When is "some time away, not a ban" a ban?
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jul 2009
Location: Surrey, UK
Posts: 130
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
When is "some time away, not a ban" a ban?
Would anyone of the moderators with some manners like to explain please? As someone with friends/relatives etc connected with "a certain thread" this is getting a little distressing. There is some real rubbish posted in a long-running thread by people who IMHO should genuinely be given "time away"
Join Date: Sep 2010
Location: reading uk
Age: 77
Posts: 98
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
facts
Think I was given 24 hours away for giving facts not rumours and fantasies etc
I posted evidence regarding the radar identification of a/c
The use and difference between primary and secondary radar. Even my experience of using military height finding radar.
How I flew an Orion into San Con (or San Dao as the Vietnamese call it), Male and Diego Garcia. All out of the box FS2004 (FS9) except the Orion. My Male is enhanced.
I posted evidence regarding the radar identification of a/c
The use and difference between primary and secondary radar. Even my experience of using military height finding radar.
How I flew an Orion into San Con (or San Dao as the Vietnamese call it), Male and Diego Garcia. All out of the box FS2004 (FS9) except the Orion. My Male is enhanced.
Last edited by arearadar; 20th Mar 2014 at 18:33. Reason: qualifications
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jul 2009
Location: Surrey, UK
Posts: 130
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
PM sent last week, no reply or other form of response received yet but I'm still banned from that thread. Having now seen the passenger list, looks like at least 2 friends-of-friends were on the flight.
Bitterly disappointed at the way I have been treated on this forum, especially considering some of the other stuff posted on the famed thread.
Still no conclusive proof (at the time of writing) that the flight ended in disaster
Bitterly disappointed at the way I have been treated on this forum, especially considering some of the other stuff posted on the famed thread.
Still no conclusive proof (at the time of writing) that the flight ended in disaster
Moderator
Join Date: Mar 1999
Location: UK
Posts: 2,178
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Yes.
The forum is in a group of forums headed Flight Deck Forums. It is broadly targeted at professional airline pilots. Reporting Points that may affect our jobs or lives as professional pilots. Also, items that may be of interest to professional pilots. That doesn't preclude contribution from anybody outside of this target group, but neither should that contribution overshadow the target group.
Commercial airline accidents and serious incidents always attract a great deal of general interest, and given the target demographic, PPRuNe is one of the global primary websites for discussion when a "headline" aviation event such as this occurs. Whilst moderation tends to be light generally, major events nearly always result in significant levels of pruning in order to keep the forum traffic broadly on topic and relevant to the primary audience.
New sign-ups are always welcome, and questions, contribution and debate from non-professional pilots are also welcome. However there are significant volumes of traffic from people who simply sign-up or post in order to express their condolences, venture their own personal theories, or ask questions that fall outside of the remit (and often interest) of the primary forum target group. In addition, many contributors simply repeat or re-hash a question or topic that has been covered in some depth in previous posts.
Although it is a far from perfect form of surgery, the volume of contributions needs to be triaged and managed in order to keep the forum topic focused. This often results in scything whole sections of posts to keep the thread from becoming a completely unmanageable mess. Unfortunately that often means that posts that might otherwise be left in-situ, also fall casualty to the periodic sweeps.
The interest in this particular thread has at times raised the volume of minute-to-minute traffic fiftyfold! There have been anything up to 18,000 people viewing the thread at any one time, and at no point in the last three weeks has the volume of thread traffic fallen below ten times the regular flow. A handful of moderators have worked around the clock to keep the thread in a semblance of manageable order. Topics have sometimes been given specific windows of priority, and an attempt has been made to give every viewpoint a fair airing. Whatever moderation that is applied, it is always going to upset somebody, but that is simply the way it is, in order to attempt to achieve the normal site objectives.
At the time of writing this reply, there are nearly 9000 posts that have had nearly fourteen million views! There are (and I haven't counted them) probably nearly as many posts that have been deleted. They have all been read, and for the reasons given, those that have been deleted have been done so to provide some basic sense of order and readability to the thread.
A great many hours have gone into the moderation task on this one thread. Anybody who believes that the moderators are going to write a personal explanation in response to each of the many thousands of deleted posts, is simply deluding themselves. There simply isn't the time or resource, and even if that were not the case, such explanations are more often than not simply a seed for further protest and argument. When that protest and argument manifests itself in the main thread body, or a poster simply refuses to accept the post deletion, thereby adding to the exceptional moderation workload, they may be deprived of the opportunity to further contribute for a period of time. That should not stop them from being able to read the thread.
The forum is in a group of forums headed Flight Deck Forums. It is broadly targeted at professional airline pilots. Reporting Points that may affect our jobs or lives as professional pilots. Also, items that may be of interest to professional pilots. That doesn't preclude contribution from anybody outside of this target group, but neither should that contribution overshadow the target group.
Commercial airline accidents and serious incidents always attract a great deal of general interest, and given the target demographic, PPRuNe is one of the global primary websites for discussion when a "headline" aviation event such as this occurs. Whilst moderation tends to be light generally, major events nearly always result in significant levels of pruning in order to keep the forum traffic broadly on topic and relevant to the primary audience.
New sign-ups are always welcome, and questions, contribution and debate from non-professional pilots are also welcome. However there are significant volumes of traffic from people who simply sign-up or post in order to express their condolences, venture their own personal theories, or ask questions that fall outside of the remit (and often interest) of the primary forum target group. In addition, many contributors simply repeat or re-hash a question or topic that has been covered in some depth in previous posts.
Although it is a far from perfect form of surgery, the volume of contributions needs to be triaged and managed in order to keep the forum topic focused. This often results in scything whole sections of posts to keep the thread from becoming a completely unmanageable mess. Unfortunately that often means that posts that might otherwise be left in-situ, also fall casualty to the periodic sweeps.
The interest in this particular thread has at times raised the volume of minute-to-minute traffic fiftyfold! There have been anything up to 18,000 people viewing the thread at any one time, and at no point in the last three weeks has the volume of thread traffic fallen below ten times the regular flow. A handful of moderators have worked around the clock to keep the thread in a semblance of manageable order. Topics have sometimes been given specific windows of priority, and an attempt has been made to give every viewpoint a fair airing. Whatever moderation that is applied, it is always going to upset somebody, but that is simply the way it is, in order to attempt to achieve the normal site objectives.
At the time of writing this reply, there are nearly 9000 posts that have had nearly fourteen million views! There are (and I haven't counted them) probably nearly as many posts that have been deleted. They have all been read, and for the reasons given, those that have been deleted have been done so to provide some basic sense of order and readability to the thread.
A great many hours have gone into the moderation task on this one thread. Anybody who believes that the moderators are going to write a personal explanation in response to each of the many thousands of deleted posts, is simply deluding themselves. There simply isn't the time or resource, and even if that were not the case, such explanations are more often than not simply a seed for further protest and argument. When that protest and argument manifests itself in the main thread body, or a poster simply refuses to accept the post deletion, thereby adding to the exceptional moderation workload, they may be deprived of the opportunity to further contribute for a period of time. That should not stop them from being able to read the thread.
Join Date: Feb 2009
Location: Worldwide
Posts: 579
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
Originally Posted by HamishMcBush
Bitterly disappointed at the way I have been treated on this forum
up. This place only exists as electrons in some cables. If you think anything done or written here matters or are of any consequence you really need to get back to reality.
Hamish
1. May I commend Jetdriver's post.
2. FWIW I'm a current 777 pilot with 25 plus years experience of long haul operations and just a bit of experience of the likes of Datalink, ACARS. I also generally try to be non-controversial. I felt on several occasions I could add something to "that" thread" but even so I've had several posts deleted. It's annoying, I don't think the mods always made the right decision but I'll accept they have been under pressure sometimes and I and also many others with expertise have been caught up in a cull. So be it.
3. I do have some sympathy, if you have any specific questions about T777 ops feel free to PM me.
1. May I commend Jetdriver's post.
2. FWIW I'm a current 777 pilot with 25 plus years experience of long haul operations and just a bit of experience of the likes of Datalink, ACARS. I also generally try to be non-controversial. I felt on several occasions I could add something to "that" thread" but even so I've had several posts deleted. It's annoying, I don't think the mods always made the right decision but I'll accept they have been under pressure sometimes and I and also many others with expertise have been caught up in a cull. So be it.
3. I do have some sympathy, if you have any specific questions about T777 ops feel free to PM me.
Thread Starter
Join Date: Jul 2009
Location: Surrey, UK
Posts: 130
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
To those that have replied, thank you. I am still banned from reading the thread (at least I can read it at work where I am not auto-logged in) and have not had a response to my PM.
I'm not objecting to my posts being deleted, but having seen the passenger list that has been posted on line, it appears that our family has at least 2 friends-of-friends on board the missing plane, hence a little bit of true personal anguish involved.
Despite the second thread here being deleted with the Mod comment of only one thread per topic, I see that there is still an Italian thread running that has not been deleted or taken down;
maybe I should start another thread in Malay ?
Oh, and if anyone knows where our missing friends are, or can confirm if they are alive or have departed this world, then we'd be extremely grateful if you would let us know
I'm not objecting to my posts being deleted, but having seen the passenger list that has been posted on line, it appears that our family has at least 2 friends-of-friends on board the missing plane, hence a little bit of true personal anguish involved.
Despite the second thread here being deleted with the Mod comment of only one thread per topic, I see that there is still an Italian thread running that has not been deleted or taken down;
maybe I should start another thread in Malay ?
Oh, and if anyone knows where our missing friends are, or can confirm if they are alive or have departed this world, then we'd be extremely grateful if you would let us know
Oh, and if anyone knows where our missing friends are, or can confirm if they are alive or have departed this world, then we'd be extremely grateful if you would let us know
P.S. The offer of replying to a PM still stands.
Last edited by wiggy; 31st Mar 2014 at 20:58.
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 140
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
I don't want to look like I am tagging on to someone else's thread but I think its reasonable to post here having had the same message from the Mods in relation to the newer but equally white hot (with activity) MH17 thread. The Pprune Mesage (not a Private Message as it is just a static page and cannot be responded to) I received from the mods is as follows:-
The crazy thing is I am still subscribed to the thread and still getting update post emails for it.
Coming back to the being "given time away" I find it unacceptable that the amount of time away is not specified and also that the temporary ban involves a prevention on me even being able to read the thread if I do not have enough computer knowledge to know that clearing either all my cookies (easier) or just cookies for this site (harder) will cure that problem as long as I don't log in again or click on links in post update emails for this thread.
It appears that the mistake I have made was to make more than one post in the thread either at all or in a short space of time and that one of the posts (now removed) was political rather than technical by responding to another member's comments saying that we would undoubtedly all be watching the World Cup in Russia in four year's time and nobody would even remember this event. I said that if FIFA and the world community wanted to look vaguely credibly that the changing of the venue to another one was more than likely.
Then a few minutes later I made another post querying if the missile fired could not be tracked by local ATC radar so that its approximate place and time of firing could be ascertained. This then generated responses from at least two long term members one of whom said that radar and ATC systems in that area were actually highly advanced.
Now I am told that I have some "time away" from the thread but now how long away, which I think is an unacceptable lack of courtesy, and I am also prevented from even reading the thread as opposed to posting in it. I can see the point of a member being given some time away from posting in a thread that is too active but I cannot see why the member in question should be prevented from reading it. To me that smacks of an oppressive and authoritarian style of forum management where rather than just wanting to keep posts in the thread under control there is a wish to punish people like an old fashioned school teacher would with a naughty school child.
As the forum's management clearly has such a big thing about non pilots not posting in threads on very newsworthy topics I really don't see why they don't create two kinds of forum membership. Namely members who are qualified pilots (perhaps only qualified commercial airline pilots) who can post in all threads and ordinary members who cannot post in threads on very newsworthy topics that will attract too many gawpers or spectators.
It appears the reason this doesn't happen is because the forum management does not want to go through the "faff" (old boy) of the qualified airline pilots all providing information about who they are, when they qualified etc. Of course I expect die hard non pilots could still lie about all this (their having a pilot qualification) but I doubt very many people would and for any who did (which can usually be spotted by the mods from the style of posting demonstrating the poster does not have the relevant technical experience and training) the moderators could then deal with them harshly.
The bottom line is that if making more than one post in a day or an hour in a buzzing thread on a major news events (usually plane crash) will nearly always get you in to trouble if you are a non pilot then this ought to be stated up front.
Secondly that if people are given time away from a thread to stop it overheating it should, in my humble opinion, and I expect the opinion of most other forum members, only be time away from being able to post in and not just read that thread.
Thirdly the time away from the thread (whether from even viewing or only from the right to post) you have been given and the end time of that "time away" needs to be explicity stated to the member affected.
Unfortunately some forum moderators seem to behave far more harshly towards non pilot members than others but the way the forum is run (i.e. Captain Always Knows Best and challenge the captain and you will be put under restraint by the Crew) there is little or indeed no right of appeal.
I am somewhat fearful that by even trying to discuss this quite reasonable point about not being able to even any longer read the thread or told how long the time away from the thread is that I may be singled out for harsh or retributive action by the forum moderation team (since the more reactionary forum moderators seem to favour the "Please explain - by PM only" approach and I then strongly suspect simply ignore those PMs querying any forum moderation decisions they have made). Unfortunately the style of some moderation activity in the forum can often best be described as militaristic rather than collegiate in its style and approach.
"You have been been given some time away from this discussion. This is not a ban - feel free to browse other forum threads."
Coming back to the being "given time away" I find it unacceptable that the amount of time away is not specified and also that the temporary ban involves a prevention on me even being able to read the thread if I do not have enough computer knowledge to know that clearing either all my cookies (easier) or just cookies for this site (harder) will cure that problem as long as I don't log in again or click on links in post update emails for this thread.
It appears that the mistake I have made was to make more than one post in the thread either at all or in a short space of time and that one of the posts (now removed) was political rather than technical by responding to another member's comments saying that we would undoubtedly all be watching the World Cup in Russia in four year's time and nobody would even remember this event. I said that if FIFA and the world community wanted to look vaguely credibly that the changing of the venue to another one was more than likely.
Then a few minutes later I made another post querying if the missile fired could not be tracked by local ATC radar so that its approximate place and time of firing could be ascertained. This then generated responses from at least two long term members one of whom said that radar and ATC systems in that area were actually highly advanced.
Now I am told that I have some "time away" from the thread but now how long away, which I think is an unacceptable lack of courtesy, and I am also prevented from even reading the thread as opposed to posting in it. I can see the point of a member being given some time away from posting in a thread that is too active but I cannot see why the member in question should be prevented from reading it. To me that smacks of an oppressive and authoritarian style of forum management where rather than just wanting to keep posts in the thread under control there is a wish to punish people like an old fashioned school teacher would with a naughty school child.
As the forum's management clearly has such a big thing about non pilots not posting in threads on very newsworthy topics I really don't see why they don't create two kinds of forum membership. Namely members who are qualified pilots (perhaps only qualified commercial airline pilots) who can post in all threads and ordinary members who cannot post in threads on very newsworthy topics that will attract too many gawpers or spectators.
It appears the reason this doesn't happen is because the forum management does not want to go through the "faff" (old boy) of the qualified airline pilots all providing information about who they are, when they qualified etc. Of course I expect die hard non pilots could still lie about all this (their having a pilot qualification) but I doubt very many people would and for any who did (which can usually be spotted by the mods from the style of posting demonstrating the poster does not have the relevant technical experience and training) the moderators could then deal with them harshly.
The bottom line is that if making more than one post in a day or an hour in a buzzing thread on a major news events (usually plane crash) will nearly always get you in to trouble if you are a non pilot then this ought to be stated up front.
Secondly that if people are given time away from a thread to stop it overheating it should, in my humble opinion, and I expect the opinion of most other forum members, only be time away from being able to post in and not just read that thread.
Thirdly the time away from the thread (whether from even viewing or only from the right to post) you have been given and the end time of that "time away" needs to be explicity stated to the member affected.
Unfortunately some forum moderators seem to behave far more harshly towards non pilot members than others but the way the forum is run (i.e. Captain Always Knows Best and challenge the captain and you will be put under restraint by the Crew) there is little or indeed no right of appeal.
I am somewhat fearful that by even trying to discuss this quite reasonable point about not being able to even any longer read the thread or told how long the time away from the thread is that I may be singled out for harsh or retributive action by the forum moderation team (since the more reactionary forum moderators seem to favour the "Please explain - by PM only" approach and I then strongly suspect simply ignore those PMs querying any forum moderation decisions they have made). Unfortunately the style of some moderation activity in the forum can often best be described as militaristic rather than collegiate in its style and approach.
Last edited by Capvermell; 20th Jul 2014 at 11:02.
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 140
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
I see that I now already have another nine post update emails in the last half hour or so for the MH17 thread, even though I have supposedly been given some "time away" from that thread. Yet the forum software keeps trying to provoke me to wonder what is going on in that thread.
It seems a great shame that rather than spending quite so much time angrily banning and ticking off or giving forum members unspecified "time away" (probably called Detention back in school days) from the forum that the moderation team don't also have the same time available to get a basic failing in the forum's functionality, like how its post update email subscription system works, corrected. And this problem has been going on for literally years and years now.
Any other forum I belong to that is as active as this one is uses forum software where you only get one post update email in a thread you are subscribed to until you next decide to visit that thread again. That way you don't end up with 600 post update emails in your inbox if you go off trekking in the jungle for a week and are subscribed to an especially active thread (eg MH17).
Actually the vbulletin software this forum uses is used by loads of others so it seems that those who run this forum simply haven't configured the post update email function correctly in some respect or other. Perhaps learned retired pilots aren't quite as good with stuff that an oily rag computer tech may be able to do properly, even though that oily rage wealding oik clearly won't know what on earth they are talking about in respect of flying!
Also I'm sure that banning people from the forum is a lot more fun than sorting out a long running significant technical problem with how the forum works and also gives the many retired pilots, who seem to make up the majority of the moderators, the feeling of power that they clearly always enjoyed when the were at the controls of an aircraft.
It seems a great shame that rather than spending quite so much time angrily banning and ticking off or giving forum members unspecified "time away" (probably called Detention back in school days) from the forum that the moderation team don't also have the same time available to get a basic failing in the forum's functionality, like how its post update email subscription system works, corrected. And this problem has been going on for literally years and years now.
Any other forum I belong to that is as active as this one is uses forum software where you only get one post update email in a thread you are subscribed to until you next decide to visit that thread again. That way you don't end up with 600 post update emails in your inbox if you go off trekking in the jungle for a week and are subscribed to an especially active thread (eg MH17).
Actually the vbulletin software this forum uses is used by loads of others so it seems that those who run this forum simply haven't configured the post update email function correctly in some respect or other. Perhaps learned retired pilots aren't quite as good with stuff that an oily rag computer tech may be able to do properly, even though that oily rage wealding oik clearly won't know what on earth they are talking about in respect of flying!
Also I'm sure that banning people from the forum is a lot more fun than sorting out a long running significant technical problem with how the forum works and also gives the many retired pilots, who seem to make up the majority of the moderators, the feeling of power that they clearly always enjoyed when the were at the controls of an aircraft.
Join Date: Feb 2001
Location: In transit
Age: 70
Posts: 3,052
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
I see that I now already have another nine post update emails in the last half hour or so for the MH17 thread,
Join Date: Jan 2006
Location: United Kingdom
Posts: 140
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
You can select the frequency at which you want to receive update emails. Mine are set to daily and I get them around 0700Z, one email for each thread to which I have chosen to subscribe.
If a thread is only moderately active, and I have the time, then I want to look at it and make a response not long after someone else just responded to my post or another member's new post in the thread. I don't want to have to wait till breakfast next day to comment (when the thread may have moved on several pages). But if I am a subscribed to a thread with up to 40 posts an hour going on I clearly only want to visit it at some point that is convenient to me (that may be in another two or three hour's time or longer) once there has been at least one new post in it but I don't want to get another 150 post update emails for that one thread in my inbox over the intervening period.
It seems odd to me that a forum run by a load of technically expert co-pilots and captains (who are generally highly intolerant of opinions on a subject here from anyone who they see as not being as technically knowledegeable about flying as they are) and who are qualified to push a metal box with 500+ people in it round the sky don't seem to be able to configure their own forum to run to the same technical standards as that favoured by 90%+ of the rest of other online internet web discussion forums including those using VBulletin forum software.
Join Date: Feb 2001
Location: In transit
Age: 70
Posts: 3,052
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes
on
0 Posts
I don't intend to get into a long discussion with you on this since you have formed your own opinion and you may be better versed in forum use and etiquette than I am. All I can say is that as far as this forum is concerned, I saw choices, made one, and am content with it.
That's a fair point, but one solution is to check back on the thread to see if there have been responses.
Neither solution is perfect but we are not going to change it by bitching about it and have to work round the constraints the system imposes.
I don't want to have to wait till breakfast next day to comment (when the thread may have moved on several pages).
Neither solution is perfect but we are not going to change it by bitching about it and have to work round the constraints the system imposes.
