Goodbye PPRUNE...

[Busta Level]

Right, thats it..

Yet another incident that has resulted in the death of someone (see the thread about the Yemeni Capt passing away at LHR), has been (AGAIN) reduced to a slagging match between a bunch of people who quite clearly have no interest in the airline industry, or a shred of human decency. This is happening all the time now on PPRUNE, and I'm fed up with reading it. Please Capt pprune, delete me from this board, so that I can avoid the temptation to read it again.

Without wishing to sound like a winging old git, PPRUNE used to be an excellent source of airline news and gossip, and all postings would recieve a fair hearing. Sadly this is no longer the case. All posts get hijacked by the 'usual suspects' who drag everything down to the lowest common denominator. They seem to take great joy in slagging any view that does not fit in with their narrow view of the world.

This is NOT a criticism of the moderators of the forums, who do a bloody good job of keeping on top of everything. It just seems that with 30000+ members the forum has maybe exceeded it's capacity?

Anyway, I'm sure no-one will miss me, but I really felt I had to make my view heard. I am sure there are others out there who share it.

Thankyou Danny et.al. You helped me get my first flying job in 1997, and I really appreciate all you have done.

Cheers..

Busta Level...

[McD]

Busta, you make a very good point. I too am annoyed, saddened, and/or angered by the postings of, as you so correctly stated, "a bunch of people who quite clearly have no interest in the airline industry, or a shred of human decency".

Wouldn't it be nice if the people who "contribute" to this site followed the example of earlier posters. People used to pride themselves on debating the issues, rather than attacking each other. There was still a sense of "the art of debate", in that people could disagree strongly about certain topics but could still conduct discussions in a very respectful fashion.

You're right ... admins and moderators work hard. It's tough at times to walk that fine line between (a) keeping the bulletin board in a reasonable condition for the majority of readers, and (b) perceived censorship. (You wouldn't believe how many people scream "censorship" at the first suggestion that a post is out of order.)

I don't know what else to say to you, because no matter how many PPRuNers maintain a high standard of dignity in their posts, there will always be a few individuals who insist on drawing attention to themselves through their infantile postings. It's a shame that they need attention so badly, and that they can't rise to a higher standard, but I suppose such is life on a BB such as this.

... of course, you do know that even if Capt P "removes" you from this board, it won't stop you from reading the forums Can you really stay away? Or will you end up like the rest of us who find ourselves permanently attached to this site?

[tilii]

I totally support Busta Level in this. In addition to the Yemeni skipper thread, we now have the same sort of thing on the UK Chief Pilots & 'Old Boy's' thread. Absolutely bloody disgraceful. Makes me feel ashamed, dirty almost. Yuk!

[The Guvnor]

I also concur heartily with the sentiments expressed by Busta Level, McD, Tilii and over on the Chief Pilot and 'Old Boys Network' thread HoltCJ.

In fact, the latter sums things up very aptly when he says:

I laboured under a misapprehension pilots were all professionals, possessing all the requisite characteristics inherent in being so described. There are, I concede, a handful of contributors to this site who display those qualities, but the vast majority are clearly a squabbling, puerile, rabble with a very poor grasp of language and an even poorer grasp of what constitutes professional conduct, even good manners.

[fly4fud]

Busta level, I sure can sympathize with you. The thing is, life is a big fight, call it a survival fight

There was a long thread a few months ago about having only airline pros on the site. I don't want to revive the
idea here, but the whole thing wasn't so much out of line, was it?

As for you Guv, I rather feel your comments misplaced. Reading your comments in the thread "9 injured in emergency landing..." sure doesn't qualify you as either airline pro, nor as a sensible and measured person :o

[Capt PPRuNe]

I can agree with the comments but I am in the middle of a series of night flights and have only just managed to finish all the admin work since waking up and now don't have time to check the forums. So please be patient and if there are threads that are going well off topic or being hijacked by the usual bunch of 'stirrers' or xenophobic types who are not welcome here they will be dealt with.

This is another topic which doesn't belong in this forum and so takes up more time to move it somewhere more appropriate and means less time to check forums and I now have to go get ready for my night flight!

[Murray_NN]

Busta Level,
I started that topic about the Yemeni Capt and I was under impression that it was news to professional pilots.

If it has ended in a slanting match then I hope you are not balming me for it.

I was under the impression of sharing the sad news with you guys as the person that died was a professional pilot.

If I could have controlled how others were responding to this topic I would have made sure it didnt end in a slanting match.

and please dont even think of restricting access to pros only as im sure you were all eager wannabe once too.

[PPRuNe Pop]

Busta, I was actually in the middle of posting when Danny moved you into Aircrew.

Look, PPRuNe has some very difficult people around from time to time and I cannot disagree that sometimes their mouth engages before their brain kicks in. Just about how the real world is in fact.

However, we Admins and Moderators spend a lot of time on PPRuNe, and my share is often 4-7hrs a day. It's tedious and wearing but we do our best, and we also know that there will be someone who crosses the boundaries.

What I am trying to say is that we can never stop them entirely, but we usually catch them out. Sometimes we actually offer them 'tea and biscuits' but if that doesn't work we do ban them.

Look. Stay with it Busta, and I will make this offer to you. If you want to contact me - AT ANYTIME - feel free and I will at least take note of what you have to say. Is that fair.?

[ 27 August 2001: Message edited by: PPRuNe Pop ]

[kbf1]

I think the internet is a bit like a family, you can choose to associate or dis-associate yuorself from it, but you can't choose the others that come along as part of it. God knows if I were able to choose my family, all but a couple of them would have been sent to the Goulags ages ago.

A number of the forums suffer from an idiot quotient of some order. A couple of months ago some fast jet guys kept telling perfectly legit PPRuNers to bu$$er off from Mil Pilots coz they didn't fly loud and pointy things, and our intrepid heros of the sky (who it should be noted didn't set the site up, don't put in time as moderators, didn't put their hands in their pockets to pay for servers, and bandwidth etc)took it upon themselves to decide who should or should not be on the forum. The net result was the loss of a couple of AAC rotary and multi guys who just couldn't be @rsed any more with dealing with idiots. You either choose to rise to the bait, or you choose to ignore them for the intellectual impotents that they are.

[ 28 August 2001: Message edited by: kbf1 ]

[BOAC]

Busta, I would urge you to stick with it. As PPrune pop says, its like the world, really.

I always say that there is 80% garbage on pprune, but the 20% left has been illuminating, stimulating, educational and entertaining as well as a few other things I cannot think of now!

As far as I know, there is no comparable site for those interested/involved in aviation, and where else can you pose an aviation question and get answers from around the world in a matter of minutes?

As the old saying goes "take the rough with the smooth". It is easy to be disheartened by the assinine comments you sometimes see, but they CAN be ignored.

BOAC
Private forum moderator

[Whirlybird]

There are now over 35,000 people on PPRuNe, so there are bound to be a few idiots. Ignore them; they really are in the minority. There are a lot of good things on this site, and it's really not worth getting upset about the fools.

[rover2701]

Busta
Stay with it. Like the previous contributers have said "20% of the content is good stuff and its worth staying with".
I took early retirement from my last job (which was in aviation and the airline industry)and I found that this web site is the best way of keeping in touch with whats going on out there.
Dont be put off by a bunch of argumentative no-hopers

[OzExpat]

Busta... when you run into turbulence in flight, what do you do? Give up flying? No, of course not - tho, there HAVE been occasions when I've been tempted...

But, seriously ... no, you switch on the old "Fasten Seat Belts" sign and discontinue the cabin service. Temporarily.

It's a lot like that in here. Soon as you are clear of the turbulence, cabin service resumes as normal. That's the way I regard the @rsholes who have nothing intelligent to contribute.

So just keep on being professional. Maybe we can even institute our own code of professionalism in here. Every time a thread gets hijacked, we post "7700", instruct everyone to "fasten seat belts" and instruct cabin staff to suspend cabin service until further notice. Would this be of assistance to our over-worked moderators?

[Editted coz I forgot the correct xpdr code for a hijacking... well, what can I say? I never had to use it! ]

[ 28 August 2001: Message edited by: OzExpat ]

[Capt Claret]

OzEx

Speaking of hijacks. Years ago I read a book of aviation anecdotes written by an Aussie who'd worked his way up to either AN or TN.

One story was about a Bushies DC3 skipper who allegedly used to fly starkers, as a protest against management for not allowing a tropical type uniform.

On being invited for tea and bikkies after a complaint made by a F/A who walked into the flt deck to find said skipper reclined in the chair, feet on instrument panel, family jewels proudly on display, the skipper allegedly said it was his method of deterring hijackers, and the proof was that in x yrs of flying, he'd never been hijacked.

Busta

I understand where you're coming from. There is still some civility, and a lot that can be learned from these pages though.

[Trislander]

It is true that many threads are squawking 7500 lately, but if it really bothers you, why read them? why not join ronchonner over on his side of the aviation net.

Tri

------------------

"Ayline 221 airbourne"

[schoolkid]

Schoolkid

If I see a post resembling anything like the one I have just deleted, it will be the last one you make on PPRuNe. Got it?

[ 28 August 2001: Message edited by: PPRuNe Pop ]

[fergineer]

Thats the sort of immature answer people are talking about, your name is an apt one.
edited for spelling again!!!

[ 28 August 2001: Message edited by: fergineer ]

[OzExpat]

Clarrie... a perfectly sensible and logical method by which to avoid hijacking! Mind you, I think that the method used here by PPRuNe Pop also has some merit!

Well done that man!

[Sick Squid]

Busta,

I can empathise with your level of frustration, believe me! Sometimes, if you let it, this board can get you down. Sometimes, however, it can shine...

A couple of days ago, I returned from a long trip, during which time I'd not been able to give more than a cursory glance to the forums. I found so much negativity, more I feel than normal, but for some reason, this time it got to me...

The Yemeni Captain thread really broke my back. Here was a foreign man, in a foreign land, who had died alone amongst strangers. Fine, there are other issues surrounding the event worthy of discussion, but within 3 posts that thread had turned into a company-bashing thread, with some utterly inane "They'll all suffer the consequences later!" posts.

Truly, I couldn't understand how people could lose focus on the basic, fundamental issue. Part of that is my issue; as an "artistic" person, very different to the usual profile of a pilot, I react in different ways, and over the years I've had to realise this, and try to adjust my reactions accordingly.

Since I work for the company being bashed, I steered well clear of the thread, doing my usual "write a response, then bin it!" ploy. Even when one of our most respected Ppruners, a senior captain with my company took the time to call the Paramedics involved and post the results, it didn't deflect the issue.

So then to the Concorde thread... and my God how it had changed since I last looked, a few days prior! It was like a Blade Runner-esque nightmare, with so many counter-accusations and attacks drowning any relevant issues...

Yet in there, I found something that makes Pprune for me worthwhile... someone had taken the time to post a very flawed, but movingly eloquent tribute to the Captain involved. For me, it shone like a beacon in the darkness. I don't for a moment question the fact that his actions should be subjected to scrutiny, but he became a man again... he became someone I would have enjoyed working with, someone I feel I could have had a beer and great trip with. I've asked myself many times, could I have done what he was trying to do? Would I have had the presence of mind to even attempt what Christian Marty did? He might have got it wrong, but given the information he had..............?

Recently, I was involved in an incident in a simulator, during conversion, where we were given unknown to anybody in that box, an unsurvivable windshear just after gear-up on take-off. So we get the warning, see the trend, I react according to training.... and it doesn't work. We depart to the right in a slow roll, GPWS going mad.... we hit the ground with full up stick, and full thrust on an aircraft supposed to fly you out of anything, to the untrained mind. And the sim didn't just freeze... it went through a complete crash sequence on the ground....

I went into shock. Medical shock. The rest of that detail is a blur, and I didn't sleep well for the next 2 weeks, constantly reliving those events. I'd done all I could and failed. Never mind the fact that no-one could have survived what was a 75-knot and 180 degree wind-shift at those speeds, all I remembered was that split second before it hit the ground where I said to myself..."I've lost this...." I also remember the calm resignation that went with that thought, despite the frantic inputs I had on the controls.

So I posted an immediate response. In a minor way, I can empathise with Christian Marty. Poorly worded response it was, but heartfelt. Yeah, I got flamed, but so what? It's only an internet bulletin board after all.

And there is why I think you should stay, and continue to contribute. This is a one-dimensional medium. there is no way to either convey the sublety you intend, or even deflect instantly responses that do not correlate with your intention, as you could in conversation. Rather, a thread grows like a coral reef, dead body upon dead body, but within that growth there lies meaning.. only it gets buried many times. The thread I refer to is a worthy one, there are a lot of superb points raised, but the noise drowns out the signal.

So what to do, then about that noise-to-signal ratio? I'd say, be part of the signal. Accept that sometimes this board will almost leave you swearing at the computer. It will. Accept that some of the people whose opinions so **** you off would be excellent beer-partners, and once you'd moved beyond the single-dimensional confines of the medium you would actually enjoy each others company. Some of them you'd hate, of course. But you can't tell, because this is such an inefficient method of communication. But it is all we have got.....

So please, stay with us. Contribute. Add to the whole. And don't let it get you down... it may be the biggest internet aviation site in the world, with umpteen million hits per month, it may be able to change policy in airlines and unions around the globe through the voice of its contributors, but at the end of the day...

.....it is only an internet bulletin board.

£6

(PS.. I'm writing this under my "write, then sit on it for 24 hours policy"... only difference is, I'm not going to sit on it for 24 hours, otherwise I will never send it.)
Edit for typos, well after the 24 hours!

[ 02 September 2001: Message edited by: Sick Squid ]

[The Guvnor]

Sick Squid

That was one of the best - and emotive - postings I have ever read on here.

I salute you, Sir.