suggestion for improvement

I

Iflydogs

Pre-takeoff checklist
Joined
Feb 12, 2022
Messages
242
Location
KMRB
Display Name
Iflydogs
Home Airfield
KMRB
I have noticed a marked decrease in civility over the years on this forum that makes it both less useful as a resource and also presents GA in a bad light that I believe deters people interested in flying, and more dangerously, solidifies the public perception of the GA community as entitled jerks who use public money for a dilettante's hobby.

In the past, it was a place to share flying experiences, get tips on maintenance and general flying, and "hang out". While those activities remain, the site seems to be increasingly monopolized by a few frequent posters who comment on just about every post, invariably in a negative light, almost always with snark and sarcasm. There seems to be a general attitude of "You can't top this." Related, I have seen younger, junior pilots post questions and get pilloried for the question. I am thinking of a few that I would not be surprised if they walked away from aviation after their shabby treatment here.

Some of us just want a fun place to share bits of information or experiences, without being told they do not know what they are talking about. There is a marked hostility on the part of some forum members to others' insights.

In general, the moderators do an excellent job in curbing the worst abuses and culling the most vile offenders. But my observation is that POA stands out for the meanness of spirit and downright nastiness of a minority--other avocation-related forums of which I am a member have a much more collegial, welcoming, and supportive vibe.

Part of the problem is the internet, exacerbated by a tendency for aviation to select for individuals with big egos. You can't fix either of those, but I propose a partial fix which would make POA more friendly and "give it back" to people who just want to share, without being harassed or vilified: Create a "no comments" sub-forum where people can just post something--a place to eat, a flying tip, a neat idea, without getting a dozen negative posts from the usual suspects. This would give back POA (at least a part of it) to the people who just want a fun spot to read about flying. The haters will have plenty of other forums in which to kibitz.

The alternative is to continue as is down the path of insularity, and I fear that will not augur well for the future. GA pilots are not perceived by the general public in a particularly good light, and POA's tolerance of this behavior only ratifies that perception.
 
Last edited:
midlifeflyer said:
I don't know. I've been using aviation online forums since the days of CompuServe and UseNets. Overall, while exception certainly exist, I find this forum to be rather mild and respectful.
Click to expand...
Careful! That probably falls into the category of "being told they do not know what they are talking about." :D
 
The vibe seems to have changed here recently, but more moderation is never the answer in my experience with forums even larger than this one.
 
Iflydogs said:
I have noticed a marked decrease in civility over the years on this forum that makes it both less useful as a resource and also presents GA in a bad light that I believe deters people interested in flying, and more dangerously, solidifies the public perception of the GA community as entitled jerks who use public money for a dilettante's hobby.

In the past, it was a place to share flying experiences, get tips on maintenance and general flying, and "hang out". While those activities remain, the site seems to be increasingly monopolized by a few frequent posters who comment on just about every post, invariably in a negative light, almost always with snark and sarcasm. There seems to be a general attitude of "You can't top this." Related, I have seen younger, junior pilots post questions and get pilloried for the question. I am thinking of a few that I would not be surprised if they walked away from aviation after their shabby treatment here.

Some of us just want a fun place to share bits of information or experiences, without being told they do not know what they are talking about. There is a marked hostility on the part of some forum members to others' insights.
Click to expand...
I think there's a lot of truth to what you're saying, but some of what you're saying is also self-contradictory. It's true that some segments of the general population don't look on pilots with respect, but then you have people on forums like this, who are a major source of fodder for their opinion. Hostility is never great, but then again bad information, and things that could literally get people killed ought to be flagged in a high-stakes environment like ours. It's a catch-22.

I don't think everyone that makes a correction, or a snarky comment is altruistic, by any means, but they may not be as rudely intended as others think, either. Some of it probably comes from being jaded and seeing the same dumb mistakes killing our fellow pilots over and over again.
 
midlifeflyer said:
Actually, I'm kind of interested what led to this post. Did I miss something?
Click to expand...
There was a post yesterday by OP about tips to eliminate E6B usage when calculating crosswinds. It was a reasonable post.
But it kind of addressed what I think many would consider a "solved problem" among more experienced pilots. OP kind of caught some flak for it and deleted their post. I'm not sure why, because the post was good-natured and got people volunteering their tips about how to mentally compute XW.
 
ArrowFlyer86 said:
There was a post yesterday by OP about tips to eliminate E6B usage when calculating crosswinds. It was a reasonable post.
But it kind of addressed what I think many would consider a "solved problem" among more experienced pilots. OP kind of caught some flak for it and deleted their post. I'm not sure why, because the post was good-natured and got people volunteering their tips about how to mentally compute XW.
Click to expand...
I thought that was an interesting thread. Too bad the OP deleted the first message.
 
eman1200 said:
sounds like someone disagreed with you
Click to expand...
No, not disagreed. Just made a comment where none was warranted. If you post"here is is nice restaurant, check it out", or "here is a neat tip that works for me", it does not require a comment, nor is one desired. There is a place for back-and-forth assertions, and there is a place for just posting information. There is a minority that does not understand the difference; this is an attempt to fix it.
 
Salty said:
The vibe seems to have changed here recently, but more moderation is never the answer in my experience with forums even larger than this one.
Click to expand...
I agree that moderation may not be the best answer or even that the problem is at that level. On the other hand, a guideline or two might not be a bad idea. An international investment group I belong to has this simple message.

"Showing courtesy and respect is the most important thing we ask of our members. This is a social community with people of diverse perspectives. Since there are topics that can easily lead to heated discussions and lead members to break this rule, we ask of everyone to watch their language and be mindful of bringing topics or responses to topics that might be better suited for Direct Message with like-minded members."
 
Iflydogs said:
No, not disagreed. Just made a comment where none was warranted. If you post"here is is nice restaurant, check it out", or "here is a neat tip that works for me", it does not require a comment, nor is one desired. There is a place for back-and-forth assertions, and there is a place for just posting information. There is a minority that does not understand the difference; this is an attempt to fix it.
Click to expand...

YOU say “fix it” and call it information. Quite often it’s not information, it’s “here’s what I say and I don’t want anyone contradicting me”. The last thing I personally wanna see is a post with no ability to comment on it. If you want that, go to Facebook and turn off comments. This is an Internet forum, which by definition is a place to discuss things, not post your uncontested opinion.
 
ArrowFlyer86 said:
There was a post yesterday by OP about tips to eliminate E6B usage when calculating crosswinds. It was a reasonable post.
But it kind of addressed what I think many would consider a "solved problem" among more experienced pilots. OP kind of caught some flak for it and deleted their post. I'm not sure why, because the post was good-natured and got people volunteering their tips about how to mentally compute XW.
Click to expand...
Oh. I guess I can see a scientific paper about using sine tables receiving some snark when the simple clock will do the trick, especially since steady state crosswinds are rarity anyway.
1755532468205.png
 
Iflydogs said:
No, not disagreed. Just made a comment where none was warranted. If you post"here is is nice restaurant, check it out", or "here is a neat tip that works for me", it does not require a comment, nor is one desired. There is a place for back-and-forth assertions, and there is a place for just posting information. There is a minority that does not understand the difference; this is an attempt to fix it.
Click to expand...
What if you have been there and you think the food isn't good and the service you received was lousy? Isn't that a fair comment? I'm sorry but that sounds a bit like, "Only my opinion counts. Yours doesn't."
 
Last edited:
I doubt that the general Joe Q. Public reads POA. As a former member of the "general public who didn't even know GA existed", I can guarantee you that looking up an online forum for pilots never crossed my mind.

I also doubt that any person remotely interested in flying would be deterred by the attitudes on an internet message board. The beautiful part of the internet is - you can just stop visiting a site if you don't like it and it ceases to affect you. If you were so weak in your interest to flying that using a message board could dissuade you, all of the little aggravations in flying would do the same.

There are a few posters on here that I tend to read and roll my eyes because their posts are not my cup of tea. If it bothers you to the point you can't move on from it, there is feature on this board called "ignore", or you can simply stop participating in or viewing discussions you have no further interest in. If you want to post something without it becoming a discussion, you could simply stop viewing your thread or tell your thread to stop sending you notifications when people reply and voila, you shared the information and you can avoid peoples' thoughts and opinions in the matter.


Quite frankly, this is the only internet forum I am an active member on because it is the only one that actually has a nice balance between discussion, interaction, and respect among members. I don't agree with everyone or even most of the posters here on a lot of things - but this forum is one of the least "toxic" places on the internet where people are still allowed to express themselves in a relatively open manner and bring their own personalities into their posts. I sincerely appreciate that about POA, and I would stop visiting this site if it became nothing more than a bland, faceless place where people could post recommendations for places to fly and broadcast information into the void.
 
OP - If you sincerely do not care about nor desire comments, your best solution is to hit the UNWATCH or IGNORE thread button as soon as you post it.
That enables you to post whatever you please without having to be alerted every time someone comments or reacts to it. As long as you never go back and check your thread you'll be oblivious to what the outcome was.

But if what actually bothers you is the mere presence of a comment on your thread (particularly those that disagree w/you), then I think you probably just shouldn't post that stuff. Wait until you have a topic that you care about enough where you do actually want to start a conversation about it. Such is the purpose of a forum, rather than just an online announcement board.
 
SkyChaser said:
If it bothers you to the point you can't move on from it, there is feature on this board called "ignore", or you can simply stop participating in or viewing discussions you have no further interest in.
Click to expand...
Probably the most salient point in the discussion thus far. I reached a point where I felt that visiting this site made my mood actively worse and nearly walked away. Then a whopping three people went on my ignore list and the site improved *immeasurably*. Since then, two of them have ejected, so that problem solved itself. I've never been in a room of pilots where any comment or declaration wasn't met with a bunch of follow-on anecdotes, disagreement, and good-natured ribbing, so I don't expect the same in an online forum. I do agree, however, that we should make an effort to keep things friendly and civil. Even toward the high-wing pilots.
 
Speaking for myself and not the MC, that thread was pretty tame, and demonstrates the mix of snark and useful information that I love about this place. If that gets under your skin, the internet may not be for you. I actually learned a couple things, although I still don't know what a sine table is or how to aim a torpedo, because you never defended your position.

In other news, the best way to draw attention to your thread around here is to delete the post and change the thread name to "deleted", or "removed". Blood in the water. The second best way is to make another thread complaining about it.

Speaking as a Piper Lance pilot, "what crosswind?"
 
Hengelo said:
The hostility, condescension and general meanness here is nothing to be proud of, or minimize.
There are lots of way to fix it.
Click to expand...

Serious question. If this is how some view the content here, why do they keep coming back?

Can you (PM if desired) point me to a specific post or thread that demonstrates the general meanness of the forum?
 
The suggestion in that post was to memorize the sine table. Here’s what a typical table of sine values looks like:

table-of-natural-sines.jpg


Is it any wonder some of the responses (at least from those who know what a sine table is) might be a tad bit snarky?
 

Attachments

  • 1755539599782.jpeg
    1755539599782.jpeg
    4.4 KB · Views: 5
Last edited:
Hengelo said:
The hostility, condescension and general meanness here is nothing to be proud of, or minimize.
There are lots of way to fix it.
Click to expand...
I promise I'm not being intentionally obtuse, but what is there to fix?
We can't fix people's personalities, and we can't just ejection handle pull everyone who makes a snarky post when they're having a bad day.

I may not enjoy the condescension and meanness of some users, but if the alternative is a place where it's just faux-friendly due to overregulation of people's tones by mods, then I'll take the uncivilized place any day.

There is a place that does coerce friendliness and civility and group-think: Reddit. It's absolutely awful. I never want a system like that because the cure is worse than the disease.
 
If we had a locked no-comment post, then people are free to link to that post and comment. I’m ok with that. However, there would need to be some moderation of what gets posted so that misinformation does not go unchecked. That might be difficult or undesirable to put that obligation on a moderator.

I was not going to say this, but I will: if you put yourself “out there”, you need to have a thick skin. The world is real and it’s not always pleasant. Learn to ignore the x% that are jerks, real or perceived. There is the ignore function on POA that I have used about a half-dozen times to make it a more pleasant place for myself. Be that quarterback that throws one INT for every 2 TDs. Brush it off and play on.
 
I'm not a fan of the OP suggestion. In fact I think it was really dumb and he has big poopy drawers. I kid, I kid! :p

But seriously, why post something on the internet if you can't handle comments on it? To me that is like going to an NFL stadium and yelling at the crowd to be quiet.

There was a guy a while ago who would post a manifesto on something, and then end with "I'm not going to read any replies, so don't bother disagreeing." I feel like the only sensible reply is PoA is probably not for him.

I do agree there are some A holes on here, including me from time to time. We're all human and we all get irritated. Most of us talk ourselves down off the ledge over time or take a voluntary time out. For others, the mods have to fire a warning shot across the bow, or in rare cases use force. I got put in time out when I first started posting 5 years ago, and I learned my lesson. I still think my insult was a classic: "I'll bet you wear epaulets."

But there are also a lot of very nice folks, and some crazy smart and experienced people. Pilots, ATC, A&P's, engineers, doctors ... I learn so much from all them. I've also made a few friends who have helped me deal with a terrible situation IRL, and that has been a blessing.

I do find there are people who cannot handle disagreement without getting personal. A few of them are long term denizens who have mastered the art of passive aggressive insults that fall just below the mod radar. That sometimes irritates me to the point where I don't enjoy a thread. Adding a handful to the Ignore list has greatly increased my enjoyment.

I think it is a fair point that some of those people run off new users before they have a chance to for the good stuff to take hold. I think we have to trust the Mods to police that.
 
Last edited:
Half Fast said:
The suggestion in that post was to memorize the sine table. Here’s what a typical table of sine values looks like:
table-of-natural-sines.jpg


Is it any wonder some of the responses (at least from those who know what a sine table is) might be a tad bit snarky?
Click to expand...

lol memorize that table WHY? is that to learn airport sineage?






.................sineage................
 
Iflydogs said:
...solidifies the public perception of the GA community as entitled jerks who use public money for a dilettante's hobby.
Click to expand...

Is this in reference to anything specific? or just "airports get federal money"?

This entitled jerk would like some gooberment cheddar if it's available to support my dilettante hobby. And yes I'm familiar with the recent fluffing of Bonus Depreciation. I'm workin on it. :D

==

I sometimes go back and find threads that I really enjoyed -- only to also notice half of the participants are "Ejection Handle Pulled"

I don't know how to manage "one person's jerk is another person's laugh" online.

I will say, deleting an original post that got an unintended response is highly damaging to the community and cohesion, and that level of disrespect outweighs anything (IMHO) that any OP could have possibly received. I hate that trend on reddit and everywhere else I see it.
 
schmookeeg said:
I will say, deleting an original post that got an unintended response is highly damaging to the community and cohesion, and that level of disrespect outweighs anything (IMHO) that any OP could have possibly received. I hate that trend on reddit and everywhere else I see it.
Click to expand...

AGREED! And to help avoid that, I'll quote the original post from this thread just to prevent its deletion.

Iflydogs said:
I have noticed a marked decrease in civility over the years on this forum that makes it both less useful as a resource and also presents GA in a bad light that I believe deters people interested in flying, and more dangerously, solidifies the public perception of the GA community as entitled jerks who use public money for a dilettante's hobby.

In the past, it was a place to share flying experiences, get tips on maintenance and general flying, and "hang out". While those activities remain, the site seems to be increasingly monopolized by a few frequent posters who comment on just about every post, invariably in a negative light, almost always with snark and sarcasm. There seems to be a general attitude of "You can't top this." Related, I have seen younger, junior pilots post questions and get pilloried for the question. I am thinking of a few that I would not be surprised if they walked away from aviation after their shabby treatment here.

Some of us just want a fun place to share bits of information or experiences, without being told they do not know what they are talking about. There is a marked hostility on the part of some forum members to others' insights.

In general, the moderators do an excellent job in curbing the worst abuses and culling the most vile offenders. But my observation is that POA stands out for the meanness of spirit and downright nastiness of a minority--other avocation-related forums of which I am a member have a much more collegial, welcoming, and supportive vibe.

Part of the problem is the internet, exacerbated by a tendency for aviation to select for individuals with big egos. You can't fix either of those, but I propose a partial fix which would make POA more friendly and "give it back" to people who just want to share, without being harassed or vilified: Create a "no comments" sub-forum where people can just post something--a place to eat, a flying tip, a neat idea, without getting a dozen negative posts from the usual suspects. This would give back POA (at least a part of it) to the people who just want a fun spot to read about flying. The haters will have plenty of other forums in which to kibitz.

The alternative is to continue as is down the path of insularity, and I fear that will not augur well for the future. GA pilots are not perceived by the general public in a particularly good light, and POA's tolerance of this behavior only ratifies that perception.
Click to expand...
 
At my employer, in a months time, 30, 60, 90, or 45 degree trig functions were needed many times. I memorized sine, cosine, and tangent to 6 places. Other months, not at all. Other employees carried little booklets with the tables.

Flying, I simply line up with the runway, and find what correction is required to stay on centerline. If it is more than I am comfortable with, I go to a runway more aligned with the wind.

An exception, severe front had passed, gusts to 60, nice wide, long runway. It became obvious that it was impossible to land a
Cessna 172. No other airport nearby had a better aligned runway, except small ones that were closed for the night, thus no hope of help if a crash occurred.

I let the wind blow me way off centerline, turned directly into the wind, and landed at 30 degrees to the centerline. 200 feet wide, more than 400 feet to stop, and at 50 k direct headwind and 80 indicated, a piece of cake landing.

I had to add power to keep moving at the centerline, and while taxiing, proper elevator and aileron deflection to avoid being blown over.

At the FBO, advised by radio that I would not shut down the engine until tied down, 3 points, and they complied. Taxi to our home airport, then home in our own car.

Note that I did not calculate anything. Note also that I did not land at my home airport with the wind right down the 25 foot wide runway, which had a lot of obstruction induced rolling turbulence, and no personnel on duty.

I knew what I was capable of in that plane, and made in flight decisions to stay within those limits. I still found myself in a tight place, my preflight briefing had 15 gusting 20 at home field.

So much for exact numbers when flying.
 
455 Bravo Uniform said:
I was not going to say this, but I will: if you put yourself “out there”, you need to have a thick skin. The world is real and it’s not always pleasant. Learn to ignore the x% that are jerks, real or perceived.
Click to expand...
My career was managing TV news departments and TV stations. When the phone rings, it is NOT someone calling to tell you that you're doing a great job.
 
midlifeflyer said:
Oh. I guess I can see a scientific paper about using sine tables receiving some snark when the simple clock will do the trick, especially since steady state crosswinds are rarity anyway.
View attachment 144202
Click to expand...
I've never seen this before....allow me to show my ignorance....please explain how to use it. If the wind is coming from 9-12, just swap the 12-3 and use 1/4?
 
Half Fast said:
The suggestion in that post was to memorize the sine table. Here’s what a typical table of sine values looks like:

table-of-natural-sines.jpg


Is it any wonder some of the responses (at least from those who know what a sine table is) might be a tad bit snarky?
Click to expand...
That looks like my CRC book of tables and formulas. I just remember that sine(45) is .707 or 70%. And sine 30 is .50 or 50%. Anything else, and the winds are over 25 kts, I'm not going.
 
murphey said:
I've never seen this before....allow me to show my ignorance....please explain how to use it. If the wind is coming from 9-12, just swap the 12-3 and use 1/4?
Click to expand...
Yeah, I guess you can have two, one a mirror image, but the clock is really just an illustration of the 15-30-45-60 rule of thumb, not something you would use in flight. In flight it’s more like. “Winds 230 12G20.” Landing on 17, it’s a 60° crosswind, so think of it as all crosswind component.

Ultimately, it’s nothing more than a heads-up. We fly what the winds are, not what the winds are reported to be.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top