Go Back  PPRuNe Forums > Wannabes Forums > Interviews, jobs & sponsorship
Reload this Page >

An open letter to the owners of PPrUNe regarding advertising

Wikiposts
Search
Interviews, jobs & sponsorship The forum where interviews, job offers and selection criteria can be discussed and exchanged.

An open letter to the owners of PPrUNe regarding advertising

Thread Tools
 
Search this Thread
 
Old 1st Feb 2010, 20:02
  #21 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: DXB
Posts: 513
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Having integrity is important if you want the site to be taken seriously. This includes selecting appropriate advertisers. Maybe these PTF/SSTR ads should at least be removed from the wannabees section. It is akin to advertising cigarettes in schools!
No, its not. Which someone with an IQ of 80 could grasp.
Is this answer an example of the forum "quality" some people are paid to maintain??

Not very different from the mindset of SSTR or so called recruitment companies constantly polluting the screen. I can imagine how it feels for grounded colleagues to be regularly reminded that they need to pay to get a job...

Thanks for keeping us current with the industry's reality.
S.F.L.Y is offline  
Old 2nd Feb 2010, 09:40
  #22 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Dec 2004
Location: Betty Ford's
Posts: 143
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
I think PPRUNE is a great service for users to have for free, yes lots of information pooled together in a central source for all to see, use, contribute to etc.

I think to take the money from companies like this for PTF schemes, is only a short term gain. I cant really see any sense or benefit in it other than financial. They dont have to advertise to cause a discussion or talking point, we already have it.

It really doesn't do anything to enhance, enlighten or better the industry, which i thought was the corner stone of PPRUNE.

So really is it worth it to allow them to promote themselves here ? Is it just for financial gain ?

Would friends of the earth advertise Coal fired powered stations ? Vegan's advertising local meat shops to stimulate conversation and or for financial reasons ?

So what would it take to have an advert given the no no ? What is the standard the bench mark, the foundation, here on PPRUNE ?

WWW, I am sorry but I think Muddy boots does have a point, and your response from a person in your position was a little strong.

Telling someone to piss off really isnt called for by anyone in public or on these forums. Standards need to be met a base line needs to be kept.

I don't think this is an easy matter, but I do believe in PPRUNE, but perhaps we all need to practice what we preach.

Good luck to all in finding work for 2010,

Uni
unimuts is offline  
Old 2nd Feb 2010, 10:07
  #23 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Feb 2000
Location: England
Posts: 14,999
Received 170 Likes on 65 Posts
This isn't the Womens Royal Auxiliary Balloon Corps you know!

YouTube - The Women's Auxiliary Balloon Corps


We don't have a corner stone or a remit to improve and enhance the industry. If we do - on this forum - have anything its a dogged determination to provide a counterweight to the cavalcade of marketing bull**** spewed out by the phalanx of vested interests intent on separating a Wannabe from his money by means of his dreams.

You don't get that elsewhere.


WWW
Wee Weasley Welshman is offline  
Old 2nd Feb 2010, 10:16
  #24 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Jul 2002
Location: Close to space
Posts: 419
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Great topic, this is what pprune is here for. Quite a few interesting points raised. I think we should give WWW the benefit of the doubt, most of us (me included) would have no idea what it takes to keep a site like pprune running and providing the great user experience it does.

Yes the ads are hard to swallow, particullarly if you are a family man, with loads of experience and you realise that these advertisers and the people taking up their offers are ensuring you never get a job on an A320 or a B737. It is sickening but its the world we live in.

I would love to see IFALPA place something similar to a hiring ban on operators that take these guys on for line training.
helldog is offline  
Old 2nd Feb 2010, 10:34
  #25 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Jan 1997
Location: UK
Posts: 7,737
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
I notice nobody has joined the dots regarding the advertising yet despite it presenting a very telling picture.

Lifers on the wannabees forum will remember ad after ad for easyJet, Ryanair, agencies and smaller airlines. Not one off's - there was 5 solid years of it.

Have a look now and use your skill and judgement. Are the present advertisers seeking to give you money, salary, wages as above or do they advertise so as to take money from you?

There is a very simple correlation for you to make that tells you everything you need to know about the market.

Regards
Rob
PPRuNe Towers is offline  
Old 2nd Feb 2010, 11:48
  #26 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Jun 2004
Location: England
Posts: 57
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
No, its not. Which someone with an IQ of 80 could grasp.
Just because you disagree with a point does not give you the right to question my intelligence. I will not stoop so low as to question yours for making the remark.

The point I am trying to make is that taking money from any source, regardless of whether that source is a moral one or not, in order to sustain your business (ie this forum), is exactly the same behaviour exhibited by those associated with PTF/SSTR. Just because it is legal does not make it acceptable, regardless of whether you see any attached irony or poetic justice!

Where were you in 1998 when Danny and Rob asked me to run a new Wannabes forum on a then new bulletin board format? I don't care where you were but I was here and your tiny, silly, newbie opinions are laughable, risible and wrong.
I was working in another industry, saving up to fund modular training. Not that I see any relevance to the question, but I can assure you I am no newbie.

There are many people in this industry who have had the sh*t kicked out of their careers during this recession. Personally, I am lucky to still be working, but have had one redundancy, and am staring another in the face. PTF/SSTR puts a block in the road to any return to a normal career for many people. It may not have affected you personally, good for you.

Keep taking the money. It makes your railing against PTF hollow.
average bloke is offline  
Old 2nd Feb 2010, 11:57
  #27 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Jan 1997
Location: UK
Posts: 7,737
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
But AB, the advertising has paid for you to view the site over the last 4 or 5 years since you registered.

You (collectively) have never given the site anything to keep it appearing every day.

How do you reconcile that with your blanket protest?

Regards
Rob
PPRuNe Towers is offline  
Old 2nd Feb 2010, 12:16
  #28 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Feb 2000
Location: England
Posts: 14,999
Received 170 Likes on 65 Posts
Just because it is legal does not make it acceptable
Yes. It does.

WWW
Wee Weasley Welshman is offline  
Old 2nd Feb 2010, 12:28
  #29 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Sep 2009
Location: Bulgaria
Posts: 163
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
I believe that overall it should be seen as something negative or unethical.

One sign-up to the scheme is equivalent in money to 10 years of advertising on this website.
In 10 years worth of advertising, I can see dozens joining the scheme after discovering it on this website, knowing how things go.

Being selfish is the definition of being a human being and I believe that pprune.org, which is run by human beings will do what serves its purpose best.
It' s for Pprune.org to know what they do with their website, so viewers either visit or leave.

You don' t go to someone else' s house to tell them that you don' t like what you see there.

If pilots hadn' t been selfish, then these schemes would not have seen the daylight in the first place.

A forum costs as much to operate as you would want it to. There are countless forums out there operated by amateurs who don' t see the need to make a penny out of it.
This forum is operated by professionals who maintain it for the purpose of making money out of it, which is their right.

Bottom line being, if you want to do something about it, build your own ethical forum and who knows, maybe we' d all migrate towards it.
fly_antonov is offline  
Old 2nd Feb 2010, 12:30
  #30 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: Herefordshire
Posts: 545
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
No...it's not the adverts.........

...spoiling Pprune. It's the endless line of whinging "expert" teens and twenties who've never sat at the pointy end of public-transport aircraft... yet want to change everything they encounter. Well you guys and gals, here's some free advice:

1 If you don't like what you see, just push the "off" switch!

2 If you don't care for your chosen profession - get out!

This website is a jewel... for priceless information. It's FREE FFS! But you do need a modicum of intelligence to find, absorb, understand and APPRECIATE it! Jeez.

bm
BoeingMEL is offline  
Old 2nd Feb 2010, 12:32
  #31 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: DXB
Posts: 513
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
You (collectively) have never given the site anything to keep it appearing every day.

How do you reconcile that with your blanket protest?
Thousands of internet forums are running for free, without members or advertisers support. Without the participation of its members PPRune wouldn't get the benefits of any advertiser. I would be really surprised if the real operating costs of this forum were in the same range than the generated advertising revenues.

The only reason why the flying crew sector has been degrading so fast is that no one stands to stop such abuses. Having SSTR businesses and their supporting recruitment companies advertising everywhere in a major flying crew forum without any objection is typically how we get continuously abused.

Not having any consideration for members objecting with this practice isn't the way standards will be improved, while shifting to a more understanding platform could be an interesting symbol.
S.F.L.Y is offline  
Old 2nd Feb 2010, 12:40
  #32 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: DXB
Posts: 513
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
If you don't care for your chosen profession - get out!
It's precisely because we care that we dare to make the remark, which by the way isn't only shared by wannabees...

This website is a jewel... for priceless information. It's FREE FFS!
Would you be kind enough to explain me how the priceless information provided by fellow members are necessarily requiring financing? The value of this forum's content comes from its members. The same members posting the same content on a free forum would give similarly valuable information. But you do need a modicum of intelligence to find, absorb, understand it.
S.F.L.Y is offline  
Old 2nd Feb 2010, 12:54
  #33 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Jan 1997
Location: UK
Posts: 7,737
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Thousands do run free. Danny and I paid for PPRuNE for the first 5 years and subsidised it long after that.

However, the scale of it needs advertising. One thing we are never short of here is people in the IT game and I think they can give an honest assessment of whether they personally would happily be able to pay the bill for 70,000 visitors a day, 24/7 tech support on multiple load balancing servers and back up array.

We set the ad rates and you can click in the yellow bar to see them. They're traditionally set at one month's advertising for the cost of one day's freelance captain's rate for a smallish aircraft.

However, far more interesting to me is the dearth of such comments over on the magazine forums. They are absolutely swamped with the glossy advertising, spin and PR.

Do their editors and writers give the blunt reality you find here?

Do any of them offer the real life flight deck experience we do year after year?

Are they intrinsically uncritical of all FTO marketing activity for as long as they've been published?

Have any of them ever published an expose of schools, standards or simply warned that a school or FTO was in difficulties but still taking money?

All that's bread and butter for us. It's been provided to wannabees free of charge for more than 11 years. If you want to shoot the messenger go right ahead. Or alternatively have the guts, conviction and energy to set up your own effort.

And if your short on energy but still full of fire let's have a competition: Who among you can be the first to have a sharp, critical letter regarding advertising published in one of the glossy GA mags?

Now don't be shy and leave up to someone else - I'll take the winner flying.

Rob
PPRuNe Towers is offline  
Old 2nd Feb 2010, 12:55
  #34 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: Herefordshire
Posts: 545
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Well SFLY...

...if it's so easy to establish a conduit/vehicle to provide a global link...24/7... between those seeking information..and those qualified to give it...all free from paid advertising... why don't you do it?

WWW..isn't it time to bar some of the ters?
BoeingMEL is offline  
Old 2nd Feb 2010, 13:11
  #35 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Oct 2007
Location: Moon
Posts: 229
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
PPruneTowers,
Why do you need to explain yourself to these people, you and the other guys do an amazing job running this forum.
Boeingmel if the bar these people, they will set up new accounts, so it makes no odds.
flyvirgin is offline  
Old 2nd Feb 2010, 13:38
  #36 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Dec 2008
Location: DXB
Posts: 513
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Baring people just because they share a different point of view? That's an interesting approach of the forum's concept

Nobody's said there shouldn't be any ad, the point was made in regard to support provided to unethical businesses.

Thinking that paid administrators should bar people complaining about such practices is basically demonstrating how wrong is the situation.

Dozens of professional and ethical companies could be advertising instead of pimping wannabees and job seekers.
S.F.L.Y is offline  
Old 2nd Feb 2010, 13:49
  #37 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Jan 1997
Location: UK
Posts: 7,737
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
No pay for running PPRuNe SFLY

Bottom right corner of every forum listing. Ask them yourself. Each and every one putting something back into aviation.

Those advertising now absolutely, definitely and definitively reflect the aviation market now and for the forseeable future.

And that backs up everything told to wannabees by us for the last two and a half years.
Don't spend anything you can't afford to lose totally sums it up.

Rob
PPRuNe Towers is offline  
Old 2nd Feb 2010, 15:27
  #38 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Feb 2000
Location: England
Posts: 14,999
Received 170 Likes on 65 Posts
Thinking that paid administrators should bar people complaining about such practices is basically demonstrating how wrong is the situation.

a) Nobody has been barred, and

b) Nobody pays us anything


Other than that, spot on.

WWW
Wee Weasley Welshman is offline  
Old 2nd Feb 2010, 15:57
  #39 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: 32°55'22"S 151°46'56"E
Age: 39
Posts: 594
Likes: 0
Received 1 Like on 1 Post
Not quite sure whether some of the posters here realise that this is a not a publically operated website, and the moderators of this forum, as of any forum similar to this, are in control of the content and can do as they please. If people chose not to use the forum because they dislike the modus operandi then they easily post elsewhere...
Would a few people leaving affect the 70,000 visitors per day...

Couldn't help getting drawn into this, but couldn't believe the stupidity from some of the posters on here...
L'aviateur is offline  
Old 2nd Feb 2010, 17:53
  #40 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Apr 2004
Location: UK
Posts: 448
Likes: 0
Received 2 Likes on 1 Post
Well, i'm glad the powers that be here on PPrUNE provide a forum for all to post, F.O.C. and for me to read at my leisure - i really for the life of me cannot see the problem with paid advertising - if i choose to disagree with the advert then i choose to ignore it - simple !

Of course, maybe the flipside for the objectors would be to pay for an advert to run alongside/in addition to the SSTR etc. advertisements warning of the pitfalls for new guys to consider when choosing the relevant advertisers' services and how it affects us all ?? in fact, maybe a huge advertisment billboard at airports as per Ryanair and EasyJet currently have advertising their low cost flights, explaining to the general public at large how these low cost flights are in part funded by high debt, low hours guys who strive to carry out a job we all love but are gradually being exploited to ever worsening T's & c'S to enable the market to continue "as is" and fares to remain artificially low ?? Slight thread drift there......sorry.......just an idea.....maybe even BALPA could help fund the public awareness campaign ?!?! hahah - now i'm definitely not in the real world !!

First.officer is offline  


Contact Us - Archive - Advertising - Cookie Policy - Privacy Statement - Terms of Service

Copyright © 2024 MH Sub I, LLC dba Internet Brands. All rights reserved. Use of this site indicates your consent to the Terms of Use.