The "Big Fat Idiot" thread has been removed.

If anyone whishes to have censorship on PPRuNE, then the thread that initiated this debate should have been deleted from the beginning.

The crew that 320DRIVER mentioned didn't have a chance to defend themselves and we only got 320DRIVER's version.

Tor

Dang, it was such an informative thread.. :)
Sorry..

Beaver

In a post on the 'American crew' thread I stated that the UK vs USA battle should continue on JetBlast. It was adding nothing to the thread and the signal was clearly beginning to become drowned out by the noise.

This advice was unheeded not only by you but by others from the opposition view. I think I deleted two of your posts, but I also deleted four from the UK/Europe side of things. I chose an arbitrary point in the thread history to start this otherwise to be fair I would have to end up deleting every comment not related to the issue. Believe me, I would much rather be doing other things on the site than clearing up squabbles which belong in the playground.

In the same vein, I am not particularly bothered who started it. I am bothered that none of the antagonists on either side had the common sense to call it a day and continued to post peurile comments slurring each other and other races/nationalities. Since you (collectively) could not demonstrate that the hint had been taken, the post was clearly going to continue spiralling downwards. So I closed it.

Rumours & News has created high expectations from the people who use the site. If they want to trawl through banter and posturing, then that can be found on JetBlast. Time is precious to many of users and as a professional site we should all do our best to make posts in a suitable manner. That means, post in the right forum, obey the rules which Danny has published, and act professionally (except in JetBlast !!).

For the record I am Europe based but get on well with Americans, professionally and socially. Especially over a beer or two ;)

Professor Tailspin

Although we have named moderators for most areas, there is a core group who also have full access rights to all areas of the forum. Given that many of us work strange shift patterns or are constantly jetting off around the world, we tend to keep an overview on most of the site and jump in even if it's not our named Forum.


PS Anyone got any good rumours ?? :)

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PPRuNe Radar
ATC Forum Moderator
[email protected]

Just to make a point, I am sitting in LGW waiting for my flight back to MAN after operating all night on 2 sectors from SFB via BGR. 11.5 hours flight duty and still a couple of hours before I get home to bed. I thought I'd pop into an internet cafe here to check out the latest on PPRuNe and would you believe it the web site was down and I had to phone the US to get tech support ovwer there to fix it. Now, I sit here reading this thread and realise that some people have no idea what is involved in running this site.

Apart from PPRuNe Pop who is retired but leads a hectic social life the rest of us have full time jobs in the industry and can only spend time on PPRuNe when not at work or recovering from jet lag or other forms of 'airline fatigue'. Please be patient if you see a thread that obviously shouldn't be here because it is possible, believe it or not, we could all be at work, away down route or just asleep and there is no one here to do the dirty work for a while.

Anyway, got to rush, my flight boards in about 30 minutes and this thread has got to be moved to a more 'appropriate forum'.... let's see now.... eeny meeny miney... MO... Aircrew Notices I think. At least until I get home and have a few hours kip and unfraggle the old grey matter.

(PPRuNe Towers knows the problem of my long haul flights and the 'anti-cosmic radiation' hat I have to wear. ; He'll have to explain.)

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Capt PPRuNe
aka Danny Fyne
The Professional Pilots RUmour NEtwork

As someone who's been using and running online conferencing stuff for -- eek! -- the best part of seventeen years, I hafta say that the Pprune crew are doing a great job.

You will *always* get the problem that some people consider it their divine right to say what they like even if it would embarrass a drunken sea-baboon on shore leave, while others take offence at ideas that wouldn't bother a Victorian maiden. Any attempt by moderators to actually keep things on the straight and narrow will always lead to cries of censorship from one mob and ruinous libertarianism from the other. Often at the same time (which is when you know it's going particularly well).

The only way to manage, as a moderator, is to steam ahead and do what you like; it has to be a dictatorship if it's not to die under a writhing mass of contradictions fuelled by those users who are the most loquacious and have the most time on their hands. If the cruel hand of tyranny matches the needs and wishes of the majority of the users -- including those who just read, which is most of us -- then an online system will be a success. As Danny and co seem to be incredibly sane and even-handed even under intense pressure, and have -- thank Zarquan -- a near-undentable sense of humour, I don't think anyone should worry too much that things will go pear-shaped.

As for the really idiotic things such as spoofing regular handles, deliberately provoking arguments, recklessly breaking categories and so on -- they always happen and always will. Whatever steps are taken, there'll always be some smartarsh who'll find ways around them unless you lock stuff down so tight it stops being fun. (My personal defences against getting wound up by this sort of thing are a mix of trying to keep a sense of proportion, a sense of the ridiculous and a sense of direction to the pub.)

(That's enough arslikhan (*). Ed)

R

(* One thing I don't like about Pprune is the rude word filter, which is bloody patronising. But it's probably a good thing... and smartarshery will always find a way)

Shurely shome mishtake 'SH'LF?

In order to avoid serious sense of humour failure I look forward to my long haul flights where I can get away from PPRuNe and only return home to a heart stopping server crash or the 15 minute wait while my mail downloads (and that's with an ISDN line!!).

I'll consider my arslicked... err... no... can we get off this topic... errr.... back tonight after I've slept. (Just got back home about 40 minutes ago.)

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Capt PPRuNe
aka Danny Fyne
The Professional Pilots RUmour NEtwork