First, allow me to declare that I am SLF.

Second, I have been reading PPRUNE for many years and always find interesting discussions and articles to follow and I find it a great way to start understanding some of the difficulties and challenges you guys face within your profession.

I can also see this thread going way off topic along with the way many other informative posts start out. :ugh:

I can understand both sides to the argument when you professionals are trying to discuss things before a Walter Mitties destroys the debate. However, please don't under estimate how valuable and informative some of these posts are to those wanting to join the profession, learn respect for the profession or just learn from the PROFESSIONALS.

Danny, I wouldn't dream of making a suggestion on what direction you should follow - You guys and Gals are the experts not me. However, may I please make a small suggestion for pprune in general?

Would it be possible to alter the profiles of pprune to make people to "declare" if they are CPL, PPL, ATC, SLF, or whatever qual they may have and then display it below their name and join date in all posts they make...

This would result in minimal overhead for the admins and whilst it is obviously open to abuse if someone has been found to have made a false declaration then they could be banned for life.

I am not sure if I explained that too well but it was just an idea. I hope you don't mind.

The IT side of things....
 

Hello Danny,

Just to add an IT perspective to this, as I'm sure who you want & annual admin fee (say £10 p.a.) will all come out in the wash....

1) Licence verification via a free (or low fee company) 'FAX to E-mail' service. That way admin costs are kept low as verification could come to a central pprune admin/mods a/c for approval etc. (Check out yac.com or similar).

2) PPayment authentication for said suggested site via PayPal or authenticated service taking a small % of fee....again to save on admin at your end. Again payment verification sent to a central pprune/admin/mods e-mail a/c for approval.

3) Consider 'offshore' webhosting - you may have US/San Diego stuff right now (as far as I can see without peeking too far) but way to go might be to get somewhere (ahem...less 'litigious'). Maybe need to speak to a Web Lawyer, as, for example, a USA hosted site may come back to haunt you at some future date....that all I'm sayin' on that.

Hope that's helpful on more of the IT side, Danny.

Go well!

K

Edited for typo....K

If the new forum became visible to all to view then I'd suggest not putting up details about the contributors, even if under a user name anyone can see who works for who and what they do and that can lead to abuse. I also think that because of this exact problem many individuals will not want to contribute/join, myself included. I'm not saying this because I want to exclude anybody, but because the forum could be great if you get the right personnel. CHIRP deals with some of those matters that many would shy away from on PPRuNe open forums so a dedicated forum for human factors would be beneficial to those involved. Danny also has to draw a line somewhere if he's going to fully or partially restrict entry, there will always be a group that feels sidelined/unwelcome/excluded. My view is that CHIRP reports actual practical experiences and those best equipped to answer/debate issues are those that are currently working in the exact field, I accept that there are many who have vast theoretical knowledge on topics, but the forum proposed by Danny will benefit from just practical and professional aviation personnel.

I'm in favour of a referrals-only forum, for one simple reason : if anyone with a bit of ppruning experience was to quickly think of a mental top 20 of the chief pain-in-the-ass thread-destroying flame-war-starting got-an-opinion-on-everything pompous windbags in this place, the majority of them are either current or retired airline pilots. Plus one disturbed Australian billionaire PPL and one Ryanair management lackey who masquerades as a pilot anyway.

Either way, requiring proof of a professional licence will keep away a few of the opinionated spotters and SLF, but none of the real trouble makers. Hence, this new serious-discussion forum is just as likely to go down the same pan of triviality and personal agenda as all the other existing forums, unless access is restricted ONLY to those who have already demonstrated both sufficient level of specialist knowledge and a basic maturity level in the forums in general. There are plenty of folk on here who have either one or the other but not both.

An invitation-only regime would also enable the genuinely knowledgeable engineering / ATC / cabin personnel to dispense their wisdom when it's called for, and I for one would be very glad to learn from them as well.

SkyToddelr: :uhoh: I flamed a cc member in 'text speak' last week and got a b*ll0cking from a moderator (first one since 1997!) . Guess I'll be out then! :O

But i think the mods could pick those they wanted to be 'in' from a quick review of the forums. Perhaps people could also 'apply' via an on-line form? There could also be a JetBlast II where the excluded & unqualified can pontificate on BA 744 SOPs, etc and moan about not being included.

Not sure how much workload that would generate - I suspect a lot, which may rule it out.

If contributors were allowed in only on merit, it would have the added benefit of raising the tone of some of the threads in PPRuNe! ;)

Personally I don't think £1/month is enough. Danny charge £100/month and you can eat at Ramsay's every night :D

Danny
Maybe a path in the direction of having Alpa/Bupa or any organised pilot/crew/atc association,witch a person is registered/member.You could request "clearance" from those associations to "verify" membership.That done,secure forum will be granted.It would only take emails and contacts with representatives of these organisations to explain the concerns and objectives of these measures.
Have a member number,verify authenticity,your cleared.
Regards
0'G

Hi - haven't read all this thread yet but if I get the gist of it, I'd say:-

PPrune - the clue's in the name - "professional pilots"

... which means anyone who's not a PP should generally just but out.

I say that from the perspective not being a PP (just a SLF) who gains much interest and enjoyment from reading the views of the pro's but who tries to restrain myself from posting on a forum where 99 times out of 100 (make that 999 times out of 1000), I don't know what I'm talking about.

Oh well, broke my golden rule there ...

But my message would be to keep the Pprune faith and don't be persuaded into some alternative by the interruptions of non-PP's.

NK

Elitism sucks.Restricting access to current airline pilots will not necessarily elevate the standard of debate.PPrune is an excellent source for opinion and debate on aviation,in particular safety matters.Open access actually enriches the debate in my view.Everybody on board here has their own inbuilt bs detector and if they find themselves fast forwarding through some of the postings to get to the pearls of wisdom,what harm can that be?

No offence meant to Danny or any of the PPRUNE team but why PPRUNE as a host for this forum particularly? Why not the good folks at CHIRP themselves? If it is to be a CHIRP discussion forum, can the people who are sent CHIRP reports themselves (I can't remember what qualifies you to receive a CHIRP report?) be the ones who have access to the forum? If, as someone pointed out earlier, the reports are in the public domain, therefore available to anyone, then surely "anyone" should be able to discuss them, rightly or wrongly, accurately or inaccurately?


Its an interesting idea, but I really don't see how you can decide what qualifies (or disqualifies) a person to post on the forum. Take our household, as an example - two aviation professionals, one with 2 ATPLs and an aviation career within and outwith the airlines, the other with 2 PPLs and a phenominal knowledge of aviation - which one should qualify?


If I had to send a photocopy of my licence, and if I were a very cautious, suspicious person, what proof could I be given that this copy is read and destroyed immediately so that no one else has access to it etc, etc. I just had to email a copy of my passport and licence to the TSA, and that made the hairs stand up on the back of my neck, even (or maybe because of?) sending to those folks.


I think, aside from the nonsense that appears on here, the exchange of knowledge from all over the world and all different facets of aviation is what makes this forum so interesting and informative. To restrict a forum to only a select bunch of aviation people would undoubtedly separate the wheat from the chaff, but I fear you would also lose an awful lot of the wheat too.


Another thought - aren't quite a lot of the subjects or situations reported to CHIRP already discussed, directly or indirectly, on a daily basis here in a variety of the forums?

Hi Danny ,

I think this a request i have already seen on the PPRUNE long ago....

Exllent Idea...go ahead with it!!!!!

I Think ATCO`s should participate since we have lots of subjects that air traffic control related.And I think it is important to them understand what we think so they can help us when we most need.

About wanabees...Just approve the guys with ATPL.The rest leave them at bay.
They will still have the rest of PPRUNE . I will nor refrain myself or answering good questions in other secctions of PPRUNE.

Engeneers...Well an engeneer may be the guy who pushes you back...

The old eagles are welcome as well.


To register.:

Send the license or scan of the license and crew card.

To the old eagles the copy of the license even not valid and a copy of the ID.

It will be necessary to create a small DATABASE with the REAL data of the members to avoid people using the documentation of others.

Good idea !!!When is it going to start????:) :)

Why not determine access protocols by asking company forum moderators to determine eligibility?

Who wants the company to know your handle :E

What we really want
 

Why is it that so many important safety issues are being discussed on PPRuNe trough anonymous posters?

Because there is no whistle blower procedure available within EASA.

So many of us want to come forward but stay anonymous out of fear.

Why do the pro PPRuNe posters not send an e-mail to IASA that that’s what they want?

The recent Flight international points out that ATCO praise our system.....I think they are far to idealistic.

I think Luke SkyToddler has the right idea - a referrals-only forum.

As a CPL holder who really only uses that privilege for doing PPL like things when the mood takes me, I really wouldn't have much to chip into a strictly professional forum like the one Danny proposes. However, I certainly would be an avid reader, as I am of CHIRP. Not sure what form I signed to receive CHIRP but it certainly never goes unread by me.

The new forum has to be more closed than the forums in PPRUNE with no place for the:
Mr.Angrys, Mr.RetiredAngrys, Mr.Nastys,
Mr.FlightSims (I refer you all to that never ending BA747 on 3 engines thread which was hijacked at one stage by the sim goons. I suspect that may be one of many reasons the new forum is being proposed),
Mr.MyMateDownThePubIsAPilotAndHeSays,
Mr.ThereAreNoJobsAndThereNeverWere (what does he call himself these days? A320Luggage is it?),
Mr.RyanairIsInFactHeavenAndAllOtherAirlinesAre****
and of course the obvious journos trawling for poo.

Tough one to administer I guess but worth doing right.

As someone who wouldn’t be eligible to post in the proposed new forum ………

I think a forum for airline pilots to discuss matters which affect airline pilots is an excellent idea. :ok:
I’d prefer (self-interest) if it was open for the rest of us to read and learn, but can see good arguments both ways.
Other roles in the industry have their own forums. They aren't restricted - but they don’t suffer from the problem of unqualified people ruining discussions by posting uninformed, and often provocative, drivel which detracts and distracts from the discussion. For some reason I’ve never understood, it seems every man and his dog feels able to express an opinion upon what professional pilots should or shouldn't do in given circumstances.

I’m not sure I’m qualified to express any opinion on who should be allowed to post but, FWIW as an enthusiastic Ppruner and ‘outsider’ –
Anyone in the industry?
No. Although some nuisance posts are from outside, they are often from people in the industry – one group in particular seem to me as an objective observer to have chips on their shoulders about pilots. If the gates are opened too widely, even within the industry, it will achieve little or nothing - and not reduce the silly 'Who do pilots think they are' type of posts.
Retired airline pilots?
It would be a terrible waste to exclude people with maybe 25-30 years experience to offer. Surely someone will be able to vouch for their status, even if they no longer hold an ATPL.
ATCOs?
I can see the force of the argument.
Engineers?
I no longer understand what is meant by ‘Engineer’. Maybe Flight Engineers only – although there aren’t many of those left.
Cabin Crew?
There’s already an active forum for CC. If the ‘read only’ option is chosen, any cabin attendants wishing to learn about flying will be able to do so by reading discussions between pilots. If they have a question, they can ask it on one of the appropriate forums.
Wannabe pro pilots?
PPRuNe already has two superb forums for Wannabes. They can learn about operational matters by reading if the ‘read only’ option is chosen, and can ask questions on other forums.
PPLs? As a PPL myself - No, for the same reasons.

ChewyTheWookie

Quote:

---

“It seems to me that certain people just want to have their own little private members club so they can feel they are better than everyone else.”

---

Oh dear, your chip is showing. :rolleyes:
Apologies for being blunt but IMHO that attitude provides a useful illustration of one of the reasons why a separate forum is a very good idea.
Please forgive me again for being a little blunt but, at 23 with a new PPL/50 hours, a couple of years as CC with BA and an enthusiasm for MS FlightSim (albeit with the B737 and A340 add-ons you recommend), I’m surprised you think you have anything to contribute to the specific type of forum proposed – professional pilots discussing flying issues. As a fellow PPL, I strongly recommend reading and learning from what the pros post and, if you have a specific question, asking it on an open forum relevant to the question. PPRuNe is a goldmine of information for PPLs like us. I’ve never found professional pilots (on PPRuNe or elsewhere) to be anything other than extremely helpful and patient when asked questions - but I’ve never presumed to offer them the 'benefit' of my opinions on flying issues.

Your comment also seems curiously at odds with your attitude towards a BA employee (non CC) who dared to express an opinion in a discussion in the CC forum concerning BA CC going sick. You disagreed with him (fair enough) but:

Quote:

---

"X, you are clearly a very ignorant person so I am going to go through things simply for you."

---

and

Quote:

---

“I am quite interested to know what X is actually doing in this thread. He is clearly not cabin crew or a pilot.

---

Hardly the 'open to all' approach you now advocate?

Well, that's not entirely true. The simple fact is that a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing in ANY field; airline pilots are certainly not the only people who will find the partially informed seeking to educate them about their own discipline. As a (presumed) lawyer, I'm sure you must get plenty of people explaining to you how the law is, or should be, for example .... and I'm sure some of those people are themselves pilots. We all like to pontificate on matters outside our own sphere of knowledge; it's a rare person who will simply say "Sorry, I don't know much about topic X, I'll pass on that discussion"

Most people in this discussion are using it in the context of LAEs - the people licensed to perform maintenance activities on the aircraft. It's also capable of extension to the whole design community, but we don't get licensed so would present an almost insurmountable obstacle to any kind of vetting process.

Thanks for the input so far. Nothing has been decided yet so please don't let emotions get too carried away. If, and that's a big if, I decide to do anything about it all opinions will be considered.

So far, what has grabbed my attention is the option of recommendation for entry into a private forum from existing members. It is also one other way of possibly verifying the bona fides of applicants should there be restrictions to access.

Also, please don't foget, as mentioned by Scroggs, that the rest of PPRuNe as you know it will still be here. My proposal is for some kind of restricted forum for a core group from amongst fellow workers. Access to selected industry observers would also be a possibility. Suggestions are still coming in and are being weighed up.

Rgds from NYC (standby callout) :ok:

Mad (Flt) Scientist

I agree a little knowledge can be a dangerous thing in any field, and agree airline pilots aren't the only people occasionally frustrated by "the partially informed seeking to educate them about their own discipline."
However, we're discussing whether there should be a restricted forum on an aviation website where professional pilots can discuss flying matters with other professional pilots - undistracted by the partially informed.
If this was a legal website, I'd be in favour (for the same reason) of a restricted 'lawyers only' forum where lawyers could discuss legal matters with other lawyers.

I don't necessarily disagree (see my original post) but the problem is that, to use the analogy you make, that if it's a forum for the discussion of problems in the (legal) system, and if you only had actual lawyers, and no police, or forensic scientists, and weren't sure if you wanted judges or not, and were debating whether a law Lord was or wasn't a good person to have there, ..... you might end up discussing the technical details of the law, but miss some of the bigger picture.

Or, back to the aviation world, pilots can discuss until they are blue in the face why someone did or didn't follow the manual-ordained procedure, and whether it was the right decision or not. But if there's no-one involved who's seen the manual development process, and can perhaps explain why it might be so apparently confusing or misleading, then the discussion may end up a little sterile.

And the other forums WILL undoubtedly suffer, even if they are still there; if the 'restricted forum' is seen to be a quieter place for discussion there will be an inevitable tendency for issues to be discussed there which would otherwise be discussed in, say, Tech Log or Safety CRM & QA. That will tend to lower the quality of discussion in the other forums, and you may find a vicious/virtuous circle develop (depending on which forums you read!).

For my own part, I find that observing the (often wide) range of pilot community opinions on aircraft operations to be a valuable background to my 'real job'; you could be building what you think is the best tool in the world, but if the toolmaker doesn't know much about how the tool is used .... so I would find it something of a loss personally. But I do understand the desire to keep discussions in a controlled environment, and it would be very hard to devise an 'admissions policy' that wasn't based on something simple like license status.

Flying Lawyer....
 

3) Consider 'offshore' webhosting - you may have US/San Diego stuff right now (as far as I can see without peeking too far) but way to go might be to get somewhere (ahem...less 'litigious'). Maybe need to speak to a Web Lawyer, as, for example, a USA hosted site may come back to haunt you at some future date....that all I'm sayin' on that.

Hi Flying Lawyer, (Not sure if you saw my whole post earlier)

As a bit of a Forum/IT, 'nerd' myself, I'd appeciate your comments on the legalese post I made earlier (part quoted above), as I think that might help Danny/PPrune in the longer-term re: some sort of 'verified' PP forum.

e.g. As forums are going right now, there is little 'legalese' in stopping anything being said, apart from, say, actions of Mods etc., deleting/ASBO'ing people etc.,

However, my view is that if such a 'closed/subscribed' forum (as suggested) is hosted in, say the UK or USA (Currently it's USA for PPrune), then there might be a 'legal' comeback to those who post on such a site. i.e. PPrune, might get subpoenaed to divulge any such discussions relating to aviation in any relative court action. An example could be, say a problem with a specific aircraft air conditioning problem, say discussed 'professionally' amongst 'verified' pilot members on a given PPrune forum then leading to individual commentators being asked to appear in court?

I hope I've made that clear. If not, please come back. i.e. Once someone is 'verified' as a member of the intended forum....then one becomes available to be 'subpoenaed' on a 'professional' level from the country which hosts the website (currently under USA law, for example, for PPrune.org.). Therefore, if there is an 'incident' in future that relies on say, CHIRPS (or whatever the new forum addresses, 'Professionally'...with 'verified' members)....isn't there a case to look at maybe an 'offshore' webhost, such as 'Tuvalu' (.tv) just as an example, to help PPrune 'verified members' be 'unaccountable' (despite the best intentions/professional opinions) of their posts.

I mean, I'm happy to express incidents in all honesty on a forum online....whether I want to be 'subpoenaed' for what I say is another matter. I will already have given the facts to the company involved and would rather their specialists account for that, than have days offline to deal with another vein of 'legalese'.

Would appreciate your comments overall, Flying Lawyer.

Regards,

K.

Like Flying Lawyer I would not qualify for the "new" forum / forum section as I am neither currently employed by an airline nor is my license valid at this stage. But I think that there should be some things considered on a broader basis then the "them and us" discussion that has evloved over recent threads.

I started in Fora as a member now almost 20 years ago, and I have seen this discussion about unwanted members come and go. In recent years, I saw exactly the same thing you now contemplate happen in several other forums. Trolling went out of control, people locked out by the dozens, many of them long standing members who lost their control over the trolling. In the day and age where everyone can open a new forum at the touch of a button, fora split into fractions over such things, most of the time with considerable damage to both those who left and those who stayed.


The shouts for a strictly moderated and seregated forum with only "qualified" people were to have access, to restrict this by paying access, e.t.c. tend to become very loud at times like this. In some instances loud enough for some enterprising soul to go ahead and do exactly that. Restricted access, paid forum, open to people with credentials only, strictly moderated. The result in 2 of the experiments I saw happen over the last years was sobering to say the very least.
- Of those "elite" specialist screamers who went bonkers on who they perceived as trolls (and had helped to sustain them by feeding them), not a fraction joined the new place. Why? Part reason they had nobody there to shout at and to let out their frustrations and prove how clever they really were when amongst "peers".
- The new place became a totally sterile environment, there was no life to speak of, because everyone became scared to appear "unprofessional" to those who decided what professionalism was. While the old places lost some members, it kept going at the usual rate, the trolling actually decreased and it's still around today. The new places either become a 10 member closed society or shut down within a few months out of pure boredom.

I've seen some of the same, not the same extent, happen in AVSIG, the old compuserve community. It still exists to my knowledge, it's paid access and most of the classic members are gone. The list goes on. Whether we are talking cat's lovers or nuclear power issues, fan forums of the music industries (in comparison to which this forum is TAME :\ ) or medicine forums, you see the same happening all over.

I personally think that the only way a member can "earn" his place in a forum community is by merit of his postings, not by his / her professional position. I much prefer a world whereby the membership of a forum grow together. Excluding large portions of an industry on suspicion that anyone who is not lucky enough to be a flight deck crew member is not "qualified" to even talk to the ones who are, would in my view be the loss of those in the new shell as much as the loss of those who remain behind. There will be trolls on both sides, make no mistake, and I am almost sure that those who openly seek confrontation with them will continue to spin 10page + threads on the love live of the pavement stones on both sides of the fence.

PPRUNE is today, in my consideration, one of the foremost aviation fora in the world. I think the new forum would be it's and the membership's loss. Excluding whole groups of aviation professionals so that the pilot talk can stay between pilots will not bring the result you aspire any more than it did it in other places.

Danny, what good does it do if you tell those of us who are not "invited" into the new place that the old one is still here? So basically, while you experts do the serious stuff in the new sections, we low life can play out here without annoying the pros? What a place would this forum then become if it went the way you hint at here? All the pros gone to Xanadu and just the "jurnos" and other "smelly people" like 80 % of the aviation industry here?

My own prediction is that while in the initial phase of enthusiasm the closed section might prosper briefly and the rest of the forum go a tad quieter than it is now, many of those who scream the loudest today will be back here to tell the ones they are upset about now how wrong they are, along with those who seek true dialogue across the industry rather than within a closed group.

You are hosting one damn nice forum here. Don't change that by taking the wrong turn at Albuqueuque here.

Best regards
An2 Driver.

I think a little clarification is needed for the "engineers" group. I'm not one myself but over the years I've been looking in on PPRuNe have had some valuble replies from several different engineers.

Personally I'd say there are several different engineers that I feel should be included should a restriction be in place. ATC engineers know vastly more about our kit, comms and radars than any ATCO could ever imagine, and on certain CHIRP issues have valid comment. I'd also say that a/c maintenance engineers, those that know everything there is about how each aircraft is built, repaired, maintained and serviced have good input. Flight Engineers, a breed vastly reduced in numbers these days should certainly be included. Beyond these groups I'm not aware of any other engineers that could actually contribute full factual technical information beneficial to the sort of topics raised in CHIRP, but will be happy to be corrected.

Pax speaking: The field in which I now work for the majority of my time, is specialised and unusual. My colleagues and I seek out each other in groups a couple of times a year and we also have a closed user discussion group, accessed via the Web.

What we do affects other people's lives (but, fortunately, not in the death sense!) and there is NO WAY that I want outsiders listening whilst we wrestle with problems practical, managerial, ethical and emotional. We NEED that private space and I cannot imagine that outsiders will be of help in this proposed forum. The work of which I speak has involvement from a range of other people and companies but we have other forums and times to discuss matters with them.

If you try and discuss a complex subject with ALL the possible inputs (Pilots, CC, ATC, LASE etc.) at the same time then I think that you will never reach a conclusion. Perhaps it would work to discuss the subject and reach a reasonable consensus amongst the flyers and then take that DRAFT to the next group involved and refine it further. Going through a couple of layers may well be faster than trying to have everyone contribute at the same time. Afterall, that is what happens at the moment and that is, probably, one of the reasons why there is the suggestion to make a new forum!

As has been suggested, any subject could be brought out into one of the established public forums as a new thread.

Good post and I agree in total.

Regarding the bolded sections, yes I was an active member of Avsig, but dropped out when it became too sterile and at the same time I had to pay to express an opinion in my field of expertise.. In the grand scheme of things I charge a good deal for my credible opinions (listed against my good name and reputation) so I have no interest in paying somebody to read what I write.

At least with Pprune, as it currently is, I don't pay a cent and I don't risk my reputation when I post opinions under my handle.

Hi Danny.

If it aint broke, why fix it?

An excellent idea Danny. WRTo verification, the only thing I can suggest is that you ask for a volunteer who you know, or can verify from each airline who is able to check other members of his airline through their staff numbers.

I commented on another thread in R&N on a suggestion by Loose Rivets, and then thought the comment would be usefully added here:

I'm "justapax" these days, and I don't often post on R&N unless I feel that I have something useful to offer (rarely) or want something clarifying that I can't find out elsewhere. (a lot has changed since the VC-10!!) But I read R&N a lot, and learn from it.

Now that I'm "no longer a professional", I'd be excluded from the new forum and, if all the "serious discussion" took place there, I think that R&N would suffer badly (and, in turn, so would PPRuNe.org). Would there now be 2 choices for the "professional" to post "intersting" events? Would the Professional bother to post in R&N or just in the "New" forum? Would PPRuNe (the existing one) become just R&N (heavily diluted), Pax&SLF, JB, GatBashes?

Loose Rivets' suggestion was that we might have some sort of "tag" under our name on the left side of the thread, to indicate our "professionalism". At least that would give readers an idea of the knowledgability of the poster? (similar to the suggestion by "Outlook" earlier here)

In regards to verification or rather eligibility to participate on a given forum we could rate each other similar to the way it is practiced on eBay and display the rating (i.e. similar as the threads are today) together with the handle.

Then, just keep it all the way it is now. This way, there is a sort of self governance of those that participate on pprune. It would keep the trolling to a minimum yet allow of everybody to comment or ask questions keeping in tradition of knowledge exchange to improve the safety of out industry. It would allow for members that are not currently flight deck or ATC but with a vast knowledge on the subject matter to contribute and perhaps even see a problem from another angle, coming up with a solution.

With such self monitoring system a member will think twice what he has to say. If a member is only trolling and receives only minus points from the community then he may even eventually be denied access to pprune altogether. However a certain grace period must be allowed for to smooth out any "personal vendetta" amongst members which may be bullied out by someone else.

But it is 'broke'. Didn't you see the BA744 thread?

Invitation & referrals.

And because of one thread you are going to risk a whole community?

Bit of an overreaction, don't you think?

trying to remember the exact quote from "the discourse of machiavelli".

it was the very arguments and shouting in the ancient senates of greece and rome that created democracy (poor paraphrase, forgive me).

Many feel that the 747 thread was broken. Many feel that only those who actually fly long haul 747 might rightly comment.

These people are IMHO wrong. There is a lesson to be learned from any contribution to a forum. From any tangent it takes. We all learned the marvelous capabilities of a very redundant aircraft.

But the bigger questions might be summed up as:

Can the plane do it?

Do the regulations allow it to be done?

And finally:

Should it be done? (can we, may we, should we?)


My views then and now are: Yes, maybe, and no.



to leave anyone out of a forum makes it a club of self sustaining illusion. one captain I know put it best: how can I be wrong, I am the captain?


regards

jon

Engineers
 

That's the problem with the word "Engineer", isn't it? It covers a multitude of sins from the bloke who comes to fix your washing machine to the girl who designed and certificated your aircraft in the first place. And everything in between.

On a forum, private or otherwise, where the actual design, operability and functionality of aircraft and their systems may be the key to understanding how and why a particular event occurred there are engineers who are qualified to explain what the drivers may be - and who know about how a system is desinged and operates in more depth than a pilot perhaps needs to know (the "widget" factor).

There's certainly a good case for including engineers, I would have thought, provided that they are the "right" engineers, if you catch my drift. Administrating that is another story!

Yes, I do think your comment about risking 'a whole community' is a bit of an over-reaction :)
Ever heard of the straw that broke the camel's back?
Also, with the posting 2 above this one we're risking Danny padlocking this thread as well ;)
As Flying Lawyer alludes further above, professional pilots are a patient lot, willing to explain to the interested. I think that perhaps that patience was squeezed to the limit recently when those qualified to comment were frustrated by a continual bombardment of ignorance.
I don't think there's any danger that members of the proposed forum would entirely vacate these hallowed forums, but you might find that a serious thread on, say, B744 flight continuation policy, :eek: might end up with only MS Flight Sim protagonists involved.

If Capt Pprune & his mods (whom God preserve) are prepared to go to the trouble of identifying and verifying professional (however that is defined) forum members, why not simply extend the 'Ignore' option to enable those who so desire to exclude from their sight all postings by non-professionals? Or am I missing something??

N380UA
"we could rate each other"

We had a 'rate this member' facility when the site's software was changed at the beginning of the year. It was good in theory but hopeless in practice. The facility was removed after a trial period which showed that friends gave each other high scores and the more juvenile amongst us gave people with whom they disagreed low scores. Hard to believe in an adult forum, but true all the same.

H.

"qualified to comment"!


and who among us is qualified to judge who shall comment?

historically, perhaps Lindbergh, Read, Alcock, Brown, the Wrights, D.P. Davies. who else?

:-)
jon

With pprune being nearly 10 years old (yes boy and girls 10 years) maybe it is time for a slight change. I remember when it was a daily bulletin board format emailed to you with two forums, Rumours and Jet Blast, Danny was pushing the Gemstone to fraggle rock and back and in his spare time giving us the genesis of this wonderful forum. After the great crashes where we lost our membership and had to start again we now have what we have.
People got up and down and hot under the collar, legends like Capt I F Snailtrails were about and these pioneers helped guide us to what we have today.

However today pprune is like all the internet a mass audience show, open to all comers. I really think that we can show what we know and pass our combined experience to those that follow behind and those others that just have an interest….. remember how interested in aviation you were before you took that first faithful step??

Personally I think that a system like what Searider (post 44) suggest is reasonable having used the same system before. Firstly you have to be nominated by another member, before you can post. If you bugger it up then you both get sin binned. It can all be done electronically no serious admin required.

People that suggest specific airline based forum mods be able to check out individuals but what about those of us who work as contractors and flip from private to commercial contracts form operator to operator with joe blow executive one week and corruption airlines the next?

Unrealistic, no I don’t think so, do-able. Open forums for all to read but you must be “sponsored” to post. Some of us post our current types, mine is there, pretty common really they have only made over 5000 except you just have to think outside the square.

Others want to remain anomous, and that’s hard when you get to flight ops and you pprune handle is written on the schedule.

My vote.

New forum, Yes
Paper work verification…. No
Sponsorship….. Yes

Give it a go and see if it floats, if the system does not work and the place becomes a cob-web site, then we just get Slasher, Onan, and a few of the JB old salts to run amok.

(Edit for Heliport) Sponsorship is different to rating, if you missbehave, your both gone. I would think very carefully about who i would sponsor and trust in return.

God?

I mean qualified on type, Jon, as you well know. You're a bit like a dog with a bone, aren't you?

A self-professed private clique of 'professional airline pilots' would hardly be in keeping with the nature of PPRuNe.

The 'sim goons' are soon outed, so what's the big deal?

What would this proposal seek to gain?

Don't fix what ain't broke!