To me, the rules don't seem too bad. Majority of them seem a bit strict, but I can defiantly see you guys want to enforce stuff. Also I have encountered a couple of people that were....... Not too friendly over the past 6 months I been on here. But otherwise, the experience on this website has been pretty good.

Politics (coming soon) This forum is the ONLY forum on the website in which political comments or discussions may take place, even if they are aviation related.

I would prefer a forum dedicated to Helicopter & VTOL and/or UAV over a forum on politics.

Because
- this is an aviation site
- these areas could generate interesting new topics
- it could attract new members and sponsors

keesje wrote:

I would prefer a forum dedicated to Helicopter & VTOL and/or UAV over a forum on politics.
Because
- this is an aviation site
- these areas could generate interesting new topics
- it could attract new members and sponsors

I second that.
Plus, just a thought : if we were to talk about Ekranoplans, what forum would they fall into ?
Technically, they relied more on ground impact than on wings...

keesje wrote:

Politics (coming soon) This forum is the ONLY forum on the website in which political comments or discussions may take place, even if they are aviation related.

I would prefer a forum dedicated to Helicopter & VTOL and/or UAV over a forum on politics.

Because
- this is an aviation site
- these areas could generate interesting new topics
- it could attract new members and sponsors

The politics forum has been requested by a large number of users, because political subjects have completely dominated the Non Aviation Forum for quite some time. There's a very active group of users who participate in Non Av, but are tired of being inundated with politics. Splitting it into a dedicated forum would ensure that only users wanting to see political discussion would be exposed to it. A helicopter/UAV forum is an interesting idea, but this is literally the first time I've heard that suggested. I'm not saying it wouldn't work, but we'd need to see a significant interest in the idea before we could consider it. Some users are already upset when topics are moved from Civ Av to a more appropriate forum, so a further splitting of aviation topics might not be very popular.

atcsundevil wrote:

keesje wrote:

Politics (coming soon) This forum is the ONLY forum on the website in which political comments or discussions may take place, even if they are aviation related.

I would prefer a forum dedicated to Helicopter & VTOL and/or UAV over a forum on politics.

Because
- this is an aviation site
- these areas could generate interesting new topics
- it could attract new members and sponsors

The politics forum has been requested by a large number of users, because political subjects have completely dominated the Non Aviation Forum for quite some time. There's a very active group of users who participate in Non Av, but are tired of being inundated with politics. Splitting it into a dedicated forum would ensure that only users wanting to see political discussion would be exposed to it. A helicopter/UAV forum is an interesting idea, but this is literally the first time I've heard that suggested. I'm not saying it wouldn't work, but we'd need to see a significant interest in the idea before we could consider it. Some users are already upset when topics are moved from Civ Av to a more appropriate forum, so a further splitting of aviation topics might not be very popular.

Hi I suggested the helicopter forum already many times & got support. The tragically passed away owner even got convinced at some point. IMO it would be a valuable contribution. Few dedicated helicopter topics while it is a broad interesting aviation field.

https://www.airliners.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1323199

keesje wrote:

atcsundevil wrote:

keesje wrote:

Politics (coming soon) This forum is the ONLY forum on the website in which political comments or discussions may take place, even if they are aviation related.

I would prefer a forum dedicated to Helicopter & VTOL and/or UAV over a forum on politics.

Because
- this is an aviation site
- these areas could generate interesting new topics
- it could attract new members and sponsors

The politics forum has been requested by a large number of users, because political subjects have completely dominated the Non Aviation Forum for quite some time. There's a very active group of users who participate in Non Av, but are tired of being inundated with politics. Splitting it into a dedicated forum would ensure that only users wanting to see political discussion would be exposed to it. A helicopter/UAV forum is an interesting idea, but this is literally the first time I've heard that suggested. I'm not saying it wouldn't work, but we'd need to see a significant interest in the idea before we could consider it. Some users are already upset when topics are moved from Civ Av to a more appropriate forum, so a further splitting of aviation topics might not be very popular.

Hi I suggested the helicopter forum already many times & got support. The tragically passed away owner even got convinced at some point. IMO it would be a valuable contribution. Few dedicated helicopter topics while it is a broad interesting aviation field.

https://www.airliners.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1323199

14 years ago is probably why I don't remember it! The site has obviously changed a lot since then, so we'd need to gage interest from current members. Like I said, I'm not against the idea, but we'd need to make sure enough people would engage in the forum before going through the effort to make changes. I would recommend making a new thread in Site Related to start the discussion.

atcsundevil wrote:

keesje wrote:

atcsundevil wrote:

The politics forum has been requested by a large number of users, because political subjects have completely dominated the Non Aviation Forum for quite some time. There's a very active group of users who participate in Non Av, but are tired of being inundated with politics. Splitting it into a dedicated forum would ensure that only users wanting to see political discussion would be exposed to it. A helicopter/UAV forum is an interesting idea, but this is literally the first time I've heard that suggested. I'm not saying it wouldn't work, but we'd need to see a significant interest in the idea before we could consider it. Some users are already upset when topics are moved from Civ Av to a more appropriate forum, so a further splitting of aviation topics might not be very popular.

Hi I suggested the helicopter forum already many times & got support. The tragically passed away owner even got convinced at some point. IMO it would be a valuable contribution. Few dedicated helicopter topics while it is a broad interesting aviation field.

https://www.airliners.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1323199

14 years ago is probably why I don't remember it! The site has obviously changed a lot since then, so we'd need to gage interest from current members. Like I said, I'm not against the idea, but we'd need to make sure enough people would engage in the forum before going through the effort to make changes. I would recommend making a new thread in Site Related to start the discussion.

https://www.airliners.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=1385281

keesje wrote:

atcsundevil wrote:

keesje wrote:

Hi I suggested the helicopter forum already many times & got support. The tragically passed away owner even got convinced at some point. IMO it would be a valuable contribution. Few dedicated helicopter topics while it is a broad interesting aviation field.

https://www.airliners.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=1323199

14 years ago is probably why I don't remember it! The site has obviously changed a lot since then, so we'd need to gage interest from current members. Like I said, I'm not against the idea, but we'd need to make sure enough people would engage in the forum before going through the effort to make changes. I would recommend making a new thread in Site Related to start the discussion.

https://www.airliners.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=1385281

That's right, I forgot I looked at that. My memory is failing me already. Well, I guess we'll see what kind of interest it gets. As I said, we get a lot of complaints about the current division of forums — users will post anything to Civ Av and take it as a sleight when we move it to the appropriate forum. Because of that, we're understandably hesitant to add new forums unless we're sure it's necessary.

When will the political forum go online? It will be nice that those that like to argue over politics will have their own area to so that in and not clog up nonAv.

I remain concerned about some of the delineation between fora and inconsistent moderation. Do posts about operational meltdowns (DL at ATL, WN at MDW) belong in CivAv or TechOps? Moderators have put them both places recently.

In addition, I'm not sure that banning political discussions from CivAv is appropriate or workable. How do we discuss things like merger approvals without discussing the politics that informs those approvals? Or would merger approval discussions have to go in the Politics forum?

Cubsrule wrote:

In addition, I'm not sure that banning political discussions from CivAv is appropriate or workable. How do we discuss things like merger approvals without discussing the politics that informs those approvals? Or would merger approval discussions have to go in the Politics forum?

As stated in the rules update (see below) politics and political statements can be made in Civil Aviation providing it is in context of the discussion and it is aviation related. Unfortunately too many times political comments have not been made in context and instead we have seen users injecting political bias and make inflammatory statements and as a result we have has to either delete posts, lock threads or move the topic to Non-Aviation. We as moderators fully understand that from time to time there are going to be aviation topics which have a political component whether it is regarding an order, a government policy, mergers etc

Political Discussion
1. As some aviation topics relate to politics, political statements related to aviation are permitted, provided the political discussion is merely to provide context to the discussion. Political commentary without aviation context, with the purpose of being inflammatory or injecting political bias, or comments which are fundamentally a political discussion will be removed in all aviation forums. Political commentary must serve a purpose in aviation forums.
2. Political discussion unrelated to aviation, or aviation topics primarily rooted in politics are limited to the Non-Aviation Forum.

Cubsrule wrote:

I remain concerned about some of the delineation between fora and inconsistent moderation. Do posts about operational meltdowns (DL at ATL, WN at MDW) belong in CivAv or TechOps? Moderators have put them both places recently.

I agree that more consistency is needed, but please understand that in many cases, our decision will make people unhappy regardless of what we do. Sometimes threads like that are phrased in such a way that makes them applicable to either forum. If we leave it in Civ Av, we get hell from users who think it belongs in Tech Ops. If we move it, we get hell from users who think it should have stayed in Civ Av. Sometimes we're forced to make a decision and stick with it, because everyone has different interpretations of forum delineation. I'm not sure how to improve that delineation, but we're certainly open to ideas.

Cubsrule wrote:

In addition, I'm not sure that banning political discussions from CivAv is appropriate or workable. How do we discuss things like merger approvals without discussing the politics that informs those approvals? Or would merger approval discussions have to go in the Politics forum?

We don't ban political discussions in aviation forums provided the content is rooted in aviation and is on-topic. We don't allow purely political statements in aviation forms, because it often drags the discussion off-topic. Politics these days are so divisive, and a civilized thread can devolve into political bickering in minutes. Sometimes we have to make a judgement call, because occasionally we'll see posts that are 95% on-topic, but one phrase is thrown in that has the potential to explode the thread. Users frequently criticize "over-moderating" of some threads, but our only motivation is to keep this site rooted in aviation discussion. All moderators have seen threads melt into political discord, and just want to try to prevent that from happening.

The future Politics Forum would only encompass topics from Non-Av which are strictly political subjects unrelated to aviation. It would essentially become a Non-Av Politics Forum and a Politics-Free Non-Av Forum, so we're just splitting the current Non-Av Forum. Aviation discussions intertwined with politics will still be in the appropriate aviation forum, and the discussion will continue to be permitted provided the posts are primarily aviation related, and don't include flamebait statements.

atcsundevil wrote:

Cubsrule wrote:

I remain concerned about some of the delineation between fora and inconsistent moderation. Do posts about operational meltdowns (DL at ATL, WN at MDW) belong in CivAv or TechOps? Moderators have put them both places recently.

I agree that more consistency is needed, but please understand that in many cases, our decision will make people unhappy regardless of what we do. Sometimes threads like that are phrased in such a way that makes them applicable to either forum. If we leave it in Civ Av, we get hell from users who think it belongs in Tech Ops. If we move it, we get hell from users who think it should have stayed in Civ Av. Sometimes we're forced to make a decision and stick with it, because everyone has different interpretations of forum delineation. I'm not sure how to improve that delineation, but we're certainly open to ideas.

My larger concern is with consistency. The operational meltdown threads have not been treated in the same way. DL/ATL stayed in CivAv; y'all moved WN/MDW to TechOps.

I favor a bias toward CivAv because one of the strengths of a.net compared to some of the competition is CivAv's comprehensiveness, but I realize that that is a normative choice with which others may disagree.

I took quite a lot of humor at the first few reactions to these rules. Personally I find them very reasonable, and in line with what you see on most other sites. I don't know how this site used to be, but despite the vast amount of technical knowledge on here, I find personal attacks and people taking offense to the most inconsequential of things to be rampant right now, and quite sad.

The flippin United States Constitution has fewer words!!

These rules are bollocks unless you remove the arbitrary and capricious nature of enforcement by the mods. Far too often, especially in political context, threads and posts are selectively and curiously deleted on the whims of a mod, who, coincidentally, would share the same political viewpoint.

Moreover, there are way too many thin-skinned people here who whine to moderators because their snowflake feelings were hurt. Grow up, get over it and deal with the fact there are other opinions--and sometimes strongly voiced--other than your own.

Having to e-mail about moderation topics is a non-starter to me. Discussion between members and moderators should be encouraged with a feeling of openness, not artifically suppressed by introducing privacy concerns.

And rules are only useful when actually followed, enforced, and moderated consistently and without bias. I don't see that often in today's A.net, and it's contributing to the lack of quality and increase in hostility on the forums.

atcsundevil wrote:

I agree that more consistency is needed, but please understand that in many cases, our decision will make people unhappy regardless of what we do. Sometimes threads like that are phrased in such a way that makes them applicable to either forum. If we leave it in Civ Av, we get hell from users who think it belongs in Tech Ops. If we move it, we get hell from users who think it should have stayed in Civ Av. Sometimes we're forced to make a decision and stick with it, because everyone has different interpretations of forum delineation. I'm not sure how to improve that delineation, but we're certainly open to ideas.

If you're getting flak from both sides (which I find hard to imagine that people complain if left in the Civ/Av, but I'll trust you on it), why move it to a forum where far fewer people actually read and talk about a current event that matches the description of the Civ/Av forum? It makes no sense to cater to the one side that causes fewer people to be informed and engaged. And it's not about what words are in the topic title. It's about the topic itself.

Stick to the description of the forums. The two issues at ATL and MDW are current, factual events. They're not about the nitty gritty. They're not "advanced" topics for that those that want to "dig deeper". And they're certainly not topics geared towards "professionals and knowledgable amateurs". They're important and relevant for all.

Slider, you are my new Hero. You have summed it up perfectly. Long live the diversity of life

Can you tell members to stop telling or asking why English grammars isn't perfect? Where are you from or problem with bad or wrong grammars? I do not feel comfortable with that comment from any members. I am hard of hearing is that part of problem that I can't hear following hearing speaking of language grammars. How could I hear perfect grammars? You cannot fix that. They shouldn't asking in the forum for member's disabled grammars. Just leave it alone. You have to understand read again. Or you can ask nicely can you explain it again what are you trying to say? I would to be happy write again forum.

Thanks,

Q

Just a quick note to the moderators as a long-time-lurker, short-time poster: thank you for the work you've done on this. No set of rules will ever be perfect, but it is important to have them, particularly in online fora where different socio-cultural values tend to collide. It seems you get a good bit of grief for much, and I wanted to add my voice of appreciation.
I also empathize with the concerns about non-native English grammar and mistakes, but I do think that the majority do well to tolerate variation, whether this be from second language speakers, those whose writing in a first language doesn't mirror the standard, or simply because of typoerrors.

2. Threads that have been inactive for six (6) months or more (meaning the last post in the thread was made six months or more from the current date) are not to be commented on, and should remain permanently dormant unless the user first seeks approval from a Moderator to post in that thread.

A bit over the top I think ...

atcsundevil wrote:

Cubsrule wrote:

I remain concerned about some of the delineation between fora and inconsistent moderation. Do posts about operational meltdowns (DL at ATL, WN at MDW) belong in CivAv or TechOps? Moderators have put them both places recently.

I agree that more consistency is needed, but please understand that in many cases, our decision will make people unhappy regardless of what we do. Sometimes threads like that are phrased in such a way that makes them applicable to either forum. If we leave it in Civ Av, we get hell from users who think it belongs in Tech Ops. If we move it, we get hell from users who think it should have stayed in Civ Av. Sometimes we're forced to make a decision and stick with it, because everyone has different interpretations of forum delineation. I'm not sure how to improve that delineation, but we're certainly open to idea.

Maybe the problem there is that the rules have encourage this Policemen attitude to forum topics and which sub-forums they belong in. Technical in my mind is very technical stuff about the systems or operation of a plane, where a operational meltdown or delays might have a bit of technical detail, but isn't really technical.

With rules being as defined/strict as they are, I think the mods have made more work for themselves. Some users also need to lighten up, there is more to life than worrying about if something aviation related is general civil aviation or technical civil aviation.

Why is swearing not allowed ? As long as a poster isn't using swear words to insult someone,I don't think there should be a problem with it. I feel it's over-censoring. Besides, it's 2018, not 1958.

MSPbrandon wrote:

Why is swearing not allowed ? As long as a poster isn't using swear words to insult someone,I don't think there should be a problem with it. I feel it's over-censoring. Besides, it's 2018, not 1958.

Because we as moderators are trying to keep the site professional and of a high standard. Lets face the facts swearing and keeping things professional do not fit in the same sentence. One of the most common complaints we receive is how the quality of posts on this site have gone downhill. Having read other forums in the past where swearing is permitted the quality of the posting is quite poor. This actually goes against everything we are trying to achieve. We are trying through a range of things trying to improve the quality of posting on the forums, one of the changes is the rules update, another we plan starting to work on soon is a number of reference guides that will be beneficial to all users.

Off topic, I would like to see a new section headed "Airline Timetables". I was told previously this was not possible, however no reason given.
I find it also extremely important that if we are going to use Airline and Airport Codes in posts, that the old method of clicking on the code for an explanation made it very user friendly and instantaneous. This would be much easier than having to refer to a separate listing. If it is not on the priority to-do list I respectfully suggest it should be. cheers.
p.s. What you are setting out to achieve is great, and well documented, well done. cheers again.

Who on earth is going to read a huge list of rules? I remember another forum that I was active on many years ago, and contributors had to sign up to one rule:

"Be nice"

This worked quite well as moderators and contributors did clamp down on rule violators.

And what about, say, those useless little posts such as "Lol"? Ignore it, move on. Life is too short to get hung up about this.

Probably off topic but segueing from TN486's point, I'd like to suggest a new forum/feature: fundamentals of aerodynamics/engineering.
Most people here are (like me) non-expert enthusiasts who like to pick up a little knowledge here and there. But we often waste space and time debating fundamentals like the causes of drag when experts have answered many of these questions literally a century ago.

This site could perform a huge service to its members if a few highly-respected members converged to issue an "A.net guide to fundamentals of airliner performance" or some similar document/forum. Many of the people I'd suggest for this task are already moderators, and already have to wade through reams of disputes over basic ideas by people who don't work in this field and are blindly (but enthusiastically) fumbling about. It would save time for both the blind and the enlightened if there were a few canonical A.net "wikis" to which we could link when a thread turns to disputing fundamentals.

If we need a fellowship structure for it, I'd chip in. I'd guess many others would as well.

2. Head Moderator: headmoderators@airliners.net

Check this e-mail address. Shouldn't it be headmoderator@airliners.net (no plural) or is it really plural as an established account?

redngold wrote:

2. Head Moderator: headmoderators@airliners.net

Check this e-mail address. Shouldn't it be headmoderator@airliners.net (no plural) or is it really plural as an established account?

It's really plural. We have multiple Head Mods. Thanks for keeping a sharp eye though. People have already found some mistakes that need fixing, so it is appreciated.

The rules here baffle me. On the one hand I posted a thread last night from a newspaper article about how SY is laying off 20% of its employees. It's deleted. There is no dupe thread. I can only guess that it is being discussed inside some other thread and how would anyone know that? Meanwhile, I post my OAG thread each week and in the headline list the notable route changes. For example, "DL Adds SEA-XXX". Within half a day there is a thread specific to the new route from my thread title and the mods just let it go. Why do I even bother these schedule changes so people can scoop them up and start their own threads with the info?

Similarly, there was a thread posted on Airbus engine problems and it was deleted, Reposted. Deleted. This happened like 12 times and finally on the 13th try it was allowed. ???

How about we have an enforced rule that if a piece of news is in the thread title there can't be a duplicate thread, but if it is knee deep in an existing tangential thread like "Minnesota Flights Talk" it can be its own thread? The whole point is that people see "news" to create engagement and not be buried in duplicates. Those should be the goals.

ADD ON: I just noticed my SY news was dumped into this two month old thread on SY. I didn't even know where it went. How does it benefit the site to bury news like that so nobody knows to talk about it? https://www.cbsnews.com/news/cristina-g ... cusations/

enilria wrote:

The rules here baffle me. On the one hand I posted a thread last night from a newspaper article about how SY is laying off 20% of its employees. It's deleted. There is no dupe thread. I can only guess that it is being discussed inside some other thread and how would anyone know that?

Your thread wasn't deleted, it was merged. A quick search of your posts should have led you to it. I wasn't the Moderator that took this action, but if you email us, you can receive an explanation.

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1371407&p=20189805#p20189805

enilria wrote:

Meanwhile, I post my OAG thread each week and in the headline list the notable route changes. For example, "DL Adds SEA-XXX". Within half a day there is a thread specific to the new route from my thread title and the mods just let it go. Why do I even bother these schedule changes so people can scoop them up and start their own threads with the info?

Everyone appreciates your work on the OAG threads. No one is questioning that. It's not fair, however, for all route discussion contained in the OAG thread to be limited to the OAG thread. If other users want to have a separate discussion about a specific route or affects on an airport/airline from those changes, then it isn't our place to tell them they can't do that. It's not a duplicate topic, it's a split discussion. It's not fair for a user to effectively claim ownership over a blanket set of topics. There's plenty of discussion that happens in the OAG threads already, so it's not like your thread is receiving any less attention with there being offshoots of the discussion.

enilria wrote:

Similarly, there was a thread posted on Airbus engine problems and it was deleted, Reposted. Deleted. This happened like 12 times and finally on the 13th try it was allowed. ???

I don't know anything about this, but maybe another Moderator does. If you have an issue with something, then email us so we can answer when it happens.

atcsundevil wrote:

enilria wrote:

The rules here baffle me. On the one hand I posted a thread last night from a newspaper article about how SY is laying off 20% of its employees. It's deleted. There is no dupe thread. I can only guess that it is being discussed inside some other thread and how would anyone know that?

Your thread wasn't deleted, it was merged. A quick search of your posts should have led you to it. I wasn't the Moderator that took this action, but if you email us, you can receive an explanation.

viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1371407&p=20189805#p20189805

enilria wrote:

Meanwhile, I post my OAG thread each week and in the headline list the notable route changes. For example, "DL Adds SEA-XXX". Within half a day there is a thread specific to the new route from my thread title and the mods just let it go. Why do I even bother these schedule changes so people can scoop them up and start their own threads with the info?

Everyone appreciates your work on the OAG threads. No one is questioning that. It's not fair, however, for all route discussion contained in the OAG thread to be limited to the OAG thread. If other users want to have a separate discussion about a specific route or affects on an airport/airline from those changes, then it isn't our place to tell them they can't do that. It's not a duplicate topic, it's a split discussion. It's not fair for a user to effectively claim ownership over a blanket set of topics. There's plenty of discussion that happens in the OAG threads already, so it's not like your thread is receiving any less attention with there being offshoots of the discussion.

enilria wrote:

Similarly, there was a thread posted on Airbus engine problems and it was deleted, Reposted. Deleted. This happened like 12 times and finally on the 13th try it was allowed. ???

I don't know anything about this, but maybe another Moderator does. If you have an issue with something, then email us so we can answer when it happens.

But why is SY laying off 20% of their workforce not worthy of its own thread, but "DL Adds SEA-XXX" is worthy of two titled threads? I don't get it.

enilria wrote:

But why is SY laying off 20% of their workforce not worthy of its own thread, but "DL Adds SEA-XXX" is worthy of two titled threads? I don't get it.

As I said, I wasn't the Moderator who made that decision, so I can't answer that. You'd need to email us so you can get a response from the Moderator who did. You've made it clear in the past that you feel route discussion should only be in your OAG threads, and I understand that's your position.

However, both of these things relate to moderating decisions, and it's not really a discussion related to the new rules. OAG threads vs. specific route threads is not by definition a duplicate topic. We didn't change the rules on duplicate topics, and I don't believe there's a justification to change it from the status quo. It therefore comes down to Moderator judgement. I recognize you disagree with it, but it's the decision we've made in the interest of the forum as a whole. It doesn't undermine your OAG thread to have separate discussions going on, but it's also not fair for users to wade through a bunch of other discussion in the OAG thread to discuss something more specific. You've threatened multiple times to quit posting the thread over this issue; no one wants that to happen, because it's obviously a very popular thread. We won't, however, award a discussion monopoly of sorts to you when it comes to route threads. I see no reason why they can't continue to coexist when one doesn't adversely impact the other, so far as I can tell. The macro/micro approach of the two doesn't really result in that much overlapping discussion most of the time.

The forums just got better for me. Despite the rule of no political discussions, there is a user with a signature that contains some political and social comments that seem to want to ignite debates and pushes a view. Found out that you can hide signatures, nice. I do not need to see those revelations.

csturdiv wrote:

The forums just got better for me. Despite the rule of no political discussions, there is a user with a signature that contains some political and social comments that seem to want to ignite debates and pushes a view. Found out that you can hide signatures, nice. I do not need to see those revelations.

As per the rules political commentary will not be allowed in a user's signature. If you come across a signature that has political commentary please report the post so we can take a look and take further action if required

atcsundevil wrote:

A.Net Community,

It is important to us to get user feedback before these rules go "live". None of the changes fundamentally impact how things work on this forum; instead, our attempt is to better define rules and policies to bring clarity, particularly to new users.

These new rules will be effective on March 1, 2018. Until that time, we encourage all users to read through and provide any constructive comments or criticism. Unhelpful, unconstructive, or otherwise disrespectful comments may be removed at the discretion of Moderators -- we want actual feedback that will enhance the user experience on this site.

We appreciate your feedback.
Moderators

Hi, I’ve read through the rules. Thank you for the work of all in revising them and giving them more relevance to the current online forums standard/s for 2018 going forward.

Also, a great initiative of separating out the political discussion from the other discussion (in Non-Aviation) given the amount in that forum nowadays.

Posting in the Discussion forum g. Thread Bumps has now been addressed in the replies here, but is the locking of threads entirely a manual-based system now? Gives mods more control over it perhaps, but also more work is then required by the Moderators?

h. Thread Titles – Is there a character limit for the Thread Titles? I appreciate it is much more generous here now than the old site, but I have seen Thread Titles that are in excess of 100 characters. This is really good for Trip Reports, but how long is too long?

p. Use of Signatures and Avatars – 3. “They also may not be used to misrepresent the user, or imply that the user has an alternate identity.” Can you provide some clarification, or an example on this? Most users don't have their actual photo or their real identity on the site? Sorry, got confused here with the meaning of this rule.

On another note, cartoons are OK to use as avatars?

q. Continuous Threads - 2. & 4. “The thread will be locked by Moderators.” But then – “These threads will not be locked and recycled based on post of page count.” May just be me, but I got lost here at 4. – it seems a bit ambiguous, or at the very least, unclear – what does this mean?

6. Maintaining your Airliners.net Account c. Email address linked to your account - Regarding post deletions, thank you for the reply from the question on the ‘site limitations’ and update on where this is at.

7. Communication with Moderators b. Contacting Moderators via Private Message (PM) – Should 2. be listed before 1.? - it reads better. Sorry, may be a formatting issue here, but 2. seems more important in regard to having the rule there in the first place.

c. Communication with Moderators – Chat Operators? There is no chat room, or will not be for the foreseeable future, this role is obsolete?

Finally, thank you for allowing enough time to look through the rules and request and address the feedback from users.

qf789 wrote:

csturdiv wrote:

The forums just got better for me. Despite the rule of no political discussions, there is a user with a signature that contains some political and social comments that seem to want to ignite debates and pushes a view. Found out that you can hide signatures, nice. I do not need to see those revelations.

As per the rules political commentary will not be allowed in a user's signature. If you come across a signature that has political commentary please report the post so we can take a look and take further action if required

No politics in signatures but dead children in avatars are just fine? I've seen one user have a photo of a drowned, dead child in theirs for over a year.

VapourTrails wrote:

Also, a great initiative of separating out the political discussion from the other discussion (in Non-Aviation) given the amount in that forum nowadays.

Yes we decided we needed to go down that path as it currently stands politics has taken over non-aviation and for many users they have been put off using that forum

Posting in the Discussion forum g. Thread Bumps has now been addressed in the replies here, but is the locking of threads entirely a manual-based system now? Gives mods more control over it perhaps, but also more work is then required by the Moderators?

Yes it manual now, under the old site they would automatically lock after 30 days. What we have tried to do is balance it out and unfortunately it is not practical to lock all threads

h. Thread Titles – Is there a character limit for the Thread Titles? I appreciate it is much more generous here now than the old site, but I have seen Thread Titles that are in excess of 100 characters. This is really good for Trip Reports, but how long is too long?

I cant tell you at the moment if there is a character limit or what it might be. I will find out for you though, hopefully I will have an answer in the next day or so.

p. Use of Signatures and Avatars – 3. “They also may not be used to misrepresent the user, or imply that the user has an alternate identity.” Can you provide some clarification, or an example on this? Most users don't have their actual photo or their real identity on the site? Sorry, got confused here with the meaning of this rule.

This rule comes about after we had a person creating fake profiles of flight attendants and taking their photos off social media accounts and using them in avatars. This particular person over a small time frame had created in excess of 50 fake profiles and this was primarily one of the reasons why post approvals were brought back. In some instances multiple profiles were started on a daily basis.

On another note, cartoons are OK to use as avatars?

Yes as long as they are not offensive

q. Continuous Threads - 2. & 4. “The thread will be locked by Moderators.” But then – “These threads will not be locked and recycled based on post of page count.” May just be me, but I got lost here at 4. – it seems a bit ambiguous, or at the very least, unclear – what does this mean?

What we refer to here is under the old site we would lock threads at 200 posts. That is not needed now and we have tried to keep all the continuous threads (country, state, production etc) in a consistent format hence why they are done monthly, quarterly or annually. Generally in most of these threads we will lock them and start the new edition.

7. Communication with Moderators b. Contacting Moderators via Private Message (PM) – Should 2. be listed before 1.? - it reads better. Sorry, may be a formatting issue here, but 2. seems more important in regard to having the rule there in the first place.

Will pass that on

c. Communication with Moderators – Chat Operators? There is no chat room, or will not be for the foreseeable future, this role is obsolete?

Will double check on that but probably needs to removed

Finally, thank you for allowing enough time to look through the rules and request and address the feedback from users.

Thanks, we wanted the community feedback, that was important to us. Our main objective is to improve the site, particular improve the quality of posting. There have been some things raised that are out of our control but the ones that we can control we can work on to improve things

VapourTrails wrote:

Finally, thank you for allowing enough time to look through the rules and request and address the feedback from users.

Thank you for giving your feedback! qf789 pretty much covered it, so I don't think I have much to add. At the end of the day, we aren't trying to impose a cumbersome set of rules on people, we're not really even changing that much, we're just trying to define things a little more clearly. Users here largely want organization, so we're trying our best to provide that.

CCGPV wrote:

No politics in signatures but dead children in avatars are just fine? I've seen one user have a photo of a drowned, dead child in theirs for over a year.

No, that'll need to be removed, too. Previously we really only went after avatar images that were particularly inappropriate, but this rule will actually define what's permitted and what's not. It'll allow us to take action a little more clearly when someone does choose to use an inappropriate image.

qf789 wrote:

727LOVER wrote:

k. Links to Competing Sites
1. Do not post links or references to other sites which compete directly with or seek to diminish the mission of Airliners.net.


I didn't realize this site had competitors.
I've actually done this quite a bit.


What if it's relevant to a thread?
If the thread is about Eastern 401...and I want to show a pic? Well guess what?...there aren't any on this site.
What is wrong with linking it from another aviation site as opposed to a news site?

If it is relevant to the thread I would suggest emailing us for permission to post first and that is providing the picture is not available on a.net. We would prefer you to use the picture off a news site if the picture is not available here. This rule is in place to protect the Airliners.net brand, obviously we want to promoting Airliners.net and not other competing sites

I can see not wanting people to advertise a competing website, but overall this rule comes across as a bit petty. If you want to maintain the quality of posts on this site, you are going to get posts and pictures from sites you deem to be competitors. I'd rethink this one. It is a poor rule as written and needs to be reworked.

Indy wrote:

qf789 wrote:

727LOVER wrote:

k. Links to Competing Sites
1. Do not post links or references to other sites which compete directly with or seek to diminish the mission of Airliners.net.


I didn't realize this site had competitors.
I've actually done this quite a bit.


What if it's relevant to a thread?
If the thread is about Eastern 401...and I want to show a pic? Well guess what?...there aren't any on this site.
What is wrong with linking it from another aviation site as opposed to a news site?

If it is relevant to the thread I would suggest emailing us for permission to post first and that is providing the picture is not available on a.net. We would prefer you to use the picture off a news site if the picture is not available here. This rule is in place to protect the Airliners.net brand, obviously we want to promoting Airliners.net and not other competing sites

I can see not wanting people to advertise a competing website, but overall this rule comes across as a bit petty. If you want to maintain the quality of posts on this site, you are going to get posts and pictures from sites you deem to be competitors. I'd rethink this one. It is a poor rule as written and needs to be reworked.

It is word-for-word from the current set of rules, and has been established in those rules for many, many years.

In the current rules:

w. Do not post links or references to other sites which compete directly with or seek to diminish the mission of https://www.airliners.net. Similarly, do not embed photographs from competing websites in forum posts.

In any case, it doesn't actually come up that often. We just don't want people linking to other competing forums in a way that causes us to potentially draw our users away.

Pictures from other websites is a whole other deal, because that can run into copyright issues, so we generally discourage it in the first place.

atcsundevil wrote:

In any case, it doesn't actually come up that often. We just don't want people linking to other competing forums in a way that causes us to potentially draw our users away.

Pictures from other websites is a whole other deal, because that can run into copyright issues, so we generally discourage it in the first place.

As an example... I see links to FlyerTalk fairly often. Is that considered a competing site? You certainly wouldn't want to frown on people posting those links because sometimes FT gets the story first. Better to share the link than to not cover the story here. FT is also used as a rumor reference.

When it comes to images I would say it depends. Obviously hot linking is frown upon pretty much globally unless the originating sources has provided tools for hot linking as some do. Copyrights are always a sensitive area and people should use good judgement. My thinking has always been.... if in doubt don't post it.

Indy wrote:

As an example... I see links to FlyerTalk fairly often. Is that considered a competing site? You certainly wouldn't want to frown on people posting those links because sometimes FT gets the story first. Better to share the link than to not cover the story here. FT is also used as a rumor reference.

That is an example. FlyerTalk gets their stories from other sources, so you can just use those sources. There really isn't that much of a reason to link to FT whether or not they're a competing site. If a story has made it to their site, then a news source can easily be found via Google.

Indy wrote:

When it comes to images I would say it depends. Obviously hot linking is frown upon pretty much globally unless the originating sources has provided tools for hot linking as some do. Copyrights are always a sensitive area and people should use good judgement. My thinking has always been.... if in doubt don't post it.

And that's how we handle it, too. We're not saying "don't post images", we're telling people to only use images they're allowed to use and in the proper context. We've had a number of users lately post images from social media, but it has to be sourced and sometimes approval has to be obtained.

Another vote for a helicopter forum. A good idea I think would be some sort of mechanism to have a moderator removed if a large amount of people find said moderator has a proven bias that affects there moderation of the forums or they play fast and dirty with their interpretation of the rules. Although I only recently joined I've lurked for years and seen a decline in the quality of moderation. The discussion of moderator removal would have to transparent though so the existing moderators can't play favorites. There should actually be one chief moderator that can oversee the other moderators. Suggest somebody from the company that owns the site.

A scenario that has slipped through the rules occurs when a poster presents intentional false information as fact in thread title or text.

There currently is a post in non-av that makes a bold claim in the title and is repeated in the text of the OP, but the link provided to support the claim is clear in stating otherwise (viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1387733&p=20209637#p20209529) (upon being called out, the OP has now changed the title but left the false claim in the text.)

This is not the only instance of such behavior I have encountered here, and I consider the attempt to pass off false information to be a serious violation of forum integrity. A history forum I have posted on for years has a policy of issuing a permanent ban for a first offense of willful fudging of facts. I would like to see the same policy here in all the forums.

salttee wrote:

A scenario that has slipped through the rules occurs when a poster presents intentional false information as fact in thread title or text.

There currently is a post in non-av that makes a bold claim in the title and is repeated in the text of the OP, but the link provided to support the claim is clear in stating otherwise (viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1387733&p=20209637#p20209529) (upon being called out, the OP has now changed the title but left the false claim in the text.)

This is not the only instance of such behavior I have encountered here, and I consider the attempt to pass off false information to be a serious violation of forum integrity. A history forum I have posted on for years has a policy of issuing a permanent ban for a first offense of willful fudging of facts. I would like to see the same policy here in all the forums.

I'm not sure there's any reason for it to specifically be in the rules, because we can just handle it anyway (as I just did). Users just need to report it to us (as they usually do), and we'll deal with the situation accordingly.

salttee wrote:

A scenario that has slipped through the rules occurs when a poster presents intentional false information as fact in thread title or text.

There currently is a post in non-av that makes a bold claim in the title and is repeated in the text of the OP, but the link provided to support the claim is clear in stating otherwise (viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1387733&p=20209637#p20209529) (upon being called out, the OP has now changed the title but left the false claim in the text.)

This is not the only instance of such behavior I have encountered here, and I consider the attempt to pass off false information to be a serious violation of forum integrity. A history forum I have posted on for years has a policy of issuing a permanent ban for a first offense of willful fudging of facts. I would like to see the same policy here in all the forums.

I didn't intentionally present false info. I was just tired and almost half-asleep when posting. Simple mistake.

MSPbrandon wrote:

salttee wrote:

A scenario that has slipped through the rules occurs when a poster presents intentional false information as fact in thread title or text.

There currently is a post in non-av that makes a bold claim in the title and is repeated in the text of the OP, but the link provided to support the claim is clear in stating otherwise (viewtopic.php?f=11&t=1387733&p=20209637#p20209529) (upon being called out, the OP has now changed the title but left the false claim in the text.)

This is not the only instance of such behavior I have encountered here, and I consider the attempt to pass off false information to be a serious violation of forum integrity. A history forum I have posted on for years has a policy of issuing a permanent ban for a first offense of willful fudging of facts. I would like to see the same policy here in all the forums.

I didn't intentionally present false info. I was just tired and almost half-asleep when posting. Simple mistake.

Which is why we wouldn't adopt a permaban on the first offense policy. It's different if the user signs up with the intent to purposely be a troll or spammer, because then we'll deal with it before users ever even see their posts. We're certainly not going to ban people for getting the facts wrong sometimes, unless it's clearly intentional. If we did, we'd run out of users very quickly!

flyinggoat wrote:

Overall, I’d say the mods do a good job on this site, however, I do feel that there is some inconsistency in what is allowed/not allowed, particularly in the political or religious topics. Hateful comments towards Christians, Conservatives, or Jews seem to be tolerated more than hate comments directed towards other groups (Muslims, minorities, liberals, etc). The Billy Graham thread had some pretty hateful rhetoric in it, but rather than deleting these posts, the topic was locked instead.

I would ask for more consistency in the political or religious threads, but otherwise, you mods have done a splendid job. Thank you.

As long as they are making fun of white, religious, or southern people its fine to use slurs and offensive stereotypes to describe them.

Imagine how fast you'd be banned if you used the same types of language and epithets towards a black person or a woman? You'd be outta here.

slider wrote:

The flippin United States Constitution has fewer words!!

These rules are bollocks unless you remove the arbitrary and capricious nature of enforcement by the mods. Far too often, especially in political context, threads and posts are selectively and curiously deleted on the whims of a mod, who, coincidentally, would share the same political viewpoint.

Moreover, there are way too many thin-skinned people here who whine to moderators because their snowflake feelings were hurt. Grow up, get over it and deal with the fact there are other opinions--and sometimes strongly voiced--other than your own.

Strongly partisan moderation is an issue from time to time.
What the site needs is a bit of meta moderation IMHO. quis custos custodiet.

Maybe the site designers should look into the engine running slashdot ( https://slashdot.org/ )
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slash_%28CMS%29
http://www.slashcode.com/
https://github.com/SoylentNews/rehash

moderation and more so meta moderation tasks Karma/randomly selected posters.
Meta moderation asks to judge the _moderation_ quality of previously moderated posts.
giving feedback that condenses in Karma points.

Slashdot did never delete postings but instead demoted their visibility.
The viewer could scoop cream off the top or expand his view till seeing all the gory sump below

What i find disturbing on occasion is that strongly personal Ad Hominem posts persist
while contentious or not on topic stuff is deleted.

Also I've seen some tries of "arguing by moderator" recently.