There really aren't that many North America FFPs that don't already have their own forums, and your proposed split would serve to confuse some people, because Mexico (MX) is North America, but also Latin America.

Yes please create their own forum. They clearly have the majority of the posts in the current "other" forum.

Forums about FFP/FFM however are okay by me since that's what this place is supposed to be primarily about. Isn't it?

Si, LAN should have its own forum. LAN covers three countries-- Chile, Argentina, and Peru. For that reason alone it makes sense.

I don't agree at all.

Air Berlin covers several times that many countries. So does Ryanair.

A demonstrated need in the ONASAFFP would go a lot further in convincing me than "Wouldn't it be neat if..." (WIBNI)

OK, you are asking for a demonstrated need, so I took a "snapshot", if you will, of the first page for the ONASAFFP forum. NOTE, I don't even fly LAN, just trying to provide what you are requesting. I don't even know what threshold needs to be met, or in what way it needs to be met to justify a need in your estimation. So here goes a non scientific "need" analysis.

First off, I discounted the sticky post, the Porter Airlines post that was started in Mar of 2006 (and has 1,158 posts and almost 100,000 views), and the post asking if there should be a LAN forum. (There was a second Porter post that had 5 replies and 866 views which numbers are included in the other figures given below)

That left 22 remaining posts. Of these, 8 had LAN in the title. I did not check to see if LAN was mentioned inside any others. This left 14 posts about other subjects. Using these figures, slightly over half the posts involved LAN.

Next, of the replies, other than for the discounted posts indicated earlier, there were a total of 93 replies on the 8 LAN posts. The 14 other posts had a total of 61 replies.

And finally, the views. For the 8 LAN posts, there were a total of 5,069 views while the 14 other posts had 4, 525 views.

So, where does this put one in terms of "need"? While the "snapshot" will change with every additional post, the one described here shows activity on LAN as being more than half, given the excluded posts mention. Does that meet a threshold for forum creation?

Regards

No, not really.

I did a search for "LAN" for the last year. There have been 160 threads in the last year. In the past week, there have been an average of 3-4 per day, but before that, the average was one new thread approximately every other day.

I'm sorry, but I don't think that a need has yet been demonstrated, despite the efforts of the past week.

I'm certainly willing to reconsider this issue in the future, should this motion not pass. It does not currently have my support.

I don't really think these have been "efforts" but rather, the natural progression of LAN's development.

i really don't get the point why the TB members have a problem in creating new forums - especially when there is at least some traffic for one specific airline. (about 0.4 of all threads on the last pages are dedicated to LAN).

it is just a few minutes configuration time to set it up and adds just one more forum within the airline programs section which already contain 47 forums. for me it doesnot make any difference whether there are 47 forums or 50 or 70.

btw, if there is need for a moderator - i would volunteer ...

More forums further fragment FlyerTalk, in my opinion.

You can apply here if you're interested in volunteering anywhere on FT.

I'm not quite convinced of the "coincidence" of increased traffic. This scientist wants a larger sample space.

Here's the best part: these TBers don't have any quantitative demonstration of "need" that they can give you. It's all judgment call. So one will say "yep, that's enough need" and another will say "nope, not enough need," and you're left guessing as to what the magic number is.

Moved by kokonutz and seconded by Cholula:

that the Talkboard recommend the creation of a LAN forum.

Yes 4 44.44%
bhatnasx, Cholula, kokonutz, skywalkerLAX

No 5 55.56%
gleff, lucky9876coins, Markie, nsx, Spiff

Abstain 0 0%
Voters: 9.

Per the TalkBoard Guidelines, a motion shall pass if two-thirds of TalkBoard members participating in that vote vote �yes.�

I've already stated that I refuse to use such a magic number as such metrics only encourage post padding and junk threads, in my opinion.

If you each could explain your positions (Spiff's is already known), that would be great. Thanks. ^