Delayed access to information?

misterbwong

Level 2 Member
I was thinking about how MS info is shared the other day and it seems to me that what kills a lot of MS deals isn't really the deal itself. Rather, it's the sudden surge of activity due to tricks being publicized (through blog posts, public tweets, FT threads, etc) and the attention that is garnered that kills deals.

This forum (or MS in general) might benefit from a way to trickle information out to larger audiences so that deals can be prolonged and/or kept alive.

A couple ideas of how this could be implemented:

1. Automated/technological approach - The deal is "deposited" into some sort of system and interested parties sign up for it. The system will determine when to release the information to each person based on a set of rules (lottery system, FIFO, # of posts, etc). Seems like a forum resource with restricted access would work for something like this, though I don't know whether the forum software is extensible enough to accommodate the information release logic.

2. Actual person controlling information flow - The person responsible for sourcing or working through each deal could be the mediator and hand out the information slowly and at their discretion. It seems like this is how things currently run in the FT PM system.

3. ???

What do you guys think? #1 could be simple to build but it depends on what people want out of it.
 

Matt

Administrator
Staff member
OK - but if your issue is the surge of activity, blog posts, tweets, flyertalk etc (which I agree with) then why do we need to change anything? Thus far, members here are not blogging, tweeting or flyertalking these deals.

I personally am against such rules, but am open to change. The reason I am against it is that it makes people want to beat the system. If member A and member B both have good standing but one gets Deal A and one gets Deal B I would expect them to collude. Why would I want to prevent that, and why would I then want to worry about penalizing them for that?

I think there is too much danger of becoming the system that we are trying to beat.

What I'd like to see instead is stewardship - no blogging/tweeting/flyertalkering. And on top of that mentoring, helping folk become savvier at things through a network of likeminded people. So rather than suggesting threads on how to change what we are doing, I'd like to see more threads on how to improve the skills, along with the knowledge, of the community.

Just talking openly here, feel free to disagree.
 

misterbwong

Level 2 Member
I do agree with you on most of your points and the last thing I want to do is prevent discussion and exchange of information. I was just trying to think of a way to slow it down a bit. Thus far, the level 2 system has worked very well but I am worried a bit about how it will scale, especially with localized deals. Stewardship is the #1 goal (and people seem to be very good about it here) but I can foresee instances where good stewardship alone might not be enough.

20-30 good stewards hitting Target for RedBird on the same day probably won't even be a blip. 20-30 good stewards hitting a mom & pop on the same day would raise all kinds of red flags no matter now nice they were.
 

sriki

Level 2 Member
Any time a method that few knew and are using gets posted to many, there are conflicting emotions. Without taking sides, practically looking at this, do we really think we can hide info without alienating a significant portion of the user base? Is this the direction that we want to take for practical or ideological reasons? Either way, what would be a good way to stem the flow of information that neither hurts the opportunities nor the users? Ideas?
 
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Matt

Administrator
Staff member
I've said before that I would be happy to have teams working together on private areas here, as we are doing with Lifemiles. That requires some infrastructure in terms of who comes and who goes - team captains and the like.... I feel that other ideas could have been done like that also. If that is the case I need leaders who are fair, who can grant access and deny it, etc.

But I see that for special projects - eg find the card that works with GW, find the tricks and boomers, find the X.... That I like, but the issue then becomes how do you let people into the node, because if someone begs in mid way through they may gain access to a lot of data without working on it. I have ways to resolve that, but it is questions like that which will emerge.

I'm actually onboard with this approach to doing things, but everything we do has potential consequences, so we might find ourselves with too many cliques...
 
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