For many years we (the creators of this forum) have been members of aviation forums. But we have become increasingly unsatisfied with their policies. So we created Flyers Forum (FF) and we'd like to explain why we think it is an improvement over existing forums. We believe there are two primary goals for an aviation forum - a large robust public community and controlling abuse of and on the forum. There is a natural tension between these goals which has been addressed by existing forums in different ways, though we have not been satisfied with those approaches.
So we set out to make a General Aviation (GA) forum that is open to search engines and public browsing while operating with minimal central moderation. We believe moderation is best applied by each member because they know best the members they prefer to engage in conversation. If you see two members in never-ending squabbles you should be able to block their posts from your view without having to ask a moderator to silence them somehow. Likewise, if someone starts trolling or stalks your posts you should be able to promptly block them from seeing your posts and vice-versa. Member-level moderation is naturally tuned precisely to the member's desires and sensibilities and the most timely mechanism available. We also feel that the ability to promptly block another poster from seeing your posts and vice versa greatly reduces the need for traditional central moderation and the sins that eventually arise from such "absolute power."
We hope you see the advantages of FF's choice of policies and self-moderation tools and will give it a try.
In the following we discuss some of the design considerations for FF:
There are forums for people interested in specific aircraft makes, for student pilots, for airline transport pilots, and for other subsets of aviation. The intended audience of FF is anyone interested in GA flying. So we'll compare it with some other forums that also target that audience. The table below compares the main policy choices of FF to those forums (stats recorded August 15, 2022.)
[Note: The Moderation table entries for PB and TPP have been updated as of Sept. 22, 2022 per information from their respective admins. Likewise the Posting Rules entry for PB was updated per feedback from DCat22.]
We have observed the following:
P.S. Notes on the name: Flyers Forum is intended to be the plural non-possessive form, not singular or plural possessive (i.e. no apostrophe anywhere.) You may also note we don't have "pilot" in the name since non-pilots are welcome. Although sited in the United States, we wanted it to be of global interest so no "America" or "USA" in the name.
So we set out to make a General Aviation (GA) forum that is open to search engines and public browsing while operating with minimal central moderation. We believe moderation is best applied by each member because they know best the members they prefer to engage in conversation. If you see two members in never-ending squabbles you should be able to block their posts from your view without having to ask a moderator to silence them somehow. Likewise, if someone starts trolling or stalks your posts you should be able to promptly block them from seeing your posts and vice-versa. Member-level moderation is naturally tuned precisely to the member's desires and sensibilities and the most timely mechanism available. We also feel that the ability to promptly block another poster from seeing your posts and vice versa greatly reduces the need for traditional central moderation and the sins that eventually arise from such "absolute power."
We hope you see the advantages of FF's choice of policies and self-moderation tools and will give it a try.
In the following we discuss some of the design considerations for FF:
There are forums for people interested in specific aircraft makes, for student pilots, for airline transport pilots, and for other subsets of aviation. The intended audience of FF is anyone interested in GA flying. So we'll compare it with some other forums that also target that audience. The table below compares the main policy choices of FF to those forums (stats recorded August 15, 2022.)
| Forum | Open to Search Engines and Public Browsing | Moderation | Posting Rules |
|---|---|---|---|
| FlyersForum (FF) | Yes | Controlled by users. Two admins. | None listed. |
| PilotsOfAmerica (PoA) (~35,000 members.) | Yes | Controlled by eight moderators. | Twenty-six bulleted rules. |
| PurpleBoard (PB) (~4,600 members.) | No | Controlled by two moderators, or whatever. | Ten rules that DCat22 says boil down to "Don't be a dick." |
| ThePilotsPlace (TPP) (~15,000 members. In 2021 merged with cessna172club (C172C) model-specific forum which had ~13,000 members indicating ~2000 pre-merge members.) | No | Controlled by nine moderators. | "Play nicely." |
| PilotSpin (PS) (~400 members.) | No | Not moderated. Absentee admin. | None intended. |
[Note: The Moderation table entries for PB and TPP have been updated as of Sept. 22, 2022 per information from their respective admins. Likewise the Posting Rules entry for PB was updated per feedback from DCat22.]
We have observed the following:
- PoA has the largest community. It is also the oldest forum listed here.
- PoA and PB are roughly the same age but PB membership has stagnated and posting volume is a small fraction of PoA.
- The GA membership of all the closed forums are much smaller than PoA and their membership activity has stagnated. The entire C172C database was added to TPP in 2021, so ~87% of its members were not added by normal or "organic" means.
- Therefore because it is open to search engines and public browsing PoA has succeeded where closed GA forums generally have not.
- PS's combination of closed access and no moderation (with the exception of anti-spam removal) requires an application of personal fortitude and restraint not everyone cares to employ. It is a user-created spin-off from "The Spin Zone" forum that existed on - and later deleted from - PoA.
- Though PoA is an otherwise fine forum, its lengthy set of rules and inevitable ambiguities has caused many users to run afoul of those rules. This is worsened by the rule "Bans and warnings, actual or suspected, shall not be discussed on the forums. Any inquiries or comments regarding bans are to be sent in private messages or via email." It is further worsened by the rule Whenever someone is clearly and deliberately posting for the purpose of angering and/or insulting the other participants of the board, it is considered "trolling." This requires judging the state of mind of the poster. More than one user has had their posts deleted with no explanation when they ask what rules their post violated. The operators of this site have either been victims of these moderation problems or been witness to them.
- All the forums appear to rely on volunteer moderators. As posting volume increases the demand on their time increases. They must act entirely on their own judgement or within the bounds of written rules. The task requires humility and diplomacy that few have or can sustain for long periods of time. Adding moderators increases the range of applied decisions for rules requiring subjective decisions. Bias also appears inevitable.
- Moderators act only after they see an offending post or someone reports one. The inevitable moderation delays, subjective decision crieria, and occasional missed "bad" posts creates a perception of unequal treatment even when moderation rules are otherwise consistently applied.
- Oddly, relaxed moderation can work, as evidenced by the PB, in which posts and posters are almost never sanctioned. A "lazy" moderator that members know is using personal judgement rather than applying a list of rules seems to tend toward self-moderation. Heated exchanges tend to die off on their own when left alone. Moderators often don't realize that generally none of the participants in heated exchanges are enjoying themselves and so look for an early opportunity to exit.
- At its core, moderated forums require each member surrender their ability to choose the posts they are allowed to see (and what posts they may make) to a party that knows nothing about their desires or sensibilities.
- Whatever wisdom or useful info is posted to a closed forum is forever out of reach of web search engines. Web searches that yield such useful hits to open forums do translate into new members for those forums.
- A user who considers joining a closed forum but wants to first see whether it is worthwhile is placed in a Catch-22 situation. As a result many simply don't join and move on to publicly readable forums.
P.S. Notes on the name: Flyers Forum is intended to be the plural non-possessive form, not singular or plural possessive (i.e. no apostrophe anywhere.) You may also note we don't have "pilot" in the name since non-pilots are welcome. Although sited in the United States, we wanted it to be of global interest so no "America" or "USA" in the name.
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