It seems to have become more and more common in recent months for posts to be made that breach the old site rules on posting. Things like: duplicate threads, unsupported "facts", off-topic posts, links without narrative, flamebait arguments, advertising, etc. etc.

A lot of this appears to be coming from new members who have joined since paid memberships were dropped and/or the switch to the new site.

On the old site, there was a link to a clear set of forum rules. On the new site, these seem to have disappeared (or maybe I just can't find them), so I'm guessing that many posters are simply unaware of the old rules.

Assuming (possibly incorrectly) that this is not a deliberate ploy by DM to increase their page/advertising hits, could I suggest that it might be a good idea to make the forum rules available somewhere obvious again?

Have you used the suggest deletion feature? The new site even alerts you when a violating post has been handled.

Frankly as a former mod, it's very difficult to police the entire site. There are a lot of posts to read through on any given day. If you alert the mods to the issues they can be handled better.

But I will admit, I have seen an increase in disrespectful posts and harsh language. Especially in nonaviation. Certain users can't seem to bite their tongue.

jetblueguy22 wrote:

Have you used the suggest deletion feature? The new site even alerts you when a violating post has been handled.
Frankly as a former mod, it's very difficult to police the entire site. There are a lot of posts to read through on any given day. If you alert the mods to the issues they can be handled better.
But I will admit, I have seen an increase in disrespectful posts and harsh language. Especially in nonaviation. Certain users can't seem to bite their tongue.

Yes, I'm aware of the "report post" functionality.

Given that so many current posters seem to have joined in the last few months, I just think that it might help reduce the number of incidents, and reduce the mods workload, if all of these new posters were made aware of what the forum rules actually are.

speedbored wrote:

jetblueguy22 wrote:

Have you used the suggest deletion feature? The new site even alerts you when a violating post has been handled.
Frankly as a former mod, it's very difficult to police the entire site. There are a lot of posts to read through on any given day. If you alert the mods to the issues they can be handled better.
But I will admit, I have seen an increase in disrespectful posts and harsh language. Especially in nonaviation. Certain users can't seem to bite their tongue.

Yes, I'm aware of the "report post" functionality.

Given that so many current posters seem to have joined in the last few months, I just think that it might help reduce the number of incidents, and reduce the mods workload, if all of these new posters were made aware of what the forum rules actually are.

The rules aren't any more hidden than they were before. Sometimes deletions are the only way to get through to some people.

jetblueguy22 wrote:

The rules aren't any more hidden than they were before. Sometimes deletions are the only way to get through to some people.

Really? Where are they, then? What's the link/navigation path to get to them? I've browsed the new site far and wide, and can only find some generic boilerplate rules that look like they were written in generic legalese, as well as a few FAQs referring to features that "may have been disabled" by the site administrators (meaning they are just the generic rules/FAQs that came with the forum software, and not specific to a.net).

The old a.net forums had rules against silly Boeing vs. Airbus arguments (though, today, we might modify that to UA vs. DL or something like that), for example. It had a bunch of other rules that I can't even specifically remember now. And I'd like to, but I can't find them.

And as I mentioned in another post on here, in the old forum, clicking "suggest deletion" brought up a long list of possible reasons to flag a post, whereas the current report post window only gives me the choices of spam, illegal, off-topic, or "other" with the requirement to fill out the text box below explaining what's wrong with it. That alone could potentially help people in understanding what is and isn't acceptable.

hOMSaR wrote:

The old a.net forus had rules against silly Boeing vs. Airbus arguments (though, today, we might modify that to UA vs. DL or something like that), for example. It had a bunch of other rules that I can't even specifically remember now. And I'd like to, but I can't find them.

Me neither. This is what they used to look like:
https://web.archive.org/web/20160115084 ... confirm=no

jetblueguy22 wrote:

Have you used the suggest deletion feature? The new site even alerts you when a violating post has been handled.

I've yet to receive any emails relating to posts I've reported, or indeed posts of my own that have been deleted.

scbriml wrote:

I've yet to receive any emails relating to posts I've reported, or indeed posts of my own that have been deleted.

You don't get E-mails. It's done through the "bell" icon in the upper right corner, next to your inbox and user control panel button (avatar).

speedbored wrote:

Given that so many current posters seem to have joined in the last few months, I just think that it might help reduce the number of incidents, and reduce the mods workload, if all of these new posters were made aware of what the forum rules actually are.

Where are the new rules for the new site? In the old site they were at the top of the Non Av forum, at the very least.

The old rules need to be updated and placed in a few prominent places throughout the site. The FAQ are very generic, as already mentioned, and are no entirely customised for this site, but are useful nonetheless.

I've bundled all comments in a new list entry with high priority. I will try to put some pressure behind it.

Great, just what we need- more intervention from partisan and unprofessional moderators. Why not let adults talk about things they want to. If you don't enjoy the topic or feel its gone off topic then let your voice be known and if the comments are warranted people will respond. There's no need for increased moderation and censorship.

Veetwo wrote:

Great, just what we need- more intervention from partisan and unprofessional moderators. Why not let adults talk about things they want to. If you don't enjoy the topic or feel its gone off topic then let your voice be known and if the comments are warranted people will respond. There's no need for increased moderation and censorship.

With respect, it appears that you have not been a member for a very long time. Users who have participated in this site for many years expect a certain degree of moderation and professionalism in these forums. We have standards we attempt to uphold at the behest of users. We make every attempt to remain professional and unbiased, and any intervention we make is with the best intentions.

atcsundevil wrote:

Veetwo wrote:

Great, just what we need- more intervention from partisan and unprofessional moderators. Why not let adults talk about things they want to. If you don't enjoy the topic or feel its gone off topic then let your voice be known and if the comments are warranted people will respond. There's no need for increased moderation and censorship.

With respect, it appears that you have not been a member for a very long time. Users who have participated in this site for many years expect a certain degree of moderation and professionalism in these forums. We have standards we attempt to uphold at the behest of users. We make every attempt to remain professional and unbiased, and any intervention we make is with the best intentions.

With respect I am also a member. I might not have been an active poster but I have been around for many years and the moderation has become very selective recently. Is our importance or opinion weighted based on the time we've been a member?

I've seen many posts deleted due to no rules being broken. There is no official way to challenge these decisions. The individual moderator has decided, unilaterally and without question, that they disagreed with the content of the post and have deleted it without explanation. I think this is terribly bad for a forum and website that should pride itself on discussion from all angles.

Veetwo wrote:

With respect I am also a member. I might not have been an active poster but I have been around for many years and the moderation has become very selective recently. Is our importance or opinion weighted based on the time we've been a member?

I've seen many posts deleted due to no rules being broken. There is no official way to challenge these decisions. The individual moderator has decided, unilaterally and without question, that they disagreed with the content of the post and have deleted it without explanation. I think this is terribly bad for a forum and website that should pride itself on discussion from all angles.

Of course nothing is weighed selectively, but it might also make you less familiar with the culture of this forum.

Deletions may not always make sense from an outside perspective, but the majority of deletions are actually made because they reference a deleted post. Only Head Moderators are permitted to edit users' posts so that there is no potential allegation of censorship, so Moderators deleting posts violating forum rules must also delete posts which reference the offending post (otherwise the post doesn't actually get deleted).

Any one of our deletions may be appealed and reviewed. Nothing we do is unilateral in any sense of the word. If you feel that one of your posts was deleted in error, you can email us at moderators@airliners.net. The vast majority of deletions are "soft deletes", meaning they can be reviewed and recovered if necessary. If you email us about another user's post, we will be unable to comment for privacy reasons.

We are all volunteer and we all try very hard to keep to the standards the majority of users have for us. I recognize this doesn't always suit everyone, but we try our best. If you have ideas for how we can improve things, we're always listening. Ideas are more constructive than calling us unprofessional.

atcsundevil wrote:

Veetwo wrote:

With respect I am also a member. I might not have been an active poster but I have been around for many years and the moderation has become very selective recently. Is our importance or opinion weighted based on the time we've been a member?

I've seen many posts deleted due to no rules being broken. There is no official way to challenge these decisions. The individual moderator has decided, unilaterally and without question, that they disagreed with the content of the post and have deleted it without explanation. I think this is terribly bad for a forum and website that should pride itself on discussion from all angles.

Of course nothing is weighed selectively, but it might also make you less familiar with the culture of this forum.

Deletions may not always make sense from an outside perspective, but the majority of deletions are actually made because they reference a deleted post. Only Head Moderators are permitted to edit users' posts so that there is no potential allegation of censorship, so Moderators deleting posts violating forum rules must also delete posts which reference the offending post (otherwise the post doesn't actually get deleted).

Any one of our deletions may be appealed and reviewed. Nothing we do is unilateral in any sense of the word. If you feel that one of your posts was deleted in error, you can email us at moderators@airliners.net. The vast majority of deletions are "soft deletes", meaning they can be reviewed and recovered if necessary. If you email us about another user's post, we will be unable to comment for privacy reasons.

We are all volunteer and we all try very hard to keep to the standards the majority of users have for us. I recognize this doesn't always suit everyone, but we try our best. If you have ideas for how we can improve things, we're always listening. Ideas are more constructive than calling us unprofessional.

I wish that were true but in experience the response from the moderators has been "That's just the way it is" so users just go on and leave. Its a shame. Good work, guys.

Veetwo wrote:

I wish that were true but in experience the response from the moderators has been "That's just the way it is" so users just go on and leave. Its a shame. Good work, guys.

I'm pretty sure that most of the long-term members have a very different experiential view of the mods. They, and the other volunteer staff, have, in my experience, always done a very good job of keeping the discussions relatively civil.

Looking at your 2-weeks of posting history, it seems clear that "civil" is not what you are looking for, though I notice that you did edit your assesment of the mods to "unprofessional" from the original "incompetent". The moderation here has been consistent over the years so if, as you claim, you have been lurking here for years, why bother joining up to a site that you consider to be incompetently/unprofessionally moderated?

Just to say, I had a post deleted recently (quite correctly) but, the only notification I had was through 'The Bell'. Why can't you send us an E.Mail as was the way on the old site? The 'Bell' is so impersonal and actually gets my back up. Just a thought Mods.

speedbored wrote:

Veetwo wrote:

I wish that were true but in experience the response from the moderators has been "That's just the way it is" so users just go on and leave. Its a shame. Good work, guys.

I'm pretty sure that most of the long-term members have a very different experiential view of the mods. They, and the other volunteer staff, have, in my experience, always done a very good job of keeping the discussions relatively civil.

Looking at your 2-weeks of posting history, it seems clear that "civil" is not what you are looking for, though I notice that you did edit your assesment of the mods to "unprofessional" from the original "incompetent". The moderation here has been consistent over the years so if, as you claim, you have been lurking here for years, why bother joining up to a site that you consider to be incompetently/unprofessionally moderated?

Because it's my right to post about whatever I want within the rules. I might say off color things but that's part of life. I will continue to do so.

I'm calling out the mods and the selective way they apply the rules. I'm going to continue to call them out on behavior I disagree with.

SoJo wrote:

Just to say, I had a post deleted recently (quite correctly) but, the only notification I had was through 'The Bell'.

airkas1 wrote:

scbriml wrote:

I've yet to receive any emails relating to posts I've reported, or indeed posts of my own that have been deleted.

You don't get E-mails. It's done through the "bell" icon in the upper right corner, next to your inbox and user control panel button (avatar).

I didn't even get 'The Bell' which was what I was expecting.

Veetwo wrote:

Because it's my right to post about whatever I want within the rules. I might say off color things but that's part of life. I will continue to do so.

I'm calling out the mods and the selective way they apply the rules. I'm going to continue to call them out on behavior I disagree with.

One of the rules are to respect the crew, you continually disrespect the crew and your posts are removed

VapourTrails wrote:

SoJo wrote:

Just to say, I had a post deleted recently (quite correctly) but, the only notification I had was through 'The Bell'.

airkas1 wrote:

You don't get E-mails. It's done through the "bell" icon in the upper right corner, next to your inbox and user control panel button (avatar).

I didn't even get 'The Bell' which was what I was expecting.

In the forum properties you can set if you want to receive notifications and/or email. Also, if you report a post you need to tick that you want a notification

ucp.php?i=ucp_notifications&mode=notification_options

JohnKrist wrote:

Veetwo wrote:

Because it's my right to post about whatever I want within the rules. I might say off color things but that's part of life. I will continue to do so.

I'm calling out the mods and the selective way they apply the rules. I'm going to continue to call them out on behavior I disagree with.

One of the rules are to respect the crew, you continually disrespect the crew and your posts are removed

Well then I'll just have to word them differently so I don't hurt your feelings. God forbid.

Veetwo, are you actually SRBMOD reincarnated? Back for vengeance cos you got dumped? Just a thought. No malice intended.

atcsundevil wrote:

Veetwo wrote:

With respect I am also a member. I might not have been an active poster but I have been around for many years and the moderation has become very selective recently. Is our importance or opinion weighted based on the time we've been a member?

I've seen many posts deleted due to no rules being broken. There is no official way to challenge these decisions. The individual moderator has decided, unilaterally and without question, that they disagreed with the content of the post and have deleted it without explanation. I think this is terribly bad for a forum and website that should pride itself on discussion from all angles.

Of course nothing is weighed selectively, but it might also make you less familiar with the culture of this forum.

Deletions may not always make sense from an outside perspective, but the majority of deletions are actually made because they reference a deleted post. Only Head Moderators are permitted to edit users' posts so that there is no potential allegation of censorship, so Moderators deleting posts violating forum rules must also delete posts which reference the offending post (otherwise the post doesn't actually get deleted).

Any one of our deletions may be appealed and reviewed. Nothing we do is unilateral in any sense of the word. If you feel that one of your posts was deleted in error, you can email us at moderators@airliners.net. The vast majority of deletions are "soft deletes", meaning they can be reviewed and recovered if necessary. If you email us about another user's post, we will be unable to comment for privacy reasons.

We are all volunteer and we all try very hard to keep to the standards the majority of users have for us. I recognize this doesn't always suit everyone, but we try our best. If you have ideas for how we can improve things, we're always listening. Ideas are more constructive than calling us unprofessional.

One idea. Stop deleting posts that you disagree with. You seem to have a bias towards certain posters and airlines.

11725Flyer wrote:

One idea. Stop deleting posts that you disagree with. You seem to have a bias towards certain posters and airlines.

You have come to this conclusion based on my moderation of a single thread. Despite your preconceived notions, I do not base my moderation on my own personal thoughts and feelings, and I certainly have no bias against specific users, airlines, or anything else discussed in these forums. If you feel that you can do better, then I welcome you to apply for a moderator position when one becomes available. The other mods and I spend a significant amount of our time trying to keep things running smoothly, despite the fact that we all have jobs and lives of our own to deal with aside from this. I assure you that I have no motivation to moderate on a partisan basis. If you cared enough to know my background, you would quickly find that your hasty judgment of my moderation is untrue. It's always easier to judge when one does not see the full picture.

atcsundevil wrote:

11725Flyer wrote:

One idea. Stop deleting posts that you disagree with. You seem to have a bias towards certain posters and airlines.

You have come to this conclusion based on my moderation of a single thread. Despite your preconceived notions, I do not base my moderation on my own personal thoughts and feelings, and I certainly have no bias against specific users, airlines, or anything else discussed in these forums. If you feel that you can do better, then I welcome you to apply for a moderator position when one becomes available. The other mods and I spend a significant amount of our time trying to keep things running smoothly, despite the fact that we all have jobs and lives of our own to deal with aside from this. I assure you that I have no motivation to moderate on a partisan basis. If you cared enough to know my background, you would quickly find that your hasty judgment of my moderation is untrue. It's always easier to judge when one does not see the full picture.

Thank you for the deep, personal sacrifice you make to keep the website going. A true hero.

The fact is that you and other mods do censor posts all the time but you're so blind to that fact its just business as usual.

Seriously VeeTwo or whatever your previous usernames have been, if you hate Leaf/DM, Airliners.net, mods, support, our users or just about anything connected to Airliners.net...why do you waste your time here?

atcsundevil wrote:

11725Flyer wrote:

One idea. Stop deleting posts that you disagree with. You seem to have a bias towards certain posters and airlines.

You have come to this conclusion based on my moderation of a single thread. Despite your preconceived notions, I do not base my moderation on my own personal thoughts and feelings, and I certainly have no bias against specific users, airlines, or anything else discussed in these forums. If you feel that you can do better, then I welcome you to apply for a moderator position when one becomes available.

Thank you for the reply. My feedback has nothing to do with your background, which I'm sure is outstanding. I'm just amazed that there are many posts deleted (from many different posters) that seem to be opinion-based and should not have been removed. I can only come to the conclusion that certain moderators favor certain airlines.

11725Flyer wrote:

Thank you for the reply. My feedback has nothing to do with your background, which I'm sure is outstanding. I'm just amazed that there are many posts deleted (from many different posters) that seem to be opinion-based and should not have been removed. I can only come to the conclusion that certain moderators favor certain airlines.

You are more than entitled to that opinion. Of course I cannot speak for the others, but my engagements with them have shown them all to be dedicated and professional individuals. I am personally in a profession which requires me to provide equal service to all airlines, which I believe carries over into my moderation. Of course anyone who has been enamored with the world of aviation for any length of time has their own preferences and grudges, but it's also a conscious choice to put those aside for a more noble cause -- which in my case is my small contribution to this site, and wanting to see our discussions be positive and successful. Simply because I may not favor X airline in my personal life by no means equates to my desire to thrust my ideals onto others using the power of moderation (or the power of vectoring while I'm at work!). Despite the apparently deeply held beliefs of a few individuals on this site, I have no desire to censor anything here provided it follows our policies and rules of general decency. It is not our job to silence anyone here who intends to participate in good faith. Our intent is to do our jobs for better or for worse, and hope that everyone involved in our little community receives the same enjoyment from being involved as we do.

JohnKrist wrote:

Seriously VeeTwo or whatever your previous usernames have been, if you hate Leaf/DM, Airliners.net, mods, support, our users or just about anything connected to Airliners.net...why do you waste your time here?

The only thing I care about here is this website and users. I dislike the business practices and management of Demand Media/Leaf and the arrogance and dismissive attitude of the moderation team. Look at their track record with the websites they own- they buy websites, homogenize them and pump them full of poorly made content. There's zero quality. Go to Livestrong.com, the crown jewel, and go look at the top 5 articles there...its amazing. Is this really the company we want running an aviation themed website? I certainly don't and I'm vocal about it and I will continue to be so because I don't want this place to turn into another Cracked.com. You don't just have to take the "oh well they own the site" attitude.

There's been years of false promises and no attempt at Demand Media/Leaf management to interact with the actual community, so here we are. I've been around this site for over 15 years and I will continue to be a part of the community.

With the completely stagnant earnings and stock price, the increasing re-branding efforts, and the scramble to remain relevant hopefully we will see them sail into obscurity where they belong and someone who actually cares shovels up whats left.

The forum rules are basically the Terms of Use, a link to which can be found on every page.

These cover such things as not posting flamebait, libellous reports, racist or other objectionable material. They also cover ownership and copyright issues, advertising and tracking.

I don't think it is really necessary to have an additional link called Forum Rules. I would hope that members are mature enough to realise that treating each other with respect is likely to be reciprocated. Those who intend to be offensive, or just simply think they are being smart, would in all probabilty ignore the rules in that link just as much as they currently ignore the Terms of Service.

Forum rules can be found in the grey area at the bottom, under Quick Links

forumrules.php

JohnKrist wrote:

Forum rules can be found in the grey area at the bottom, under Quick Links

Thanks for that. Now we just need you to write the "make posters abide by the rules" module

Just a couple of minor points:
The rules refer, in many places, to a "suggest deletion" button - that link is now called "report post" so might be worth changing the wording in the rules.
Section numbers appear to have gone missing so, instead of rules 1a, 2a, 3a, etc., we just have multiple different rules labelled a or b etc.
Rule 3g is obsolete as this is now impossible to do

speedbored wrote:

Just a couple of minor points:
The rules refer, in many places, to a "suggest deletion" button - that link is now called "report post" so might be worth changing the wording in the rules.
Section numbers appear to have gone missing so, instead of rules 1a, 2a, 3a, etc., we just have multiple different rules labelled a or b etc.
Rule 3g is obsolete as this is now impossible to do

Thanks for that! Added it to the list entry that the forum rules need an update.