Taking a holiday for this forum

Pat Dunne

I have decided to leave this forum for the foreseeable future.

I originally started posting on this forum as a result of a life long interest in all things aviation related. This was a small bolthold where I could read, discuss and partake in a interest that has fascinated me for most of my life.

The simple reason is I no longer enjoy the forum which has in my opinion has been soured by a small number of persistent troll in recent times. For whatever reason the Mods seem to be exercising "extreme light touch regulation" upon this individuals.

I look forward to meeting up with my fellow A&A forum members later this week for our tour of Casement. I would like to thank all the members I have made contact with and discussed issues of common interest with. But until the Mods rein in this trolling, I'm taking a break.

Cheers
Pat

Oscar Bravo

Hi Pat, just a quick question , is it from certain posters or posts or topics that you are leaving? (also , the weather forum i feel is been destroyed by a troll or 2)

Storm 10

The only way to sort them out is not to take any notice of them, and above all never reply to any of their posts, don't go because of those dickheads

afatbollix

Just so you know you could put them on your ignore list.

lord lucan

FYI, Boards has an ignore function which will block posts by anyone you add to it.

Oscar Bravo

Pat is referring to FR336, go to the flight radar 24 thread, look through a few pages and you will see. hes quite right

billie1b

I thought he was referring to babestress or whatever their name was

b757

Quite a few people here ruining it. Constant off topic posts and stupid questions.

You're not the only one who is annoyed.

Oscar Bravo

fully agree, one time the FR24 thread might be only updated every couple of days but it was something of interest not like these days "ohhh wow theres a 8 knot easterly wind at dublin" anyway hope the mods sort it out. not to bring it into it but the weather forum is going the same way.

JCX BXC

Completely disagree with this FR24 seemingly hate. It's the life of this fourm and gets very exciting in the winter months. It's quite exciting and entertaining at times. There has to be the least amount of bickering in that thread out of the whole of Boards.ie. Should reforms be made in that thread where its no longer enjoyable, I shall also retire from this fourm.

Now, in relation to the recent trolling, that's very annoying. I'm surprised people put up with the 20 questions for so long.

b757

Carnacalla wrote: »

Completely disagree with this FR24 seemingly hate. It's the life of this fourm and gets very exciting in the winter months. It's quite exciting and entertaining at times. There has to be the least amount of bickering in that thread out of the whole of Boards.ie. Should reforms be made in that thread where its no longer enjoyable, I shall also retire from this fourm.

Now, in relation to the recent trolling, that's very annoying. I'm surprised people put up with the 20 questions for so long.

Staring at a computer screen while a a320 does a go around is really exciting...?

That thread and this forum has gone to ****e the past 12-18 months. Every little bit of decent information is buried under hundreds of off topic, irrelevant, petty or stupid posts. Someone is either flooding the topic or having a go at someone else. Fairly sick of it myself, and I know I can't be the only one judging by this and other threads.

:rolleyes: :rolleyes:

JCX BXC

b757 wrote: »

Staring at a computer screen while a a320 does a go around is really exciting...?

Just take a look at some of the praise in the FR24 threads. People who may not have known much about aviation become much more trusting of the industry! It may not be exciting for you, oh well!
Remember that others may enjoy it and not everyone has the same tastes as you.

There's never much relevant information in the FR24 thread anyway, there's other threads for that!

Irish Steve

Be thankful that the general moderation levels are not heavy here, Pprune is the other end of the spectrum, the number of deletions that have been happening on the Shoreham Hunter thread have made it unreadable at times, due to the lack of continuity, and even raising eyebrows to wonder why is a reason for deletion over there.

The last week or so here has been tedious, with some posts that would indeed make one wonder at the age of some of the posters, but to be fair, the remedy is in our hands, if a poster is becoming an irritation, either report the poster, or put them on your personal ignore list, or both. We shall have at least a week of peace now, hopefully, the problem posters will find other places or areas of the web to annoy. You may rest assured that their cards are now marked, which will hopefully (please) mean a lower tolerance level of ignorance or banality going forward.

and yes, the weather forum is not as active or as interesting as it used to be, for the last few months, it's been almost dead, and if it wasn't for the excellent daily forecast from MTCranium, I'd probably not be going there very often at all any more, I'd be hoping that this forum won't be going that way, on balance, a few inappropriate posts to skip over rapidly is better than not having the posts in the first place, which is the other alternative, the weather forum has indeed lost a significant number of knowledgeable and valuable posters over the last while for reasons that are probably better not discussed here.

Moderating a busy forum is not easy, there are times when you need the wisdom of Solomon to make decisions, and a good crystal ball is a handy accessory to have very close, I spent a long time in a flight simulation forum having to make impossible calls on occasions, and there were times when there was no right decision, as was so clearly pointed out by PM by both sides of an argument.

To be fair, the Mods here do a pretty good job, I don't find myself reporting posts very often, so they've either been pruned before I get to the board, or the regulars know where the limits are and don't deliberately give them a tweak every so often for fun. In the same vein, we don't see much bold type, which is also a good sign.

Pat, if you do read this, don't let the last week or so put you off what is clearly something you normally enjoy. There are ways to deal with the problem posts that have already been mentioned, and if need be, go into read only mode for a few days.

Dublinflyer

Hi Pat,
Could not agree with you more. While I still read whats going on here I rarely post any more. I have used the blocking function and it does make it easier to read but the trolls are many, not unique to this forum. I agree that the mods do a good job here but like the rest of us they have a day job and are not always able to deal with abuse as quick as I am sure they would like. It's a hard balance to get right between letting a debate go on and just stamping on everyone who upsets another poster. For me I gave up when a particular poster, who clearly from posts in others forums did not work in aviation, decided I had no clue what I was talking about so attacked every post I had. He eventually stopped posting, I am not sure if he was banned, but I had enough by that point.

Strumms

Being a Mod is a difficult position to be in, for some of the reasons others have pointed out. I know because i am one all be it on another busy forum in another corner of the internet universe. Let too much go and you are not doing enough and letting people away with murder. Too much moderation is interference and deleting stuff and you are a nazi preventing free speech etc yadda yadda. Trying to find a happy medium is not always the easiet thing to do and you wont ultimately please everyone and certainly dont do it if its thanks you are looking for

We all have our own ideas as to what we might do differently.. such is life.. Pat wants to stop posting in this forum... good luck to him.. why it requires a grandstanding new topic that is little more then a dig at the mods is a head scratcher.

Irish Steve

I suspect that Pat has posted because his absence for any length of time would cause other regulars to be concerned about what was happening to him, and that isn't just about Internet well being. This is only one (hopefully small) aspect of life, and there should be others, and getting the balance right between them is sometimes difficult. If someone drops off the radar for more than the length of a holiday period, there will be others that notice, some will inquire via PM to make sure all is well, but if the PM is not responded to, they will become concerned, maybe with no justification at all, but possibly for the right reasons. A while back, a number of high profile members of the weather forum stopped posting, I exchanged PM's with some of them, and it was clear that there were some very unhelpful issues going on in the background that most of the members were unaware of, and it wasn't going to be resolved easily. The end result has been a significant diminishing of the content and interest in the forum, and it's unlikely to change any time soon.

So, given that Pat is also socially involved with the aviation side of things in ways that go beyond the Aviation forum here, there will be people who will wonder about his absence. Posting a message here will at least let others know that there's nothing sinister going on, albeit that the reasons for his absence may not be ideal, any forum that starts haemorrhaging members is on a slippery slope that may or may not be resolved in the short or longer term.

PukkaStukka

Don't know Pat terribly well but have dealt with him via PM and on the phone in relation to the upcoming Casement gig. In what little dealings I have had with him, I have found him to be a top bloke.

basill

Pat I couldn't agree more. It seems like the natural progression of the life cycle of these types of forums. I remember pprune used to be an excellent forum when I was starting out flying training. Very few trolls and lots of people with relevant industry experience willing to help the newbies. The tech log and terms of endearment were must reads for any wannabe pilot. Then they sold out and the Virgin guys that provided the moderation slowly disappeared and now it is a shadow of its former self. Made up mostly of sensationalist wannabe spotters and journalists looking for the next headline.

Sadly Boards appears to be heading the same way. Lots of trolls, silly questions that could be answered with a quick google search and lots of bashing. The BFS vs DUB vs SNN vs ORK debates and why AL doesn't fly a 380 into any of them are really getting tiresome. I don't think that moving this forum to the oil filter section helped either as it appears to have brought a lot of undesirables. It's probably more a reflection of where society is heading as a whole though which is going to be much harder to resolve without a significant reengineering of the gene pool:)

Strumms

Just a suggestion... But if people are a little peaved about the direction of the forum, rather then complaining and spitting the dummy or flouncing off into the wilderness... Would it perhaps be a good idea if a thread would be started where everyone would engage and give ideas where possibly the charter could be updated if necessary or at least the mods could get an idea as regards which parts of it might require to be enforced more ?

One thing for example that would be on my radar perhaps are the amount of people asking questions about checking in for a flight, turning up to the airport how many hours before should I be there etc, can I change the name on the ticket, do I need a passport to fly with X airline.

I'm not sure you can stop people asking or stating that EI should be flying an A380.. No more then you can ban someone in the soccer forum for suggesting Liverpool with win the treble this year... You get idiots everywhere.

As a poster.. I'm not as regular or as long standing as many here, but if I'm not posting Im reading and I value the input across the board for the most part...

Preset No.3

Look on the bright side folks. The kids are back to school next week and the armchair experts won't be around to force their opinions as facts down our throats.

fits

Strumms wrote: »

One thing for example that would be on my radar perhaps are the amount of people asking questions about checking in for a flight, turning up to the airport how many hours before should I be there etc, can I change the name on the ticket, do I need a passport to fly with X airline.

.

I always thought an air travel sub forum of A&A would be a good idea. As it stands half these requests come in here and half in the travel forum and they don't really fit in either spot.

knockon

basill wrote: »

Pat I couldn't agree more. It seems like the natural progression of the life cycle of these types of forums. I remember pprune used to be an excellent forum when I was starting out flying training. Very few trolls and lots of people with relevant industry experience willing to help the newbies. The tech log and terms of endearment were must reads for any wannabe pilot. Then they sold out and the Virgin guys that provided the moderation slowly disappeared and now it is a shadow of its former self. Made up mostly of sensationalist wannabe spotters and journalists looking for the next headline.

Sadly Boards appears to be heading the same way. Lots of trolls, silly questions that could be answered with a quick google search and lots of bashing. The BFS vs DUB vs SNN vs ORK debates and why AL doesn't fly a 380 into any of them are really getting tiresome. I don't think that moving this forum to the oil filter section helped either as it appears to have brought a lot of undesirables. It's probably more a reflection of where society is heading as a whole though which is going to be much harder to resolve without a significant reengineering of the gene pool:)

Nail on the head there Basil.

Lots of questions that could be answered by a Google search and clogging threads with bashing with people getting into Pissing Contests but that's not just this forum (you should see us sometimes on Shooting!). How can you stop some tool with a lap top joining Boards...finding the MH370 thread and asking...Why didn't the passengers just call on their mobiles for help??? You probably have guys on here "Aviation Experts" who have worked in DUB for the last 20 years but in reality could be bar men in the Clock Bar! I think the Moderators of the Aviation forum are good guys and are doing a great job. For me as an ex employee of EI...gone now 20 years...still get the Irish Air Letter and Flight and I like reading and contributing to this forum. Granted we have a lot of filtering to do but in the main its a great site. As Basil said its more of a reflection on where society is heading. You might be taking a holiday Pat but a bit like the guy who says I'am never drinking again actually means I am never drinking again in this pub. Hang in there....you would think there is probably more of us than more of them!

cml387

I'm not attributing his point on any particular poster.
I often think that some forums, and aviation is one, possibly railways another, seem to attract people with somewhat eccentric behaviour.

eusap

I am a long time lurker of this forum and rarely post, i love the ask a pilot section and the photo/video section. The reason i don't post too often is the same not only for boards.ie but the same for the comments section on TheJournal or Broadsheet, the internet is full of trolls and very opinionited people and its just not worth my time.

Most of the other threads in A&A start off well meaning but then descend rapidly god forbid you mention something in favour of Ryanair or the IAG takeover and you will be blasted from the sky. Yes everybody is entitled to there opinion but in essence the forum was started for people who love aviation and share there experience and knowledge, i wish it could be brought back to this ideal!

Preset No.3

I notice that the usual trolls on A&A have yet to comment on this thread. Strange that.

Growler!!!

Preset No.3 wrote: »

I notice that the usual trolls on A&A have yet to comment on this thread. Strange that.

But if you comment it means you're not a troll, right?:D