Are there any forums that are underperforming and need to be - ahem - cleaned up?
 

Based on the suggestion of a poster (ok, it was Jenbel!) I am wondering if there are any forums that posters feel are under-performing and whose posts might be better addressed in a broader-category forum.

In other words, are there forums that need to go?

Any and all input welcome! :)

You could start with any or all in the Discontinued Programs/Partners section, with virtually no posts since 2005.

And which is the most redundant? Step forward Westin Premier - nothing since 1999. :p

Would any of us miss these?

Cuba should be merged into the Caribbean. I've never understood why it's the only Caribbean island with its own forum.

I'm not sure they are necessarily 'under-performing' but the two Korean airlines are pretty slow forums. I can't help but wonder if they'd get a better result if merged into an 'Airlines of Korea' forum?

Or to other asian australian south pacific frequent flyer programs

+1

Might I make a further suggestion which may fall into TB's clean-up process?

Several airline and hotel forums are inconsistent or incomplete in the way they are presently titled. Most include the requisite Airlines/Airways suffix, others don't. Also, BD and VS programme titles are listed in entirely in lower case. With IC Hotels, there is confusion in the forum title whether a hyphen exists between Inter and Continental.

For example (and by no means an exhaustive list)...

Airline Programs
American AAdvantage = American Airlines AAdvantage
bmi diamond club = bmi Diamond Club
Continental OnePass = Continental Airlines OnePass
Delta SkyMiles = Delta Air Lines SkyMiles
JetBlue TrueBlue = JetBlue Airways TrueBlue
Southwest Rapid Rewards = Southwest Airlines Rapid Rewards
United Mileage Plus = United Airlines Mileage Plus
Virgin flying club = Virgin Atlantic Flying Club

Hotel Programs
InterContinental Hotels: Priority Club & Inter-Continental Ambassador = InterContinental Hotels: Priority Club & InterContinental Ambassador

Please, no
 

I submit that they would not.

These small forums are nicely organized as they are. If you want information about one airline/program or the other, you go there. And you don't have to wade through information about another program that you have no interest in. I believe very few people go in search of knowledge about 'airlines based in Korea.'

Additionally, combining these two forums into a single forum now would ruin the information currently contained in each. You wouldn't know which airline the thread pertained to.

Fundamentally, so what if these aren't busy forums? They're extremely helpful to the people who use them. When you find yourself flying a relatively obscure airline (to you) that you know nothing about, it's a godsend to be able to go to a forum devoted to that airline.

I truly hope this doesn't turn into a frenzy of consolidation of existing program forums (especially if it's just in the interest of the TB 'doing something.') I feel strongly the members would not be served by doing so. The forums work. They're small, but they work. TalkBoard members, please don't ruin that.

Totally agree with AZ ^ Great assessment. Thanks.

From what I read in the last week or so, some would suggest this forum. :p

Agree. The number of recent threads at a glance seems small.

But by that argument, we should have forums for all airlines, no matter how small. And I do think that would be madness - for example, I have flown 15-20 airlines in my life time, some major and some very obscure. I would not follow all of the airlines I have flown, and yet I could answer questions on them. While it makes sense to have separate forums where there are sufficient flyers to breath life into a forum, it doesn't if there are only a handful of people who would regulalry use that forum, but where the pool of people who could answer questions on that airline is larger - hence the rationale for regional based 'other' boards. Someone based in Europe is likely to have flown a number of different airlines, and be able to answer questions which come up for several of them.

And so, my thought of merging the two Korean airline forums. There is likely to be a degree of crossover in users of the two forums - add them together and you may get a synergistic effect, since there will be some common discussion points for two airlines which operate out of the same hub. Merging them together may actually be beneficial for both programmes, since attention is not divided between two forums, and those who favoured one or other forum may be able to answer questions on the other airline. The Airlines of India forum is working well, and the Hawaiian airlines forum has been in existence for years, and I haven't seen too many complaints about them being shared forums. In fact, a member was remarking to me the other day how well Airlines of India was working.

This isn't about doing something because TB has to do something. Reviewing has been discussed at several points over the last few years (and indeed, in my time on TB I did a reasonable amount of analysis of forum statistics to see what was going on within the forums), but nothing ever really gets done about it... precisely because as soon as you start to discuss it, it gets very emotional. There's a real status thing about airlines having their own forums, which we've really got to get over. If a slightly different system (such as the Airlines of India type paradigmn) seems to have some advantages over one airline=one forum, then why should it be ignored simply because some occasional users want to be able to have a forum devoted to that airline on the odd occasion they want to use it? I mean, we make mega threads in other forums and expect occasional users to be able to wade through them ('just read backwards') looking for the information... it seems a bit contradictory!

If this suggestion is taken seriously, then the first thing to do is actually consult the forum users and see what they want to do. They might like the idea, they might not like the idea. But really, until that happens, all the other conjecture is just that.

Anybody want some popcorn? ;)

I think it's a loooong journey between "leave the two Korean forums as they have always been" and "every airline needs its own forum".

Whatever you do, if you start combining airline fora, MAKE SURE IT'S DONE CONSISTENTLY.

I have already noted like 3 times the fact that "Airlines of India" and "Hawaii-based Airlines" don't help with navigation. Nobody seems to have taken any notice.

Maybe when combining OZ and KE, you'll title the forum "Hub ICN: Airlines with a base in Seoul" or something similarly distinct, just for kicks!

Moreover, again we've said before that FB contains UX and KQ. Same with Onepass and CM. Not only aren't they included in the forum titles, but, unless I'm having a serious memory lapse, I'm sure I've seen moderators moving threads about them to the "Other" threads. If the structure is too complex for moderators to understand, imagine what it does to a newbie.

I actually requested the previous talkboard to create a new subforum for the non-AF/KL FB flotsam and jetsam but that was slapped down. You'd think when both long-time moderators of a forum ask for a simple procedural housekeeping matter like that to be seen to, it would be without having to go through a political cage match. You'd be wrong.

Discontinued Programs
 

I agree with getting rid of the discontinued programs/forums. As somebody who oftentimes accesses FT through my Blackberry less is definitely more and saves all of the scrolling time. May sound like a "little" thing to the powers that be; but to those of us who use mobile so often it really would be nice to cut all of those discontinued programs out of the forums. They could be archived to the backup server if they need to be kept for auditing purposes.

In my research about certain Mid-East airlines during the time that a forum was advocated forr QR, it appeared that tthe numbers for ssupport and traffic / questions in the forum were an effect of membership of an alliance (or in QRs case, being able to credit QR miles to *A carriers).

On this logic, I can see a lot of people who supported QR'ss secession to its own forum, appeal for OZ to keep its own-forum status, because it's a piece of the *A redemption puzzle. FTers come and stay here for status, miles and points and that's the crux of the forum organisation, IME.

As another *A person, still with miles to burn, I'd urge you to consider forums along alliance lines.

If an individual airline is not dealing with the alliance, then off with the gloves.
If it's dealing with the three alliances in terms of useful benefits for FTers, hands off! :p

(Otherwise, BA/BD would need to be merged into a LHR-based airlines forum. Just kidding.)

This comes up again and again. Getting rid of the forums would be bad in that you'd lose all of the posts.

Getting rid of the list of the discontinued forums in the drop-down box at the bottom of every page would be reasonable.

I'm a little confused as to how discontinued forums could effect use on your mobile. I too access FT from my iPhone and can't duplicate how discontinued forums makes any difference. Here's the link for the mobile access:
http://mobile.flyertalk.com/

You click the 'Browse the Forum,' then 'Miles&Points' then whatever you are looking for but you never have to go through any list that is effected by the discontinued programs list.

Now, i did see a comment and suggestion about eliminating these programs from the drop-down list and i think that may be a possibility with vB and I'll go attempt that right now as i too agree it does not need to be there, but the mobile version, i just don't see how it could interfere?

Update: I have removed 'discontinued programs' from the drop-down menus. As well, I have removed the archives of past years TalkBoard election debates from the same drop-down menus. Those remain in the general navigation, but not the jump menus. Hope this helps as well. Thanks for the wonderful suggestion and it does make sense. Who the heck needs the TalkBoard debate transcripts from 2005 in their current jump navigation. Thanks for making us smarter today!

Thanks, Randy!

Perhaps the iPhone acts differently than my BB; but I know that when I try to access FT via the BB it entails quite a bit of scrolling. I have had others also try this via the BB and they have the same "complaint". Have not tried the download for the mobile FT.

....Talkboard!! ;)

Excellent move. Thanks.

IMHO, the real value of the TBT forum is to get people thinking about how to do things better. Once in a while a great idea, seemingly obvious in retrospect, appears. Kudos to Randy for jumping on this one.

The TalkBoard is supposed to handle those cases where some people prefer things one way and some prefer them another way. In those cases I greatly prefer to find a consensus solution if there is one to be found. If there is not solid support for a proposal, I don't believe in spending the TalkBoard's collegiality on a formal vote. It's better to wait for the new idea that will have unanimous or at least very strong support. If this gives the impression that the TalkBoard is dodging contentious issues, so be it. We really are trying to find solutions, but we don't always succeed.

Note: it is not a download. The system for mobile is on the end of the server. You simply have to direct your FT experience to the mobile.flyertalk.com URL.

Try accessing via this URL and let me know. Thanks.

The discontinued US/HP forums no longer seem to serve any purpose. Perhaps its time to move them to the discontinued forum or re-merge with the new US forum?