Time for a professionals-only forum?

[chrisN]

I know this has been raised before, but I would think most readers of the Schipol thread, and the poor moderators for whom I have the highest regard, must be heartily sick of having to plough through all the rubbish posted by dimwits etc.

As a non-professional (glider pilot, occasional SLF, and lapsed PPL), I want to be able to read what the professional pilots and maintenance engineers are saying without the other dross. (This is not just a ghoulish interest, by the way - I am a gliding safety officer, and the cockpit workload issues are very relevant to some of the efforts I make to improve safety in my sphere.)

If non-professionals want to post, I see no harm in having a publicly accessible forum where they can put questions, silly or otherwise, repetitive if they insist, without cluttering up the main thread.

I admit this might prevent some useful input from non-professionals in the aviation sphere, such as software engineers or human factors specialists, posting on the main thread. It would be a lot less work for the mods, I would have thought, to check people’s qualifications once only and whether their experience is appropriate before allowing them to post on the professionals only forum, than it has been for them to read through 2000+ posts and delete an inordinate number of them.

Chris N.

[5711N0205W]

Prepare for incoming and maybe make use of the search function, this has been discussed in excruciating detail previously :eek:

[Empty Cruise]

The only way to keep the rabble out from such a forum is to charge an admission fee :ok: Danny, would you look into that for us??? :}

[Whiskey Papa]

chrisN

I've made some serious suggestions concening this - see

http://www.pprune.org/jet-blast/363829-mods-dont-understand-im-unique-little-flower-merged-4.html#post4753927

however it was move to a thread with probably the silliest title on PPRuNe, and so, probably, will your post!

I've given up.

WP

[Keygrip]

Could you define "professional" then?

Someone who is a paid for doing the job?
Someone who is absolutely awesome at doing their job - but may not necessarily get paid for it?
Someone who does the job full time?
Someone who is awesome but only does the job part time - weekend flying instructor?

Professional "what"? Pilot, cabin crew, engineer, aerodynamicist. lecturer, air traffic controller, journalist, flying instructor, ground instructor. baggage handler, marshaller, bird scarer, check in agent, avionics software designer,.....refueller maybe?

When you finish drawing the line - how do you police it? You think that would *reduce* workload?

[llondel]

I think that just deleting stuff (well, most of the time) is wrong because it leaves no trace for those who follow so they'll repeat the same error. Having a parallel thread in another forum for the speculation and the Q&A might be better. That way the mods could reverse things and put the good posts into the informative thread, probably an easier job in some cases. I learn a lot about how things work, but it gets harder as threads grow longer and more tedious.

Moving R&N from being the first in the list would help - have an incident discussion forum above it and psychology will assist a bit.

[The SSK]

As an air transport industry professional (non-flying) of 41 and a half years' standing, I'm just a little disheartened that Pprune's first and most important board - Rumours and News - is overwhelmingly devoted to accidents and incidents. Eleven out of the first sixteen threads as I write.

Our industry is challenged as never before. Commercial and political developments on a weekly if not daily basis are threatening to change the shape of aviation and the lives of everyone connected with it.

Yesterday the European Commission announced that it was suspending the 'use it or lose it' slots rule, allowing airlines to cut capacity this summer without losing their slots. This is hugely important in both the short and medium term, but is also a sign that the regulators recognise that the industry is in deep trouble and that they need to do something to help - quite a breakthrough in itself.

And yet - if this had been posted as a News item it would have been shuffled off in seconds flat to 'Airlines, Airports and Routes'.

I would be absolutely in favour of a closed forum on Accidents and Incidents which anyone could read but only accredited experts (and professional pilots :)) could post into, but Rumours & News should be accessible to all.

[FrequentSLF]

To eliminate the problem of recurring posts, I would suggest that posts shall be allowed only if the poster has read at least 60% of the thread.

FSLF

[TRC]

I would suggest that posts shall be allowed only if the poster has read at least 60% of the thread


OK, so how is that going to be enforced?

[hugel]

To establish a professional-only forum you would have to validate all contributors. Therefore you would have to define criteria. Assessment is virtually impossible without gathering sensitive data, and doomed to failure IMO.

I think the idea is flawed in any case. Such a "closed" forum is better hosted by a pilots association or similar. That also limits membership.

With a closed membership growth will be limited and contribributions would dwindle due to the lack of new ideas or thoughts. The advertisers would lose interest, and the forum would enter a decline...

Quite apart from that I think is a bad idea in terms of the aloof messages it sends out to potential contributors.

On another general interest forum I run, we intended to have a stupidity test to filter out those incapable of rational thought or discussion.

I can think of plenty of questions that may be used to filter-out membership on this forum...

hugel

[angels]

I trust this thread is going to be re-named 'Hamster Wheel'???

[captjns]

Hey chrisN... you can always start your own forum site. You can be the membership board, moderator, and bouncer, all rolled into one.:ok: