Annoymous Forum NOT

[Pontius Navigator]

I know I had to declare my address to register here but how come I received an email to my email address from a BBC person?

[whowhenwhy]

Pontious,

Your best bet is to set up a prune mail account as a dead letter box and then use your email address from that to register for prune. I'd start watching for tall suited people, wearing sunglasses in the middle of winter, driving black vectras if I were you. It can only be a matter of time!

[hifiman]

Pontious

Stating the obvious perhaps, but your email address could have been gleaned through a number of routes, none of which need have anything to do with PPrune, or indeed the web.

Colleagues who handed out business cards in the US have been bombarded with spam, and there are any number of web sites that you might have registered with that might have passed your address to "associate" sites to be added to address lists.

Could this be the thin end of a spam wedge for the PN household?

Fingers crossed!

[RobinXe]

For anyone experiencing trouble with spam, I would wholeheartedly recommend 'SpamBayes', a plugin for Outlook that 'learns' how to spot what you consider spam, and I find both highly accurate, and easily tweakable to suit.

Its also free, and open source.

Find it here (http://spambayes.sourceforge.net/)

[Pontius Navigator]

No. This was not spam. This was a direct email as a result of my postings to the Vulcan thread.

SHE was a BBC Radio Scotland reporter trawling for a story line. She had been put on to the thread by her boyfriend.

<<This is a message from Flitcraft at PPRuNe Forums ( http://www.pprune.org/forums/index.php ). The PPRuNe Forums owners cannot accept any responsibility for the contents of the email.

To email Flitcraft, you can use this online form:
http://www.pprune.org/forums/member.php?action=mailform&userid=83027

OR, by email:
mailto:[email protected]

This is the message:

Hello,
My other-half-to-be happens to frequent PPRUNE and he drew my attention to the Vulcan thread which was a fascinating read - particularly the stuff about the October 1969 alert. >>

As you can see, someone out there is ferreting around.

[DamienB]

PN - Click 'profile' on any of your posts. Now click 'Email Pontius Navgiator'. Et voila, one form for BBC bird to fill in and send an email to you.

She still doesn't know your email address or anything else bar what you make public on PPRuNe.

[hifiman]

Pontius

Why the reticence? Must be worth at least £650 a day for consultancy fees if you help her with a story.

Pontius

Further to my last: Spent a few minutes researching your nosey lady. Seems it's probably Dr Louise Yeoman who is an historian, author, Curator of the National Library of Scotland, and frequent contributor to the BBC.

Her early bio is here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/state/nations/scotland_jacobites_05.shtml
Whilst her early work was the Jacobites, she has more recently written a book on Reportage Scotland - History in the Making.

I stand by my earlier suggestion - offer your services for a fee.

Regards

[hifiman]

Is there an echo on this thread?

[WE Branch Fanatic]

But if someone e-mails you via PPRuNe (using the e-mail facilty in your profile) - they do not know your e-mail address UNLESS you decide to reply. Its still done via PPRUNe.

So - you're still anonymous at that point.

Try clicking on my profile and testing it with me - you will have to type your message in a box, not unlike that for a PM.

Damn - that DamienB has already said it:ok: :ok:

Some of us write stuff we want journos/politicos/reserchers and others to see.

[BEagle]

Perhaps your enthusiasm to spill our Cold War secrets has come home to roost...?

They're not Vectras and they're not black.......

It sounds remarkably like a First Approach. Heard any clicks on your phone? Had any difficulty with your internet access or GSM phone......??

[Pontius Navigator]

Thanks everyone.

Beagle, I have written authority.

Finally she picked up on the item I had no knowledge of whatever <g>.

And the fee? I am not allowed to claim that, I would have to go to a different department :(

[Impiger]

Pontius

I've done this sort of thing before and the fee can be tricky. It depends on whether you are using technical, professional knowledge gained through the Service at public expense or whether your consultancy is more biographically based on personal experience (even if that too came about because of duty). Any fee is of course declarable to those swine at the Inland Revenue.

Another route is to ask any potential fee payer to pass the loot directly to the RAF Benevolent Fund - this takes you out of the loop and off the hook with the tax man. Make sure it goes directly though - it isn't good enough for you to receive a cheque then write another to the charity.

Happy flat ironing.

:ok:

edit for pinkware gremlins!

[FJJP]

Forgive me if I am missing something here...

Having read all of the above, the impression I get from PN is that he received an e-mail to his PRIVATE, NON PRUNE address. The question is, how did this woman tie in his Pprune anonymous name with his REAL e-mail?

Is that the gist of it PN? And if that's right, what's the answer?

[The Nr Fairy]

FJJP:

When you look at someone's profile, you may see a link which says "Click here to email FJJP/Pontius/whoever". That link opens a form into which you type your text, and when you click, the system sends an email to the recipient's address used to register at PPRuNe.

It discloses YOUR email address to the recipient, but unless the recipient chooses to reply you don't get to find out theirs.

If anonymity is paramount then you can turn off people seeing the "Click here to email" link in your profile options. Click "User cp" at the top of a PPRuNe page, then "Edit Options" - make sure "Hide Email Address" is set to "yes". You can use the Private Message option and the only contact is between usernames, not email addresses and via PPRuNe - there is no other intermediate system involved..

I can understand where the confusion comes from, though - it isn't entirely clear at first glance, but then it took me ages to get the hang of a whiz wheel !

[Flitcraft]

Well I suppose I’d better out myself and say I am that ‘nosey lady’. Hifiman is quite correct, I am the historian in question. I make and research history radio programmes for the BBC (I am not a reporter – I don’t do news stuff at all – I make historical documentaries for radio and Simon Schama I’m not).
I thought the Vulcan thread was fascinating, so I made the mistake of asking one of the most interesting contributors on the thread about it, as I thought it could make a good history programme for Radio 4.

I clicked on the button in the profile that says ‘email so and so’ and sent an e-mail to one person. When I got an unfriendly response I didn’t contact anyone else as I am a newbie here and certainly didn’t want to offend people. (BTW Hifiman I’m afraid 650 a day is telly rates, in Radioland we don’t have that sort of money!) Anyway, I apologise if I inadvertently breached board ‘netiquette’ by asking.

BTW it's a wonderful thread and definitely worth preserving - I'm not an aviation historian and I found it fascinating. I hope you get it all into the hands of an archivist to be preserved for posterity

Cheers

L.

[BEagle]

Thank you for having had the courtesy to clarify the situation!

Aircrew are naturally reluctant to talk to journos due to instances of previous mis-reporting, exaggeration and 'sexing-up' which distorted their contributions.

Good luck in wireless land!

[spekesoftly]

The Nr Fairy,

I suspect that the 'Hide Email address' function is not, at present, working quite in the way that you describe. In my own 'user cp - edit options', the 'Yes' and 'No' options work in reverse! When I selected 'Yes' to 'Hide Email Address?', I was still able to send myself a test e-mail. When I select 'No' to the 'hide' option, and then 'Click here to email spekesoftly', I then get the following message:-

"Sorry! That user has specified that they do not wish to receive emails through this board. If you still wish to send an email to this user, please contact the administrator and they may be able to help."

I also suspect that this anomaly may be connected with a changed 'default setting' (e-mail addresses used to be shown in profiles, unless you opted out), that possibly happened soon after the last time the PPRuNe server or software was upgraded?

So, to summarise, it appears that if you do not wish to receive e-mails via PPRuNe, click 'No' to 'Hide Email Address?', and then 'Submit Modifications'.

Or perhaps it's just my 'user cp' that's affected? :eek:

[Pontius Navigator]

Flitcraft,

Beagle has clarified the situation. I would not have said my response was hostile it was intended to be non-commital much in the same way as I deal with cold calls.

Regarding the original question, as I said, I had no knowledge whatever. Regarding the earlier incident, all I could do is speculate, albeit from a position of some knowledge.

The item in today's Daily Telegraph reference Harold Wilson and King Constantine was another instance where action in the V-force seemed to be linked with events in the world. Let me say that it did not involve any military response but there were some adminstrative nail biting moments. More than that I cannot say.

[hifiman]

Flitcraft

I cannot but echo the comments/sentiments of BEagle and Pontius; we are naturally suspicious - especially if we think someone might be attempting to make a buck out of us.

However, you have made a point that many of us have voiced previously - how can we best archive the wealth of stories and memories already posted and tease out those that have yet to be told? There was one volunteer, some time ago, but I don't know what became of his offer.

Now if someone with the talent, and connections, was to offer to compile all the material and then publish it for the benefit of military benevolent funds........

[Archimedes]

The volunteer was marking some Formal Exercises at the Purple Learning Centre and has then been tied up with other things.

However, he has a copy of the material and is, in the next couple of weeks (well maybe three) going to have a chat with a friendly publisher before reporting back to the forum. I'm not sure that this book is quite the publisher in question's sort of book, but he's a good chap who's quite happy to point people in the direction of those who would find it their cup of tea.

Some users of the forum have kindly been in touch already, but more tales via PM would be appreciated (once, of course, my bona fides have been established to your satisfaction via the same means).

While I'm here, if things do develop favourably, might I ask whether or not the V-Force assiocation would like to become involved in any way shape or form?

I'll keep you briefed on developments.

[eidted to korrekt apawling speling]

[Flitcraft]

Thanks very much for clueing me in on that (especially to Pontius for the very helpful pointers - I've found the Peter Day article).

I think if as well as collecting it all, you got someone to put it in its historical and political context, it would be a very good read. I hope Archimedes publisher is sympathetic!

cheers again.

L.