(Wiping tears of laughter away and dusting myself off after rolling about on the floor)
I have just 'discovered' this old thread and I can't believe how it evolved, just like a chinese whisper, from a discussion point by someone who felt the forum was becoming boring and not quite elitist enough into some kind of poll on whether it should remain open or closed to non 'military aviators'.
As in the Rumours & News forum, there will always be a minority of individuals who would prefer to hide their warts for fear of being branded human and not super human. They would like the rest of the non 'military aviator' community to think fo them as some special elite and that their craft should remain little more than a speculative kind of black magic.
As the majority have pointed out though, there would be a huge problem in identifying who would be eligible for this exclusive and elitist forum. Also, many of the contributors have assumed that it would only be open for Betty's Boys to be eligible. I seem to remember a letter in The Times a few years ago where someone was having a go at PPRuNe's successful military forum and suggested that the MoD open their own forum. I had my reply to the pompous silly old f@rt published and pointed out the reason this one was so successful was precisely because it was open to everyone.
Obviously, most of you have never had the misfortune to have a look in the private forums. Imagine a dusty old shanty town, tumbleweed rolling past you and a few bored old men rocking back and forth on their rocking chairs, not saying much and when they do you would rather poke yourself in the arm with a sharp stick as that would be more entertaining. THat is what the private forums are like. As soon as you close yourself into an insular group of 'serious' people who are trying to protect their image of super human abilities you end up with an inbred population who have no fresh blood and are about as evolutionary advanced as an amoeba!
You will always get people like Jackonocko trying to hijack the odd serious and even the not so serious threads with their biased and 'lefty luvvie' sentiments. Comments such as:
And anyone who doesn't think I'm a useful contributor doesn't have to read it, though the less blinkered would do so and THEN decide that I'm a to$$er!
...do nothing to endear themselves to me. I don't mind him contributing though. He just goes to prove that it takes all sorts to make a forum successful, even if he accepts that quite a few of us think he is a to$$er!
THis forum isn't going to change. It is the only one that isn't officially 'moderated'. I leave it to the ones who have learnt to trust us here at PPRuNe with the responsibility of listening to you when necessary and acting on the very rare occasions when someone tries to make out they are somehow superior by intimating that they know something that should remain secret to the masses. We deal with them as and when necessary. As for the other to$$ers, we have learnt that if you give them enough rope they will eventually do us all a favour and use it appropriately.
Mil Aircrew is just an area where topics that in some way are weighted to mil aircrew issues are discussed and is not exclusively for UK mil aircrew types, elitist or otherwise, to show off their superior abilities.
I know for a fact that there are Top Neddies from the UK who enjoy reading the banter as well as mil types from many other countries, not only english speaking ones, who enjoy reading some of the great threads that are on here.