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/forum...&daysprune=100

Glen

Jenbel

If you want to raise the idea of closing Dollar, then I suggest you do so in a separate thread - a working link would help too.

Spiff

Perhaps you'd care to start a new thread calling for closure of the Dollar Rental Car forum? We're discussing the closure of the Senior Travel forum in this thread.

bhatnasx

Not arguing Oz's points, but one difference, IMHO, is that one's a program based forum & the other is a special interest program. I'd have a harder time closing a program based forum than a special interest forum.

ozstamps

No thanks.

This is just a discussion - it is not a motion that has been made. Correct?

Please add removing DISABILITY and DOLLAR, or else it will be evident to all that this is simply cheap political grandstanding going on - as is much of TB activity in recent times.

All are equally valuable or worthless .. you can't selectively pick one or the other and be seen as impartial and even handed. Dump the lot.

None of the TB has the political backbone to call for the removal of DISABILTY TRAVEL which is why you do not want to bundle this in.

Or maybe you do .. over to the TB. I know where my money is on this one. @:-)

Glen

Jenbel

Ok, my thoughts on your suggestions:

Disability - no. It's filling a small, but highly critical need very nicely. Of the special forums this is one which is probably the most critical, since disabled travellers can face some of the largest obstacles to overcome when travelling, and often require specialist advice.

Dollar - possibly. Seems to show slow use, and IME, it's not a widely recognised name outside the US. Not many threads, and most threads only have a few responses, so I could see an argument for merging that back in with 'other'. I would suggest that if you are serious about this as an idea, and not just using it as a defence for a forum you have never posted to, open up a new discussion thread.

Seniors - it just hasn't worked. There is no evidence to suggest that it is going to take off, as the rate of posting has gone down and down and down. I've just done some more number crunching on the forum, and there are only 9 members who have more than 5 posts in the forum - and two of those are responsible for about 30% of all posts made in the forum. Two people using it isn't a forum - that's a conversation.

ozstamps

NONE of them have worked. Freddy the blind man can tell you that.

Ditch the LOT or none at all, or else be branded as a political opportunist. By me anyway.

Interesting you take the time to do "number crunching" on this, yet earlier this week point blank refused to do exactly the same on YOUR motion re Mileage Run Forum.

Why?

IMHO - as the numbers for that simply did NOT stack up, despite you making a TB motion without doing any number crunching whatever - by your own admission.

Double standards .. HEAVENS NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Glen

NickB

Why do you feel the need to investigate what goes in the mind of any TB member? Either a proposal put forward has merits or does not have merits. What we are interested in is the proposal being put forward.
Whether what mother Teresa did was a good thing or a bad thing is entirely unrelated as to whether she did it because she was egocentric and hungry for fame or humble and animated by a desire to serve God. That might be relevant to determining whether she was a good person or a bad person but tells us nothing as to whether what she did was a good thing or a bad thing.
Similarly, we are not interested in this thread in finding out whether Jenbel or any other TBer or FTer is a good or bad person or what goes on in the depths of the recesses of their mind. We are interested in the merits of keeping the Seniors forum open or closed.