Forums & Political Control

[Guest TOSGcentral]

A bit of currently breaking news happening in UK at the moment regarding forums and their management.

 

 

The equivalent of RAAus in UK is the BMAA who have a web site and associated forums. That place has some broad similarities to these forums in that there are departments for discussion and information on various types and marques.

 

 

This is a useful and could probably classed as an important facility just as the information sources on these forums are to owners and pilots.

 

 

Although the Thruster section of the BMAA forums are not extensively used (the main information channel, for Thrusters anyway, being the Yahoo forum for the UK Thrusterclub) I still monitored that area regularly as you could pick up the odd useful bit of technical information I could pass on to my own Support Group (TOSG).

 

 

Recently the BMAA had a Council meeting and voted to close the forums to only current financial members of BMAA. This means that we will not get information out and nor can we put information in as a return unless we become members of BMAA.

 

 

This action has resulted in one of the members who voted against the motion now setting up an independent Yahoo forum which is non Association affiliated (just as these forums are) and will be open to all comers.

 

 

I believe this underlines Ian’s policy here of keeping these forums wide open and free of political interference. Although there are specific departments which can touch on politics and control issues, the forums are primarily an exchange of views and information resource that are conducted in a friendly and helpful way. They work very well indeed!

 

 

Sad to see UK going the other way.

 

 

[Admin]

That is a big shame Tony. It only creates fragmented information that is spread around various locations. To also charge for information like this that could provide assistance in terms of safety via information exchange as in a membership fee is a big concern.

 

Wait for the new Refresh site that is coming live here soon which will have a greater focus on aircraft and interaction with manufactures, distributors/agents which should help to some degree

 

 

[Guest Maj Millard]

It's that type of thing that makes the UK a small shadow of it's former self.

 

 

[Yenn]

There has been some criticism of RAAus on this forum, but nothing that would cause any problems to the executives of RAAus, and even if they were controlling this forum I doubt that they would take the same steps as the UK have. Luckily we have Ian in control and there cannot be that type of problem here.

 

 

[Guest TOSGcentral]

While I agree with Yenn’s closing statements I have some disquiet about other comments he also made. I think that we should be even handed about all this – even though I pointed no fingers at AUF/RAAus in my opening post, just commented on one demonstrated decision from UK that our members may ponder upon if a similar decision choice was presented in Oz.

 

 

Perhaps Yenn was not around when these forums started and maybe not be aware of why they started.

 

 

There was something named “AUF Chat†This was an AUF forum sort of bolted to the web site. It was volatile and a bit rabid at times – mainly due to poor moderation plus quite a few people, with some bottled up frustrations due to lack of communication, having an outlet at last.

 

 

That forum was closed down on a Board decision virtually overnight. This was touted as just a ‘Temporary Measure’ and the Board would let the members know. That was the last we heard of it!

 

 

When Ian started these forums they took off and grew immediately – there was a positive demand and need for this sort of inter-member communication. Of particular note is how valuable the forums have been for flight safety education in many forms – both Ops and Airworthiness. This is reflected both in the massive growth of these forums and also the conduct of the forum members who, to a large extent, have been self-moderating.

 

 

But we should also remember what Ian had to go through to do this – and probably none of us will know exactly how much! Ian had a major battle to spend his money to advertise the forums in the magazine. He had considerable difficulty with a paid stand at NatFly. More recently there was some sabre rattling going on that RAAus would open their own forums and attacks were made on these forums (by individuals, not RAAus) to underline this. Who do you think was doing any of this – the Tooth Fairy?

 

 

If that latter event did happen (which I consider highly unlikely) then what has happened in the UK could also be an issue here. So just consider issues and what you want if such a situation did arise.

 

 

Having said all of that I wish to also say one other thing. I have the utmost respect and admiration for John Brandon (The RAAus Web Master). I feel that it is the quality of both his personal integrity and skills that the RAAus web site has become the massive professional resource that it now is. Running a complex forum is however a different issue and John would require considerable assistance for that to be done.

 

 

It is not just a case of saying “we will have a new forum website†there is a damn lot of hard work and money involved! Just ask Ian!

 

 

Ian has put the runs on the board and as getting site hits now running into the millions. We are fortunate that we have such a resource given freely to us – and should treasure it.

 

 

[Guest ozzie]

Another kick in the teeth for democracy.