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Sky Gods

In 2018 it is inevitable that anyone coming to EuroGA will have had some “exposure” to other forums.

After all, there is a forum for everything, from growing tomatoes through growing cannabis to breeding pedigree cats…

All of these have their own “Gods”. Some have actually “done it” and just like to tell everybody how great they are. Others, usually the vast majority of the Gods, haven’t “done it” but still like to tell everybody how great they are. A few haven’t done anything at all (in the GA context, flight simmers) but still like to tell everybody how great they are.

They are notably virtually absent from EuroGA. I think the atmosphere, whoops I meant the ecosystem, here is not seen as favourable. One trademark of a God is the emission of a large number of smart-arse “I know something and I want everybody to know that I know it, but I am not going to make a useful contribution” one-liners and we don’t have a lot of those here.

However, in the realm of forum psychology, it is possible that a Sky God has a “normal” personality somewhere else on the internet. It is a bit like multiple universes. Everything exists out there somewhere… What you get with forums is this:

An individual posts on forums A, B and C.
Somebody upsets him on A, so he posts only on B and C.
Somebody upsets him on B, so now he posts only on C.
Somebody upsets him on C. Now he has a very big problem, because not posting does not compute. He has to post!
So he re-examines A,B,C to see which produced the least bad upset, and tentatively returns there. Typically this will be EuroGA, because it is moderated.
But he still holds a grudge, so he posts only “I know something and I want everybody to know that I know it, but I am not going to make a useful contribution” one-liners

What made me think of this is that recently I popped into a ski forum (yeah, one of those on every corner too) to ask some questions, and it is full of Ski Gods, emitting vast numbers of one-liners. They are just like the ones “you” know from the other forums. They love beating up people who can’t do black runs and especially people who say they enjoy skiing at a particular level and are not even interested in doing black runs Also the number of women (they are usually obvious from the non-God writing style, if not the nickname too) is only slightly bigger than in GA forums, despite the slopes being full of them.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

The personalities aspects doesnt really concern me – as long as it isnt taken too far it adds to the colour, and can, and should be taken with a pinch of salt. However, I know some people get upset by the banter and worse, and that is a shame.

I find it of far greater concern that on some forum (and I only have an interest in two areas these days so far as forum are concerned), where there are far more technical issues than flying, just how much rubbish is written, but how convincingly it is written. This sometimes makes it very difficult to know who to “trust”. To be generous a lot of the time I think people believe what they are writing.

As but one example in the world of batteries and DC systems you will read repeatedly that battery monitors are able to read the percentage charge of a battery. There are none that are able to do this. You will read that you cant use more than one intelligent charge source to charge a battery. You can. You will read that an AGM should never be discharged beyond 50% of its capacity. You can with deep discharge AGM’s, although doing so often is not ideal. These are just a few examples, but opinions to the contrary you will see written everywhere. Peter, you are also correct that those who know otherwise will often be very cryptic with the correct explanation, which of course tends to perpetuate the incorrect information, and when they do give the correct explanations it will often be in terms most poeple cant understand.

There are a few people on flying forums who follow a similiar pattern in that they are short on providing a simple explanation on some technical point, often when this relates to legislation. I think this is a shame because the true hallmark of an expert is his ability to convey technical material in a way most people can understand (including those who might want to understand the full technical explanation, but prefer not to spend the time). In short, on these subjects I like posts that say x, y and z and then “and this means in simple terms this”.

I frequent several forums because I have several hobbies.
However across all of them I rarely post for several reasons.
Not in order, some if them are, Time, lack of experience, the likelyhood of being ‘trumped’ by someone far more qualified to answer sometime soon after I post and not enjoying being trashed if mine is not the most popular input.
Despite all of this Still enjoy and appreciate the work of those on the forums.
I can completely agree with the two posts above.
I have invested great effort in trying to learn who to listen to on each forum and it is very tricky.
Some poeple seem to have great academic ability and some tell a great story of doing the thing but it’s a real problem that when you’re learning about something (we always are) you’re not qualified ti work out who’s full of Cr@p.
Once you do know enough some of the information becomes superfluous.
You can’t reply on volume of posts as some people have way too much time and few distractions, to the unwary they look like
Top-Dogs but may have little real world high level experience.
Maybe some members on here could furnish Peter with credentials privately which may award them ‘Senior’ Status, which could help the newer or kess experienced recognise a poster who I perhaps a little more credible?

Just a thought.

Last Edited by GA_Pete at 07 Nov 19:54
United Kingdom

“Seniority” doesn’t exist in that way.

One of the most dangerously incompetent light aircraft pilots I know is a BA 747 Training Captain. Someone can know everything about IFR and nothing about stripping, or everything about towing and nothing about aeros. Or everything about biz jets and nothing about floatplanes.

That is the lovely thing. We all have so much to learn from each other.

EGKB Biggin Hill

I like the atmosphere here very much. Have stopped reading most other forums. There is a german forum and it is fascinating how almost every topic turns into personal attacks and „trumping“ each other.
It would be great if more of us could chime in here at euroga with posts and still keep it friendly and neutral, even when opinions differ.

always learning
LO__, Austria

Incidentally, I also don’t accept the denigration of “simmers”.

I also run a sim and use it for serious IFR training as well as doing experiments with “edge of the envelope” Garmin navigator stuff (which is why I am sometimes able to publish answers to weird GTN and GNS questions).

I quite often go onto the X-Plane and Reality XP forums and find many of the people there extremely knowledgeable, kind and helpful.

EGKB Biggin Hill

My experience with internet forums goes back at least 20 years, until the very beginning of www-based forums, when interactivity on the web was otherwise unheard of outside of Usenet, instant messenging and E-Mail. Most of it was on PC gaming related fora. As a student I had lots of time and posted a lot. On one forum about the WWII multiplayer shooter Day of Defeat, with several hundred members, I once became the top poster with over 6000 posts (every forum used to have post counts). Despite this I was infamous for my long posts there, which went over the head of many people.

The good thing about multiplayer gaming forums is that people can post lots of claptrap but there is an easy way to find them out: play the game with (or against) them. Especially games which record statistics let you measure skill more or less objectively (ignoring cheaters, who are a big problem for many games), so in the end people can post whatever they like but “big forum personalities” need to back up their big mouth with in-game skills, or they quickly become laughing stock.
I was an above average Day of Defeat player, to stick with the example, so while I may have annoyed some people with my tons of posts, most of them did value me as a teammate or even leader. Still, this was in my late teenage years and in hindsight the behaviour I showed on forums was certainly annoying to more mature players.

In aviation it is much much harder to compare what people post with their actual skill as a pilot. And as Timothy pointed out, skills and experience may be focused on one particular type of flying, to the detriment of others.

Also non-flying people can and do read and consequently post a lot about aviation without any real world experience to back them up (Peter mentioned flight simmers as example in his OP).

What I don’t really get though is why experienced pilots, actual “sky gods” if these exist at all, should behave in the way described by Peter: posting only non-helpful one-liners or outright dismissing the posts (especially questions!) of lesser experienced pilots. It just doesn’t compute, what do they have to gain from such behaviour? Certainly it should be in the interest of every aviation enthusiast to help other like-minded people on their way as best as they can, furthering our common subject of interest?

Last Edited by MedEwok at 07 Nov 21:59
Low-hours pilot
EDVM Hildesheim, Germany

Let me make some little comments…

Maybe some members on here could furnish Peter with credentials privately which may award them ‘Senior’ Status, which could help the newer or kess experienced recognise a poster who I perhaps a little more credible?

Of the regulars, I know most of them or know about them and what they do, more or less, and I am pretty confident that we actually have very very few Walter Mitty types here. I know several such people and know exactly which forums they are on (or were, last time I looked, not recently) and they aren’t posting here.

I also don’t accept the denigration of “simmers”.

Apologies; it was meant in the specific sense of being say an F16 simmer and posting that you were in the USAF for 20 years flying one. We did have one guy, well known on the sim forums and apparently an ex member on most of them, who did a bit of that, but I think he’s currently gone, after his 3rd or 4th reincarnation. It’s easily done if you are really clever, dedicated and can resist temptation to wind people up / settle old scores

every forum used to have post counts

David intentionally did not implement features like this. Here, everybody judges each poster purely on the posts made.

We got early requests for a feature to block a particular poster, by some of his countrymen, but didn’t implement that, either (he’s currently absent)

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Timothy wrote:

Incidentally, I also don’t accept the denigration of “simmers”.

I think Peter specifically means people who do only play flight sims, often to an extreme extent and investing lots of money and time into it, who then go on to act as if they know everything about aviation on forums. Their actual flight experience may be a single trial lesson, dozens of flights as CAT passengers or even an aborted PPL training, but nothing matching their apparent experience as acted on the forums.
These people certainly do exist, though I don’t think they are common.

I don’t think Peter wants to denigrate flight simmers as a whole. My personal aviation career also started with MS Flight Simulator and I wouldn’t be here without it, it is certainly a good way to “get infected with the aviation virus”.

EDIT: Posts crossed with Peter…

Last Edited by MedEwok at 07 Nov 22:13
Low-hours pilot
EDVM Hildesheim, Germany

I think the discussions on here are generally great, I often go and do further research / reading when something prompts me that I’ve got a gap in my knowledge or understanding. I don’t think anyone can know everything – some of my least experienced club members know more than me about European touring because they go and do it, whereas I spend all my time instructing / examining in the local area!

The only thing I find really annoying is the cult like blind worship of some products/ideas on some UK forums where any opposing view or debate is attacked for some reason.

Now retired from forums best wishes
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