"Members Only" forum

I agree. I got in trouble for something I posted here several months ago, and since then I haven't really posted any flight stories, as with everything public I'd have to classify that as a bad habit to get into.

A members only forum would be GREAT.

 

Of course--it isn't exactly difficult to become a member here. It would get it off Google which would help, but if you get it off Google we also lose new people.

For those that are curious--I've done some checking--and posts on here show up crazy fast on Google (often within the hour).

I'd prefer a members only forum with a minimum of 1,000 posts to read it. Of course, we would heavily discourage new membership by doing so...which is ok with me..new people are annoying.

 

I don't care how many people Google drives to the forum, I'd prefer that our posts don't show up on any search engines.

 

Agreed.

 

Jesse,

I'm not talking making the entire board members only - Just a new forum (a la "Closed Hangar Talk" or somesuch) that's members only. That way we should still have plenty of content in the new forum. I wouldn't mind a minimum post count too, but 1000 is way too high. More like in the 20-100 range. That would keep curious reporters out as well as Google.

 

I too think it's a good idea, though I'd put the count closer to 250. Keep in mind, though, that it would not be a way to hide posts from the FAA or the authorities. Not even the anonymous posts can do that, because they can subpoena records or, if you're a conspiracy theorist, hack into the systems and get the information without a warrant in the name of National Security.

 

I don't think we need to worry about things like that. I'm thinking more about stuff like Teller's comments about CJC3407, and other stories that wouldn't get us in trouble with the law or the FAA but might get us in trouble with our employer or might be grabbed by a reporter and used as "evidence" in an anti-GA news story, for example.

 

That's why I removed my N number and name from my sig. Of course old posts still show up with that information in Google's cache.

 

I understand and agree. Just didn't want people to think they could start spouting off "and did I tell you about the time I broke this reg" with impunity. There's always the possibility that a reporter will make enough posts, but hopefully they'll at least be somewhat pro-GA by that point, or at least understand both sides of the issue.

 

Yep, I removed my last name a while back to become more Google-nonymous.

 

The Purple Board is members only. But I thought that there were a lot of people here who did not like that type of board?

 

There's a difference between the entire board and a folder/forum (or whatever it's called).

 

I came up with a stupid pen name to maintain anonymity. I love the idea, and I think the number of posts one should need should equal 2270.

 

LOL Richard you may have removed if from your signature but the N number on the cake in your Avitar kind of defeats the purpose of deleting it from your Signature

 

I thought that was only because you couldn't browse first before you joined, not because Google doesn't pick up the posts.

 

I'm pretty careful about what stories I tell and that wouldn't change with a "members only" forum. It's not because I'm worried about the FAA or the public.

 

Well for whatever reason they chose the result is that you could not see inside until you were approved member. I recall a lot of people on this board complaining about that on the Purple Board. It seems strange that many would now want what they were complaining about.

Me too. I am already very Google famous from my work.

 

Again, my suggestion was not to make POA private. But to have a single, non-SZ forum where folks could discuss things like aircraft accidents without having the discussion rebroadcast worldwide by search engines.

 

The overall driving requirements seems to be to shield PoA from the search engines. Does making the forum private really do that is my first question?

The second question is if what Tim is asking for what everyone really wants AND making a forum private accomplishes that then just change the Lesson Learned forum a 'opt in' forum like SZ. I see no reason to create a quasi-elitist 'members only' forum. One of the things I enjoy most about PoA is the openness of the member. Having a 'members-only forum smacks of a closed group to me. It would seem to be less welcoming and more cliquish.

But if you do make Lesson Learned an opt in forum does it lose then the feature of being able to post anonymously?

It seems this is something that if you ruish into too quickly that there could be many consequences. Since we all know that Google and other search engines are reading this forum I would recomend that you do not type something that you would not want a stranger to read. Seems pretty simple to police one's self without a whole bunch of PoA policies to protect you from yourself.

 

This isn't about protecting us from ourselves. It's about not offending people (like relatives of crash victims) when we don't have to.

The kinds of discussions we as aviatiors find useful from a safety perspective would probably seem heartless or callous to the general public, and even more unkind to someone who just lost somebody special in an accident.

 

So you want to protect the public from pilots?

I think that this is a way over the top reaction to a situation that most likely does not exist.

Having had family and friends that have died in airplane crashes I can tell you that there is simply no way to be shielded. The little tiny bit of information that PoA would have on it is lost in the chaff of the many other sources that one is bombarded with in these situations.

 

Never put anything on the internet - including email - that you don't want to see in the newspaper. It's easy to register for the forum, and even setting a minimum number of posts doesn't guarantee anything. The problem is that (unlike talking in person or on the phone) you never really know who's reading it.

From my view as a member of the management council, I sure wouldn't want to have to worry about whether we made a mistake in setting up permissions or accidentally set the wrong permission along the way.

 

Now that the MC is lawyer heavy ;-) ....

I am wondering if the MC were to set up a protected forum, and the users felt that what they said there would not get into the public what would be the risk to PoA and the MC if something were to 'escape'? Would there be a liability risk for the MC?

Say a person posts in the protected forum something that they would not want read by the general public that could be damaging to the poster's employer. That information escapes and the person loses their job. Could the poster then in turn come back at the MC and sue for damages because there was an extension of safety made by the MC and they possible failed in their duty of care?

Seems that if this private forum is set up that it is an attempt to pass a poster personal responsibility for their posts over to the MC.

 

That is a concern.

I don't think I'd draw that conclusion, Scott. I think it's more a way to keep things a bit more private.

I think you and I have both been in corporate environments were we see what can happen if the wrong stuff is disclosed. My new gig has so many passwords, restrictions, and firewalls that I sometimes wonder how I'll remember them all (4 separate passwords/access logins just to get to email).

 

Exactly the opposite. I don't want the public getting their blood pressure up when we talk about stupid pilot/atc/amt tricks that could have led to the death of their loved ones. Such discussion is helpful to the aviation community at large because it promotes greater awareness of potential hazards. It is generally not perceived as helpful by the general public.

 

I do not agree with that supposition.

The more information anyone has on any subject the less likely they would be to react in an emotional manner. Indeed what we have now is an uniformed public making conclusions about airplanes and pilots. We see statements where the public expresses complete surprise that "pilots can get into an airplane and fly anywhere at anytime" without talking to ATC. They barely understand that the control tower is NOT the entire ATC system. They do not understand that an engine failure is not an immediate catastrophic event that results in the plummeting of an aircraft into the ground.

The only way they can learn this is to seek out that knowledge . Keeping these discussion behind a walled garden will make it harder for lay people to seek out that information and learn the reality. Keeping info from the public could be perceived as a closed group trying to hide their failures from the unsuspecting public. The conclusion could be that flying is inherently unsafe to the innocent public.

 

Witness: I've yet to get the meta tags(?) attached to my website. So I was playing around(Google) with my first name. Bunches of PoA posts came up as well as a photograph of mine which was published in a newspaper in 2005.
As previously noted, be very careful what one is to write in any forum.

HR

 

Avatars and other pictures don't supply spider food. Any human with a purpose can can see it when reading, of course.

 

Define "anonymous"...

There are some people who post quite a bit but use a "pen name" such as, oh... lets say.... FlyNE

I'm sure you don't know me and I don't know you (or what each other does for a living, or...)

I'm also reasonably sure that no one that I have seen post here has ever met me in person. (But (at least) one person does know my brother fairly well.)

In reality you or I could be just about anybody, eh?

 

What we mean by anonymous is that in a couple of forum a person may post without actually logging in. There is no user id associated with their post. The feeling is that it allows people to ask frank questions in those two forums without risking revealing themselves.

We are not talking about people who would use a login that would make it difficult to find out who a person is. For instance, yours. Your login provides a bit of anonymity but with enough posts and/or a slip up of some private information in your post one could figure out who you are.

For instance I know you were born in 1953, your brothers name is Tom and he is almost 2 years younger than you plus you have an even younger sister. Your dad owned a Cessna 120 at one time, and your family would camp in the UP from your long time home near Detroit. I got that from some fairly simple searches.


The anonymous login makes it even more difficult to figure who people are.

 

I just used all of my Google-fu powers to find anything on the Thurmond Munson lawsuit. I got link to yesterday's thread here.

 

I don't think even Google has found a way to parse text in a photo...at least for search purposes.

To be clear, I don't care if casual readers know my identity here...I guess I was uncomfortable with someone googling my name or N# and finding posts from POA. At least Spin Zone posts don't show up

It's bad enough that the NTSB report from my airplane accident a few years ago floats to the top

And here's another complaint/suggestion/whatever...the bot apparently finds our profile information too I don't know if there is a way to shield that?

 

The Mistake I made was logging in here with my N number,, google it, and get all the posts I have here.

 

I have some interesting statistics to show our Google presence:

From Jan 14 2009 to Feb 13 2009
23,707 visits came from Google (This is *MORE* visits then we get from people directly knowing the URL or using a bookmark)
563 visits came from forums.aopa.org

I just took a look at what people are searching for that get them here from Google. Some of them are innocent aviation searches---others are direct searches against our members full name by those appearing to do research on them. Once again, whatever you post on this forum, is likely to be linked with your name at some point.

For those that are curious--PM me--and I will tell you if someone was researching you on Google and found you on here.

Once again--we have *MORE* visitors that are random people from Google then we do everything else.

 

I am curious how many of those were of my name?

 

PM sent

 

Did you trap IP addresses too? lol I'd be curious to see how many LOCAL people were searching me.

 

I can tell you if people were searching you--but I won't release addresses--honestly I am thinking about modifying things to where I don't collect any statistics and don't log anything--that way--I can't be responsible for, nor, can I hand over records..if I don't even have them.