IMPORTANT - New Process for warnings, thread bans, post moderation and post bans

[aim9xray]

Maybe it's the mods, or maybe it's one side being more fragile and ready with the "report" button than the other. I hardly every use it myself. It promotes rust.

Try WD-40.

 

[tychosis]

I am relatively new here. I am a defense professional and I raised my concerns about political partisanship nonsense coming up in a recent thread.

While defense and politics are tangentially related, the whole "you can't discuss defense without discussing politics" argument is disingenuous when politically-oriented posts rarely bring up partisan politics in the context of defense and are nothing more than a bunch of mudslinging. I think if people could stay on topic instead of parroting old, tired (and often dubious) talking points from their side of the aisle and sniping at others, it'd be fine.

I recognize it's a fine line. If you're incapable of recognizing that line, maybe just avoid the subject altogether.

 

[Orionblamblam]

Try WD-40.

Relatively simple alcohol molecules with traces of fusel oil.

 

[Arjen]

... with thread drift yet another, different annoyance.

 

[Yellow Palace]

... with thread drift yet another, different annoyance.

Thread drift into politics fairly regularly leads to me being off the forums for a couple of days, coming in to find a locked thread, and wondering 'what the hell happened here?' It's usually the same thing, and the same people doing it.

Anyone who's been here a while knows who they are and what their stances are, and they're not changing any minds.

The trouble usually comes with discussions around 'live' projects. I wouldn't be opposed to narrowing the scope of the forum to exclude them... but I'm probably in a minority there. Possibly a minority of one.

 

[Archibald]

Let me say that, even if they kick my ass from time to time, I appreciate the work of the moderation team. They are reactive enough, and pretty fair. I have two tragic exemples of two other internet adiscussion forums where the moderation has gone astray.

And no, this is not gratuitous bashing of these two places (which banned me a few times, ok ok but that's not the point here LMAO) but the harsh reality. I know many reasonable members at both places who are rightly baffled.

-NASAspaceflight.com : they just no longer care about the forum, obsessed as they are by (goddamn) Discord and SpaceX extensive coverage. End result : they do not ban a few members that are obviously trolling - or behaving like aggressive boneheads.

-AH.com : there the moderation (only three moderators) is abusive and undemocratic (and even worse).

https://www.reddit.com/r/AlternateHistory/comments/hnexug/the_mods_and_admin_of_the_alt_history_discussion

View: https://www.reddit.com/r/AlternateHistory/comments/hnexug/the_mods_and_admin_of_the_alt_history_discussion/

 

[dannydale]

I'm at the point of just agreeing to disagree and moving on. There are a lot of people here whose expertise should not be overshadowed by each other's differences of opinion.

 

[publiusr]

I recoil at this or that being "off topic."
There are examples of asides, thread drift where something that might seem unrelated could play a role.

 

[GTX]

I recoil at this or that being "off topic."
There are examples of asides, thread drift where something that might seem unrelated could play a role.

In such cases post an explanation why there is a linkage to the topic at hand.

 

[DWG]

I am relatively new here. I am a defense professional and I raised my concerns about political partisanship nonsense coming up in a recent thread.

While defense and politics are tangentially related, the whole "you can't discuss defense without discussing politics" argument is disingenuous

I don't understand how you can say defence and politics are 'tangentially' related. 'War is the continuation of diplomacy by other means', von Clausewitz.

We have multiple nations represented here, each of those nations have different political realities. Things that seem obscure and of minor importance to non-nationals may seem fundamental to those whose national interests are being discussed, and of critical importance in understanding the whys and wherefores of the development of their local defence projects.

For instance, consider the role of then German Defence Minister Volker Ruhe in the Eurofighter, whose progress he managed to derail for over a year in the early '90s by demanding an assessment of converting it to a simplified, single-engined design*, which related to certain campaign promises he'd made and his ultimate aim of becoming Bundeskanzler on the back of either cancelling the Eurofighter or slashing its cost. There's a case of domestic politics being not just fundamental to understanding Eurofighter development, but spilling over into the defence policies of at least four different countries. And even ignoring Ruhe, the costs of reunification are fundamental to understanding Germany's go-slow on Eurofighter funding in the early-to-mid '90s.

Politics is the hand inside the defence industry's glove.

 

[CiTrus90]

I don't understand how you can say defence and politics are 'tangentially' related. 'War is the continuation of diplomacy by other means', von Clausewitz.
[...] Politics is the hand inside the defence industry's glove.

You, unfortunately, cut his quote at the most important part:

when politically-oriented posts rarely bring up partisan politics in the context of defense and are nothing more than a bunch of mudslinging.

That's the whole point and the same one I was trying to make in one of my previous posts when I talked about "gaslighting".

It's not that politics should not be discussed because it doesn't relate to defense matters, but because there is a number of people here that seem incapable of getting a grip on their own feelings when discussing topics that relate to it.

Hence the conclusion he made:

I recognize it's a fine line. If you're incapable of recognizing that line, maybe just avoid the subject altogether.

 

[quellish]

Frankly the signal to noise ratio on the forum has been very poor. I like to think that most users are coming here to learn and share but I see most threads I read turning into knee-jerk reaction mudslinging.

And I end up not posting certain things or not touching certain topics, even if otherwise I might contribute something valuable. For example, I have limited my contributions to NGAD and FA-XX to…. Restating well known facts (ie FA-XX is a strike fighter)

Many users are not thinking before they post off-topic reactionary BS.

I am forced to carefully consider whether I want to post… anything. Will it even get seen in the noise? Why do we have to keep restating well known facts in certain threads?

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

I do agree. However, none of us were born experts. Without young people getting interested, the forum / hobby / interest eventually dies. Flight sims bring new people in to the forum for example. Different generations have differing attitudes and behavioural norms.

Navigating these waters can be tricky.

 

[quellish]

I do agree. However, none of us were born experts. Without young people getting interested, the forum / hobby / interest eventually dies. Flight sims bring new people in to the forum for example. Different generations have differing attitudes and behavioural norms.

Navigating these waters can be tricky.

I absolutely agree. In the last year I have seen new users come to the forum with enthusiasm and be turned away by the responses of more veteran users. I really do not like to see that.

If a kid interested in aircraft comes to the forum and is put off by the political gaslighting or intolerance for inexperience we all lose.

 

[Hood]

For instance, consider the role of then German Defence Minister Volker Ruhe in the Eurofighter, whose progress he managed to derail for over a year in the early '90s by demanding an assessment of converting it to a simplified, single-engined design*, which related to certain campaign promises he'd made and his ultimate aim of becoming Bundeskanzler on the back of either cancelling the Eurofighter or slashing its cost. There's a case of domestic politics being not just fundamental to understanding Eurofighter development, but spilling over into the defence policies of at least four different countries. And even ignoring Ruhe, the costs of reunification are fundamental to understanding Germany's go-slow on Eurofighter funding in the early-to-mid '90s.

But this 30-year old history now.
Discussion of past procurement is historical politics. As long as you're not analysing it with a partisan mind then its not strictly speaking politics, any more than if you write about dreadnought procurement in the 1910s or Tudor England cannonball production. You wouldn't wax lyrical about Henry VIII's wife swapping or Asquith's views on Irish unification whilst doing so.

Discussion of current politics is trickier, but there is a huge difference between reporting a politician's decision or broken promise on a particular defence project (which is all that should generally interest us on this forum) from generally swamping the forum with cheerleading support for whatever political doctrine/worldview the poster subscribes to while taking every opportunity to lambast supporters (in the widest sense) of the opposing doctrine.

Frankly the signal to noise ratio on the forum has been very poor.

This.
Every 'News and Analysis' thread of any major recent program has degenerated into fanboy fantasy wish listing, sloppy strategic thought and generally pointless arguing over tiny details.
I get it that folks get excited, but just chill and wait for the hardware to appear. Air Force officers are doing the specs, designers are designing the things - not internet forum nerds like us.
One article of real hard news is worth 100 posts of 'woulda, shoulda, coulda' speculation.

 

[DWG]

You, unfortunately, cut his quote at the most important part:

That's the whole point and the same one I was trying to make in one of my previous posts when I talked about "gaslighting".

It's not that politics should not be discussed because it doesn't relate to defense matters, but because there is a number of people here that seem incapable of getting a grip on their own feelings when discussing topics that relate to it.

Hence the conclusion he made:

Maybe I read the post and his conclusion differently to you, I tend to be a bit literal in interpreting people and to me I cut it at exactly the most important point. It seems to me to be saying that if you can't avoid discussing the politics, then don't post. But politics is often fundamental to the direction that technological development takes. cf Volker Ruhe and Eurofighter, why Taranis development stalled, the Sandys defence review, the retreat from East of Suez, the return East of Suez, AUKUS, etc.

I doubt we're going to agree, but the nature of defence means politics is going to keep coming up, and as long as the mods keep bonking us on the heads when we get out of order, then I'm happy with that. But any outright ban on mentioning politics is going to make many technological decisions impossible to explain or understand.

 

[DWG]

Every 'News and Analysis' thread of any major recent program has degenerated into fanboy fantasy wish listing, sloppy strategic thought and generally pointless arguing over tiny details.
I get it that folks get excited, but just chill and wait for the hardware to appear.

I don't disagree. Quellish put it well by referencing the signal-to-noise ratio. We're passing through a period of lots of newish users and lots of external politics affecting defence, hopefully it'll settle down.

designers are designing the things - not internet forum nerds like us.

Some of us resemble both those statements

 

[Brett Davidson]

Politics inevitably affects procurement etcetera and so on and so forth. If we didn't examine and try to interpret political influences, we would be unable to understand what is happening. Now someone - sorry, I can't remember off the top of my head - quotes Sydney Camm's observation that aircraft have four dimensions: length, width, breadth, and politics. All decisions have contexts.

OK, so, my feeling is, allow political explanation and interpretation on the understanding that it is not advocacy of a specific position unrelated to the topic of the thread. Preferably, political analysis should be framed as 'Minister of Defence Raymond Luxury Yacht was considering his liking of yogurt flavours when deciding to fund development of the nuclear eggbeater,' not 'chocolate yogurt is awful and only stupid people eat it.' Absolutely ban personal attacks and ridicule or advocacy of political causes that are not relevant to the thread's topic. Delete posts of this kind, ban repeat offenders from the thread. Accept the moderators' decision in the context of the greater good of this forum's continuation.

We all have lapses of judgement in moments of excitement. I've had posts deleted because of that. That's fine, I accept it in the interest of the continued functioning of this forum. After all, we're enthusiastically discussing means of killing each other. Acceptance of a few occasions of censorship is a reasonable price to pay. Sorry to the mods for the work that this entails.

Also, there is the ignore function. I use that for edgelords, obsessives, and those who debate in bad faith (moving goalposts etc.). So far there's only a couple. No matter the one-dimensional expertise of one individual, the collective knowledge of the forum as a whole compensates easily for their blocking. 'I'm too old for this shit' is a really good principle to follow.

 

[tychosis]

It seems to me to be saying that if you can't avoid discussing the politics, then don't post.

Nah, that's not really what I meant and I thought I made that clear later--but admittedly I ramble.

If you can't discuss politics and keep it within the context of how it impacts defense, then I'd advise just steering clear.

 

[tychosis]

In the last year I have seen new users come to the forum with enthusiasm and be turned away by the responses of more veteran users. I really do not like to see that.

This is my concern. I've been doing this a long time and I'm always looking for my relief. We need talent. Young people who come in and see a bunch of this nonsense are going to say "no, this industry isn't for me."

(It isn't the 50s anymore, no one is making big money. The people doing the work are generally there because they want to do the work.)

It's also very unsettling when I see that some of the provocateurs are senior members and top contributors.

 

[CJGibson]

Every 'News and Analysis' thread of any major recent program has degenerated into fanboy fantasy wish listing, sloppy strategic thought and generally pointless arguing over tiny details.
I get it that folks get excited, but just chill and wait for the hardware to appear. Air Force officers are doing the specs, designers are designing the things - not internet forum nerds like us.
One article of real hard news is worth 100 posts of 'woulda, shoulda, coulda' speculation.

I ignore these (NGAD, F-45 Doncat, Chengdu Boxing Day presents, FCAS etc) but I do enjoy some of the speculative stuff on Chinese AEW platforms.

However, please bear in mind that a lot of folk on this forum passed through this excitable phase during the Great 1990s Black Aircraft Flap(s). To paraphrase Fr Fintan Stack: We've had our fun.

Maybe let the pups have theirs?

Chris

 

[tychosis]

However, please bear in mind that a lot of folk on this forum passed through this excitable phase during the Great 1990s Black Aircraft Flap(s). To paraphrase Fr Fintan Stack: We've had our fun.

Maybe let the pups have theirs?

Yeah, I'll be honest--I don't generally have a problem with this. They can certainly be interesting but I'll concede that speculation like that doesn't really belong in a "news and analysis" thread.

I do have a problem when people get *way* out of their lane and try to speak with authority on topics they have no actual experience or expertise with, and I am sometimes really annoyed when people try to tell me how stuff I literally built "really works."

 

[EmoBirb]

I think forum moderation needs to be more streamlined to be honest. Above are two examples, one is borderline insulting, offering nothing, saying nothing, being completely useless as a notification.

The other one provides an explanation and offers an alternative solution to resolve the issue at hand. In essence it's a constructive answer and provides valid reasoning. It's objectively a better way to moderate the forum despite being a rejection of a report like the first one, it's fundamentally not comparable to the first reply.

I know that moderators aren't paid and do this in their free time, but if one has clearly no intent to moderate properly and act responsible, why be a moderator at all? It just doesn't make sense, it's like having a hobby you actually hate but doing it anyway and ruining it for others.

I don't mean this to be an attack on staff, or the person that made this crude remark in particular (whoever this may be). I just honestly believe that the forum would benefit from more consistency with regards to moderation. Something that has been touched upon in this very thread already. It's something that felt right to me to point out directly, in the appropriate thread to try and be constructive with regards to the overarching matter. Overscan has ran this forum for many years successfully and every user here appreciates that, myself included. It's a valuable resource for information and educated discussion. So the way things have been handled so far clearly works, but I think some improvements could be made with regards to consistency of moderation.

Kind regards.

 

[helmutkohl]

its likely to be two different moderators

 

[lancer21]

Didn't wanted to get involved in this discussion but yeah there is a serious problem with some mods who are arrogant and mocking towards members, using expletives etc. Since there are no names provided in the notification, who is/are the mods who send these messages, they should come out and own it, or quit.

I'm posting this because i recall now after reading the above that some months ago i reported a post from another member involving personal insults and the eventual reply i got back from someone was "something... something...(i can't recall the exact wording) you'll live". Wth is that? Now that i think of it i'm not even sure if something was done about that report.

So yeah nevermind that there are some members who keep derailing the forum with political posturing or just arrogant attitudes, there are some mods who seemingly are tacitly condoning that and even themselves display that kind of arrogance towards members. That is worse. Not all of them obviously, from my experience as well indeed Jemiba is doing a good job for example.

 

[Sferrin]

Didn't wanted to get involved in this discussion but yeah there is a serious problem with some mods who are arrogant and mocking towards members, using expletives etc.

Making it so it's not anonymous would likely clean up a lot of that behavior.

 

[DWG]

I am sometimes really annoyed when people try to tell me how stuff I literally built "really works."

Mind you, I've seen aircrew get into a real mess trying to explain how the stuff they literally use is meant to work. In one case I'm thinking of he'd segued from how the HUD worked to describing the MHDD instead and I'm not certain he'd noticed. Even though I'd team-led the display side of the HUD it took me about a fortnight to figure out he'd done that and what he really meant! God help anyone referencing him as an authoritative source.

 

[DWG]

Interesting case yesterday where my thread pointing to Fiona Hill's interview with the Guardian got shut down as political (which I'm fine with), but it does create the situation where the Strategic Defence Review is considered fine, but its co-author explaining her thought processes in writing it isn't.

 

[tychosis]

Mind you, I've seen aircrew get into a real mess trying to explain how the stuff they literally use is meant to work. In one case I'm thinking of he'd segued from how the HUD worked to describing the MHDD instead and I'm not certain he'd noticed. Even though I'd team-led the display side of the HUD it took me about a fortnight to figure out he'd done that and what he really meant! God help anyone referencing him as an authoritative source.

Yeah, sometimes there's an unfortunate tendency for operators of many different type of systems to believe they have an understanding they don't have. Driving your car to work every day doesn't make you an automotive engineer, operating the device you use there doesn't make you a computer engineer, etc etc.

And frankly, it isn't necessary to have that level of understanding to be an effective operator. I'm an EE but primarily work in integration, I can't say I completely understand the work of every adjacent discipline--a functional, abstracted understanding is fine as long as it's accurate.

(edited to add: I really should be fair. A lot of this isn't the operator's fault. There's bad "tribal knowledge" that goes around from boat to boat, or they learn bad habits and bad information from the intermediate maintenance/shipyard types who should know better than going off-script... but it happens, and I get a lot of guys who come from the fleet to work in my lab and I have to do a fair amount of un-training before any real training can happen. I get it--I was a sonarman first too, and I thought I understood things I didn't truly understand.)

 

[overscan (PaulMM)]

Okay, this topic is closed.

Publicly posting every disagreement with moderator's decisions is not okay. Moderators are unpaid volunteers, who are trying to enforce forum rules and make things better. We don't always get it right, for sure, but please contact me privately in first instance when you disagree with a moderation decision. @EmoBirb and I had a reasonably fruitful discussion in conversation yesterday.

Equally, if you wish to be a member here, you must de facto accept that the staff have the right to edit or delete posts. If a second opinion confirms the moderator's action, then accept that the process has been followed and move on.