Why can't we say what is on our minds?

I think people who can't figure out how to not read what they don't want to read on the internet shouldn't be on the internet.

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Besides, there's plenty of trolling here by established members in what purport to be aviation topics.
 
I have been watching this thread and thought i would chime in. I am one of those people who left, last year, I'm just too dumb to stay gone. Someone said upthread, I think it was Ted, that where posters eman, 6pc etc. want to set the bar is what has ran good contributors off. I vehemently disagree, this is what ran me off.....

https://www.pilotsofamerica.com/community/threads/partial-power-loss.98233/

It doesn't seem like that much, but i had been worn down and that just pushed me over the edge. I also hardly think some off color humor is running women off, however I do think some posters sending nasty PM's has. My question to that is, why aren't those people permanently banned immediately? It's very simple, the women report, the sender is banned. Period. I so much want to hang around here, I got a lot out of it during my training and early on, but I think I would rather have a political meltdown than another ****ing match between Glenn and Tom, which is inevitable. I appreciate what you guys do, I mean that, but the truth is that the vast majority of the contributors here are just imperfect men from all walks of life who have a common interest. I do believe it had gotten a little out of hand before, but I also think the pendulum has swung too far and things that are really running people off are left unchecked. Just my .02, not even worth that.
 
Mike Smith said:
I have been watching this thread and thought i would chime in. I am one of those people who left, last year, I'm just too dumb to stay gone. Someone said upthread, I think it was Ted, that where posters eman, 6pc etc. want to set the bar is what has ran good contributors off. I vehemently disagree, this is what ran me off.....

https://www.pilotsofamerica.com/community/threads/partial-power-loss.98233/
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I know it's not the point and I missed the thread but a bit of IPA just came out my nose when I read "takeoff power, rated power, super power, power chords, power steering, magic power"

It was "power chords" that made me lose it.
 
Lindberg said:
I think people who can't figure out how to not read what they don't want to read on the internet shouldn't be on the internet.
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People who can't stop acting like *******s on forums that don't allow *******s shouldn't be on forums that don't allow *******-ery. Jes' sayin'.

We don't get to draw the lines until we run the place.

Nauga,
who doesn't run the place
who can be an ******* too
 
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*******-ery what a great word. I hope its on urban dictionary.

Bryan,
Nauga's biggest fan
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
The ladies are baiting @mscard88 I think

By baiting, I mean the language used would likely draw him out.
Not anything else. I re read it and thought "Oh dear"
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Ummm. Never mind. Not going there. LOL.

WannFly said:
political discussions everywhere turns into nonsense
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Probably because politics is nonsense? Just a guess. :)

Some people actually believe those fairy tales, I think.

nauga said:
People who can't stop acting like *******s on forums that don't allow *******s shouldn't be on forums that don't allow *******-ery. Jes' sayin'.

We don't get to draw the lines until we run the place.

Nauga,
who doesn't run the place
who can be an ******* too
Click to expand...

Lines? Wait what about coloring? I like to scribble colors outside the lines. :)
 
I came over here from Red Board (I post under my real name there, but I picked a handle here given that it's all indexed by the search engines and accessible to anyone. Not that it would be tough to connect the dots for anyone on both, but I just would rather it not all come up in Google searches).

Anyway, I still check Red, but it's a ghosttown compared to back when I signed up in 2008 or so. There are still a lot of knowledgeable people, but it reminds me of the Q Continuum in "The Q and the Grey" where they represent an omnipotent society with an old, creaky farmhouse in which nobody did anything anymore because it had all already been done.

I'm not sure what killed that forum, but I think there was a lot of pointlessly heavy-handed moderation (the bicycle thread comes to mind) and yet not enough moderation of the really problem users. You can keep adding rules upon rules upon rules, but the bigger problem is that some people are just f-in aggravating. They're not necessarily breaking the rules as much as being argumentative jerks and pooping all over threads. If you let them run free, they ruin it for everyone.

Has anyone considered ostracism? I'm actually being somewhat serious; it's more interesting than a lot of people think (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ostracism). Every year, the citizens of Athens would vote to exile one person for a year. There didn't need to be a reason; it was just a vote. Whoever got the most votes got booted for a year. It wouldn't be a bad way to enforce decent behavior, and of course we needn't follow the Athenian timeline, and moderators could veto it. But it'd be a way to put some pressure on the aggravating folk without resorting to pedantic rulemaking. Nobody wants to be the least popular person if that means getting banned for some amount of time. :)
 
On almost any thread, the signal to noise ratio drops quickly after 10 posts. Just put that thread on ignore and move on!

But it is very hard to not look at an accident as you drive by...

-Skip
 
Mike Smith said:
I have been watching this thread and thought i would chime in. I am one of those people who left, last year, I'm just too dumb to stay gone. Someone said upthread, I think it was Ted, that where posters eman, 6pc etc. want to set the bar is what has ran good contributors off. I vehemently disagree, this is what ran me off.....

https://www.pilotsofamerica.com/community/threads/partial-power-loss.98233/

It doesn't seem like that much, but i had been worn down and that just pushed me over the edge. I also hardly think some off color humor is running women off, however I do think some posters sending nasty PM's has. My question to that is, why aren't those people permanently banned immediately? It's very simple, the women report, the sender is banned. Period. I so much want to hang around here, I got a lot out of it during my training and early on, but I think I would rather have a political meltdown than another ****ing match between Glenn and Tom, which is inevitable. I appreciate what you guys do, I mean that, but the truth is that the vast majority of the contributors here are just imperfect men from all walks of life who have a common interest. I do believe it had gotten a little out of hand before, but I also think the pendulum has swung too far and things that are really running people off are left unchecked. Just my .02, not even worth that.
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You bring up the other big reason that drives people away, which is a real problem and one that we do work on. However we actually get very few reports on those issues, which is surprising. Want to help? Click "Report" when you see people making posts like the ones you referenced. We get a lot more reports of inappropriate posts.

No, people won't usually get permanently banned immediately, but if it's truly a chronic problem then they will get banned before long. If people get a "temporary ban" and come back acting exactly the same, then we're typically less forgiving.
 
Skip Miller said:
On almost any thread, the signal to noise ratio drops quickly after 10 posts. Just put that thread on ignore and move on!

But it is very hard to not look at an accident as you drive by...
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Yours was post #53. Which of your statements are you proving? :)
 
We seem to confuse politics with polemics, not just here. In Congress too.

More's the pity.
 
Cajun_Flyer said:
Enough of that crap on places like Facebook.
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When I first joined Facebook in '09 it was actually an okay place to post up pics, make plans with friends, etc. It had a cool and much cleaner vibe than MySpace. Though I never used MySpace I had friends who did and it felt a little too sketchy

I have all but stopped using FB now, maybe check it once or twice a month? Primarily just as a tool to check in with out of state friends. The main reason... FB turned into a complete mad house of people posting selfies trying to out-do each other and political grandstanding... even now with the elections over it hasn't abated at all. I always thought politics was something you kept to yourself, but nope, on FB it became just intolerable from both sides. My favorite posts were "I'll probably lose some friends over this, but..."

WannFly said:
political discussions everywhere turns into nonsense
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There was a sailing forum I used to read that had a front page that would feature stories, etc. I used to read that with almost as much frequency as POA, but it effectively turned into a 24/7 Trump-bash fest. Now I get that a lot of people aren't happy with the president... but maybe don't write about it constantly on the front page of a non-political sailing website?? And both parties lose credibility when it goes from thoughtful discussion to "president orange cheeto" or vice versa
^oh well. I stopped reading that site
 
I really like the crowd at POA, it's got the right balance of not too stuffy, as some other forums get, and also not too aggressive. Even though the group here gives the 1,500 mile solo cross country dude some flack it always seems to be in (mostly) good fun
 
Ryanb said:
If many of the users enjoy engaging in political discussion, why not reopen the Spin Zone and just make it available to the users who choose to be a part of it. The folks who cannot handle the banter can stay out of the sub-forum. Maybe this has been covered in the past, I dunno, but it got me thinking. So what gives?
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That's how it was, until a few who will remain nameless got butthurt because some comments "offended" their tender sensitivities.
 
Ryanb said:
Ahh bummer.
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As we have pointed out numerous times, there are plenty of other places you can go to engage in political discussion. Some people can participate in an adult manner, but when unmoderated, it gets taken over by trolls, bullies, and those who revel in throwing that political grenade. We decided, collectively, that we didn't want to support that kind of activity.
 
Everskyward said:
As we have pointed out numerous times, there are plenty of other places you can go to engage in political discussion. Some people can participate in an adult manner, but when unmoderated, it gets taken over by trolls, bullies, and those who revel in throwing that political grenade. We decided, collectively, that we didn't want to support that kind of activity.
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Roger, I understand.
 
Everskyward said:
As we have pointed out numerous times, there are plenty of other places you can go to engage in political discussion. Some people can participate in an adult manner, but when unmoderated, it gets taken over by trolls, bullies, and those who revel in throwing that political grenade. We decided, collectively, that we didn't want to support that kind of activity.
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That's a really conservative policy.
 
Tantalum said:
I really like the crowd at POA, it's got the right balance of not too stuffy, as some other forums get, and also not too aggressive. Even though the group here gives the 1,500 mile solo cross country dude some flack it always seems to be in (mostly) good fun
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He had/has it coming... Appearing on a pilot forum and being an admitted non-pilot and then insulting members who have been flying and POA members for years; I think it's easy to see why folks didn't take kindly to that.

That said, I don't think he broke any forum rules, he's just a, how shall we say, special individual...
 
I read somewhere "Roger" was originally "Received" as in acknowledging that you received the command, which was later abbreviated to just "R" which is "Roger" not "Romeo" for the army / navy. But I think I read that back on some other forums years ago so who knows if it is true or not
 
Everskyward said:
As we have pointed out numerous times, there are plenty of other places you can go to engage in political discussion. Some people can participate in an adult manner, but when unmoderated, it gets taken over by trolls, bullies, and those who revel in throwing that political grenade. We decided, collectively, that we didn't want to support that kind of activity.
Click to expand...

Wait, I thought the official word was that the political topics kept "leaking out" of SZ and it was only a few people, not that there were "trolls and bullies" inside SZ.

This story seems to change every time we hear it.

I can name a lot more people who behaved inside SZ than brought things outside SZ. Hard for me to go prove it with it all deleted, though.

All that really needed to happen to fix the "leak" problem was about four perma-bans.

People were generally not that bad about it.

The myth of the "big bad political-trash-talkers who ruined everything" keeps growing, though -- especially without any way to prove it wasn't true.

LOL. Funny stuff. Story keeps changing.
 
denverpilot said:
Wait, I thought the official word was that the political topics kept "leaking out" of SZ and it was only a few people, not that there were "trolls and bullies" inside SZ.

This story seems to change every time we hear it.
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It's also true that political topics and animosities leaked out of the SZ. Some people who were (now banned) trolls and/or bullies have been mentioned recently in other threads, so they did have their desired effect of creating that reputation for themselves.
 
Everskyward said:
It's also true that political topics and animosities leaked out of the SZ. Some people who were (now banned) trolls and/or bullies have been mentioned recently in other threads, so they did have their desired effect of creating that reputation for themselves.
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The sad thing is many of those PB'd people were actually very fun and entertaining, with interesting alternate viewpoints on many subjects. (When they didn't have their heads up their *sensored*, that is) Those people added spice and color to this place, and in many ways it's not been the same since. That said, I understand how the MC runs things and why.
 
Bill Jennings said:
The sad thing is many of those PB'd people were actually very fun and entertaining, with interesting alternate viewpoints on many subjects. (When they didn't have their heads up their *sensored*, that is) Those people added spice and color to this place, and in many ways it's not been the same since. That said, I understand how the MC runs things and why.
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I agree.
 
Everskyward said:
As we have pointed out numerous times, there are plenty of other places you can go to engage in political discussion. Some people can participate in an adult manner, but when unmoderated, it gets taken over by trolls, bullies, and those who revel in throwing that political grenade. We decided, collectively, that we didn't want to support that kind of activity.
Click to expand...

Unfortunately, that's not really the case. Political polarization has gotten to the point that it's almost impossible to find a place for political discussion. Debate, yeah, there are plenty of places for that; but what you get is something akin to talking to a telemarketer: scripted replies and talking points, not thoughtful discussion.

That's not to say that SZ was any better, especially toward the end. It got to the point that all I had to read was the first post in a thread and I could predict with uncanny accuracy what each member would have to say about it. There were very few who were willing to read, consider, and respond outside their pre-determined, party-line positions.

This isn't just a POA problem nor even an Internet forum problem. I have degrees from both the New York and New Jersey state university system, which gives me alumni privileges at a staggering number of colleges. One would think I could find open-minded people with whom to have discussions there. And one would be wrong. They're all party-line parrots, too.

It's very frustrating.

Rich
 
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