Great site! How come?

[mattaxelrod]

I'm new to this site and so far am very impressed with everything. I see many of the same people from the AOPA webboards, so I was wondering if this site is meant to be different in some way, or if the site was setup because people were no longer happy over there, or what?

Matt

 

[Doug Wester]

Matt,

A lot of people did not like the non-avaition posts. This board is strictly for aviation related stuff, thus far.

Doug

 

[Len Lanetti]

Matt,

You know on Star Trek how they have to keep the matter and anti-matter separate...well it is kinda like that. :<)

All kidding aside, people here like the rules surrounding the nature of the posts.

Len

 

[Ken Ibold]

I'm new to this site and so far am very impressed with everything. I see many of the same people from the AOPA webboards, so I was wondering if this site is meant to be different in some way, or if the site was setup because people were no longer happy over there, or what?

While there are a bunch of AOPA veterans here, there are also some others. This site is/was not intended as a competitor to AOPA. We simply wanted to create an environment in which there was a way to slam the brakes on discussions that were turning into endless barrages of personal attacks.

This forum is not really moderated, but it does have certain controls available that allow all users to self-police a bit more effectively (such as user reputation and thread ratings) and also ways to nip things in the bud when/if it becomes necessary (such as "report bad post" and other tools available to moderators/management). We aim to keep things firmly planted on the side of free speech, and as long as users follow the rules of conduct we won't have any problems. We have identified a number of strategies the management council will use should problems develop, but we hope we don't have to use them, because, frankly, we have better things to do than babysit.

 

[Greebo]

A lot of people did not like the non-avaition posts. This board is strictly for aviation related stuff, thus far.

This is not strictly accurate. Non aviation related posts are welcome in "Hangar Talk". Political discussion is welcome, so long as it falls in line with the Rules of Conduct.

As Ken has already said, this site is not intended as competition to AOPA, and it is not intended to be a "baby sitting" forum where the Management squelches every conversation that looks like it might possibly be somewhere close to maybe someday violating the rules of conduct. Our goal is to do as little moderation as possible, but if it is necessary to intervene in order to maintain order, we have the tools and the will to do so.

What is different?
- The software, obviously
- The rules of conduct
- The links database
- The calendar system
- The poll system
- The reputation and thread rating system

The idea for the creation of this board bubbled up when the concern was high that AOPA might consider closing its forum down due to the continued devolution that was occuring in the AOPA forum. The short version of the story is this: Mike Andrews, Chip Gibbons and Dr. B were discussing creating a replacement in case AOPA shut down their site. I was brought into the discussion, and we decided to set up a prototype site as a place where we could discuss our options and have a better record and easier medium in which to communicate than straigth email.

When AOPA put out its survey, we became somewhat less concerned that AOPA would shut down (although I believe AOPA might still consider that option, if the recent streak of improved behavior doesn't continue), but by this point Chip had accumulated almost 100 email addresses of people who wanted to know if a new site got created. We decided to go ahead with the plan to launch a new site, one with clear behavior policies that were enforcable. We believed at the time that sufficent demand existed to go ahead with the launch, and thus far we've been very happy with the result.

We did not want to compete with or detract from AOPA, and we do not suggest that anyone stop participating on their forums. In fact, several of the management team remain active on the AOPA site, and we have made a commitment to do no more than passive advertising (links in sigs) on other aviation related sites.

Hopefully that fills in some gaps.

CH

 

[mattaxelrod]

Well, great job, and I certainly agree that the occasional verbal arguments were pretty stupid over there.