Today we are launching Saverocity The Forum. It will be a place to share information between the community, and help each other really get the best out of life. I have wanted to create this for some time, and finally got my genius technical guy to install it they way I wanted it, as part of this site. We threw in a server upgrade at the same time and are excited to put it to work!
Why a forum?
Improved Communication
Some of my more popular posts quickly garner over 100 comments (some of my crap posts don’t get any…), and it is hard to keep track of conversations like this, a forum software solution would have helped people a lot when organizing the Charlotte DO, and it will help a lot when the West Coast #milemadness DO is announced, allowing people to share contact information for ride sharing and dinner plans prior to the event. Equally important is a platform to discuss strategies and ideas created from attending the event.
Stewardship
I have a desire to bring people into the game of points and miles, and a sometimes conflicting desire to protect the game from people who go off half cocked. People often say that blogs share information in order to collect readership, and convert them into affiliate transactions – so spilling the ‘beans’ is encouraged. Posts that are controversial bring in a lot of foot traffic on the day, but even more of a problem is Google Indexing so people stumble into things that they don’t really understand, and frequently screw up.
Our forum has levels of membership, the first is open to all, and the second allows access to more sensitive things I would rather not google index. For example in our Manufactured Spend forum I am discussing the Multiple Amazon Payments accounts that I once shared via ‘protected post’. I think this creates a safer environment for sharing information as on one level you take SEO and indexing off the table, and on another we know that there has been at least some level of vetting for the Manufactured Spend stuff.
Frankly, I don’t know if that is enough, and am wondering about having deeper levels of membership for more sensitive things that can work on an invite based system. For me, stewardship means helping people grow, and helping to protect the game, it isn’t a black and white subject, and I am certainly open to hearing how to do things better.
The Competition
There is open discussion of matters of Manufactured Spend on Flyertalk and other forums, I think that the people on some of these public forums have a wealth of information, but I would suggest that Flyertalk is not the best platform for this type of conversation. They are too well known, and too many industry people can access the information. Blogs use it as a resource to spell out tricks and information sharing there is hampered by the damage it causes.
Recently, the guys at Hack My Trip launched TravelCodex.com this is also in Private Mode, and I think both Scott and I are trying to figure out the best way to roll out our forums to keep them interesting, useful and effective. I highly recommend that if you are interested in Manufactured Spend you head on over there too. I based my forum on the same software as TravelCodex as I see a lot of overlap in user base, and wanted to keep a congruent user experience. It is my hope that our forums can both flourish, and our own personal styles of posting and moderation will encourage people to gravitate to where they are most comfortable.
I see TravelCodex as a like minded compatriot rather than competition. Though I can’t believe those bastards released it just days before mine!
I’d like to see all talk of Manufactured Spend and tricks removed from Blogs that sell them for clicks, and since most of them feed from large, corporate owned Forums and Boards I think moving towards a curated membership will be a move in the right direction. As I shift my own focus to more mainstream concepts here, the fun stuff will move to the forums.
It’s more about you now!
I hope to be very active in the forums, but without interaction, questions and answers from the readers and members the forum will be a flop. It is all about the community and how it can help each other. There are going to be a lot of experts, but to a person with no experience a person with 1 year is an expert, so please help out the new folks, and keep that feeling of adding value to the community. I’ve started a few threads, but please start your own, with thoughts, comments, ideas. We all look forward to hearing from you!
I am very open to hearing any ideas to make the forum better, and look forward to your comments. If you like, you can start a conversation about how to improve things on the Forum itself. Please check out the rules first, they are brief!
I look forward to seeing you at Saverocity The Forum!