Semi-private forum

steingar said:
Of course, this proposal is absolutely marvelous. I am wildly in favor of any proposal that makes more work for others that I neither have to do or pay for.
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I'd volunteer to help out and "do my share", as it is.

Cheers,

-Andrew
 
flyingcheesehead said:
There are probably some things here that we think of as pro-aviation that an enemy of GA would take differently in certain contexts...
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Such as?

Also, a lot of the arguments made for shutting down GA are debunked, if less than politely "...he only killed one other person. He would have done better with a shotgun" or statements along similar lines showing GA isn't any more dangerous than the other tools of destruction available to the public, for only one example.



flyingcheesehead said:
By which point we probably know they're not our friends...
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And would you know one way or the other? They can simply make innocuous postings to meet the minimum number, and they are in...they don't have to post any more beyond that. Remember...they are trolling for info.
 
flyingcheesehead said:
They could also be left separate, as not all discussion needs to be private. We have had quite a few threads in the past that were duplicated between the Spin Zone and other parts of the forum - The politically charged stuff goes in the SZ thread while the rest doesn't.
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I think the difference here is that anyone can join the SZ if they can figure out how to do it. They don't need to be a "trusted member" with a certain amount of posts. What if there is a thread going on in the public section which someone, all of a sudden, decides should be private. That would leave all the people who weren't deemed worthy out in the cold. I also think this would cause more squabbles about what should be public and what should be private which, in turn, would create more headaches for the MC.

As mentioned earlier, Mr. Fed or Mr. Reporter just needs to make the minimum number of posts to get into the private section.
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flyingcheesehead said:
By which point we probably know they're not our friends...
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I think that's being pretty naive. If someone is willing to go to the trouble of infiltrating, they certainly can make some innocuous posts in order to win trust. And what happens when someone makes the requisite number of posts and "we" deem them not to be one of our friends?

As far as real names go, how we do we prove that the name someone gives is actually their real name?
 
Trapper John said:
...

And let's say an attorney takes an interest in a post. What is the attorney going to do to establish expert witness status for "flyingcheesehead", for instance?


Trapper John
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I can't speak for everywhere, but I can just issue a subpoena. It's not necessarily for a trial - I can send one out for a deposition or other evidence-gathering purposes....
 
Obi Heed Kenobi said:
I can't speak for everywhere, but I can just issue a subpoena. It's not necessarily for a trial - I can send one out for a deposition or other evidence-gathering purposes....
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Of course. You can subpoena and depose, "keyboard warrior", I suppose, only to discover that he's just flapping his gums like 99.44% of the people here. Might not be a complete waste of time depending on what your scope of services and reimbursibles are, though. :wink2:


Trapper John
 
If one is reasonably knowledgeable in an area, it doesn't take look to discern who seems to be credible and who is "flapping one's gums". It could be pretty clear that someone that actually flies that plane or has flown it is knowledgeable.
I don't think most attorneys would join this board just so they can do a search when they get that one case where someone on here is posting. This would preclude the large search engines from just pulling up threads that are interesting so the attorney could then look closer at them.

Best,

Dave
 
Doggtyred said:
I dont think the issue is so much "anonymous" posting as much as it is about keeping dirty laundry inside and not airing it to the unwashed masses...

I appreciate the rationale for the proposal, but the devil is in the details.

And most importantly.. any expectation of privacy.. in an internet forum.. is inversely related to the number of people who have access to the forum. Once you have more than a dozen or so peeps, there really ISN'T any enforceable sense of privacy to one's statements.

My feelings are that any "semi private" or "private" forum will be duplicative.. and provide privacy in name only... and would be an exercise in futility and false security.
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Bingo.
 
Dave Siciliano said:
If one is reasonably knowledgeable in an area, it doesn't take look to discern who seems to be credible and who is "flapping one's gums".
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But we don't require people to be experienced pilots to post here, or to be pilots at all. The infiltrator can join and pretend s/he is a wannabe student pilot. See, I can think about conspiracies too. :rofl:
 
Everskyward said:
But we don't require people to be experienced pilots to post here, or to be pilots at all. The infiltrator can join and pretend s/he is a wannabe student pilot. See, I can think about conspiracies too. :rofl:
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I've always divided the world into two parts: Pilots and Wanna-Be-Pilots, so no need for said person to pretend.:smile:
 
The Purple Board is set up so that you can't read posts without logging on. That would seem to eliminate the concern over posts being Googled.
 
Palmpilot said:
The Purple Board is set up so that you can't read posts without logging on. That would seem to eliminate the concern over posts being Googled.
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On the other hand, I was quite put out with that. I wouldn't sign up for a long time because of that. I kinda like seeing what I am getting before I "Buy" it.
 
Palmpilot said:
The Purple Board is set up so that you can't read posts without logging on. That would seem to eliminate the concern over posts being Googled.
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PoA receives a LOT of traffic from Google. This month we've received 20,000 visitors (not pageviews) from Google. If you look at the search terms that those visitors used you'll see that they're obviously pilots that are gaining useful knowledge from our open board. That is one of the things that I think DEFINES what PoA is.

I am willing to entertain the idea of a private area for select topics, but as a whole, I will do my damnest to try and keep this board reasonably open so that its content can help aviation as a whole.
 
jesse said:
I am willing to entertain the idea of a private area for select topics, but as a whole, I will do my damnest to try and keep this board reasonably open so that its content can help aviation as a whole.
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100% agree about the board being open, aside from the very particular forum in question.

Cheers,

-Andrew
 
Dang if I don't find myself on both sides of the fence here. As I posted in the original thread, I like the concept of a "semi-private" forum, but found myself won over by Scott's (and others) arguments. FWIW, I'm still in favor of it in concept, but acknowledge that there are some real practical obstacles in the way. I'm not as swayed by the "elitist" argument as I am by the contention that we'll have thread confusion. But I guess we have that already with the SZ!
 
If you don't want it to be misconstrued, maybe it shouldn't be said at all.
 
Anything can be misconstrued on these forums!
 
jesse said:
PoA receives a LOT of traffic from Google. This month we've received 20,000 visitors (not pageviews) from Google. If you look at the search terms that those visitors used you'll see that they're obviously pilots that are gaining useful knowledge from our open board. That is one of the things that I think DEFINES what PoA is.
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That's how I got here. Which may or may not be a good thing, I don't know.
 
The reason behind your proposal is sound, but implementing it will be tricky. Who do you let in? If you use a combo of time as a member and post count, what happens when someone is close? Somebody is going to have to look at every case and that's a manpower issue.

I posted on this very board about a local crash and was contacted by a reporter who registered just so they could PM me. That could have very well been a lawyer, so I understand the need.

My suggestion is to simply create one forum, open to members only, that is closed to search engine bots. That should provide as much privacy as you can expect on the internet.

Oh, and one other thing. If you want to avoid the lawyer scenario, don't use your real name or put information in your profile that might point to your real identity.
 
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