LeSving wrote:
What is “civilized manner” anyway?
I could give you a couple of links where the opposite is true, so you’d probably eventually realize what was meant. 
Mooney_Driver wrote:
I could give you a couple of links where the opposite is true, so you’d probably eventually realize what was meant.
Or he can just read PPRuNe.
I read it for a short while before discovering EuroGA. My favourite was a thread where two persons, both obviously experienced airline captains, accused each other of being “simmers”, apparently because their respective airlines had different SOPs.
Airborne_Again wrote:
My favourite was a thread where two persons, both obviously experienced airline captains, accused each other of being “simmers”, apparently because their respective airlines had different SOPs.
Quite mild for PPRuNe!
Mooney_Driver wrote:
I could give you a couple of links where the opposite is true, so you’d probably eventually realize what was meant.
I know what you don’t mean, but “not red” doesn’t necessarily mean “blue”. If the options are either consensus or ignoration, then this basically means “agree or shut up”. This is fine if those who shut up do it as a gest to “preserve peace”, in the sense that everybody is entitled to their opinion, no matter how wild it is. However, it could also be that people do care – and – disagree strongly, but still shut up or moderate themselves because disagreement is always taken on a personal level, as a personal attack. Is the latter one civilized discussion? Not really.
Airborne_Again wrote:
My favourite was a thread where two persons, both obviously experienced airline captains, accused each other of being “simmers”, apparently because their respective airlines had different SOPs.
I have never ever read anything on PPRuNe, but what exactly is wrong with that?
There are lots of sites on the internet where people who want to get abusive can do so freely. Most pilot forums, actually – because you get ~10x more advert click traffic if you allow “kicking and biting” threads.
Our formula here is working well. The actual number is that, of the “regulars group” (~200 people have posted in any past 30 days, and that figure has been constant for ~8 years), only 3-4 ever post offensive stuff. That is ~2%. The other 98% have never posted anything offensive. So it cannot be difficult to be polite.
Politics is difficult, along with religion and such like, but one can still disagree with the proposition without getting personal. Brexit is harder, for a number of reasons which would need a long explanation.
I think the grey area on forums is when people start writing stuff that evidently has a little bit of hostile/personal sentiment behind it but is not actually objectively rude or offensive.
For instance there was a thing here a week or two ago where someone (I think in a regulatory/licensing thread) started saying “ignore everything X says, they don’t know what they’re talking about” or something to that effect.
Now that is not ‘offensive’ by any objective definition, in the sense that e.g. Facebook or Twitter would not censor it – there is no foul language or hate-speech, but it fails my ‘pub test’: you would not talk like that to a stranger in a pub, particularly if they were bigger than you.
I believe that test is a decent yardstick, and as most people are bigger than me it keeps me fairly polite (I think).
Modding stuff in this grey area is a difficult task, but I think those of us who read regularly can see when it’s going on.
LeSving wrote:
I have never ever read anything on PPRuNe, but what exactly is wrong with that?
On PPRuNe (meaning Professional Pilots Rumour Network), a “simmer” is seen as someone who is impersonating the Real Stuff who actually sit in the pointy end of heavy iron. Accusations of being a “simmer” is more or less the ultimate slur . Also, the exchange highlighted a lack of respect for other people and their experience.
Graham wrote:
I think the grey area on forums is when people start writing stuff that evidently has a little bit of hostile/personal sentiment behind it but is not actually objectively rude or offensive.For instance there was a thing here a week or two ago where someone (I think in a regulatory/licensing thread) started saying “ignore everything X says, they don’t know what they’re talking about” or something to that effect.
Now that is not ‘offensive’ by any objective definition, in the sense that e.g. Facebook or Twitter would not censor it – there is no foul language or hate-speech, but it fails my ‘pub test’: you would not talk like that to a stranger in a pub, particularly if they were bigger than you.
The problem with forums is that some people don’t consider others “strangers in the pub”, but “people are well known to each other” and underestimate/overestimate how well known they actually are. Plus the cultural differences, as well not seeing some things that are obvious to the native speaker, but not that clear to the others.
Peter wrote:
Personal imports from the mainland tended to be difficult due to “cultural issues” (generally poor pre- and post-sales product support to a “foreign country” customer, etc); I’ve had plenty of bizzare experiences, most recently trying to buy some bike inner tubes from France or a specialised media card interface from Germany, and that’s before the famously discussed (and of course denied) one with Roeder Precision in Germany telling me they deal only with German customers
That works both ways. Its very hard to get a some UK companies to sell you something to Europe.
Latest example: I spent quite some time trying to get a VAX carpet cleaner sent to France – impossible, no-one wanted to know.
Regards, SD..
skydriller wrote:
That works both ways. Its very hard to get a some UK companies to sell you something to Europe.
Sure, but what I have personally experienced a few times is that companies offer to ship to everywhere in the world (including US, China, etc.) but have for some reason decided to explicitly exclude delivery to the UK. Reason given: “Brexit”. When pushed, they said this was due to the requirement to register for UK VAT for their retail sales, which they put in the “too complicated” bucket, while if they deliver to the US, China etc. they just hand the parcel to the shipper and they take care of everything.
Earlier in the year, some parcel services suspended delivery to the UK because the processes were new and they did have capacity problems, but AFAIK that has been resolved a few months ago.
The big difference is – the odd retail sale to Britain makes next to no difference to most companies in the EU, while for the shipper a sizeable volume was at risk, so they had to solve it.
No vindictiveness needed, only politicians to make stupid rules and bureaucrats to enforce them mindlessly.
