I do hope you are right.... :D

I saw this thread awhile ago, intended to reply awhile ago, but travel and making sure I properly convey my thoughts and feelings about this.

I have strong feelings about the UA Forum, for many reasons. UA is my primary choice in airlines, and I have seen a lot in that forum to comment on.

I am all for the divided forums. It would make things a LOT easier to reference. Clearly, there will be ambiguity on which subject goes where, but with the biggest traffic around, it does make a lot of sense.

Now the part where I'm going to make a lot of enemies.

With a few exceptions, I think the UA Forum is, as a whole, unfriendly. It comes over this way by what some people say in posts and as if some people thrive on pointing out the "noob" factor of fellow, usually new, FTers (whether it's a question which answer is commonly known, or someone not knowing UA or Star Allaince rules and/or terminology). And if someone creates a thread that has been discussed before, look out. Frankly, it sometimes reminds me of Ogre and the locker room scene in "Revenge of the Nerds" screaming out "NEEERRRRRRRRRRDS!"

Even as a 1K MM, I avoid making posts in the UA Forum, and I feel bad for it. Mostly because I have learned a lot by the good eggs in that forum. I don't feel comfortable to consistently post in there due to being attacked by other FTers for my opinion and a seemingly arbitrary policy of moderating in the forum.

I think the UA Forum would benefit from not only a new structure in dividing the forums, but taking it all a step further.

In addition to creating the divided forums, let's make what is done already in the UA Forum a regular thing. Create a sub-forum for new threads, and let the moderators move the new thread in the appropriate thread, and lock out the divided forums to new threads, but open to replies in existing threads. Moderators can also do what is done already if the need for merging into already existing threads is there.

By doing this, it should take the edge and uncomfortable feeling some people get, like myself, in posting in the UA Forum. And again, all in the guidelines as to what is done with regularity right now in the forum.

I don't fly much. But when I do, I mostly fly UA. I've learned a ton from UA Forum over the years.

Friendliness or unfriendliness of a forum has nothing to do with the forum structure per se. It has to do with the forum participants/frequents. FT may have 10 subfora under UA, but that wouldn't make UA Forum 10 times friendlier.

You probably didn't get the chance to experience the "old" AA Forum. Otherwise you wouldn't think UA Forum is unfriendly. :p

This is nothing new on FT. It happens not just in UA Forum. There are always people, newbies or not, asking questions that have been answered thousands times by starting new threads. I doubt subfora are the answers.

1. If moderation is the issue, subforum is not the way to address it.
2. If "bad" manners are the problems, subforum can't make people behave any differently.
3. If posters are holding back because others might disagree with them, there's nothing we can do about it.

I doubt this is a step-further solution.

What you are proposing is mods to be on the lookout 24/7 and screening every single new thread on UA. How does it make things better? :confused:

I agree some FTers are more direct or "rude", but that's life. Online or not, there are rude people everywhere. The sad thing is as long as they don't violate FT TOS, there's nothing mods can do about it.

You can't change the human factor by creating subforums.

OTOH, I also see a few "old timers" in UA (& AA) Forum that are tiredlessly answering the same questions for the million+1 time. They are always polite and welcoming. I don't expect every FTer to be as nice. I can try my best to be polite, factual and informational in my replies.

The bottom line is I fail to see what's broken in UA Forum. Leave it the way it is.

ETA:
LessO2, there are other folks sharing similar things like you in this thread. Even though I might seem to reply only to your post, I am actually using it to make my points. Please don't take it too personally.

Actually, we've seen since the days of usenet that a forum tends to become harsh when the number of active participants gets beyond some number, somewhere between 100 and 1000, depending on the skill and diligence of the moderators. Reducing the number of active participants by subdividing a forum could indeed make the difference between a friendly forum and an unfriendly one.

I think the UA forum would be helped by having a decent FAQ sticky (BMI's FAQ is excellent).

Many of the repetitive posts are asking the same question as there are not clear answers without thread trawling. Also threads started iyears ago with 1000's of replies are hardly user friendly.

voice of nelson:

haha!

(in a round-a-bout way, I suppose).

:D

Yes, I know, not really my proposal, but what the hey ...

-David

Credit where it's due: nice call! ^

:)

And best of all, now my favorite FT forum has The Penalty Box, aka, the OMNI where the posts actually count. ^