Hi Danny,
I absolutely agree with your sticky. The importance of anonymity is, in my opinion, especially important (for our own safety) as this is a public forum with all kinds of people able to monitor what we (I) may say. I really don’t feel like to justify my options and doings to people who have no real understanding of the subject matter. I currently don’t fly actively anymore though I am still very much involved in aviation in terms of SID and STAR engineering or the implementation of a G-BAS system and the likes. Those of you familiar with the airport ops know that we have to deal with neighbouring countries and surrounding airport communities about noise and safety issues and a great deal of people actually feel the need to attack us in some way or shape.
Of course, we amongst this industry may differ on points within a discussion and I have absolutely no objections of disclosing my identity if I can be assured that my identity stays within this circle and is being handled with due respect.
Since I currently don’t belong to any airline, the specific airline forums are of limits to me as they should be, though I was asking my self if Pprune could not altogether be accessible only to those who are really involved in aviation whatever their current job may be, perhaps even through a one time processing fee of some sort. Naturally, such forums as Wannabes should be open to all so that aspiring aviation professionals can enjoy some inside help and information.
I don’t know if such “proving” of members is even possible, it was just a though. I guess, as some have already mentioned before, we either shape up or ship out. On the other hand, like crundale said, many non-flying industry colleges have a genuine interest and contribution value.