Jonzarno – what I did not like was posting a direct link into a pay-to-view site. That’s any pay-to-view site, not just a Cirrus one (the point that “Cirrus matters” are always a bit extra sensitive is not lost on any reader nowadays).
David and I discussed this policy last time it “blew up”. For avoidance of doubt, it’s fine to say one can find such and such in such and section of (say) the COPA site but to view it you need to pay $X/year for access.
Otherwise, we end up with a situation like somebody posting a link to say an academic library document which costs $X/year for access. I am sure nobody would do that knowingly because it would be useless to just about everybody.
Or me posting a link to say one of my aviation trip writeups and when you go there, a thing pops up asking you to pay a $5 donation. You should ask yourself how you would feel about that one 
Even posting a direct link to a site which is free but requires registration would be regarded as a waste of time by most people. One example is the Socata one, though actually that one involves a personal approval by its owner so you can’t just simply register (takes some days, I believe).
It’s also an unfortunate fact that a large % of people won’t click on any link anyway (on a web page or in an email) so one needs to present the essentials in the original post if one wants to get a message across.
It’s a pity that Rick Beach posted valuable material inside a pay site. I don’t think the brand reputation benefits from that. There is zero confidentiality (because anybody can pay the joining fee and read all past posts) and all that happens is that you get a lot of rumour circulating outside.
Peter
Personally, I don’t agree with your stance on this but it’s your site, you make the rules. Presumably your injunction also applies to other subscription sites such as PPL/IR.
That said, whilst I won’t post a link to any COPA thread unless you say I can, I’m not going to do so and qualify it in the way you demand: I think pretty much everyone on here is well aware that COPA is an organisation with a membership fee which, by the way, goes far beyond access to a forum.
As regards your point about your trip reports: it wouldn’t worry me in the least, I’d just make a simple decision based on how much I wanted to read them and, after accessing the site for the first time, I’d know exactly what I was in for. That’s capitalism for you!
Jonzarno – I am trying to make EuroGA a nice informative site for the people who read it.
That means trying to optimise a number of aspects. Starting with the obvious: no abusive behaviour; just about every other forum allows a high level of abusive behaviour so it has not always been easy to achieve that here because some people had different expectations when they arrived here. Then you get onto smaller stuff e.g. as few dead links as possible (this is why we implemented the local storage of images, because external storage is unreliable and that’s before you get onto people using Dropbox for it ), postings should be informative rather than empty 1-liners (not a lot one can do about that one), etc.
A direct link to a thread, document or some other resource on any site which needs registration (paid for or not) will be of little use to most readers. I can guarantee that 99% of those who don’t already have access will not bother to even do a free registration. Most people’s lives are just too short.
You may not have seen this statistic
As with any free-to-access forum, there are lot more people here than posters.
Peter
I agree with almost everything that you say; indeed there’s only one thing with which I don’t agree. But as I said: it’s your site and you make the rules. I think EuroGA is an excellent forum, I enjoy reading and contributing to it and my disagreement with this particular policy won’t stop me doing that. I still think it’s a mistake though….
As user, I agree with Peter that links to external sites behind “paywalls” should be avoided. Only two things can follow from a post like this
1) Those with access read the document, and the discussion picks it up – which excludes others from the discussion as they cannot read it. They might as well go to the COPA forum and have it there.
2) The discussion does NOT pick it up, so the post might have benefited some, but it did not contribute to further discussion, so it is a bit of a waste.
I very much liked CKN’s approach to the Prokop case – he provided a summary, and then a link to the source document. If THAT document had been behind a “paywall”, it would have been fine.
Perhaps that should be the policy – ok to provide “paywall” links, if
a) a summary of contents is provided AND
b) there is a warning saying that it needs registration or $$$ to access.
A hint pointing out that there is a document somewhere might be within the letter of the rule, but not the spirit…
Are you seriously proposing to create a rule about this??
There has been a welcome drop in the fatal rate for Cirrus, presumably the training to recognize when to pull the CAPS emergency handle is paying off – the fatal rate appears to have fallen below half the rate GA Personal as a number per 100,000 hours.
which they will never get back even if the case against them is ridiculous.
That is incorrect. First, smart lawyers won’t pursue a frivolous lawsuit, that they are extremely likely to loose. Second, if the case is being kicked out, with no merit, and frivolous, you are guaranteed to get counter suit by the defendant to get legal costs back, which defendant will likely win. This means, most cases do have some merit. The system isn’t as broken as it appears to the layman.
