I just discovered the Travel Tips and Trip Ideas forum on these boards. Don't know where I've been all this time. Anyway, if you, like I, spend all/most of your time on the Europe forum and have never or seldom gone to that forum, check it out. I was especially taken with a thread that is current there asking "Where have you been and what did you learn from your travels this year?" or something very similar to that. There are some cute, some funny and some thought provoking responses for a kind of end of year reconsideration of why we love to travel and what we get out of it. Have a look.

Katie - if you have shifting my thread I am started to get a little unsettled by editoral editing. Too many cuts and cut/pastes are happening for no particular reason.

Matters do become a little tawdry at times, little four letter words are used and people do become the subject of simple harrassment. An editors role is key in this case to protect individuals - in all others this is a free world!

mark, I don't understand your comment. I posted this, not Katie. I posted it because there was another post on that forum saying that they thought no one used that forum. So I thought I'd help out and draw attention to that forum by pointing out your thread which I thought was quite wonderful and since it had lots of info about learning from European travel, would appeal to people on this board. I think it's as simple as that. No hidden motives.

Julie

Sorry for the confusion - the comment was aimed at our Editor - Katie. This thread was shifted and redrafted.

Thanks for the comments about the thread - glad you enjoyed it - I just thought that this forum does forget at times why we are all here!

Julie, when do you take off for your Christmas trip to the Alps? Have a great time!

Hi Julie, wishing you happy holidays

grandmere, we leave Dec. 23, spend Christmas Eve and Day in Geneva, then 4 days in Chamonix for son to ski, and then wind up with 3 days in Lyon (swapped it for Annecy which started to look like a non-starter for a winter trip) and a final day back in Geneva in order to fly home from there. We love our holiday trips whether with three kids or one. But can't wait until our granddaughters are old enough to join the fun so we can bring our contingent to 7.

Hi Julie

thanks for bringing this up. you are right I haven't noticed this forum either. When did it start? Now I will be even longer on Fodors!!! Oh no.

Schnauzer

As far as I can tell it's been around for a couple of years. I'm thinking I should check the archives and see what I've missed.

Mark's thread started out in the Lounge and was moved to tips and ideas. I don't understand why - maybe to increase traffic on that very quiet forum. It is a useful forum though, and a great thread.

Hey MR,

>An editors role is key in this case to protect individuals - in all others this is a free world!<

Last time I looked, this was a private board belonging to Fodors. Has that changed?

We still have property rights, do we not?

markrosy--I did move the thread from the lounge to the travel tips forum after it did not receive any new comments for several days. It was too good of a thread to "sink" into the lounge, which as you know has a plethora of non-travel related topics. Threads there have a much shorter shelf life. I hope that makes sense; we don't move threads often, but I felt in this instance that it would be better highlighted there in the long term.

The thread wasn't edited in any way though so I'm not sure what you mean by "shifts, cuts, pastes".

Ira - now sorry - it belongs to the users - that's the point without us posting it becomes a shell of a site with a few ads. Fodors does pay for the structure but the intellectual property is ours. (whatever the lawyers say!)

Katie - it isn't a big point and I really feel that it would be unfair to you to prolong any discussion of the site in public. The only small point that I would make - a few months ago I got the feeling that there was a higher level of "cut" editing and I stayed away out of protest. Some of this was justified to protect some of the users from unfair and IMO strangely unbalanced abuse that was being doled out. However, the editing seemed to persist after the dust had settled.

I only actually post on the web using this forum (sorry and Abaco Forum) - as

1. I haven't enough time for any other sites
2. I love to travel and talk to others about their travels
3. I love different cultural experiences
4. (which is why Fodors wins over others) I love the US (the forum's in English) and like the Brit/Yank angle of the banter.

Thanks for your work and the value it offers its users BTW.

BTW does this thread now need to be reposted soemwhere else as it clearly is not related to Europe ? (LOL)

We have multiple moderators that are generally instructed to devote the majority of their focus on the travel-specific forums---and to keep that focus primarily on keeping the forums ad free (both the blatant ones and the subtle ones.) I keep overall tabs on what's being removed from the site; we don't delete non-ad comments from topics often---and topics that generally get "out of hand" are most likely to be closed to further comments instead of heavily edited and allowed to continue. I can certainly understand from a member's point of view that it may not always be clear because there's no "a comment was removed" indicator; so it might leave a sense of "what did I miss?". We attempt to be good communicators in instances like these but sometimes it's not possible or don't because it would almost be more disruptive. Feedback from members is valued though and always welcome at [email protected].

We might eventually move this topic, but I appreciate Julie's sentiment and would want others to be able to see it as well.

Happy Monday--