Quality of posts
 

On a different thread, Fuji Abound wrote
I find myself whole heartedly agreeing, post far less than I used to and have noticed far fewer posts these days from folk whose opinions I respected.
Are FA and I alone and if not what is to be done about the malaise?

Stik

Afraid that you might be right; two or three years ago I'd spend a good deal of time reading, learning, vicariously soaking up the experience of others.

Recently I've found that I look at the topics, maybe click on one or two - like this one - then wander off elsewhere.

To be honest, I'd thought that it was me but maybe not.

I haven't been on here for long enough (believe it or not!) but I do vaguely recall this place being (a) a lot busier, and (b) a lot more full of aggressive idiots. Both seem to have largely departed.

Where have they gone?

They haven't gone to Usenet, which (on aviation) has suffered the same fate in terms of traffic; in fact much worse.

A lot of them have probably gone to the Flyer forum, where they have great volumes but the average quality of posts is as dreadful as ever, and most of the top posters write drivel.

Maybe this is a wider problem?

I've been "online" since c. 1995 and back then Usenet ruled the roost. It remains the #1 technical resource for software and hardware development. However, "discussion" has moved to the WWW (presumably because nobody knows how to set up Outlook Express for usenet) and now there are thousands of WWW-based forums. Everything seems to have a forum these days. Even an obscure brand of a tablet computer has its own forum - even though it is largely ignored by the manufacturer and is thus next to useless.

However, I am not aware of any UK oriented aviation forums where the ex pruners might have gone. There are a few others but they are quite obscure.

Careful, you might give us new boys an inferiority complex!

I think the very same thing every now and again. I find the forum moves forward and is a great place to read then it will die down and take a step back for a while, then it will pick up again and so on.

The forum (Private Flying) is far busier than it has been for some time now. We regularly get over 100 users at any one time, except of course the middle of the night when it is quiet in the UK but it is still growing as we speak. I have been impressed with the amount of traffic we have been seeing recently.

As for quality of posts, there is very little I can do about that! Can't wade in and delete the crap just on a whim in case it is a genuine question, these tend to get the right answer then go off on one shortly after. I would be here all day deleting posts if that was the case so I will leave them, unless of course the thread really has gone down hill then I will close it.

Very good question. I just think it will pick up again soon. Watch when the summer flying really kicks in when everyone is out and about, the forum will be busy then, good spells of flying weather tend to have that effect. :)

Sitting under the rain and low overcast here in Cardiff wondering when that'll be! :sad:

I only occasionally post nowadays - Maybe it is evolution, when I first started posting on here in 2001 I probably posted as much tosh as some of these current posts but just didn't know it ;) I post of Flyer too, but that has started to become really crap recently. Maybe I'll give up and just start doing something productive instead!

Exactly my memory too!

Slashdot.org (geek/IT related forum) uses a moderation system where all registered users can mod other users and posts up or down based on the quality of their posts. Slashdot even uses this to hide posts by default unless you select "show all" but a less agressive variant would be to just list the mod points of the poster next to his/her name.

I am not registered on slashdot, only post there anonymously every now and then. Does anybody have more experience than me with such a system, or another system where, somehow, the readers can rate the quality of a post or poster? Would it be an idea for here?

I know that pprune has the ability to rate whole threads, but other than the occasional sticky, nobody seems to be using that system.

In a stroke of bizarre irony, I find myself agreeing with Stik on this one. I've found the posts pretty boring and samey. There seems to be a lot of stuff about which GPS to buy, stuff about IFR flying, and always someone asking the same question about how to fly in the US. All valid topics, just none that particularly interest me. Most of the stuff lately seems to be about information exchange rather than sharing experiences, which I consider much more interesting.

In fact, I've pretty much given up posting and read the site far less frequently than I used to.

For what it's worth, the Flyer forum has become even worse, populated mostly by a few notables who seem to not have jobs so have all day to post really inane rubbish to the point where I don't even go into one of their sub-forums any more and I don't read anything posted by these particular idiots.

Have we all done all the interesting topics to death and have nothing interesting left to say to, or ask of, each other?

Pitts2112

Have we all done all the interesting topics to death and have nothing interesting left to say to, or ask of, each other?

That's the question.

I suppose, if you are looking for quality postings (however that is defined) then you are looking for an intersection between several populations:

a) pilots who do some real flying;
b) pilots who like to write about it;
c) pilots who have the time to write about it;
d) pilots (incl. newbies) who have a question to ask

I know for a fact that most pilots who fly really high hours (200+/year) do not participate on any pilot forum. They have relatively normal busy lives. They have read some forums, waded through the drivel, and never touched them again. Some remain on aircraft type specific forums but TBH those suffer from the same problem of a small group of twats posting drivel.

The best way to deal with twats is to pointedly ignore them or, if they make a particularly misleading statement, ask for a reference.

What destroys a forum fastest is aggression and personal attacks. There is a lot less of this here now.

It seems to me that most of the threads I read nowadays are rehashes of stuff I've seen before : but then again, I've been reading this board for 5 or 6 years now, and since an awful lot of the stuff on here is of the "I'm new - which pencil should I buy?" variety, which many of us have seen dozens of times, it's not particularly surprising that the board is often yawn-inducing. And of course, the longer you stick around ...

The reactions to posts are often equally predictable (and mind-numbingly so, sometimes) : with the "I've been flying 80 years, and in my day ..." camp on one side, and the "100-hours-in-a-Cessna-152-heavy" team on the other. Both keen to impress with their accumulated wisdom, and both equally keen to refuse to acknowledge the extremity of their experience levels whilst dealing with other points of view.

I think the speed with which the personal aggro sometimes starts is quite possibly higher than it used to be : but perhaps that's just the way the world is going (or perhaps I'm just getting older and more crabby - I certainly have less patience with it than I used to !)

It remains a fact that PPRuNe is an awfully useful repository of information for those who fly : a lot of it is crap, but much of it is great. And there are undoubtedly gems from time to time : threads which interest and/or horrify in equal measure (the one based on that poor kid sent out of the circuit on his 2nd solo who then stalled it in will stay with me for a long time) : and at the end of the day, I like aviation and things related to it, and the forum alternatives are meagre to say the least ! :{

I don't really think it's worth getting too precious about this: it's just an internet forum when all said and done - and there's always the "off" button on that monitor !

FF :ok:

Well - in a bitter twist of irony, I find myself agreeing with 2112 and with 540! Maybe I need to change my name to a number!

Perhaps I should write about my latest formation trg wheeze - Battle formation, 500m apart at 500', 150mph - it's the 90 degree turns that make it fun!

At the risk of adding to the problem...:}


How many forum members does it takes to change a light bulb?

1 to change the light bulb and to post that the light bulb has been changed
14 to share similar experiences of changing light bulbs and how the light bulb could have been changed differently
7 to caution about the dangers of changing light bulbs
1 to move it to the Lighting section
2 to argue then move it to the Electricals section
7 to point out spelling/grammar errors in posts about changing light bulbs
5 to flame the spell checkers
3 to correct spelling/grammar flames
6 to argue over whether it's "lightbulb" or "light bulb" ... another 6 to condemn those 6 as stupid
2 industry professionals to inform the group that the proper term is "lamp"
15 know-it-alls who claim they were in the industry, and that "light bulb" is perfectly correct
19 to post that this forum is not about light bulbs and to please take this discussion to a lightbulb forum
11 to defend the posting to this forum saying that we all use light bulbs and therefore the posts are relevant to this forum
36 to debate which method of changing light bulbs is superior, where to buy the best light bulbs, what brand of light bulbs work best for this technique and what brands are faulty
7 to post URL's where one can see examples of different light bulbs
4 to post that the URL's were posted incorrectly and then post the corrected URL's
3 to post about links they found from the URL's that are relevant to this group which makes light bulbs relevant to this group
13 to link all posts to date, quote them in their entirety including all headers and signatures, and add "Me too"
5 to post to the group that they will no longer post because they cannot handle the light bulb controversy
4 to say "didn't we go through this already a short time ago?"
13 to say "do a Google search on light bulbs before posting questions about light bulbs"
1 forum lurker to respond to the original post 6 months from now and start it all over again.

:D:D:D

3 "seniors" who will say that if its not a bayonet fitting its not a proper light bulb and those who use screw fittings don't know they're born. (Light-a-matic pah).

Top, you've forgotten the 15 people that will insist that we shouldn't speculate on why the other lightbulb failed in the first place and instead wait for the official report to come out.

And the 21 that will then state that we can all learn from experience and hopefully save another bulb from being snuffed out early in it's bright (although short) career.......

And those that think light bulbs are responsible for falling standards and everything would be better if we'd stuck to gas lights.

Maybe the forum could be split
 

Private Flying - PPL training
Private Flying - Qualified

That way all the relative newbies can post in "PPL Training" and all of the qualified guys that discuss in the in's and out's of aviation can avoid newbies ?

I'm finding myself using this forum less and less and as a result doing more and more 'stuff' at work, this is a highly unsatisfactory situation.

How about talking about aircraft taking off from a moving conveyor belt? ;)

Speaking personally, I find that the qualifications & experience (or lack thereof) of the posters is irrelevant. However, I can get frustrated by inaccurate or even incorrect responses to questions, and often annoyed at the sometimes personal abuse that can fly about here from people of all experience levels.

And what happens if a newbie asks a good question which can only be answered properly by a more experienced person?

My experience with such a split is that the newbie forum will quickly become silent while all the newbies migrate to the qualified forum, since that's the place where they can receive answers to their questions. Unless there's enough qualified people who volunteer to keep track of the newbie forum.

What does help, probably, is creating a sort of FAQ list, where the questions that pop up every few weeks, are covered in great detail. Like I did with the sticky about flight training in the US.

Light bulbs? :rolleyes: Pah! What tosh!

I sometimes wonder why I bother reading post on this forum, let alone contributing :hmm: ..... Oh! hang on, what was the question again? :ugh:

SS :p

Now, is that a spelling or a grammar mistake? ;)

Well, this forum is really famous now

http://forums.flyer.co.uk/viewtopic.php?t=34463

:)

I've been reading and posting on this forum since.....it started! Can anyone else here claim that? Come to think of it, where are they all - LowNSlow, Rightstuffer, BEagler, and a few others I can't remember. And Hungry Pilot, who thought we shouldn't be here...who turned out not to even be a pilot. I think BEagle was in at the beginning too. Probably Genghis the Engineer too. We wanted our own forum, and despite complaints that this was a PROFESSIONAL pilots' rumour network, we finally got it.

Since then the main change I've noticed is that it's got bigger - enormously, hugely, bigger. For a while we all knew each other, but that's not really the case any more. We had fly-ins quite often, and we didn't worry too much where they were to - we just wanted to meet each other, often for the first time. And we thought this was so, so much better than the Flyer Email List, which was probably the only other similar thing around back then.

Apart from that...it goes up and down, more serious, more trivial, more or less aggressive, more or less downright bizarre. I come here less because I have less time, and because whereas back then aviation was still new and exciting for me, that isn't really the case any more. It's not that I don't still enjoy it, but in a different way. I've seen people come and go, and topics come and go and come round again, but that's normal and as it should be. Everything changes, and if it doesn't, it probably stagnates. And yes, every now and then people say that the forum isn't as good as it used to be, and that gets discussed for a while too.

Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose....and all that.

With a couple of notable exceptions (keef/'Dutch/'Donkeys) I agree.

I don't bother there any more as some of the top-53 posters are too strange and never accept when they're wrong. (Frequently).

Interesting thread. I've been a PPruner for about 18 months, compared with the 26 years I've been in and around flying and flying people. Face to face, I've found nothing but camaraderie, helpfulness, friendship and shared enthusiasm. I've found these qualities on PPrune too, but I was shocked at the level of ridicule, abuse and aggression that I've seen (and suffered!:hmm:) here. The shock was mainly due to the contrast with the way people help each other in real flying. They bend over backwards to help and accommodate and I've never seen anyone talk like that to each other in real life in the flying world. It can make posting a daunting experience.

Agree about the drivel too, though I'm probably as guilty as anyone.......:}

The Guardian reported on some interesting research on this phenomenon yesterday. You can read the article here.

Nige

You are spot on, incredibly perceptive and very funny. Have we just become bored and jaded or have things really changed?

rustle wrote:

You're not even going to look after your own cricket forum?

Bet you don't get another one here ;)

Rugby starts soon. :}

I think one factor which kills off a forum is when it gets cliquey i.e. when the top posters know each other personally and use it like a pub. The flyer forum is a lot like a pub now, but the clearest example is ukga.com where practically every thread degenerates into drivel very fast - they all know each other (in fact I gather that forum was started to support a particular airfield community; Sherburn or perhaps Cardiff?).

What I like about pprune is the lack of clique. There isn't much need to read between the lines. I do this stuff for fun while having a cup of tea, and don't have time for posting thousands of one-liners. OTOH I know many will disagree with this, enjoying meetings, fly-ins, etc.

The Guardian article is unsuprising. I know of one forum where people do mostly use their own names, yet I have seen some vicious attacks there. Presumably because they think they will never face the target. However, I would never have anything much to do with the real people afterwards. Also, with nicknames, you never quite know whether the target of your attack might be somebody rather closer to home ;)

Thankfully there are much fewer attacks here now, and it's fairly easy to deal with them.

Ah - assisted turns....the 90 degree case is the easy one, its the call '37 port....go' from the lead being a comedian that does your head in.

Excellent as a mental exercise, but not a lot of practical use for use piston souls, it being a fast-jet flat-knacker in-the-weeds type of thing.

It was, however, practising the above that I had my first, and hopefully last, experience of taking off as a four ship, and coming back as a pair and a singleton, at the EGSX formation week a while back.

As for the quality of the posts...what are people expecting - a free weather forecast, next week's lottery numbers and a money-off voucher at Tesco with every posting?

Ed - Shackle, shackle - GO!

And as for being not much use........... mmmmnn, but hell it's fun!!

Hmmmm...less than two days, and already.........TWO PAGES! Maybe we're a bit jaded with all this discussion of aviation and stuff. Let's start a new forum - maybe even a whole new website - on what makes a good poster, subject, thread, discussion, etc. We could take our findings to....well, everyone! :):):)

Warped Factor, FTAOD my comment about notable exceptions referred only to "notable exceptions within the top-ten posters (who are active)"...

Anyone between #11 & #51 are Good Chaps :ok::E;)

I thought it would be interesting to get a comparison to Pprune by starting the Flyer thread. If you compare the comments, and the attacks and the language used in the two you gain a considerable incite into some of the individuals in both places.

Both can be good, both can be awful, but a small number of formats being unfriendly can significantly impact the popularity of one over the other. Flyer is more popular, which must mean that more people feel it has the right mix.

I just wish it would stop raining and I could go flying!

Rod1

As someone who reads both PPRuNe and Flyer (and even uses the same name on both), my observation is that both go up and down in quality. The interesting questions and the useful answers have all been done thoroughly, so to the "old hands" they are repeats and boring. To the newbie who isn't adept with the search facility, they are something else. We oldies have to live with that.

Two things have struck me on both forums:

There are folks who don't shout about who they are (or have been), but whose wisdom and aviation knowledge are beyond what most of us could dream of. Yet those folks get insulted by low-houred (or low-brained) self-appointed experts on both forums. Most don't retaliate - they say nothing, or just leave quietly. I had dinner a few weeks ago with a former RAF aerobatic display pilot and a senior training captain for a major airline (not BA). Both had been told they know nothing ... by a PPL stude with an overinflated ego. They'd both also been "corrected" by a qualified but still less than omniscient recent IR. They chose in both cases to remain anonymous, so I will continue to respect that.

There are trolls on both whose sole aim is to drive people away from the forum they have decided to descend upon. I received enough gratuitous insults a few months ago on PPRuNe (not in here, I hasten to add) that I decided to make my visits very rare.

I wish people would stop pitting this forum and flyer forum against each other. Both are good and both have their faults.
As I posted on flyer there is room for everyone. One forum mentioned above yes is the worst I have ever come across but I don't think most even consider it any longer anyway but flip both Flyer and PPRuNe have practically all the same membership anyway so why an issue.
There is no doubt for those of us who have been around a while that we see replications of posts but we ourselves probably posted items when we first started that others took a big sigh too.
When we all meet up at fly ins who would guess where each persons loyalty lies and lets face it it doesn't matter anyway they are Internet forums they don't change the world however self important we all may think we are.

IO, don't know if you ever bother with the non-av forum elsewhere, but no doubt you'll be pleased to know that you and I have been singled-out for analysis by the armchair expert. :rolleyes: :ugh: