Forum name changed: Rhino -> Patrick

I have to admit, I have little respect for those that hide behind pseudos.

Well done Patrick, perhaps that will motivate others to assume their identities and their posts …

I have to admit, I have little respect for those that hide behind pseudos.

With Michael being a very distinctive name. Good that there aren’t any other Michaels in aviation

Web communities often attract people with substantial mental issues, and in my direct experience it is not something to discount. Its amazing what a determined individual can find out about you with a name and little else. Luckily in my case it came to nothing, but at least one core aspect of my life was substantially threatened.

I have little respect for those that hide behind pseudos.

This could be a long discussion

Being an old git I remember the glory days of Compu$erve, who (early 1990s) forced everybody in their forum to use the full name as printed on the credit card used to pay for the account. It meant that anybody who actually knew anything useful about anything in the known universe could say approximately 10 things, and the 11th would get them into hot water. I once derided BS5750 (the UK precursor to the widespread marketing scam quality management scheme known as ISO9000) and in no time at all some pompous QA dick QA manager was looking up which Ltd Co I was a Director of (which even in those days took minutes; today it takes seconds) so he could report my company to the scam certification agency and trigger an inspection. Luckily for me, my then company didn’t have BS5750 so had nothing to lose

So, yeah, I get your drift, but one can argue this one exactly both ways

I know for sure that a GA forum where people have to use full names will have very few posters. And if you move from pseudonym option to full name, most of the posters will stop posting (seen that happen too).

The other forum place – Usenet – was the greatest GA resource for years (rec.aviation.*) and taught more pilots more good stuff than all the flying schools combined, but eventually got killed by trolls and spam, and a lack of public expertise to access it.

The solution has to be a forum which is properly moderated but allows anonymity.

The question then becomes how to implement the moderation. Some poor bastard has to do it, and it has to be done pro-actively so that it doesn’t get out of control i.e. you can’t just dive in once a week and clean up. Obviously I would say this but I think on EuroGA it is done correctly – because if it isn’t, all you guys and gurls know exactly where to find me and you can (and will) give me hell if I screw up. That is how it should be. Some places have anonymous/unaccountable mods (who in all such cases abuse their power from time to time) and that is completely and totally wrong (though if you have a really huge site, say 10k postings/day, you have no option). But moderation of any sort works only if there isn’t much work to do. If you run a “pub” type chat site then the battle is lost… and you have to hope that nobody posts something what will actually get the server owner sued and everything below that is left alone no matter how vile it is (a certain non-UK GA forum for example).

I know for sure that a GA forum where people have to use full names will have very few posters.

Well, I am moderator on www.segelflug.de, a closed forum with the rule of clear name usage. (Closed as in: not readable for non registered users). We manually check every new user on consistency and it is quite active. with 5800 users (1372 active ones) and over 100000 posts since update on a new forum software in 2010. On average we see around 2500 posts a month in winter and 1200 to 1600 posts per month in summer. So I don’t know if glider pilots are more social, more digital natives, younger, more active or just that the average mood is quite good, compared to some of the other aviation forums (ppprune, ulforum, pilot24, even puf). Sure, you’ll always have one or two crazy people in the crowd and people without manners, but that is a necessity in free societies, I think.

I think it’s right to give people the choice of anonymity or not; I choose not to exercise that right in this forum, because of the type of place it is. On another forum I do choose to use a pseudonym, and a good job I did too, as I was pilloried for daring to suggest that a certain member might not be the saint he professed to be.

This individual had unbelievable influence and the ear of the moderators, as he even got ip address information for my postings which are not generally available except to those with insider privileges, and he used that information to have a go at me.

I had the last laugh when he ended up court, although I never got an apology from all the haters. I can live with that.

So I don’t know if glider pilots are more social

This is partly tongue in cheek:

I looked into gliding a long time ago. Glider pilots should have lots of time to post because one spends most of one’s time waiting for one’s turn to go up. And the clubs don’t like people who just turn up for a quick flight and then disappear. It’s just like sailing on a lake; the sailing club likes it to be an all-day attendance activity. Glider pilots I know joke that you divorce in the gliding club, marry in the gliding club, etc.

Sure, you’ll always have one or two crazy people in the crowd and people without manners, but that is a necessity in free societies, I think.

After your ability to make a living, forever, is threatened as a result of posting your name on a web forum with at least one disturbed individual, you do tend to be more careful However, I think after I am financially independent I may revert to using my full name on websites as I did before.

Agreed, it’s the user’s choice and it’s the readers choice to give respect, or not, to the anonymous punters …