Hi ,

I was in civil aviation. At about UK time 20.05 today (about an hour and 15 minutes ago) I added to a thread which appeared live and it accepted by entry in the normal way at the second time of asking. The 1st time it refused to accept my add, and I assumed it was needing my ID but gave it a try for the 2nd time all was OK, and it permitted me to vary my add to make minor changes I think twice.

The topic appears to have disappeared altogether. I was about very very roughly 'the new year will soon be on us, any suggestions for 2018' and was still on its first page. It was about some 4 or five page back. A search that I did a few days ago under my user name Egerton did not show this topic

Is this a software bug? Help!

The thread you are referring to was originally posted in Civil Aviation but was moved to Travel, Polls & Preferences, that is why when you posted it didn't show up in Civil Aviation.

For easy reference here is the thread

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=1381257&p=20029019#p20029019

Why was this topic transferred from Civil Aviation to Travel? Who made this decision? It should be put back where it belongs in Civil Aviation

Egerton wrote:

Why was this topic transferred from Civil Aviation to Travel? Who made this decision? It should be put back where it belongs in Civil Aviation

While I wasn't the one who moved it however the thread is in the right place as it is a poll, it is asking users for their air service predictions for 2018

qf789 wrote:

Egerton wrote:

Why was this topic transferred from Civil Aviation to Travel? Who made this decision? It should be put back where it belongs in Civil Aviation

While I wasn't the one who moved it however the thread is in the right place as it is a poll, it is asking users for their air service predictions for 2018

Noted. Please explain the following:

1. "Civil Aviation: Discussions about factual events happening in the airline and general aviation industries. If it's happening in commercial aviation, you'll get the information and opinions here first."

Why then is Civil Aviation stuffed full with opinionated dross on paint jobs ('I think it looks smart'), shapes ('It looks wonderful'), 'the seating is uncomfortable' , 'British Airways is crap' and suchlike pure opinions. These points are 100% opinion, yet are permitted by Mods under the "you'll get the information and opinions here first". In Civil Aviation, my reading of the rules is that opinions need to be related to information. Predictions and suggestions on current issues of interests are not mere opinions.

2. "Travel, Polls and Preferences: Opinion-based discussions about aviation. The best, worst, biggest, smallest. Or seeking advice as to a preferred carrier for a trip you are planning, etc."

My piece started with "Friday, February 23, 2018 is the date for IAG's full year results." which is fact, and continues with predictions. It does not obviously fall into "Opinion based".

3. Surely either the Mods are wrong on my piece, or wrong to permit the above dross in Civil Aviation.

Please have a discussion with other Mods to arrive at improved decision making by Mods on these issues. Thanks in advance.

4. In my opinion, Civil Aviation is made less readable by virtue of each page containing to much dross, and therefore the pages advance at a rate that wants me to switch off.

5. In my opinion, I get a lot more from Leeham with much less dross, and which I also view for free.

6. Please note that 4. and 5. above are pure opinion. Pure pinions (i.e. opinion based) are items to which there is no sensible response (unless folk wish to debate the favourit colour)

Egerton wrote:

1. "Civil Aviation: Discussions about factual events happening in the airline and general aviation industries. If it's happening in commercial aviation, you'll get the information and opinions here first."

Why then is Civil Aviation stuffed full with opinionated dross on paint jobs ('I think it looks smart'), shapes ('It looks wonderful'), 'the seating is uncomfortable' , 'British Airways is crap' and suchlike pure opinions. These points are 100% opinion, yet are permitted by Mods under the "you'll get the information and opinions here first". In Civil Aviation, my reading of the rules is that opinions need to be related to information. Predictions and suggestions on current issues of interests are not mere opinions.

You're right, plenty Civ Av threads turn into opinionated discussions. However, they don't generally start the way. Using your example, the OP would post about a new livery from Airline X, followed by opinions. It started out as a factual post about an event happening in aviation, which is the determining factor for thread placement. The types of responses that follow don't change the original intent of the OP to have a factual discussion. If it started with, "Do you like Airline X's new livery?", that would be moved to the Polls forum, because the prerogative of the OP would clearly be an elicitation of opinionated responses.

A thread soliciting responses for speculation over future routes unquestionably belongs in the Polls thread. This is not a new interpretation, because threads like this have always been moved to the Polls thread when brought to our attention.

Egerton wrote:

2. "Travel, Polls and Preferences: Opinion-based discussions about aviation. The best, worst, biggest, smallest. Or seeking advice as to a preferred carrier for a trip you are planning, etc."

My piece started with "Friday, February 23, 2018 is the date for IAG's full year results." which is fact, and continues with predictions. It does not obviously fall into "Opinion based".

It starts with fact, but it ends with speculation, and speculation was the intent of the thread. Speculative discussion exists in the Civ Av forum, but the intent of the individual threads should primarily be fact-based.

Egerton wrote:

3. Surely either the Mods are wrong on my piece, or wrong to permit the above dross in Civil Aviation.

Please have a discussion with other Mods to arrive at improved decision making by Mods on these issues. Thanks in advance.

Please see above. While some threads can be borderline and are usually permitted to stay in the original forum, we don't move a thread unless it clearly belongs in another forum. We also sometimes miss incorrectly placed threads, but as I said, if a thread is brought to our attention, then we evaluate it and make a decision. We don't move threads as some kind of penalty, we do it because that's how the forum has been structured over years of trial and error.

Egerton wrote:

4. In my opinion, Civil Aviation is made less readable by virtue of each page containing to much dross, and therefore the pages advance at a rate that wants me to switch off.

There's only so much that we can do about this. It's not our place to delete comments unless they're clearly in violation of our forum rules. We're not content censors, we're basically janitors and referees. We clean up things which don't belong, and we try to keep everyone from killing each other. It's not my role as a moderator to filter out "dross" because that's far too subjective and open to interpretation.

Egerton wrote:

5. In my opinion, I get a lot more from Leeham with much less dross, and which I also view for free.

Okay. Well I guess we'll be here when you're yearning for a little more dross in your life.

Thanks.
In the current Civil Aviation page 1 (a random selection) contains abbreviated threads names which appear to be speculative

Iran deals may be in jeopardy
Are you prepared BA?
New Zealand Aviation Thread
Turkish Aviation
What's going on in Nashville
Boeing may consider restarting
Nordic Aviation
Is AA going to cancel
What AA needs to do
Rumor of what

Please advise why are these in Civil Aviation?

Egerton wrote:

5. In my opinion, I get a lot more from Leeham with much less dross, and which I also view for free.

By far the most interesting articles on Leeham are not free to view.