Hotmail & Yahoo email addresses

[Capt PPRuNe]

Not sure if it's a full moon today but some of the more ignorant and imbecile types have been posting on the PPRuNe Bulletin Board today. I have decided to stop any new registrations from Hotmail and Yahoo addresses for the next few days until I get back from a trip.

I know the majority of you with Hotmail or Yahoo addresses are not a problem but it is too easy for the loonies to generate a new address and then register a new username and start posting topics which are either nothing to do with our jobs or just plain abusive. I also know that there are many other sites that give out free email addresses but the two mentioned are by far the most commonly used ones and it just makes my life easier if I can cut down on access to the fruitcakes who wannabe part of our community until I can get back and devote more time to the running of this site.

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Capt PPRuNe
The Professional Pilots RUmour NEtwork

[CaptA320]

Well Danny if it's not a big logistical problem you should even request a copy of an airline id to register. This would bring about accountability as well and filter out any non pilots. Besides you can give them access to non pilot forums.
Cheers.

[Scooby Doo]

'twas in fact a full moon......

[Cyclic Hotline]

Oops silly me! :rolleyes:
Almost forgot that the Aviation industry and PPRuNe is the sole domain of PILOTS and AIRLINES.
Don't forget to put your hat on when you go out in the sun old boy! :)

There may be plenty of prats influenced by the Full Moon and general stupidity, but I think a large volume of the forums in PPruNe would no longer exist if you were to restrict participation to Pilots with Airline ID!
Maybe we could start a low cost, no frills PPRuNe for the remainder of the aviation community, maybe PPRuNe-light?

[ironbutt57]

great idea...there goes the anonymity of the site!!!!

[Capt PPRuNe]

Humongous logistical problem to try and ID everyone. Figure it out and come back with a solution if you can automate it otherwise i do have a life (not a lot) outside of my flying job and PPRuNe.

Also as mentioned above, PPRuNe may be called the Professional Pilots RUmour NEtwork but the job is much more than just our part in it. Without the contributions of the many different people with skills and jobs that make our working life what it is this site would be a backwater.

Please just be patient if you are trying to register a username and you use one of the above mentioned addresses. I will re-allow them when I get back next week and have the time to monitor what is going on.


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Capt PPRuNe
The Professional Pilots RUmour NEtwork

[Few Cloudy]

Dear Capt!

Glad that particularly viscious thread seems to have vanished without trace.

My suggestion: We can be anonymous to the readers of the thread but should be prepared to be well known and verifyable to you at Pprune.

This entails a certain trust on our part (you have mine) but would be fairly easy to organise - by letting you have more personal details which then don't appear in the profile.

What sort of people do you/we want on this forum? I think passengers' views are interesting. Let them be bona-fide passengers however. Let Wannabees be bona-fide Wannabees. Do we want all Forums (Forae?) to be accessible to all categories of member? If not - no problem, for we can automatically categorise members at sign-up.

Next problem - what do you do with the "experienced" members? Well we would all have to submit the same details as soon as a passable form can be completed. Any questionable cases would be filtered out at this stage.

You may have my credit card number, phone number or whatever you like. This in turn would require a "microsoft" type of agreement page on initial sign-up.

Trust is required on both sides.

PS. cynical remark for those who don't believe in trust - a membership fee separates the men from the boys too!

[Whiskery]

Well done Danny for stepping on that "mugabe" low breed.
Maybe it is time for some form of accountability on this forum. I doubt if the lack of anonyminity would change much here. Might get rid of a few "doubtful" avaitors.
Keep up the good work.

[DownIn3Green]

Capt PPrune,

You have my vote of confidence. If you feel you need to take this action, so be it. You're the one with the most experience here.
Think of it as a CRM style excercise. You identified a prob, informed us of it, listen to our ideas and opinions, but in the end, the cockpit is not a "democracy". Majority rule can lead to disaster.

I'm behind you all the way.

[FormationFlyer]

Hmm. Well Its nice to know that with a Frozen ATPL CaptA320 thinks i'm a non-pilot because just because I don't have an airline ID - Yet. Ho Hum...

Still, I do approve of the removal of one or two more dubious elements and am happy to oblige with whatever measures are proposed. I moved to a hotmail address after finding that one or two dubious characters here prefer flaming to getting a job...or indeed giving credit or encouragement.

Hip HIP Huzar! for Capt PPrune!

[pilot-lite]

Might a delay between registering and gaining posting privileges help to deter some of the unwelcome elements. It may also help with people using multiple aliases.

pilot-lite



[This message has been edited by pilot-lite (edited 20 April 2000).]

[Deemy]

This dodgy username business will never be a thing of the past. I was going to recommend employing a twofold/two-way ‘cookie’ system that I have heard of recently, but even that is easy to get past.

Simple measures such as a blatant notice asking double registries to back off or something similar should regulate the problem to an extent – don’t you think?

[CargoRat]

Dear Capt (or dare I call you Danny after a ton of posts). No problem from my side. Thing is, how do I (or anyone else for that matter) prove my airline credentials. I could fax you a copy of my ID card, but lets face it, do you want 13K fax copies on your machine?
Any better ideas out there?
rgds Rat

[twistedenginestarter]

I was a BA pilot once but I'm not currently working for an airline. Does that mean I get thrown out? Seems a bit unfair to me. I can't remember causing any trouble...

[The Guvnor]

I think that the vast majority of the 13,000 members are nice, civilised types - whether they are commanding B747s, C150s or just reading Flight International. It's the few nutters that seem to enjoy putting the boot in - for whatever personal reason - that need to have a code of conduct applied to them.

Now, in some cases, this is well merited as witnessed by our Wizard fom Oz - but in order to safeguard Danny and the boys, I think that anyone that wishes to post any 'beware' notices *must* also provide, publicly, their real identity and contact details. No details - the posting gets deleted.

It's a fine balancing act for the moderators to tread in identifying something that is malicious and libellous - and something which is of genuine, relevant interest to the readers. So far, I feel they havd done a great job! :) :)

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:) Happiness is a warm L1011 :)

[Capt Tercrue]

Guvnor
I may have misunderstood you but many of us have no choice but to rely on our anonymity in order to submit any posts.
I am a serving officer and as such would feel the wrath of a number of HM's policemen breathing down my neck if they knew my identity. Maybe not, but my boss could take exception to views I might express on the forums.
Certainly a balance needs to be struck, quite how that might be achieved I don't know.
Anyway, here's one who's staying firmly in the closet.

[The Guvnor]

Capt Tercrue, what I meant was that everyone continues to have absolute anonymity - should they so desire - UNLESS they launch a personal attack on someone else. Therefore, if you were to label Sqdn Ldr Bigglesworth as 'a danger to all around him and someone that bought his commission through dubious sexual practices involving an Air Commodore and a sheep' you would need to post your details, which would have to be verifiable, or your posting would be removed forthwith.

In reality, it's no more than is required if you wish to submit a similar letter to your local paper; or place a political ad.

I know that Danny and the other moderators are extremely concerned about the issue of potential lawsuits arising from malicious and/or libellous postings here - so this is to assist in protecting them as much as anything else.

Comments?

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:) Happiness is a warm L1011 :)

[ULLRICH]

Whats all this crap about supplying Airline ID? Is this forum for the sole preserve of pilots with airline ID?

Is it only non- airline pilots that cause trouble? :mad:

[Kaptin M]

Well, I reckon the system is working fine, as is.

After all's said and done, we're only the end users...

...and I'm more than satisfied with the product.

Thanks, Danny, and thanks for sharing [some of] your "trade practices" with us.

[GoGirl]

Hmmmmm......I see A320, I must not be worthy :)
Well, I don't have an answer to this problem,but I'll sure add my 2 cents worth!

Danny, quick stupid female question; But can you not 'block' users as you would an e-mail address? And if the individual/s continue to misbehave, then 'block' them permanantly. Ok, I realise that the idiot could sign up again under a different alias, but if it's only say, 100 out of 13000 registered users doing this crap, then surely that wouldn't be too hard to keep a track of? I dunno...just a suggestion.
BTW, could we do something about activating the 'password' field on 'chat'? You reckon you've got problems with loonies on the forums http://www.pprune.org/ubb/NonCGI/eek.gif
My suggestion to this would be to have anyone interested in participating on chat, to e-mail you and get approval for a password :) (ok, so now I'm pushing my luck!) May I also suggest that you ban the likes of Julien and 111 :) Big nuff nuff's :) (they only make us swear anyway)

After all is said and done, I will continue to visit pprune no matter what dork is causing trouble, so long as there is a pprune to continue visiting. I think that that is the issue here, so pull your heads in and enjoy what others have to offer on the value of what this forum promises:
Rumours and News within the Global Aviation industry.

Thanks to Danny and The Kelly Gang :)

GG

[Jetlegs]

With The Guvnor on this one! You name people, you get named yourself.
Going for Few Cloudy's suggestion as regards giving a credit card number on sign-up seems like a good idea.

And to Cpt. Pprune: in 6 months of reading Pprune I've learned more about what goes on in the cockpit, the way decisions are made and the dilemma's pilots face, than in 18 years on the job as a FA.
Reading the technical threads is a lot of fun too, improves understanding no end.
So a Big Kiss to yourself for starting this whole thing up, and maintaining it so nicely! :)
JLS

[GJB]

I have no airline ID, but can supply my PPL number.

Surely you can identify the 'eejits' by what they post and bar them that way.

P.S, eejit is Scottish for idiot!

[ULLRICH]

Steady on GJB I dont think Captain A320 wants us bringing our dirty brown licences on to this forum. Blue or green only I think. What a Jobsworth! :mad:

[ironbutt57]

mmmmm must 'ave missed a juicy thread that started this discussion what was it?

[AfricanSkies]

Let the fools post! It's fun to watch the experienced Ppruner's take them to pieces, livens the place up a bit! They go away after a while anyway...don't waste your time, they'll always find a way to get in.

[CargoRat]

I'm with Guv. If you look at the Letters section of Flight/Times/Daily whatever, you'll often see a letter printed, signed "name & address supplied".
Would it be enough if worried memebers kept their e-mail addresses c/o pprune? The Capts could then sort out the trouble makers.
Just an idea,
rgds Rat

[What_does_this_button_do?]

If Danny is blocking membership to this site with people using a Hotmail address perhaps he should start with JLM's.
'enuf said.

As Ali G says: "Iiiiiiiiii"

[StopStart]

Controlling access via e-mail addresses is always going to be difficult and it's easy enough to get around a block on Hotmail amd Yahoo ones - there are hundreds of free e-mail sites offering quick addreses available. A determined individual will get get onto the site quite easily. But that is really part of the ethos of a site like this. The UBB software is designed to make it easy for people log on quickly and join in a "converstation". With this comes the snag that morons can get on post inflammatory or offensive material with ease.
I don't believe that ID numbers and other proofs of qualification are the way ahead at all. This immediately excludes retired aviators, wannabes and the travelling public. It would also remove a lot of the variety of opinion and input that is seen on this site.
Could I suggest that as well as providing a hotmail (etc) address at sign up it becomes a requirement to provide your proper e-mail address (to pprune admin only) and that the password be e-mailed to that address. Something like that might remove the feeling of total anonimity that the abusive poster currently enjoys.
Keep up the good (and, I would imagine, time consuming and at times frustrating) work. Your efforts are appreciated.

PS. I'm guilty of being a multi-name user. I used to be Fat Albert but the hotmail account lapsed and I haven't a clue what my password for that name was :rolleyes:

[Crankshaft]

Excuse me Mr. PPrune!


Who do you think you are?

The owner of the site, Thats who!!


[This message has been edited by Hamrah (edited 05 November 2000).]

[Swombat]

Is this such a big problem waisting a topic on?

[PPRuNe Towers]

You're probably right swombat but Danny thought it only fair to let folks know what he was doing.

Thanks for all your views. While I know that you realise a miniscule minority of posts and posters actually take up a hugely disproportionate amount of our time there are periods when we have to offload as many potential problems as possible.

Thus the action on certain addresses. You still have PPRuNe and we get a breather during periods of high workload. Yes, it is a compromise but one that seems to work for most people.

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Regards from the Towers

[email protected]

[Few Cloudy]

Nice example of a drunken midnight rage posting three higher up. Do we need that?

[blackadder]

I agree with Few Cloudy, a good example of a poster with the IQ of a dog biscuit 4 up.

My name and address are well known to THE BOSS and my little fwend with the 747SP.
I live in hope that this conman takes me to a UK court one day.
There won't be enough room on a 747 for all my witnesses :)

[Jack Schitt]

Crankshaft.

Why not start your own forum and feel the heat :mad:
Just think, you can converse with dickheads just like yourself, wonderful, eh!

[ULLRICH]

Boys boys calm down,

Im sure someone said to a new member on here recently "read some, write some, ignore some". Good advice if you dont like something someones said ignore it.I`m sure Crankshaft was just taking issue with the fact that everyone should be able to post on here be it mere PPL`s like myself who can offer advice to other PPL`s who one day themselves may be flying A320`s. Pprune is a valuable resource for people like myself. It is hard enough to gain a commercial license but if Mr Jobsworth A320 had his own way none of us would be able to access this information.

[StopStart]

Thanks for your input CrankCaller.
Your post proves the point to a certain extent though. You and Dr Smirnoff decided to add your opinion (valid - no matter what others may think - we're all entitled to an opinion). The software makes it easy to get a password in no time at all and then, bingo, your reasoned thought joins everyone elses.
Your post isn't offensive (we all adult enough to cope with name calling)and isn't libellous or abusive (no it isn't really).
But surely you can see how easy it would be for people to get onto the forum and post things that are.
All Capt Pprune is trying to do is find a way to regulate the amount of witless drivel that gets on the site - surely that's not too much to ask.
PS. I've been following this site for a couple of years now and have a vague understanding of the work that is required to keep the site working. If my acknowledgement of that fact makes me a brown-nose then so be it. Sticks and stones etc.

[Mount'in Man]

Crankshaft,
Well said. Some of these jackasses live on ‘Fantasy Island’ and want nothing more than a ‘nice little pen-pal club’ where they can all slap each other on the back and sound off about what a great job they’re doing for the industry, and be identified of course. But I thought their posts seem to say, “here I am, put sh#t on me!” and I was happy to oblige. (Sound of penny dropping!) Damn, I was so mistaken – they didn’t mean that at all.

The majority of subscribers use pseudonyms. In doing so they have the opportunity to play out roles on a public forum that they may not care to do within their base environment. And that’s okay. The site serves as a sounding board. Ideas are exchanged laterally and vertically. It’s a bit like management on a global scale.

But pseudonyms also protect the abuser and the abusee from identification and therefore, as Ironbut57 alluded, provide anonymity. Could you imagine the laughter in court when the bailiff calls ‘Scooby Doo’ and ‘Cyclic Hotline’ as witnesses in the case of ‘After Burner’ –v- ‘Jack Schitt’. Bring on the ‘Mad Hatter’ and we got a tea party!

This is a great site. Don’t kill it by demanding accountability from the masses. An if you don’t like what I write, threaten me with legal action – I have included my e-mail address just for laughs!


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I'm a mount'in man,
I luv mountin' women!

[This message has been edited by Mount'in Man (edited 24 April 2000).]

[ExSimGuy]

Anonymity is a must for people in certain situations. I am lucky enough to have a UK freeserve address but there are compelling reasons why I cannot show my more common email address (though I'll happily give it to The Towers, and genuine email via my freeserve gets answered)

Some writers may be using their company email connection and not want uncomplimentary mentions of their company replied to on an address that their supervisor might be reading - there are even worse scnarios than this too!

But, of course, I understand the action taken by The Towers - it's a temporary thing - and as Danny has commented, he does this for us and he would like the occasional evening out with his wife and/or girlfriend!

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Flight Sims, very expensive toys - but real fun to play with!

[Jesus loves me]

What did I do?

[Le Pen]

JLM.....You still here????

Anyway, how about having to fill in all the fields when signing on? I would guess that would put a few loonies off.

Love

Le Pen

[Seaman Staines]

I hate censorship, but after the events last year which led to the outing of a QF pilot and the recent outing an SQ expat pilot by 'Judas' Skeltor for no other reason than the pilot said a couple of complimentary things about SIA, I have to agree with the PPPRuNe crew.

PS.
Outing is Verboten, unless the person is either a known thief or a conman.

[HugMonster]

N***l H****s? :)

[Fission]

The whole thing about verifying identities would be a nightmare. With the worldwide lists of pilots, how is one to verify whether an individual's 'Number' is valid ?

Even though it is a little like 'Closing the barn door...' a method to Ban users a little like IRC might be a possibility.

As for maintaining anonymity, well, your post has the IP address logged, and your ISP has records of IP allocation. Not too difficult for the thought police to identify you really. AND THEY ARE OUT TO GET YOU !! ;)

____________________
Free Beer - Tomorrow

[blackadder]

Crankshaft
unregistered, does that mean "de-registered"? :)
Please advise!

HugMonster, I can't hear you. :)

[Capt PPRuNe]

What can I say? I get back from my trip and Crankshaft goes ballistic! I have no idea how he/she mamanged to post as an unregistered user but I think that he/she and many of you need to go back and re-read my original posting.

I have never tried to prevent anyone from accessing PPRuNe. If there is an interest in Professional Aviation then that person is welcome to participate as long as it is relevant. If it isn't relevant then I or my assistants are free to move a thread to a more relevant forum or delete it if it has absolutely no place on PPRuNe.

The logistics of even trying to control who does and who doesn't have access to whichever forum is far more difficult than you can imagine, especially when only I and a few close friends have access to the core of this software. Forget it. It will probably never happen and if we were to do that then the forums would become very sterile indeed.

I have been running this website for well over three years now and have watched it grow. So far I believe that it is continuing to grow in the direction that I want and all I am trying to do is reduce the amount of extra work that is generated for me by just a few people who do not take care with their postings or registrations.

In the meantime, now that I will have a few days to review what is going on I have unbanned Yahoo and Hotmail addresses. I never threatened to ban them permanently anyway.

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Capt PPRuNe
The Professional Pilots RUmour NEtwork

[Zlin526]

Hey guys, lets lighten up a bit here. Reading through all the posts, it sounds like a local parish council meeting, what with all the bull**** being thrown around. Censorship is not a good thing - If you don't like what you are reading, then log off! Any free forum is a place for discussion, throwing ideas around and generally chewing the fat. If we restrict this forum to who is generally seen to 'conform', then surely that is then not a 'free' forum!

Head down, waiting for the flak............

[James R Swift]

Two suggestions:
a) Name and shame (a strand with the out-of-favour listed on it)
b) Sin bin offenders (like with Flood Control)
c) A nice polite warning via E-mail
d) Teach the undesirables how to count!

PS: You are doing a great, great job with these forums. Many Thanx!

[This message has been edited by James R Swift (edited 25 April 2000).]

[Seaman Staines]

Zlin526

mate, you've lost the plot.
Read my post again.
If THE BOSS gets a complaint or threat from lawyers, 99 times out of a hundred it relates to some idiot naming someone.
I don't think that this is a "free" forum as you put it, "FREE" (for all) forums are found in Yahoo & Delphi etc.!

Staines.

[The Guvnor]

Seamen, I think you're missing the point here. As an actual example, I have some infantile dweeb called Freeboot currently 'having a go' at me - he did the same at the end of December, beginning of January. Now, I enjoy a good verbal spar but a quick check of this guy's posts (under various guises) shows that the *only* postings he's done have been directed at me.

Despite repeated challenges from myself - and others - (s)he has declined to provide his/her identity and continues to snipe behind the cover of anonymity. :rolleyes:

Given that I am trying to raise very large sums from investors at the moment - a number of whom are avid readers of this site - being labelled (and libelled) as a 'con man' by this d*ckhead :mad: causes potentially serious problems. This, by the way, is one of the reasons I spend so much time on here, responding to each and every allegation made!

Now, I have *never* hidden my identity - anyone is welcome to call me, have a beer, etc - but I am getting rather tetchy with certain intellectually-challenged types such as this. :mad:

So yes, something needs to be done.

Just my US$2 worth.

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:) Happiness is a warm L1011 :)

[Seaman Staines]

The BOSS = Danny.

And it's Seaman, not Seamen...... wotchit or I'll report you to the SPELLING POLICE! :rolleyes:

[overpaidgovtemployee]

Dear Capt,
I do see and I am trying to full understand your problem here. But since I am not a "airline" pilot.(lol) but just a humble police officer who happens to only fly a C550, C210, UH60, and As350 and my patrol area is all over South and central America my opinions probably won't matter. But if they do, you can at least go to landings.com. You can look to see if a person here at least has a medical. I am ashamed to try to be part of the very "elite" (lol again) organization. Also lets not forget the "lowly" CFI's who helped out"just a little" who don"t have a employee number. I do see the problem but let us police ourselves, ok? And by the way. My email is [email protected]. I use it so I can get my mail overseas much easier. Feel free to write. By the way, you do a great job
Jerry Litton
ATP CFI/CFII, C550, Bh212, M O U S E

[This message has been edited by overpaidgovtemployee (edited 28 April 2000).]

[This message has been edited by overpaidgovtemployee (edited 28 April 2000).]

[This message has been edited by overpaidgovtemployee (edited 28 April 2000).]

[150Aerobat]

I don't agree with having to state employee ID's, employer details etc. Much of the value of this site comes from the fact that contributors remain anonymous. Without it, many posts would not be made, and most that were would be censored to the extreme by the author.

What about rating individual posts, or posters. A form of self-regulation. Each post could have a "Useful", "Vaguely Useful", "Not Relevant", "Not Useful", "Utter Trash" type rating. You read the post, click the radio button corresponding to your opinion and browse on. With that info in Danny's database, member ratings could then be displayed along with the "Date Joined" and "# posts" info that is currently displayed.

"Date Joined: <>"
"# Posts: 99"
"Very Useful: 99"
"Useful: 99"
etc etc. You see my point.

Then, when you read a post you can easily see a reader opinion history of the authors previous posts.

For example,
Grandad Flyer"
"Very Useful: 123"

.
.

"Tommee Boiyd"
"Utter Trash: 99"

I admit this would be most useful for newcomers; regular readers get a feel pretty quickly who they would and wouldn't want to bump into in a pub.

Maybe it's a bit dictatorship-ish of me to suggest this but it would be nice to be able to flag for all (particularly newcomers) to see, those contributors who so obviously wish to contribute nothing except bad taste.

[Capt PPRuNe]

Within the next few months there is going to be a major upgrade to this bulletin board as it moves to a special server and new underlying software. This is going to be an expensive move but will speed things up dramatically and allow many new features to be introduced such as rating topics and a lot more customisation.

I will keep you informed as and when it is available.

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Capt PPRuNe
The Professional Pilots RUmour NEtwork

[BurningKeroNow]

Hmmm - I thought this was the "Professional Pilots Rumour Network", not the "Airline Pilots Rumour Network".

[deepee]

BKN- you've hit the nail on it's head.

[InFinRetirement]

Don't you mean that you hit the nail on BKN's head?

Get a grip!

[Flintstone]

BKN

Over since months between Capt PPRuNe's post and yours.

Are you usually this slow?

[Stephen John]

Flintstone

BKN registered in October 2000

It will explain the recent discovery of this thread

[Flintstone]

Ok. Maybe I should have asked what his/her point was.

Come to that, why am I bothering either?