An Open Letter to my fellow AFF members - External Influence on this website

[Gold Member]

I’m all for free speech and I respect that we all have different backgrounds, experiences, insights and opinions which all help make AFF such a valuable community and resource. I love that there‘s such a diverse mix of contributions, discussion and debate across and well beyond just the Frequent Flyer Programs. It’s no wonder Pointhacks paid a lot of money to acquire AFF.

But what I don’t love are third parties and unofficial company representatives infiltrating our ranks, trying to build credibility and legitimacy while masquerading as everyday AFF folk purely to influence and mislead us with their political agendas and commercial interests.

In recent times, some of you may have noted that there are a small number of users here on AFF that unapologetically support and endorse Qantas. Sometimes they will try and provide a counter argument to appear balanced and unbiased, but there is no confusion to their intent And motivations. They will dissect and argue all sorts of “mistruths” and present “facts” to support their agenda. Spread across a few different AFF accounts, their language and behaviour is consistent with unofficial Qantas representation. As such, they seem to be charged with influencing social media forums like AFF to present Qantas in the best possible light and to shoot down any naysayers.

Well, I‘ve had enough of this BS corrupting our wholesome community. As many of you will have observed, I’m doing my bit to try to counter this offensive, but my hands are tied.
<redacted>
But I hope that <my post> is kept, unedited and it will at the very least give you pause to question the motivations of some Players here on AFF that seemingly get away with it and will continue to do so in broad daylight.

[mod hat] The balance of this post has been redacted as it discusses moderation which is against the AFF TOS.

Moving forward let's keep the discussion civil please and without references to moderation.
[/mod hat]

 

[Human]

Spread across a few different AFF accounts, their language and behaviour is consistent with unofficial Qantas representation. As such, they seem to be charged with influencing social media forums like AFF to present Qantas in the best possible light and to shoot down any naysayers

Your logic seems to be...

1. Some AFF users believe and trust Qantas and its press releases, public pronouncements, and "representation". Therefore...
2. Those same AFF users have been "charged with influencing ... AFF".

Not sure I see the logic there.

Qantas and QFF have many, many millions of users in Australia. Despite the recent (well-deserved) bad publicity, many of those users/customers/members have been genuinely helped -- in some cases, even rescued! -- by Qantas and its staff, many of whom are competent and, yes, caring.

Could it not be that in the best possible way, those people want to support Qantas not because they're being incentivised or paid to, but because of their past positive experiences for which they're grateful?

I'm just suggesting that you be careful before accusing those users of anything deceptive or underhand until you've ruled out the other possibilities.

 

[Duffa]

Well done to you, for having your say..
I'm all for free speech.
To be honest, I have always thought that the Qantas apologists were just poor misguided souls or maybe high status flyers who obviously enjoy the higher level of service which they receive and thus defend it.
If what you say is true, then I too am deeply troubled.
Perhaps a moderator could tell us if they have ever suspected/confirmed your concerns?

 

[Himeno]

Everything you've said can also be said with the word "Qantas" replaced by "Virgin Australia".

I have seen nothing to suggest that what you've stated is happening.

 

[Human]

As you can see from my status to the left, I fly Virgin 95% of the time, but nevertheless over the past couple of years I've had reason on occasion to feel frustrated and angry with Qantas.

These forums are about dialogue. Many of the AFF members on these forums are intelligent, experienced and highly knowledgeable.

I rarely agree with the Qantas apologists, but they make these forums better by contributing their perspectives, opinions and knowledge. If the arguments are strong, they'll hold up. If they're not, they'll be shot down.

I'd rather hear those views than have them censored by Mods. To dismiss an argument, or to write off a member, simply because they support Qantas is not dialogue -- it's a cheap shot.

 

[Freq Flier 2013]

I would have thought that it’s against T&C for a company rep to be in the forum and not identify themselves. Admin can you please confirm this?

 

[straitman]

Personal opinion is that there are a lot of QF and VA apologists and that many cannot see beyond their own predjudges. On another forum I was accused of being anti Qantas which is certainly not the case. I do however have issues with a lot of their current procedures so tend to currently lean quite heaving toward Virgin who have let me down a lot less than Qantas..

 

[kpc]

I have used the "Ignore" function to block content from AFF posters who I feel like to argue for the sake of arguing - if someone says something is white, they will say it is black and vice versa....unfortunately, this list of ignored AFFers gets longer every year!

 

[moa999]

Or alternatively that some people on this site have thousands of flights across hundreds of airlines, and are quite willing to call out one post wonders or provide much of their experience on the difficulties about running profitable businesses particularly in imperfect markets such as global aviation with government ownership and interference.

Qantas (in particular) bashing generates clicks for the online media, so the slightest issue gets blown out of proportion.
Let alone the addition of the often racist and homophobic overlays with the former CEO.

 

[encryptededdy]

I think that's quite a strong claim to make. If you spend enough time on internet forums and/or social media, you'll know plenty of people get quite argumentative and defensive about plenty of corporations, including phone brands, gaming companies, and yes, even airlines. This doesn't mean they're all paid shills.

 

[Duffa]

Hi Mods,

This thread DISAPPEARED in its entirety about 30 minutes after GM posted. Including my reply supporting his right to free speech.
Then it just as suddenly reappeared.
Where is your justification for that?

I love this forum. The advice. The camaraderie.

You are starting to sound like Meta or X

 

[p--and--t]

Being fairly airline agnostic I wander across various threads in here and I find rabid for and against often emotional conspiratorial statements every day in various threads (particularly in QF and VA)

In an unfortunate reflection of a cross-section of the general public there are racist, sexist and homophobic undertones to many of the posts.

I am not here all the time (and often take timeouts) but I have not seen anything to substantiate the allegation in the original post.

 

[straitman]

Hi Mods,

This thread DISAPPEARED in its entirety about 30 minutes after GM posted. Including my reply supporting his right to free speech.
Then it just as suddenly reappeared.
Where is your justification for that?

I love this forum. The advice. The camaraderie.

You are starting to sound like Meta or X

[mod hat] Please read the mod comments attached to post #1. If you have any further issues then please report the post and also please read the AFF TOS referring to discussion of moderation [/mod hat]

 

[mrsterryn]

Why does it matter if people like Qantas ? Not trying to be belligerent at all just curious . Similar to KPC I have one person on ignore cause they are a moron , however perhaps I read different posts/forums as I see more anti sentiment than positive actually for Qantas
In regards to people who are perceived as "company representatives" can't they just be ex employees who happen to know things ?
I know when a certain government department comes up and someone has issues I may comment if I know the answer because I was a specialist for them . I am long since retired but I still read the appropriate Acts and Guides to the Act (old habits die hard )

 

[oz_mark]

There are a few apologists around who seem to take personal offense at the slightest criticism of Qantas. Not just here though, Facebook seems to have a collection of them as well.
I am not sure what their agenda is, or why they are so focussed on defending Qantas, or even actions of the government seemingly on behalf of Qantas.

 

[samh004]

I wanted to comment on this thread when I saw it, now looking from the outside once again.

Without mentioning names, as that wouldn’t be playing the ball, there are many members on both sides of the fence who frequently post with hidden (or quite obvious) agendas.

As I always said when I moderated, if you don’t report accounts or posts then how are the moderation team meant to know what you think? If you think there’s a duplicate account, then report them and let them be investigated. Also, use the ignore function. It seems members here have always preferred to be rattled by someone they dislikes posts than never see those posts and leave a calm life.

Hi Mods,

This thread DISAPPEARED in its entirety about 30 minutes after GM posted. Including my reply supporting his right to free speech.
Then it just as suddenly reappeared.
Where is your justification for that?

I love this forum. The advice. The camaraderie.

You are starting to sound like Meta or X

Speaking as a former moderator and administrator of this site, the explanation is pretty simple. When they saw the thread could be problematic they would have unapproved (hidden) it while they received all viewpoints on the post from the team, assuming someone reported it in the first place. When consensus was reached they would have implemented whatever that was. In this case it looks like some redactions but overall reinstatement.

This style of moderation has existed on here (and many other boards) long before I became a member. You may be connecting dots that aren’t there, but YMMV.

 

[QF WP]

For the first 27 years of my flying life, I was dyed-in-the-wool QF aficionado as I flew with them (or OW partner airlines) 95% of the time. They gave me status, Lounges, upgrades, offers and there wasn’t (in my opinion back then) a viable alternative. There were times when I flew Ansett, Compass 1 & 2 and even regional carriers as I wanted to try them and compare against my preferred airline. But invariably, they fell short.

Then it all changed with a status match to Virgin (2016 if I recall correctly). That opened my eyes to a decent opposition and over time, my allegiances have changed. Now my flying is 95% VA and I’ve flown IIRC 6 sectors with QF in the last 2 years. My road to QF LTG has ground to a halt (still ~400 SC’s short).

I’m happy to call out good service as well as bad. Sadly, the vast majority of reports are negative on social media, so understandably people who support that brand will have a different opinion and pick holes in the posters outline of the issue. The hard thing is to play the ball, not the person.

We can all learn patience and the ability to allow a person to have an opinion even if it’s diametrically opposed to our own. Well that’s my fervent hope for our community, lest we become like Airwhiners.

 

[AIRwin]

Airwhiners

Hopefully not referring to @AIRwin-ers

 

[Ansett Nostalgic]

Thank you for initiating this important discussion. We should certainly be wary of manipulative posts from representatives of QF or any other companies - company representatives should be transparent about their affilitations.

 

[samh004]

Thank you for initiating this important discussion. We should certainly be wary of manipulative posts from representatives of QF or any other companies - company representatives should be transparent about their affilitations.

I don’t think that would happen anywhere.

That said, I see no issue with a member who works for Qantas but posts on a personal account, defending them as they see fit. If you think it’s less personal and more commercial, report and ignore and then you don’t have the issue. But AFF has had members who have had personal accounts but also quite senior jobs in many fields for many years. Can you imagine if anyone connected to the airline industry wasn’t allowed to post because they could be biased? Wouldn’t make for much of an interesting forum.