G-UNIT

surely this thread has nothing to do with military aviation and the axe should fall.

nigegilb

Scroggs, I didn't post on the JPA thread but I was appalled and amazed at how it came into being. Group whinge? I am not so sure. It really affected some people very badly. Surely those of you who run PPRUNE should take a little pride in what it has achieved?

ShyTorque

Allan, I think you are being naive if you think the forum is about to crash. The only thing that will do that is DF pulling the plug.
Get over it, guys.

BEagle

Much of the comments above reflect the most significant difference between the world of Military Aviation and the airline world.

The military world is not just a 'report, fly, go home' world. Were military aviators ever to lose interest in discussing items such as morale, welfare and the like, which includes JPA and housing conditions, for example, that would be tanatamount to ignoring issues which directly reflect the welfare of those who support the primary focus for which military avaition exists.

Read most of the (non-spotter) comments in the non-military forums and most seem very much centred on the individual. "I'm not paid enough"..."I have to work too hard"..."How can I do this, that or the other?". Some who no longer use PPRuNe referred to it recently as a 'moaning copilot's club' - rather an unfair view, but that was their perception, I'm sorry to say.

Leadership, whether of a crew or a company, should consider team, task and individual needs. The balance may vary depending on the scope of the task, but none of those needs are irrelevant.

If the lad who didn't remove the bang seat pin failed to do so because he was so tired due to worrying about his cocked up pay and his kids living in a damp slum, then that most certainly IS of concern to EVERY military aviator.

Moderate as you need, but please respect the fact that the military has a much greater duty of care towards its peoples' welfare and how that affects their performance than does any airline. The military is a team - and there is no 'I' in team!

Safeware

Scroggs, just to pick up ona) Individual moderators looking at individual forums should be consistent, that's what I was getting at. So, if you are going to shut down a thread on forum x because of its irrelevance, shut down similarly irrelevant threads on the same forum.

b) If the moderators have different interpretations of PPRuNE policies and rules, how can contributors be expected to abide by them? Is it justified to rant when someone asks a reasonable question about those policies and rules?

sw

Postman Plod

Why has this come about with no warning, if not to upset the natives? When the natives get upset, why not at least try to give a convincing explanation consistent with the actions? There are better ways to get user buy-in than hacking them off off.

The forum is nothing without its users. I dont understand why you're seemingly going out of your way to alienate them?

PPRuNe will go on, of that I have no doubt. However it wont be the same, and wont be nearly as valuable or interesting a resource.

As shack says, If you have a traffic problem, only allow registered users to view the forums.

Chugalug2

Well we all have better things to do if a thread that we contribute to, because we we see it as relevant to the lives of people in Military Aviation, is binned without warning or comment! What is the quality of this thread that it continues (so far) while others do not? I have posted to the Mull sticky, not because it is about helicopters of which I know little, but because it is a cause celebre of gross injustice by the Air Staff against two of their deceased pilots. Now please don't think that I want that thread unstuck, let alone locked off, Pprune is doing a very worthy thing by leaving it at the top of the forum for new members to discover (as it was with me). I just don't understand what the new house rules are, and as has been said before, we are all big boys and girls (well mostly) and are all capable of understanding what is or is not acceptable, provided we are told what is or is not acceptable. I suspect that Nige might have got close to what is really going down here, but if he is right say so and I, at least, will understand. At the moment I do not!
A perplexed Chug.

nigegilb

RAF JPA rollout, 185,000 hits. This is an important service to serving military bods. Where would all that steam have gone? PVR?
Current threads, promotions freeze for the Navy? Of real concern, why don't you just pull it now? Come on be consistent. RAFCARS, pull it! Ashamed to be part of it- Pull it, it does not comply with the new rules does it?

shack

Are you therefore telling me that they do not take up bandwidth?

tonkatechie

I've just discovered this 'storm in a tea-cup' after a long period on non-ppruning. Whilst I can appreciate the moderator's viewpoint (essentially - 'it's my train set') I think there are two points I'd like to make to add to the mix:
1. Things like JPA are relevant to mil aviation. Don't agree? Then why is there a complete flight safety video about a (jag, I think) pilot being distracted by domestic issues?
2. The moderators can be as strict as they choose (back to the train set thing), even be downright autocratic if needs be, but remember this: manners cost nothing, and as we're all (mostly) adults here, you should address people as you'd like to be addressed. You can be civil to anyone, even if you strongly disagree with their view. Some of the nastier posts here show a deplorable attitude that I feel if they had been delivered in person, would have resulted in someone leaving with a nose bleed!
Long may Pprune continue, even if I can't afford a personal title...

Roghead

Well done Beags...you've nailed it again
.
Also the other well considered and apposite responses, congratulations. Given 21 years in the RAF, I would have thought you (Scroggs) may have understood a little better. It would seem that PPPrune Towers did not have the benefit of a military background and therefore can be easily dismissed for his lack of understanding.
So, given that statement, I'm "unsubscribing". I would like to take all my constituent parts of Danny's and Rob's train set, but I cannot get at the closed items. Bye.

scroggs

It may have achieved all sorts of things, Nige, and I sincerely hope it has - but it should never really have been allowed to digress from the flight safety implications of admin frustrations in the RAF. It became, very quickly, nothing to do with flight safety; simply a moan about JPA itself, and questioning the parentage of those responsible. That really isn't Pprune territory.

BEags I'm delighted that you choose to remind us of the responsibilities of military leadership. I'm sure that, before you retired from the RAF, you exercised those responsibilities diligently and to the best of your considerable ability. However, Pprune has none of those responsibilities and has no obligation or remit to enable those reponsibilities to be exercised here. That some issues have been raised that have gained attention elsewhere is something of a bonus, but doesn't alter the fact that this is an aviation board, not a welfare one.

Shack outside my technical knowledge, but I don't think altering the access arrangements would prevent these bots from appearing as guests.

Why has all this happened now? Because the direction of this forum been an irritant to the owners for some time, and now they've chosen to do something about it - in their own style! The methods may not suit some, but the result will be focus regained in this forum. Personally, I feel that this forum should have its own Moderator (or team) to keep it on track, but that idea has been rejected by you chaps repeatedly in favour of 'self-moderation'. Apparently, in the eyes of the owners, that hasn't worked (and, to some extent, never existed). Maybe it's time to revisit that question.

Scroggs

Postman Plod

I guess I would have considered buying a personal title if it wasn't so damn expensive! I'm not a heavy user. I'm sure most other users probably feel the same! £5 maximum, not £45 would be more appropriate surely, and probably bring in more money in the long run as more users sign up!

Are you trying to wind the site down? Has your hobby just got too much? Are you getting heat from external sources? Are you being attacked by bots or spammers? Your actions simply dont seem to be matching your words! Be honest with us here! I'll even say please!

[email protected]

Frankly I am amazed and embarrassed by the pettifogging attitude of most of the complainers. A certain arrogance is displayed by those who think PPrune is run by others exclusively for them and any subject they wish to bitch about. We should consider ourselves fortunate that a civilian aviation website chooses to allow a military forum to exist within it - not start moaning everytime we don't like the way they do things. If you want to go to e-goat or A**se then crack on because you will miss out on a lot of reasoned, informed debate that happens here on AVIATION issues. All you will get is the same dripping that sadly mars some of the threads that we have been allowed, despite them not being purely aviation.

PPRuNe Towers

Hmmmm,

And at what point was any JPA thread interefered with? Any welfare thread? Any housing thread? Allowances and tax? Mull? Herc and foam? Lean? Overstretch? WBF even?

Try to raise your game folks. You are bleating unconvincingly.

I've been crystal clear regarding what gets the chop. Pontificating post pubescent politicos who'd argue with their own toenails. The Google gobshites and the 'I could have been a policy wonksters'.' What happened once a week has turned into a plague in the last 6 or 7 weeks.

The moment someone starts querying non mil political topics getting the chop is the moment that the herd have started believing such threads are normal for this forum.

That is not the case and thus the big stick all done in public following the celebrated 3 calls system.

Tell 'em what you going to do and get their attention.
Tell 'em what your going to do and twist the knife.
Tell 'em what you told them now the dust and outrage is settling and more folks are switched to listen.

You'll find this repeated with the search engine in many of the forums over the years.

Mil forum is for the aviation arms of the services - discussion thereof.

If you want to rebut me for god's sake find something we have closed or deleted that actually directly affects service men, women and their families. Find an issue regarding your day to day lives we have blocked or binned.

The sun comes up tomorrow whether you visit or not. Life continues. PPRuNe thunders on regardless for it's 11th year and Danny and I will continue to mold, change and develop this amateurish disaster without ever listening to an 'expert' in hosting, moderating, sales or marketing.

Pip! Pip!
Rob

Tonkenna

What a sad state of affairs this has led to...

So many threads here have no direct link to flying:
Campaign Medal for Bomber Command... no direct link
Chinook - Still hitting back 3... no direct link
Does any one remember my Dad?...no direct link
the rather pointless if Carlsberg made WRAF... do I need to go on?

but, they are what makes up the majority of the Mil pages of PPRUNE. There has often been a load of junk posted and you did have to wade through it to get to the interesting stuff, but this latest batch of "moderating" seems to be inconsistent... all the above and many more should be removed if we are to have posts with direct flying related content.

I don't post as much as I used to, but have been around on the site since before the Mil pages (since Jan 99) and I have even paid for my little title on the side... perhaps it is time to have a look at E.goat or whatever its called.

Tonks

BEagle

Perhaps enough as now been written by all on this thread to draw it to a dignified conclusion?

I think the message has now been effectively communicated.

"Pontificating post pubescent politicos"..."Google gobshites"

Nice aliteration - and accurate!

ShyTorque

A personal title is a one off payment and shows a certain commitment. Other sites, e.g. Friends Reunited, expect you to stump up every year, if you wish to be a full member.

The forum was started as a hobby, discussing aviation matters. It was never meant to be a commercial concern but DF had to ask for financial assistance to allow the site to continue because of the ever increasing cost of the bigger and better equipment required to allow sufficient bandwidth.

IMHO, Danny made a slight mistake back then because he should have made it mandatory to contribute financially. Somewhere along the line, a huge number of contributors decided to jump on board because they didn't have to pay anything for posting privileges.

My suggestion would be to require a small payment to post or to access certain areas of this site, which is quite normal these days for many other websites dealing with technical matters. That will sort out the bandwidth problem.

I'm a member of another engineering based website, based in USA, where the originator has no qualms about telling contributors to go away if he feels a post (even a genuine question) is not up to his standards. They get a very terse reminder to use the search engine and go away.

The severely piqued ones claiming to de-register are cutting off their own noses out of spite and won't be missed. I can almost guarantee that they will still be out there, unable to resist the temptation to take a sneaky look.

P.S. Beagle, now you're no longer an impoverished military pilot, it's time you got your hand in your pocket, too. Only about a quarter of a tankload of fuel for that musclecar of yours (that you so much enjoy telling us all about) would do it.

scroggs

OK, prolly my fault for going off on that particular tangent!

Rob's quite right - the number of threads that have been moderated, compared to the noise made about them, is very small. Despite my own philosophical objections to the detailed discussion of non-aviation matters military, none of these have been removed.

Oi, spoilsport. I'm enjoying this!

I obviously have too much time on my hands today. But it gives me a break from matters of major moment happening not 10 metres from my left ear.

Scroggs

GPMG

I wouldnt be surprised if the mil side of these forums is being wound down so that the rest can be sold to a commercial buyer. So the admins have decided that Rob should take on the persona of obnoxious git and take the flack, surely he's not like this usualy otherwise he'd probably sport a permenant shiner.

A real shame, this forum was a mine of information and was used by some of the most interesting people I have "met" online.

Hope the moderators have a wake up call and wind their necks in, doubt it will happen though.