boscomantico wrote:
the person enquiring is on my personal blacklistDoes that happen often? I can only recall one EuroGA person I would put on a blacklist, but fortunately he left by his own volition. (I think! The account does seem to be closed.)
Have you ever been tempted not to post?
Sometimes when Peter say enough is enough 
the person enquiring has a totally empty profile
I am sure many others don’t like that either (and we did have various threads to get people to fill in their profile, at least partly, because it adds useful context to discussions – even if it rather pointlessly backfires sometimes) but I am equally sure that the vast majority of people active on EuroGA do have empty profiles.
the person enquiring is on my personal blacklist
Now that’s an interesting one
BTW we did have a “blacklist a particular user” i.e. make someone’s posts invisible, as a firm demand feature request in the early days. Some may guess who the “target” was. He has actually disappeared very recently, by himself, for the 6th time if my counting is right. The requester was a prominent pilot from the same country. We didn’t implement it, partly because it obviously doesn’t work when the blacklisted person’s post appears in a quote.
Perhaps the main reason that I don’t post is that my boss bollox me for slagging off the ATO gravy train – from which he draws most of his business.
I have also given up trying to convince 18 year old wannabes who have been told by CTC (et al) that the only way to be an airline pilot is to pay them 120 grand.
Meanwhile in the real world the largest ATO in our area has 5 lads working the flight desk and apron on Saturday and Sundays and their only instructor who works the weekend leaves in January for a large UK based turboprop operator. He paid about 45 grand all in.
I am sure many others don’t like that either (and we did have various threads to get people to fill in their profile, at least partly, because it adds useful context to discussions – even if it rather pointlessly backfires sometimes) but I am equally sure that the vast majority of people active on EuroGA do have empty profiles.
This really is a big concern actually. The written word is a powerful thing, yet in a discussion group like this, the tone is more “verbal”. It’s a discussion group, people exchange ideas and opinions that are far from well “founded” or even given a second thought, and I (for one) write stuff here that I would never write if it was an article, or a comment in a written magazine or newspaper, not to mention a scientific article or report. Therefore I also want to be sort of pseudo anonymous. I refuse to be tied up having to rethink every word I write, because some day it may come back and haunt me by some “well meaning” evil person.
On the other hand. If this site was more like snap chat. If old stuff were deleted on a regular basis, if it was more “oral” in practical terms also, then I would have no problem having my full name etc. Until that happens, it is IMO utterly stupid (for me) to not have some “protection”.
I am sure most would agree.
I think the basic “drift” previously was to show at least where you are based and roughly what you fly. So if you are in say Germany you could put “EDxx” as the location, as indeed some have. For the aircraft flown, if you fly a C182, you could put “C182” because there is one on every corner Or just “Cessna SEP”.
Then it helps the discussion without giving anything away.
Otherwise, as Bosco indicates, a question you ask or a post you make is difficult to work out.
There is an alternative point of view that one should use full names. This was done to death in other threads and I strongly disagree with it. It reduces a forum to a tiny group of people (one such forum I know had a total of 50 reading it and about 20 participating) posting mostly banal stuff. There are very good reasons for anonymity. And most people will just use fake full names (John Smith etc); the Socata group is full of them.
Those who just want to bang on about something which bothers them without ever creating a useful resource for others go to one of the Facebook forums So when your VW needs a new EGR valve after the software cheat removal, that’s where you post it 
