Nick K.
FlyerTalk Moderators Suck
I've been a "member" of FlyerTalk since 2014. I was likely reading as a non-member well before that. In 2014 I posted a question in the American Airlines forum. I got a couple of worthwhile responses, then a snot who said something like "try it and let us know". I simply commented that he shouldn't waste his time writing worthless drivel like this; he could have answered the question in the same amount of time. My retort was deleted by the moderator and I was warned. Really? For the next 10 years I found more friendly, worthwhile forums. Mind you, I still would use FlyerTalk for reference searches, but posting didn't seem attractive; I had great alternate places for this. While Covid destroyed one of them (made a ghost town out of the forum) ... I still have friendly places. A couple of months ago FlyerTalk's periodic email had an article that caught my eye. I read it, went to the discussion link and found myself participating. This was also in the American Airlines area, go figure. It was a lively, fairly heated discussion ... the kind you might get with 2 sides of hard-heads and most not seeing any grey areas. I was moderated twice (messages deleted), but these messages deserved it. I reworded a bit and they posted. Suddenly, out of nowhere, a moderator came in and deemed the thread full of off-topic posts. Really? I don't think so. The topic was broad enough and even the posts I adamantly disagreed with were "on topic". The entire thread was shut down with no signs of it coming back in the future. I won't be sucked back into any FT discussions again. The moderators are too many and a single czar-like wannabee can abruptly stop things. The value of their forums remains extremely low to me, even with a 10-years-later retry.