My Involvement with Internet Travel Discussion Groups, 1992-2004
(farewell to TheTravelzine)
--Andrew McGarrell
The first online travel discussion I followed was Travel-l, a lightly trafficked group when I joined; as I remember, most questions in the early days were from academics asking about places where they were going for
conferences. I mostly lurked in those early days. In the mid-1990s, as people were joining the Internet in big numbers, the Travel-l group changed, with an increased volume of posts, trip reports, and personalities coming through. I gradually posted more often, and took the
opportunity to meet interesting people in my travels. Internet discussion in general
was finding its way through growing pains. Originally non-subscribers could
post; a few prominent early spam messages changed that. Travel-l became
something of a group of friends united through an original interest in travel but where discussion could spread widely, including jokes and
political discussion that sometimes became inflammatory. It reflected the problems with the original ideal that discussions should be unmoderated
so that replies should be immediate and no editor needed to decide what was good enough. For a long time, it was unclear who was in charge of the
group; later on, when there were known listowners, it seemed that they were so bogged down with technical problems, even just deleting error
reports, that they couldn't keep up with the current talk and call a stop to inappropriate discussions.
Travel-l increasingly went through technical problems on its server in
Turkey and was often up for one week and down for two. In 1999,
TheTravelzine group came into being just as the Travel-l server reached
its
final demise. As I understand, the Zine was originally unmoderated;
they
used the term "moderators" but they just said after the fact if a
message
was inappropriate and banned spammers. Still, it stayed on topic more
than
Travel-l; Travel-lers who were known for spreading discussion all over
the
place stayed in line on the Zine. I actually suggested once that new
subscribers could be kept on moderated status until they showed they
were
on topic; that suggestion was dismissed, but the Zine took on the
practice
a little later; some established members who sometimes went out of line
were also put on moderated status.
Internet growing pains continued, and it was clear that even
responsible
people made the occasional slip, such as quoting more of a previous
message than they intended, or posting to the group what should have
been a
private message. In 2001, TheTravelzine became fully moderated. It
was
clear that this was a good step to eliminate the various forms of
useless
clutter that sometimes came along. I want to do a minimum of quoting
others' words, but the owners said in their message announcing
moderation:
"Be assured that your
communications will never be censored for content."
At this time and over the next couple of years, I had a warm
relationship
with the Travelzine owners. When they asked, I gave an organizational
structure to the links on their personal site. They invited me to
moderate; I declined, because I didn't want to deal with the extra
e-mail,
and in most of my endeavors I like to stay independent of management.
The
moderators signed announcements of policy changes as a group; from my
perspective, I wasn't comfortable with some of them. They did accept
some
minor suggestions I made about group policies. After getting good
feedback
about my trip reports, I thought there was a problem when I got no
feedback
on one, but apparently this was a misplaced worry. In fall 2003, I was
recognized as Ziner in the Spotlight.
In my participation in TheTravelzine, I emphasized practical
information;
as a librarian, I specialize in locating information. Sometimes, this
includes locating discussion groups that specialize in a narrower
travel
topic. I got a lot of praise for mentioning BiddingForTravel's
discussions
of Priceline bids. In 2002, there was a question in my family about
changes in Italian cell phone numbers. Before posting a question to
the
Zine about it, I did a Google search and found an explanation in the
Slowtrav site. That was my first look at Slowtrav; they covered a lot
about Italy and had a discussion group; I found it interesting, but
wasn't
ready to get involved in another group.
In December 2003, I told the Zine owners of my plan to put together a
personal home page at long last, and they let me have a copy of my
Spotlight page. I put the home page together slowly when I could stay
at
work late; my plan was for one component of the page to be a list of
discussion groups, with TheTravelzine pre-eminent. Then, in January
2004,
things turned on the most banal topic: there was a question about
parking
in Perugia ; someone else and I pointed to some explanatory pages and
explained prices. Afterwards, I looked at Slowtrav, where there was a
link
to a page giving driving directions to the main parking garage. I
followed
up my post with a link to the directions page; I could have stopped
there,
but I was thinking it was good to give sources for our information, so
I
added a sentence about Slowtrav as a good source for practical
information
on Italy with specialized discussion boards. That sentence was removed
by
the Zine owner; she sent me a note with a smiley about not wanting to
promote the competition, apparently thinking I would be fine with that
and
see the error of my ways. I sent a reply saying that was not fine with
me;
to my knowledge the Zine was about making the most useful travel
information available, not censoring it because of perceived
competition. Her reply was that Slowtrav had stopped being a
non-commercial site and had commercial links; she was leaving on a trip
and
this was the last she had to say. My reply was essentially "So
what?". Sites with commercial links get recommended all the time;
BiddingForTravel is a board loaded with them; I got praised for
recommending that board, although I hesitate to recommend it anymore,
since
it poses as a forum of people sharing information but is really a means
for
the owner to get people to place Priceline bids through a link that
benefits her. As far as TheTravelzine is concerned, if the owners
disagree with a member's recommendation, they can put their
disagreement in
another post; they shouldn't block the recommendation. They previously
said they would not censor; approving distribution of a post doesn't
mean
they have to agree with it.
I thought of quitting the Zine right there, but I got advice to stay.
I
refrained from posting for a while; in a sense of fair play, I waited
to
see if the owners would have a reply when they got back from their
trip,
and I didn't take it to the other moderators, including a librarian who
I
think would be hard pressed to defend the practice. As a librarian, I
know
how censorship backfires. The Zine owners asked in their last message
if I
had ever recommended TheTravelzine on Slowtrav. Well, no, I hadn't
posted
anything on Slowtrav; I wasn't a member, and I'd barely looked at the
site. I thought I might look at the board a little more often as I
prepared for my summer trip to Italy. Making something forbidden makes
it
more interesting; I followed the Slowtrav Italy discussion more often,
but
was hesitant to join. Then, in a typical down-to-earth subject, I saw
that
the Slowtrav owner posted something that needed clarifying about a
parking
garage in Rome; I joined so I could make the clarification. I had a
special screen name and didn't make my identity clear at first, but
went on
posting when appropriate.
I was slowly working on my home page; all along, my plan had been to
include different travel discussion groups, with TheTravelzine
pre-eminent. I kept the plan, but I was in a quandary about how to
write
up the Zine now. It would be hypocritical of me to say that everything
was
hunky-dory; to some degree I censored myself so I could post the page
to
the Zine, but I also don't believe in putting negatives front and
center. So I posted this:
The top area for general travel discussion, where I've had an important
role. You must become a member, posting an introduction to the group,
in
order to read the posts. I have more to say about the Zine to those who
write me privately.
Once the page was ready, I started posting to the Zine again, including
my
home page in the signature. I didn't hear from the owners when they
came
back from their trip. When their trip report was ready, they announced
it
to Slowtrav; from their perspective, it was fine for them to post to
the
"rival" group, but their own members had to be protected from it. I
saw
that the Zine owners were a subject of controversy on the Slowtrav
discussions; I searched old messages and found many stories of people
introducing themselves to the Zine saying "You may recognize me from
Slowtrav" and finding the statement removed. Also, I found that when I
was
the poster boy for the Zine, they had rejected for membership,
apparently
because of his Slowtrav prominence, someone who was a great resource on Italy
and who was making arrangements
to
stay at my family's house in Italy. Now in March the Zine owners said
they
were resisting taking ads but were asking members to send them money to
cover their costs, in particular the cost of storage space for their
mirror
archive of the best of TheTravelzine. Before the censorship episode, I
would have gladly sent something, but I wasn't going to send anything
to
get useful information censored. I had half a mind to try to post
that; I
knew that it would be blocked for not being about travel, at the same
time
that many non-travel messages of support were being posted. On a
parenthetical matter, I know that analogies with the print world are
imperfect, but I think of magazines where most of the content is
editorially written but letters to the editor include questions about
editorial judgment. Towards the end, I was thinking that along with
the
auxiliary Zineophiles group they had for wine lovers, they could have
an
auxiliary group to discuss Zine management decisions, for those who
were
interested, without cluttering the main travel discussion board. I
never
made the suggestion as I was learning that the Zine owners were
increasingly closed to dissent or suggestions.
I had recommended Slowtrav's page on cell phones in Italy in summer 2003;
that message got through, but in the mirror archives the whole message
is:
"For using a cell phone in Italy, one list of options can be found at
." That's the whole message; the URL from the Slowtrav site was
removed;
this is hardly a useful message! In this spring 2004 time of
confusion, I
saw one mention of Slowtrav get through; I don't know if it was an
oversight. I was also planning a trip to Toronto, the Zine owners'
home
town, and I was uneasy about whether I wanted to socialize with them,
but I
went by their previous statements that I had to let them know when I
was
going, and perhaps we could clarify things. I wrote them, saying I
wasn't
sure what our current relations were; they sent a brief reply that they
wouldn't be available. Also, I got the one response to my home page
invitation to tell people more about the Zine; this was from someone
thinking of subscribing, and I gave a reply with a fair balance of
positives and negatives, saying finally that it would be a good group
to
subscribe to if he didn't get too emotionally involved in it.
I went to Italy and wrote a trip report, bringing attention to the
usefulness of Slowtrav in planning my trip (after the trip I made my
first
announcement of my home page to Slowtrav). I went through an uneasy
time
as far as staying with the Zine, but I posted things I learned from one
group to the other; I got and spread useful information in both
directions. When people from the Zine thanked me privately for things
I'd
posted, if it was germane I mentioned Slowtrav as a useful resource and
some of them posted there. (I had to go against the Zine guidelines
that
answers with information should be posted to the whole group; mention
of
other boards wouldn't make it to the group.) I got some word from
people
with inside knowledge that the Zine owners don't want anything posted
about
Fodor's or Frommer's discussion boards either. In my view the
different
boards complement each other; some are more specialized, and some are
set
up differently. I've only looked at Fodor's discussions when actual
discussions turned up in Google searches; I suppose I like boards that
started as individual rather than corporate efforts, but I appreciate
finding useful information that people have posted, whatever the brand
of
the forum is.
I only posted my home page URL with my signature to TheTravelzine once
a
month plus when there was something on the page that expanded on
something
in the posting. In November, I found that the URL was being removed
from
my signature, with no notice being given to me about it. I asked the
owners what was happening; these owners, with whom I once had warm
relations, sent me an icy no-name message quoting my response (from six months
earlier) to the
one
taker I got on my offer to say more privately about the Zine, saying I
was
spreading grievances to complete strangers, I was to desist from
mentioning
my home page again, and they would have nothing more to say on the
matter.
They also implied that the whole purpose of my home page was to spread
these grievances, which is absurd.
So (I'll take things at face value) the one person who responded to
that
small part of my home page between March and December was a
non-subscriber,
and he forwarded my reply to the Zine owners; this reply was balanced
and
finally gave a positive recommendation on subscribing. This one reply
did
not come as a result as my posting the home page to the Zine; since I
can't
post it to the group anymore, it assures that what's on the page will
be
harsher. The Zine owners know that I am mild-mannered in person, but I
stand up for my rights when I've been wronged as a travel consumer, and
they cannot expect me to remain a participant in TheTravelzine under
these
circumstances. They did not try to reason with me, asking me to alter
that
part of my home page (not that I would have); they simply closed the
matter
and refused to say anything about the substance of my "grievances."
They are losing me, they have lost other good people, and they may lose
more because they want to censor in violation of their original
promise. I
found Slowtrav through a Google search, as others have and will, and it
did
not threaten TheTravelzine being my primary group; their persistence
in
censorship ends my involvement with the group. I am standing up for
making
useful travel information available; I have no commercial interests to
promote. Slowtrav will be my primary discussion group; I'm satisfied
with
it and hope it will stay that way. I also regularly check Flyertalk
for
practical information on air travel mainly. There is so much that is
absurd about the Zine owners claiming the right to censor to protect
non-commercial discussion: being non-commercial should go hand-in-hand
with free expression. It's a point in the Zine owners' favor that they
don't take advertising, but subscribers still need to see many ads that
benefit Yahoo as they read messages. The Zine owners know that there
are
costs in running a board, as they started appealing to subscribers for
money, but it was five years into the group's existence so I know it
isn't
a money-making venture for them. The Slowtrav owners have similar
needs
(and they aren't retired as the Zine owners are) and added commercial
links
to their board, but these aren't intrusive. The owners assure me that
criticism of Slowtrav's commercial affiliates will not be blocked. I
know
that moderation is needed to keep discussion readable and on-topic; I
see
it every day as I follow unmoderated groups of librarians, responsible
people. Unfortunately, TheTravelzine owners have taken it too far in
protecting their brand. I've known some very interesting people
through
the group, but with the limits on discussion it is no longer "Travel
talk
at its best" as claimed. On their personal site, they have boasted of
calling it as they see it when discussing travel, but they have a
problem
with people doing the same when looking at sources of travel
information.
Posted December 15, 2004; updated January 3, 2005
Postscript, February 1, 2005: I was weaning myself away from TheTravelzine by lurking, checking daily into the messages on the Web, until I planned to unsubscribe as I left on a trip to Italy a few weeks from now. Last night I went in and found that I'd been banned. That isn't surprising if they've found about this page. Still, the owners didn't tell me anything about their actions and have had no response to the points I've articulated. It has been my hope that the Zine could continue to be the primary travel discussion group, and that the owners would accept constructive criticism of their pointless censorship practices, but that is not to be. I'll consider my banning as a badge of honor.