I see a major problem in some members' thinking (sorry, if I am being to bold). I have read this many times.
The concept is that a good Flyertalk member has to be a 'giver' and not just a 'taker.' This is just not true.
Some people post. Some post a lot. Some post (what I may refer to as) dribble, while others post fantastic information.
Other Flyertalk members just read. They don't post much. And it must be ok. If no one read people's posts, we'd really be in trouble... posting for no reason whatsoever.
Flyertalk has many uses. One is to use the information laid in previous posts. Another is to contribute, if one chooses to do so.
If people want to make judgement on who is a 'good' or 'worthy' FT member, that is fine. But when they take it out on new posters with a snarky attitude, then I think it's all of our business. In fact we have a responsibility at that point to let the offending member know that voicing their opinion in this fashion is not acceptable.
THE BUCK SHOULD STOP HERE.
I think that if TB were to pass an amendment to the TOS suggesting that posts stating "go search" or characters that don't add to the conversation be deleted, members would RBP posts like that. Right now, I would guess most don't, because they won't be deleted.
I like the thinking. If the snarkiness won't go away, let's target their keywords. In a word.... "Brilliant!"
If I am planning to say travel to Washignton Dc or London I would go and look at the destinations thread to get information....so its natural to want to do research on by reading past threads before I post a question on What hotels are good in x location of the city....it would be good to have a thread on hotels.
If I am not familiar with the hotels there I am not going to know what chains are located there.
This is a perfect example of how the future of bulletin boards should be. ONE THREAD which can be viewed in MORE THAN ONE FORUM. It's just database management. It can't be difficult to produce (I know, let me have it now...).
Know that this thread has just turned me OFF as a person who has posted regularly here for 10+ years--for what it's worth. I mean, c'mon people... listen to yourselves!
I have just unsubscribed from this one. Enjoy it!
If you can't stand a healthy discussion, then the right move is to unsubscribe. Flyertalk has many of these type of discussions, but most of them are in private forums. I think it's very healthy for this type of debate to take place amongst the whole membership. There is no need for every thread to have an action point or solution. But the discussion and involvement of all, for all to see, is something we should promote, not back away from.
It's just a healthy discussion.
Sorry to burst your bubble. This idea of cross-posting isn't new. Last time it was suggested, we were told it's not technically possible on FT that runs on the vBulletin software platform.
Blog is one to multitude, FT is an arena in which, hopefully, everyone should feel free to contribute without being bulled or subtly criticized.
Many tend to forget that partecipants are not ALL native english speakers, therefore the dialectic is not necessarily sharp as others, leading in some case to frustration and misunderstanding.
It is an additional efford for the pleasure to contribute and give back a part of the big amount we get.
That said, personally, I found FT the only place on web worth the enrollement, spending my time a feeling proud to have joined in a great community.
Off topic: Forrest Bump - haw!
Anyway, you make some good points - about 40% of FlyerTalkers are international / not USA registered, according to Internet Brands. This is a major change since the days when some of us signed up, and it would seem to be a continuing trend.
We are truly an international community - but even those who speak English use different words and context, e.g. using "entrée" for the main dish, is peculiarly American, and there are many differences in language use among English, Americans, Canadians, New Zealanders, South Africans, Australians, etc.
there are many differences in language use among English, Americans, Canadians, New Zealanders, South Africans, Australians, etc.
Singapore's english is very short and sharp.
Do any of the Talk Board members have any comments on the original topic of this thread? Looks like the Talk Board member turnout here is pretty low so far (I count 2).
JDiver, though, does not speak for the Talk Board. Only two Talk Board members have participated in this thread, one with a rather long post (SkiAdcock) explaining her views. Maybe the rest are all off on vacation or just don't have anything to say on the topic.
Indeed I was on vacation (Peru and Colombia) when this thread started and hit critical mass. I have been slammed ever since coming back and knew it'd take me awhile to get caught up, so I delayed looking at it until now. Apologies.
That nice---but I have a life.....Id rather have some sticky constantly being updated with new information. For example on the MArriott hotel thread for rate codes...its upteen pages long but the intital page for 8 yrs or so ago has not been updated. It would be nice to have a first page posting of the new codes.
Instead of expecting people to read 400 page threads and acting elitist when they dont have time to do so perhaps a better solution is to increase the use of stickies and/or FAQs/updated posts on the first page. This would allow people like me to get up the curve on what is already known a lot faster and without dealing with people who think they're gods because they know how to apply for credit cards in a slightly better way and then we can start contributing a lot sooner.
It's a great suggestion. The only problem with it is: who's going to create them? In order for you to not have to do as much work to participate in the community, someone else has to do that work for you.
Someone here mentioned that threads should have stickies or some updates done to the first post or something. Well, that's a grande idea, but who has to do that work? The OP? Some secret person? A Moderator? Oh sure, some may feel compelled to do such work and in many cases it makes things better for them as well, or they just love making lists, but it's a ton of work and we are lucky when it's done. But it should not be 'expected' all the time, now should it? So how much are we going to pay that person to constantly make and update such lists, or hope that they have the free time to do that for us?
I think the Quarterly rental car thread is a good example of this. Kudos to the Op and others who always update that long and well crafted list of all the clickable codes and information. I mean, that is just plain awesome. But man oh man I sure hope everyone who uses that thread appreciates the people typing those in. I certainly do but how can I even show it? I guess I try to show it by being helpful in areas in FT where I know things and can help others. Again that brings us back to the mentality I try to have here as mentioned in my first paragraph. But seriously, when it comes to these lists and codes on the first page of some long thread, how much work and time did it take for them to type it all for me? Should we all do our part in 'paying back' by at the very least READING the thread or as much of it as we can in order to gain other updates?
But to further discussion in areas that are relevant, perhaps, ANYONE can offer to volunteer themselves to maintain a thread and keep an updated OP; a few members in fact do that, and they are highly valued. Others volunteer their time and energy as Ambassadors or Moderators - in addition to living a life, working, travelling, etc. etc. (Ambassadors welcome new members, assist members in their fora and share knowledge, provide direction to their fora and when necessary contact moderators for some of the technical and other things moderators have tools to accomplish; Moderators try to welcome new members, they respond to "AMPs", provide some direction and organization to their fora, and delete an amazing amount of spam most members never see, protect members' privacy and do a lot of communicating and guidance with members experiencing difficulties of various kinds, among other duties, just FYI here); many others actively establish and maintain code posts, etc. according to their areas of interest or / and expertise.
IMO, it's always easy to say "let George do it" or "let's volunteer the other guy", "make the mods work harder" or even "let the mods do their job and whack snarky posters", but the crux of a community such as this is the idea that it is a community, and as such everyone should in some ways support the community ethos through their comportment (posting), much as communities endeavour to establish rules and signage for smooth traffic flow and accident reduction. As members of the FlyerTalk community, we establish the culture through our actions.
FlyerTalk is admittedly an imperfect community - limited to some degree by software and format, as well as the energies, limitations and posting behaviors imposed by member participation. It is now owned and operated by a for-profit enterprise, Internet Brands, which also has limited resources and "pockets". So, how do we improve it, and in particular, how do we improve "attitude" (culture) to retain those who are looking for such a community (and not everyone is)?
Want more volunteers to step up and maintain posts / threads? Want people to be more civil and welcoming in their posts? Step up and model what you say you want. Nobody is excluded from doing this.
Again addressing the point brought up above: great, great point here.
NOw, all of the above said, there may be some changes coming down the pike that may make it a great deal easier to do what the posters above are asking to be done.
Someone said wiki's were off topic for this thread and I disagree. Wikis would be an ideal solution to the problem outlined above but I think the attitude plays into the resistance to implementing it. I'm thinking some on this board want it to be hard to get at data for a few reasons. It may keep deals alive longer (which is why some of them hate blogs), they have always had to spend hours reading and so should everyone else, they feel special for having certain knowledge, etc.
FlyerTalk members are free to discuss moderation in general.
There's a certain amount of validity to this. That said, with a forum as large as we are and with a moderator corps that is as large and dispersed as ours is, it's difficult to have uniformity in how to deal with things. I'll admit that for me, personally, I hadn't really thought of how to deal with this in the forum that I moderate--which is a good thing, because there (fortunately) isn't a big problem with that kind of attitude in that forum. essxjay does a good job of describing the issue, though, and illustrates that it's not always as easy as just deleting a post.
To me, I think the problem is that it's not a violation of terms of service in some cases.
There may be some changes coming down the pike that may help address this.
I haven't brought it up recently, but I have long been an advocate of the formation of a Newbie Forum staffed with Ambassadors who are generous souls willing to answer those somewhat nebulous and tedious questions and point new users in the right direction. A post like the one mentioned by lin821 (below) would likely be welcomed with much more open arms in a place like that.
The AA forum has a "newbie" thread for new members to ask their questions without getting slammed. I believe one of the hotel forums was first to test out a newbie thread. It's certainly a concept that could be used across all the busier forums of FT. As it involves moderation, though, not sure it's a topic the Talk Board can really get involved with.
I hope this idea spreads. It's been a success in the Alaska Airlines forum, and in that forum, we didn't really have a problem with newbies getting responded to snarkily. I'm glad to see that it's even more of a success in other, perhaps more contentious, forums.
I actually don't believe FT "attitude" is the reason some people choose blogs over FT. Instead, I believe people read blogs because they are simply more user friendly to use than FT is. You can quickly read several blog articles without having to dig through lots and lots of posts on FT to find the content you're looking for. The FT user interface also leaves much to desire. It is ugly, outdated, and hard to find information. Blogs look pretty, modern, and are easy to find information.
If the FT forums looked and operated more like http://slickdeals.net/forums/ , the user community would grow.
However, when I pushed the tech guys, they asked me if the "antiquatedness" of the site is simply in the site's look or if it is in the site's function. I said a bit of both. I am curious, though, as to the wider FT community's perspective on this issue. It'd be a bit OT for this thread, but I'd like to have that discussion: what specifically needs to be "modernized" about FT?
Whatever speech restriction is being proposed here I hope it is crafted with great care for clarity as to its intent and payoff to members.
Except for two ideas--wikis and having moderators be a bit more vigilant about deleting snarky "do a search" posts and dealing with the posters who post the same (something not within TalkBoard's mandate but something that is worth discussing, IMHO)--I really haven't seen any specific proposals; certainly none that restrict speech in any way.
One thing I think will help are the new WikiPosts, already being tested in two fora (American AAdvantage and Alaska Airlines Mileage Plan). As they are in Beta, the mods are the ones creating and updating them, but eventually they will become community property.
For example, in the American AAdvantage Forum, the moderators have often inserted and kept up to date "moderator notes" summarizing the contents of a large, frequently posted, thread. Now a WikiPost can be inserted between the thread header and the first post with succinct information and links; they can easily be updated, much as the FlyerGuide Wiki can, and as the Wiki anyone will eventually be able to do the updating.
My understanding is it took some significant work to create these, but now that we have seen the first of them we'll see how the Beta testing goes and eventually spreading to other fora.