Flow2706 wrote:

I only registered just now, but I have been following this forum for a long time now (I think I first looked at airliners.net around 2002 or so, when I was just a kid enthusiastic about aviation - since quite a few years airliners.net is one of the few websites that I visit daily, I has proven to be a valuable source of information). I rarely felt the urge to post something and back in the days when you needed to pay for a membership I thought that it would not really be worth it for just a few posts in a year. I think that if you re-introduce a paid membership it will drive a few people off (especially that would only post rarely anyway), some of which might add valuable contributions to discussions.
I do however agree that a paid membership would probably reduce the "signal-to-noise" ratio when looking for information (f.e. its very hard to follow discussions about aircraft accidents, even though the summaries provided by some users in those threads are helpful in finding relevant information in those very long threads).
Has the quality of the forum really deteriorated since the free membership was introduced? I didn't notice a major change in quality, but obviously I am not reading everything that's being posted on the forum...

By the way, as this is my first post, I will take this opportunity to introduce myself (I don't think there is a dedicated forum area for introductions of new members). I am Florian, 27 years old, and at present I am working as a First Officer on the A320 for an European airline. Before my current job I was working (also as an A320 FO) in Indonesia.

moderators wrote:

Hi Everyone

In light of some recent spam attacks on both the forums and accounts being set up pretending to be someone else, the Moderators, along with our Community Manager and Developer at Leaf Group (formally Demand Media) have decided that all new members will need to have their first forum post approved.

The Moderators, Community Manager and Developer at Leaf Group are going to work together over the next while to look into other options to remove/reduce the risk of spam posts/spam members.

If you are a new member to our forums, then welcome and thank you for your patience and understanding. This new requirement will increase the Moderators work load here at airliners.net as we screen first posts, but I'm sure you'll all enjoy seeing less spam posts as we work to remove members who simply shouldn't be posting here.

If anyone has any questions/concerns, then as always please feel free to contact us at moderators@airliners.net.

On behalf of the Airliners.net Moderators

777ER
Head Forum Moderator