Lucius wrote:
Splitting and categorization is the wrong strategy. In which category do you put your Greece vacation photos? Under Greece, Vacation, or Photos?
I agree. In particular I wouldn’t want to split “Flying” into “VFR” and “IFR” parts. But it could be a good idea to add an “IFR operations” forum.
I have just had a quick look at the Vans forum proposition.
Immediately I found four forums covering totally or mostly Vans aircraft.
Taking the biggest one by far (Vans air force in the USA) a random look of about 100 posters who show a location, found just one outside the USA.
Taking one UK one, it’s had about 1000 posts in one main section in 3 years.
So to me it doesn’t look like the Vans community is under-supplied with forums, and it doesn’t look like the European part of it is especially in need of another forum and actually they may not post very much anyway. I reckon most European Vans people either silently lurk on the Vans AF one, or they post there without giving their location (and even that would make them a small minority).
To make a success of something, you have to do a better job of it than others. EuroGA works well because the other general GA English speaking forums in Europe have become disfunctional in recent years.
You can auto-delete down voted posts via algorithm. Having software algorithm taking care of it, as opposed to a human, avoids being seen as a benevolent forum dictator
That’s what Reddit does, for those who like that kind of “instant messaging” site which cannot ever become an informative resource.
The reason google often finds EuroGA is because we have over 80000 mostly very relevant and well written posts.
Regarding the SR22T, I can think of only one contributor here who used to fly one, so I don’t think Cirruses are over-represented here any more than they are a popular modern aircraft.
to attract more high quality contribution, you must grow the audience
That I agree with, hence the suggestion to leave some EuroGA leaflets at aeroclubs, airports, etc.
I would caution the idea of splitting the forum into too many sections.
I’ve seen that in a forum I sysop (technical) and it has 30 sections around with one msg at a time in each. Once I cut it down to 2 sections and it took off like heck, but the folks wanted their sections back and it lingers again.
I like the setup as it is, actually I hardly use the sections at all, 99% of what I do is browse the “Active Threads”. I only visit the sections when I want to start a thread.
Having said that, I like the setup they have at Mooneyspace, some sections very clearly defined what they are but still not dividing up the readership into too many sections.
“IFR Operations” is effectively what I was proposing needs splitting out.
IFR vs VFR gangs remind me of snowboarding vs skiing. You can argue that they are all part of the same thing but in reality the culture and people and communities are completely separate.
We have the IFR boys who think that flying below 3000ft all the time is very limiting and a bit “novice”, then you have VFR guys who think you’re not a real pilot unless you can land a tailwheel aircraft or fly upside down. And a very small number who regularly do both.
The distinction between categories vs tags is fairly arbitrary. Wordpress has both, if you leave tags free-form these quickly become a mess, and if you limit them to a predefined list, then this is effectively the same thing as categories/sections anyway, but with the confusion of content being in two places at once.
A section for vintage/homebuild/permit/sport aircraft would definitely be good.
I don’t think so. Most GA pilots I know fly VFR low level and IFR for long distance traveling. We neither need to seperate the expensive from the cheaper airplanes, nor the Ultralights from the “real” Airplanes (all airplanes IMHO) nor do we need to seperate people by flight rules they prefer.
We all like to fly airplanes, that’s all
ortac wrote:
“IFR Operations” is effectively what I was proposing needs splitting out.
I strongly disagree. Freedom of flying means both, IFR and VFR. For me IFR is easier, especially on long distance flights, flight planning, coping with weather. And IFR is safer than VFR at 3000 ft (consider todays midair collision in northern germany). VFR is nice also, gives you better pictures from the ground and so on. I regularly fly VFR on flights below 200 nm and I like it as IFR on high altitude.
I am sorry, if I had known what direction would take the discussion, I would have refrained. We should not be split. The reason to bring up this topic up for discussion was simply to persuade the participants to adress other pilots in order to make them aware of this site.
EuroGA needs no change at all.
Very much agree with Flyer59 and highflyer.
There is no need to split up the site in many categories.
I always use the Recently Active Threads to see whats new.
It’s important that content can be found. I usually use Google with the “site:euroga.org” operator to search for content on EuroGA. Works very well !
The IFR vs VFR debate has been often discussed here at EuroGA, but I don’t see it.They are both very useful tools with each their own advantages/disadvantages.
Many of my IFR flights contain a VFR part. I also do cross country VFR flights. it’s all fun 
With the introduction of CB IR it has become a lot easier to get a European IR.
I see pilots around me now slowly picking up the CB IR theory and starting to get lessons. I expect the demand for quality IR content will become higher the coming years.
We have the IFR boys who think that flying below 3000ft all the time is very limiting and a bit “novice”
I also don’t agree with that at all. I have never detected any such elitism among IFR pilots. All those I know are of the opinion that VFR and IFR are different tools for different jobs.
Some of the IFR technique / operations stuff can get a bit technical… that is a fair point.
Some of the IFR technique / operations stuff can get a bit technical
But, to this VFR-only pilot, they are always interesting, if sometimes hard to imagine. And I can confirm I have experienced more elitism from guys who prided themselves on having flown the club C172 to Calais or Speyer than from the chap who quietly took her across the Alps, VFR. No experience with real IFR pilots, though, there’s none at my grass-roots aerodrome…
In my view the more you sub divide an on line discussion forum, the more you alienate. The more successful sites, are pretty narrow in their header content, but then cascade out as you sub divide within those original narrow confines. EuroGA, iMHO, is successful, because with the narrow band with, discussion can flourish, bringing people with more experinece, into realms that they may either never, nor want to get into. I think this is good. I fly different types, but I do not go on.ine and go to the PIper forum, the Rockwell forum etc. I now really use two, this, EuroGA, and Beechtalk, the latter I think a very good example of a well used, and reasonably narrow confine header set.
Pprune is always good for a giggle, we all know why, but it is a well laid out web forum. Easy to use, which frankly, is the name of the game.
