TR Forum Feedback Request
 

Fellow Trip Reports lovers we come to you seeking your thoughts on the Trip Reports forum.

Of late we have noticed that the TR forum usage is changing. Your mods would like your feedback on how you feel about this.

How do feel about threads that simply links to blogs/sites?
Do you think the report should be hosted on FT?
Should a trip report contain a transport element or can they simply be a city or attraction report?

We are seeking your opinions on this and if there is sufficient desire to make changes we will post a poll offering options.

Please help us shape the TR forum by posting your thoughts here or feel free to PM us.

Moomba & Swanhunter
Moderators: Trip Reports

I prefer trip reports to be hosted on FT rather than having threads that link to blogs but this is probably just me being a bit picky. :rolleyes:

I don't read reports that focus on cities but I have no problem if other people want to read them.

I have great admiration to everyone who contributes to this forum. It is one of my personal favourites and whilst I often struggle to set aside the time to document my own trips, I appreciate those who do. Authoring a trip report is mammoth endeavour in its own right so I think it is important to acknowledge the immense value reports add to FlyerTalk.

I would encourage hosting all reports on FT. One of my favourite writers, mitzyli hosted her enchanting reports on her personal blog site. These witty and tremendously useful travelogues are now sadly lost in the ether. Of course, the major benefit of hosting reports on FT is that it allows researchers to use the search tool to find them.

Another vote for TRs that are hosted on FT. Perhaps I'm just old and used to the good old FT format.
IMO, while a few of the outside blogs/sites are attractive and well organized (jlisi984's is one that comes to mind), most of them are not.

This is one of my favorite forums. It is an excellent combination of interest, information, humor, and generally all-round entertainment.

I get irritated at having to link to a report on another blog, particularly when it's not nearly as legible as here. Likewise, it's annoying to have to link to flickr or wherever to see photos.

I prefer there to be a transport element. I wonder if cities and attractions could be hived off into a separate (sub)forum?

One area where a useful change could be made is photos. Sometimes these are too wide to fit on any except the largest monitors, necessitating scrolling back and forth to read all text on the page, even in posts which do not contain photos. Sometimes they are too deep to fit on any except the largest monitors, once you have allowed for taskbars, etc, at top and bottom. Both of these are problems when on the road with a small laptop or netbook.
My suggestion is that there be a limit on the size of photos that can be posted, as happens on other blogs/forums. If this is unduly limiting on grounds of quality, then (as in some other blogs) a facility so that when you click on the photo you can see it at a larger size or higher resolution.

I am always disappointed when a post leads to an offsite page. I have no good explanation for why, but that is how it is for me...

I think there should be a subforum for these linked reports; we should not ban them entirely though.

I recently started writing trip reports. I considered writing them on my blog because that would have given me more freedom of design. For example, one of the limitation I found on FT was the number of photos on a post, which would not have been a problem had I used my blog.

At the same time, I realized that if people come to this blog, is because they want to read the material here, otherwise they would just google 'trip reports'. I believe, that in some way, people know that a trip report here is impartial and generally relates to the aviation industry, which is not guaranteed when we go to trip reports on other websites.

And that's why I decided to publish my trip reports on FT. And with all that speech, all I wanted to say is that I also vote for trip reports on FT.

One of the exceptions to the rule would be video reports on YT, although I wondered if those videos could be embedded on this website.

While I agree about preferring trip reports being hosted on FT, I would rather have a link to the outside site as opposed to nothing at all. I realize it must take a long time to post a report on both FT and Airliners.net, for example.

I do wish people would give an accurate description of the report as the title. It helps a lot with searching and knowing what you will get when you click. Also, saying if there are pictures is always good.


But mostly, I am very grateful when people take the time to write us a trip report.

The Importance of Good Formatting and Content
 

What I really appreciate is a well-formatted report that the author has obviously put a lot of time into creating. If the content is good I do not mind where or how it is hosted. Forced report hosting on flyertalk might be a deterrent in my opinion, as it requires the author to make time consuming technical adaptations/tweaks to host their report for each online aviation enthusiast/frequent flier forum.

Unless the trip reports are on a blog I do not read already, I do not read it. I have no particular problem with people doing it—I just won't read it. Same with video reports. I won't watch them, but that is my choice.

As for the content, some sense that a journey is taking place is enough. I enjoy ones that focus purely on the transportation the most, but I do also subscribe to some that are more focused on the location.

In the end, I guess I am saying the status quo is working fine, if only there was encouragement for people to post trip reports here over their own blog.

Hi,

even I am more on reading here then writing, I would love if the reports will be hosted here.

Btw thanks to all writers here!

It would be a shame if we didnt have city / location reports as well as the flying section of the report.
I have gained useful information which has influenced my choice of location.

I have tried to give some comment on the places ive stayed, indeed in one case the OP commented that it had given him food for thought.

Without this element of the trip reports, i would not enjoy reading them as much.

As for other blogs, i do click over to them if the title is of interest, the decision on whether to read them is based primarily on the content, but also how easy they are to read.

I also do not watch video reports.

This is one of the ft areas that I enjoy coming to. I love travel and seeing new places or reading about them. Its great that people take the time and trouble to make the effort needed to make them special.

Some trips, for health reasons, I will never be able to take. But there are also wonderful trip reports to cities that I have been to. I still enjoy reading about them as well. Their views, the weather when they were there and how its changed since I have been. Everywhere is slowly changing as peoples needs and life cycles happen.

I am not too happy that some link their trip reports onto a blog or somewhere else. FT is a safe site, nearly 99.5% of the time and I dont like opening some sites. You dont know if they have a virus or something. I am sure everything is safe, but I usually come on here when I am tired or wanting to escape from my world for a bit. I dont want any more problems.

I dont mind links to hotels or sites etc. Google does work well, bu sometimes it gets lost in translation.

As for videos. There are vids from the plane. For some reason I enjoy them. It reminds me of better times. But I wouldnt at the moment watch a whole report on video. Compalints about noise in a hotel should be on video though.

I do like to read about cities. People often do different sights that I might have forgotten about. Or they go to certain food places that I thought were no turns out in fact they are a wonderful. Hotels and how people find their stays there is often very helpful.

It also helps to research cities especially when you travel with other people and have to take into account their needs. Cities is where we end up when we travel there. So I feel actually really strongly that city info should be included by people, if they can.

But, thank to everyone who has written a trip report on here. I do personally really enjoy reading them.

Indeed.

I don't mind reports that don't contain a destination report but they do add a little extra to the overall story. I also enjoy reading reports taken by road,rail or water as well....they tend to be the most interesting ones.

I've posted my feelings before on the subject of those who just post links to their blogs or other sites etc. They get a big :td: from me and should be discouraged.

Maybe the ones that are Blog links could have BLOG LINK in their titles so those that don't want to visit blogs don't waste their time clicking? There could also be a blog guide that people could consult if they wanted info on a specific thing.

Personally I like the non-transport content of TRs and I think this can be very useful; I tried to make my TR as informative as possible for anyone who might want to follow in my footsteps. Maybe people could be encouraged to post an intro paragraph about what the TR actually contains?