Forums culture, etc. (Split from Glider thread)

[WLIU]

I will offer and "atta boy" to Ron for a clear, well reasoned, and patient explanation of the hazards and drawbacks of typed communication in the internet age. I too predate the web and I can report that learning to write my thoughts with what I hope is the intended level of emotional emphasis did not come naturally. I know that I have learned that when writing about a topic, if you really want folks to discuss your point, leave out editorial distractions that can offer your audience the opportunity to take the discussion in other directions. Focus grasshopper.

So on the topic of EAA's response to the sailplane incident, I will agree that I do not see that EAA needs to get all excited. EAA does a bunch of things well in a world where if you try to do everything, you just fail at everything and get nothing done. My 35 years of observation leaves me with the impression that AOPA is where the lawyers are. They can cover this issue adequately. AOPA is welcome to the credit. I encourage EAA to focus on facilitation the invention of unleaded avgas. If I don't get that, I will likely not be able to fly around where I make my local nuke plant staff nervous.

Perhaps it is my age, but these days I try to be really good at a few things rather than so-so at many. I don't know whether that is mature wisdom or merely fatigue. Your mileage may vary.

Best of luck,

Wes
N78PS

[Hal Bryan]

Whoooooooooo baby, I didn't expect that kind of ruthless response.

Fair enough - my intent was to be concise, and there was certainly some time pressure to intervene before things got out of hand. Combine that with the fact that the only connected device I had at the time was my phone which doesn't lend itself to long, articulate posts. I definitely could have been more polite, so you have my apology there.

Hal, I think you need to re-read your own post from Aug. 3, 2012 entitled EAA Forums- My Long Winded Thoughts on the Culture, Etc. In fact, I think everybody on this forum should do that. Because there's some serious hypocracy now going on here. I re-read it just to be sure. I thought (and you wrote) that rude comments and personal attacks would not be tolerated(and that's fair and agreed to). Now you've arbitrarily extended the definition of intolerance to include satire and sarcasm. That's very autocratic and despotic and undemocratic of you. So EAA will no longer tolerate satire or dare I say dissent. Is that the new "Love Us or Leave Us" secretive initiative? Hal, when did the rules change, I didn't get the memo. And who said you could change the rules in the middle of the game.

Let me put this another way. My goal with this forum is simple: to facilitate connection and conversation, making sure that people with questions find answers, and that people with information to share are able to do so. You had a a question - as I've said more than once, a very fair one - but your comment, be it snide, sarcastic, satirical, or whatever, weakened my ability to get you the response you deserved. A lot of people here view these forums as negative or even toxic. A few weeks ago, I spent several days rereading every thread in the preceding 90 days and compiling data for our senior leadership team that proved otherwise. The overwhelming majority of discussions here involve people helping each other with flying / building questions.

This was very well received, and helped start shifting the perspective and getting more staff to understand the real value here. But all that can be undone, or at least driven backwards a few steps, when someone can't ask a straightforward question without throwing in a baseless dig at us for the policies of someone who doesn't even work here anymore.

The rules haven't changed - they're the same as they've been since we first launched our online forums on the old site in July of 2009.

Sorry Hal, I was civil and respectful and did not provide a rude or personal attack(unlike Ron Wanttaja above-hey, how about a sanction there-again I refer to your Aug. post).

That's true - I'll be following up with Ron as well.

Your newly acquired intolerance does not jive with "That's why I fight to keep these forums open."

I misspoke; what I meant to say was "That's why I fight to keep these forums in existence.​"

[WLIU]

Hal,

I hope that these forums are a good tool to learn the positives and negatives of using the internet to keep in touch with the membership. It looks to my eye that you have just enough participation to learn how open forums work, but not too much for you and whomever works with you to be overwhelmed. Looking at other internet forums, there is clearly the tendency for discussions to get out of hand and heat to greatly exceed the amount of light provided.

I am sure that you recognize that the challenge is to balance the amount of time and $$ spent moderating vs the value to EAA and the members. That said, I will suggest that more EAA info get posted. For instance, folks would be much less inclined to criticize Mac M if he regularly participated rather than post his EAA content on his personal blog elsewhere. All of the internet and other electronic media provides an opportunity for an organization like EAA to A) make the members feel more connected, and B) let the members know what's going on, even if the details will be published in the magazine.

Anyway, thanks for the restrained manner in which you have been moderating the forums. EAA can't have the lunatics running the asylum and the designated adult hardly ever gets the appreciation that they deserve.

Best of luck,

Wes
N78PS

[Anymouse]

A forum ain't a forum without a good dust up from time to time.

Looks like this one might be over so I'm going to go back to thinking about pricing for those 2013 AV VIP tents.

[Floatsflyer]

Hal,

I accept your genuine explanations and your apology where indicated. Let's just all move on! Life's too short......eat dessert first.

[Hal Bryan]

Works for me!

[rwanttaja]

I think most folks don't realize how forums such as this one are on the razor's edge.

Several years ago, the online aviation magazine Avweb got sued over comments made by forum users regarding a certain attorney. Avweb itself had only posted a factual story about an ongoing lawsuit; users then posted negative public comments about the plaintiff's lawyer. The lawyer sued the users, as well as Avweb for not policing the comments. Avweb had to post a public apology.

Avweb, being a small company with very few assets, didn't have much to lose. EAA, on the other hand, is a pretty big corporation with some heavy-duty assets. A MUCH riper target for a lawsuit.

So, consider: One day Hal gets called into Jack Pelton's office. A company is upset about negative things said about their product in the EAA Forums, and is threatening to sue.

Forget whether the lawsuit has any merit. Because Pelton is going to ask Hal one key question:

"What value does EAA derive by hosting these forums?" Maybe he's paged through the various forums, and has noticed several examples of less-than-stellar behavior by the participants (coughautoenginescough). He finds insults to EAA's sponsors, its advertisers, and its own employees. He's going to want to know why EAA should put their corporate logo on these comments.

"What value does EAA derive by hosting these forums?" How's Hal supposed to answer? Put a dollar value on it, since the bean-counters aren't going to care about fuzzy touchy-feely stuff. Just getting the lawyers to investigate the corporation's vulnerability to a theatened lawsuit will probably cost five thousand bucks. Does EAA get $5,000 worth of benefit from the forums in a month? In a year?

For twenty years, the company I work for had a internal set of unmoderated forums (basically USENET newsgroups with company-only distribution). The legal department found out about it, looked at the content, and forced it to shut down. All in one day.

Keep that in mind the next time you want to complain about a product, insult the EAA staff, or wax nasty about politics on EAA's nickel.

Speaking of Hal, keep in mind that he doesn't set EAA policy. He does a great job trying to chase down answers for us, but if EAA doesn't want to make a statement, there's nothing Hal can do about it. Hounding him won't help.

Ron Wanttaja