Pprune Censorhip? YES!

[forget]

It’s high time that the moderators of this forum bit the bullet on censorship. There is far too much drivel and time wasting rubbish posted by juvenile lame brains, and allowed to sit amongst the informative and entertaining stuff. As a classic example just take a look at 320 Drivers recent ‘’Are American airline crew so rude?’’. 320 started this as a reasonable topic, now locked out thanks to the likes of Beaver Driver and BIK_116.80. (Are they one and the same?)

A suggestion – Any posting which clearly makes no contribution to a discussion, and it isn’t hard for a Moderator to qualify this, should be moved to a Sin Bin. Leave the posters name there but shift the text. Anyone who wants to see what’s been shifted can do so, and it seems to me this would be limited to the poster. The rest of us can get on with what would otherwise be an excellent site.

The dead-heads will soon get bored with having their ‘contributions’ hidden away. All in favour say ‘Aye’.

[ETOPS]

Aye

[aerobat]

Aye aye

[kemo]

Aye

[BOAC]

Aye

[Beaver Driver]

How about Sand Spider and Numpo-Nigit? Or is it just any YANK that doesn't agree with you that you want to censor. How Droll!

BIK and I are not the same. A simple check of the ISP could have told you that.

A good bit of my previous posts on 320's thread were what I felt were (maybe sarcastic...) good humored replies to some serious anti-American rhetoric. A few of those were deleted, so it may be hard to tell from what is left (mostly all the anti-Yank stuff). If you want censorship then let's censor everyone who post ANY opposing view. Has it really come to that? Or maybe you see some ring of truth to my replies and you don't like it?

[This message has been edited by Beaver Driver (edited 02 November 2000).]

[Buster Hyman]

He's at it again!!!


** AYE **

[topunicyclist]

Eye

[What_does_this_button_do?]

This is all very subjective isn't it. Some could argue that this thread should be moved to the "sin bin"; others argue that this is a valid "need to be discussed" point - who decides where this line in the sand is? I can think of only a few emotive issues where everyone agrees the same way (kiddy porn for example); what's good for the goose may not be so for the gander.

And who do you all propose as the moderator?; I think you will find all the upstanding PPRuNe individuals work full time?

[Hung Like A Horse]

Aye

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[Best Western]

Aye

[mach78]

It's very easy to have two or more ISP's so that's irrelevant.
I've had my doubt's about BIK.........

[Bubbette]

Don't the moderators have enough work to do? It seems they do get notified about the few truly inappropriate posts, so lets give them a break.

[hailstone]

bubette - AYE to that (would be a/some full time job/-s)

and also AYE to the original post

[Greek God]

(o) (o)

[Professor TailSpin]

Aye to the original post...

However, I feel some sympathy to the moderators. Can't be easy trying to check through all the topics on a regular basis, especially if they are doing this after work. Perhaps there should be a number of moderators for each area to split the workload a little (I'm assuming each area currently has only 1 moderator...probably wrongly).

I can't really see anything wrong with this thread as it is a valid discussion point. I think it's fair to say that there are three or four totally pointless threads which have been started today / yesterday which need to be dealt with and stopped....that's where the moderators need to concentrate.

[autopilot_99]

Leave moderators to do his job. I think, he knows what he is doing.

[PPRuNe Pop]

Interesting! I am the retired one, so I have rather more time than the other moderators. But you are right. It is a mammoth task filtering through the topics, then the posts, then moving some, deleting some, a little chasing and then perhaps some "pruning" - of those who cannot put two words together without swearing or slagging somebody off.

The other moderators will, perhaps, also have a say on this topic, but I know we at PPRuNe HQ have a good number of mails from Danny in regard to mail that has been sent to him - some of it so stupid it makes you wonder - which he gives us to deal with. Especially when he gets back from a trip - as in tomorrow morning. But you can bet he will have a good look at his hobby and see what has been happening, perhaps even dealing with something, before he goes off to bed.

Then we have to put up with those who don't always agree with the action we have taken, then we have to rationalise it for them. Even then we maybe cannot win. But for the most part most approve of what the moderators do. We have our own forums usually, but when others are doing their proper job, we all have a wiz round looking for the clowns or perpetrators of that which has no place on PPRuNe. We all take our 'job' here seriously but we do try to be fair. Even this sometimes is rebuffed and "here we go again".

From a personal standpoint, I enjoy it. It is impossible to please all of the people all of the time, but I try, and I know the others do, including Danny himself. Danny gets more than frustrated sometimes too, and then he will spill forth the riot act, which he happens to be rather good at!

As far as a sin bin is concerned, we do actually have one of sorts. Its called ADMINISTRATION right at the bottom of the bulletin board. We put dubious threads in there for Danny to decide later if it should be deleted or returned to the forum. If the latter there is usually a requirement to follow a certain path, or it gets permanently removed.

I must say that it is good to hear the positive view on we moderators, moreso since we do do our very best at all times to ensure that PPRuNe continues to be a place of rumour, information, education and fun. It is there to enjoy, and we very much hope that you will continue to do so.

Thank you for support, well almost. But that's life!

[This message has been edited by PPRuNe Pop (edited 02 November 2000).]

[TrueNorth]

Can we get rid of the "I`m a big fat idiot" thread, please?

I think the moderators do a fine job, but I`m sure we can all agree that the thread from rolllingthunder has absolutely no merit whatsoever!

[Professor TailSpin]

TrueNorth

Totally agree with you! That thread really needs to be removed, it has absolutely no relevance on this forum.

The moderators do a fantastic job and we all should be very grateful for the amount of their own time they spend doing this. Not sure how many others would willingly sacrifice that amount of their own time.

[PPRuNe Dispatcher]

The "Big Fat Idiot" thread has been removed.

[Tor]

If anyone whishes to have censorship on PPRuNE, then the thread that initiated this debate should have been deleted from the beginning.

The crew that 320DRIVER mentioned didn't have a chance to defend themselves and we only got 320DRIVER's version.

Tor

[Brenoch]

Dang, it was such an informative thread.. :)
Sorry..

[PPRuNe Radar]

Beaver

In a post on the 'American crew' thread I stated that the UK vs USA battle should continue on JetBlast. It was adding nothing to the thread and the signal was clearly beginning to become drowned out by the noise.

This advice was unheeded not only by you but by others from the opposition view. I think I deleted two of your posts, but I also deleted four from the UK/Europe side of things. I chose an arbitrary point in the thread history to start this otherwise to be fair I would have to end up deleting every comment not related to the issue. Believe me, I would much rather be doing other things on the site than clearing up squabbles which belong in the playground.

In the same vein, I am not particularly bothered who started it. I am bothered that none of the antagonists on either side had the common sense to call it a day and continued to post peurile comments slurring each other and other races/nationalities. Since you (collectively) could not demonstrate that the hint had been taken, the post was clearly going to continue spiralling downwards. So I closed it.

Rumours & News has created high expectations from the people who use the site. If they want to trawl through banter and posturing, then that can be found on JetBlast. Time is precious to many of users and as a professional site we should all do our best to make posts in a suitable manner. That means, post in the right forum, obey the rules which Danny has published, and act professionally (except in JetBlast !!).

For the record I am Europe based but get on well with Americans, professionally and socially. Especially over a beer or two ;)

Professor Tailspin

Although we have named moderators for most areas, there is a core group who also have full access rights to all areas of the forum. Given that many of us work strange shift patterns or are constantly jetting off around the world, we tend to keep an overview on most of the site and jump in even if it's not our named Forum.


PS Anyone got any good rumours ?? :)

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PPRuNe Radar
ATC Forum Moderator
[email protected]

[Capt PPRuNe]

Just to make a point, I am sitting in LGW waiting for my flight back to MAN after operating all night on 2 sectors from SFB via BGR. 11.5 hours flight duty and still a couple of hours before I get home to bed. I thought I'd pop into an internet cafe here to check out the latest on PPRuNe and would you believe it the web site was down and I had to phone the US to get tech support ovwer there to fix it. Now, I sit here reading this thread and realise that some people have no idea what is involved in running this site.

Apart from PPRuNe Pop who is retired but leads a hectic social life the rest of us have full time jobs in the industry and can only spend time on PPRuNe when not at work or recovering from jet lag or other forms of 'airline fatigue'. Please be patient if you see a thread that obviously shouldn't be here because it is possible, believe it or not, we could all be at work, away down route or just asleep and there is no one here to do the dirty work for a while.

Anyway, got to rush, my flight boards in about 30 minutes and this thread has got to be moved to a more 'appropriate forum'.... let's see now.... eeny meeny miney... MO... Aircrew Notices I think. At least until I get home and have a few hours kip and unfraggle the old grey matter.

(PPRuNe Towers knows the problem of my long haul flights and the 'anti-cosmic radiation' hat I have to wear. ; He'll have to explain.)

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Capt PPRuNe
aka Danny Fyne
The Professional Pilots RUmour NEtwork

[Self Loading Freight]

As someone who's been using and running online conferencing stuff for -- eek! -- the best part of seventeen years, I hafta say that the Pprune crew are doing a great job.

You will *always* get the problem that some people consider it their divine right to say what they like even if it would embarrass a drunken sea-baboon on shore leave, while others take offence at ideas that wouldn't bother a Victorian maiden. Any attempt by moderators to actually keep things on the straight and narrow will always lead to cries of censorship from one mob and ruinous libertarianism from the other. Often at the same time (which is when you know it's going particularly well).

The only way to manage, as a moderator, is to steam ahead and do what you like; it has to be a dictatorship if it's not to die under a writhing mass of contradictions fuelled by those users who are the most loquacious and have the most time on their hands. If the cruel hand of tyranny matches the needs and wishes of the majority of the users -- including those who just read, which is most of us -- then an online system will be a success. As Danny and co seem to be incredibly sane and even-handed even under intense pressure, and have -- thank Zarquan -- a near-undentable sense of humour, I don't think anyone should worry too much that things will go pear-shaped.

As for the really idiotic things such as spoofing regular handles, deliberately provoking arguments, recklessly breaking categories and so on -- they always happen and always will. Whatever steps are taken, there'll always be some smartarsh who'll find ways around them unless you lock stuff down so tight it stops being fun. (My personal defences against getting wound up by this sort of thing are a mix of trying to keep a sense of proportion, a sense of the ridiculous and a sense of direction to the pub.)

(That's enough arslikhan (*). Ed)

R

(* One thing I don't like about Pprune is the rude word filter, which is bloody patronising. But it's probably a good thing... and smartarshery will always find a way)

[Capt PPRuNe]

Shurely shome mishtake 'SH'LF?

In order to avoid serious sense of humour failure I look forward to my long haul flights where I can get away from PPRuNe and only return home to a heart stopping server crash or the 15 minute wait while my mail downloads (and that's with an ISDN line!!).

I'll consider my arslicked... err... no... can we get off this topic... errr.... back tonight after I've slept. (Just got back home about 40 minutes ago.)

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Capt PPRuNe
aka Danny Fyne
The Professional Pilots RUmour NEtwork