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tychosis said:
I have to be honest, I watch arguments on technical topics between defense enthusiasts with some amusement--because I find a lot of people make confident assertions on topics they're woefully unqualified for. Rarely do they have any actual experience or expertise and they're often just parroting something they read from some OSINT chucklehead who has an equally poor/abstracted understanding of the underlying concepts/systems.

I've mentioned before, I've worked in my domain for a quarter of a century now--first as an operator, then in integration and engineering... and I've had people try to tell me how stuff I literally designed and built "really works" or how it's employed.

I don't understand it. I feel like there are too many enthusiasts who aren't genuinely interested in learning anything, they just want to collect a bunch of nuggets and factoids they have zero fundamental understanding of just so they can "win" some argument later. It's baffling.
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I feel you.
On reddit on places like warshipporn and warplaneporn, I often see obvious armchair enthusiasts constantly arguing with members that are vets or active duty with actual experience. In fact I remember one of them basically dismissing a pilot saying "your flying experience doesn't matter, because you have no experience in procurement like I do". This coming from some one who only posts pics of weapons from one specific country and gets very sensitive at any kind of perceived negative comment or criticism about it.

I'm around warships, warplanes, and armor nearly every day. We have active duty people from all over the world visiting us and collaborating. We are all professional, and those really into their craft, share their common interest with their foreign counter parts. None of us feel the need to argue "ours is better than yours". We also understand there's a lot we dont know about what we don't know.
yet some how, the internet is full of people who just because they read one factoid, think they are the expert of something lol.
 
helmutkohl said:
I often see obvious armchair enthusiasts constantly arguing with members that are vets or active duty with actual experience.
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Yeah... and frankly, there are instances where this is a possibly valid stance. I was an enlisted sonar operator who went into engineering, and there absolutely are technical and engineering details that operators only have an abstracted understanding of--because they don't need to build the thing, just operate it. Personally, my stance is simply that you need to qualify your statements. I know a fair amount of how a boat works outside of sonar, but I don't go pretending I'm an expert on everything submarine-related and make it abundantly clear when I'm out of my wheelhouse.

Truthfully, that's my litmus test. If I'm trying to decide if someone might have interesting ideas, I'll just take a peek at their history and if I find that they make confident assertions about literally every single weapons system and platform from orbit to the seafloor I don't bother. I know they don't have a depth of understanding that will lead to any meaningful discussion.
 
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tychosis said:
... my stance is simply that you need to qualify your statements...
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Exactly. And, when gauging the validity of confident assertions, I add bonus points to anyone willing to correct themselves (or even acknowledge an element of doubt).
 
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I get we don't want 10 stories of text but when a mod deletes everything but the reply, and then shouts at you, it comes across as childish and incompetent. At least leave what was being replied to so the context remains.

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Apophenia said:
Exactly. And, when gauging the validity of confident assertions, I add bonus points to anyone willing to correct themselves (or even acknowledge an element of doubt).
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I'm always telling junior engineers that if they've never heard an engineer say "I don't know" then they cannot be trusted.

I've seen too many senior, experienced engineers (who should know better) just answer a question with the first thing that comes to mind without clarifying that we could probably use a bit more analysis. I've also seen a lot of time wasted chasing stupid marching orders based on these off-the-cuff remarks.

I've been working in my domain for a long time--and when some amateur is making confidently incorrect assertions I can generally tell what old, tired sources they're using. That's frankly when I generally just tap out and think "fine, stay wrong." If I wanted to debate with Google or ChatGPT, then I'd just go do that without a middleman.
 
Archibald said:
Says the pot, to the kettle (Su-35 thread, cough). Unbelievable.
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I was not involved in the threads mentioned though, while other parties were (who were also participating in the thread you mentioned). Furthermore I don't make a scene about it in the feedback thread...
 
had said:
I used this topic to ask moderators for the reason of omitting my posts. Not always it's shown by whom the moderation was performed - so you can't ask them directly.
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When in doubt you can just ask any of them or Overscan and they can help you further. It does not necessarily matter who did what, because as far as I understand all moderators have the same rights, with only the admin having the ultimate say in any matter as the site owner.
 
EmoBirb said:
When in doubt you can just ask any of them or Overscan and they can help you further. It does not necessarily matter who did what, because as far as I understand all moderators have the same rights, with only the admin having the ultimate say in any matter as the site owner.
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Exactly this.
 
I believe the original intention of this thread was supposed to be about the forum structure, technical issues, and site suggestions.

Over time it evolved into complaints about moderation, a majority of which are "ok i understand that my post was deleted because of a rule (news only, excessive quoting, etc), but I'm unhappy because either my feelings were hurt or you didn't take care of other people doing the same".

I suggest this thread go back to what it was intended for.
As for the News only thread.. there's the speculation threads in other parts of the forum (like the F-47) where people can discuss more candidly, but it seems that it does not exist for every aircraft that's being hotly discussed, so it's something we can explore.
 
I think you are overreaching. Whatever reason is up to you but still. That's a lot of energy lost away from the necessary moderation of language, technicalities and else.
You mention the said so News Only threads but those are already a trace of the slip out of a normal path we have been. Not an example or a goal to follow.

Aviation is now prolific again after decades of scarcity and often more conformism than in any Soviet Comminttern... It´s time this forum adapts to the inherent increase in popularity that this brings and focus on the core that made its overall quality: readability, reliable information sharing (respect the poster!) or durability. Jumping on users takes according to the general and conformal view of the day on things or deleting their content without clear context isn't certainly the way to do it.

Don't take me wrong, I am not saying I know better. But still, the feeling for many is that of a rash.
 
tychosis said:
I'm always telling junior engineers that if they've never heard an engineer say "I don't know" then they cannot be trusted.

I've seen too many senior, experienced engineers (who should know better) just answer a question with the first thing that comes to mind without clarifying that we could probably use a bit more analysis. I've also seen a lot of time wasted chasing stupid marching orders based on these off-the-cuff remarks.

I've been working in my domain for a long time--and when some amateur is making confidently incorrect assertions I can generally tell what old, tired sources they're using. That's frankly when I generally just tap out and think "fine, stay wrong." If I wanted to debate with Google or ChatGPT, then I'd just go do that without a middleman.
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It's also how you react when challenged.

For me in the work environment it's, "Oh I didn't know that", or "I was certain, but now I wonder if I may have been mistaken", followed by, I need to check this to see where I got my understanding from.

If I'm wrong, I'm wrong and I now know the right answer, if they are wrong, I've been vindicated and have avoided the otherwise inevidable argument.

So:
  1. Say I may be wrong, or may have misunderstood, misremembered or been misinformed (which may be the case)
  2. Check, not to prove my point or to prove them wrong, but to identify why I believed differently to what they were saying.
  3. If I am wrong, admit I am wrong and move forward with accurate knowledge.
  4. If there is no clear answer and it is important, move forward with the knowledge we don't know.
  5. If I am right, I have proven so without the need for conflict.
  6. If they still want to argue, point at the evidence that everyone saw being accessed.
 
Arjen said:
Indeed. This one might be removed.
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Which is why I already requested his replies and my reply on the matter to be moved to this thread. As this is more appropriate to discuss the limits of 'News Only' as a form of feedback. I have enough self awareness to request such derailing requests to be moved, even if it includes my replies.

And I stand by what I've said, the reason that thread is so clean and still open after various days is because we at large adhered to the news only nature and because the mods cleaned up the couple instances of people drifting off too much. So I don't think anything should be altered from how the thread is currently handled, as it works well. Don't fix it if it's not broken.
 
It's really sad to see how biased this forum's moderation has become.

Some moderator/s have been deleting a number of post in the Saab Gripen E/F (Gripen NG) thread highly relevant to the operation of the Gripen, claiming that they are not related to the Gripen E. But an important part of the Gripen concept is how easy it is to maintain and turn around at road bases.

Some of the SAAB video material I posted and which is now deleted shows how this works on earlier Gripen models than E at road bases. And these videos are still totally relevant for the Gripen E since the road base concept is just as important now and a big selling point for the Gripen E as for any other model. It's simply part of the whole Gripen concept.

And then to cap it all, posts claiming its a weak platform engine changes are difficult to do etc by the eastern leaning parts of the forums population are all still there!

TBH, I've never some across this level of open bias before in any other aviation forum. And I've been around for more than 20 years. I'm an industry professional, having worked with the JAS 39 Gripen myself for many years and I find the level of open bias shown by some moderators here against the Gripen disgraceful.

So since this is a forum feedback thread, my suggestion to those in charge of moderating the moderators, is to reel in the blatantly partial moderators and restore some semblance of balance.
 
This thread is intended about feedback for the forum itself, not moderator actions in a specific thread.

As for the posts in the Gripen E thread, there were a number of posts that were focused on the older Gripen A-C models, including videos and pics that kept on being posted despite my warning to stay on topic (and the fact that we have a dedicated thread for the older Gripen where these posts can go to). Instead, they were blatantly ignored by many members. This was a mass deletion not targeting specifically you. However your posts in specific, has a tendency to make accusations about the member's characteristics, etc, which is not appreciated as they can be considered getting personal.

As for moderator bias, I personally am a fan of the Gripen and Swedish aviation and don't agree with some of what the other posters wrote about it. That being said, this forum is not supposed to function like an echo chamber. People are free to have differing opinions of aircraft.
 
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helmutkohl said:
This thread is intended about feedback for the forum itself, not moderator actions in a specific thread.

As for the posts in the Gripen E thread, there were a number of posts that were focused on the older Gripen A-C models, including videos and pics that kept on being posted despite my warning to stay on topic (and the fact that we have a dedicated thread for the older Gripen where these posts can go to). Instead, they were blatantly ignored by many members. This was a mass deletion not targeting specifically you. However your posts in specific, has a tendency to make accusations about the member's characteristics, etc, which is not appreciated as they can be considered getting personal.

As for moderator bias, I personally am a fan of the Gripen and Swedish aviation and don't agree with some of what the other posters wrote about it. That being said, this forum is not supposed to function like an echo chamber. People are free to have differing opinions of aircraft.
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From one of my deleted posts, which linked to a SAAB video which showed Gripen turn around at a road base, accompanied by this text:

“For those who worry about the time it takes to change an engine for a Gripen at a road base: Check the below video at about 1:15 in: They show 5 mechanics using 3 of the Swedish special hand operated pylon/loading cranes to do it, and it takes just 1 hour to do it!”

So this is not relevant?

That is a direct refutal of what @GTX claimed in posts #928, 930, 931, and 933. And yet you leave all of these four posts with erroneous information claiming this is not possible? And then delete my post showing @Wotan is right and @GTX is wrong? Really?

And to cap it all, leaving an animated smiley in post #928 ridiculing @Wotan 's claim in post #927 which in fact turned out to be correct?

I'm sorry, but I can't say I'm following the logic here. ;)
 
EmoBirb said:
Bias, hm?
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I think you are missing the point @EmoBirb : Everyone is of course entitled to an opinion, including moderators. Even bias. And it would be a sad day indeed if moderators were not allowed to have an opinion and voice them in a forum. However, with extraordinary powers (as in being able to delete posts) comes extraordinary responsibilities, which means moderators need to be held to a higher standard when moderating.

And yes, this is not the place to voice gripes about individual moderator rulings. And that has not been my intent. What I posted above connected to the Gripen E thread was an example of what I perceive to be a general forum bias favoring forum posters who are firmly entrenched on the eastern side of the fence. And those who moderate the moderators may, or may not agree. But it's still forum feedback. Just as the OP is asking for.
 
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I fail to see any "eastern bias" in the staff, the vast majority of which come from countries firmly in the western sphere of influence, active and involved mostly in threads related to western developments, especially of the cold war era. So this accusation is kinda off the mark. Sure you have Deino who's well versed in PLA matters, or Flateric who's from Russia. But that's it and even these two don't push any form of bias or agenda. Deino will at most delete your posts when you post complete nonsense that has been debunked several times already. But neither were involved in the Gripen thread. From an enthusiast point of view most moderators are probably leaning towards the US and EU side of things, but from a staff POV they are as balanced as they can get without upsetting people on either side of the spectrum too much.

Point is, due to personal bias by having worked on Gripens you wanted to prove a certain point in the thread, which is fine at first. But the scope of the thread is the Gripen E/F in particular, it's development, orders, combat operations, updates and the likes. Like the recent news from Brazil. The whole dispersed operations thing is not exclusive to the E models, not even exclusive to the Gripen even though the designers put heavy emphasis on facilitating such operations with reduced effort. And because it's only tangently related to the E/F models and more so descended into a general Gripen and dispersed operations debate, one of the Staff members took action and rightfully cleaned house. That involved your posts, my posts, post from other members including GTX (a moderator himself). To me that seems fair, despite having some of my posts deleted as well. Because I can admit that they were straying away from the core topic.
 
AndersJ said:
And yes, this is not the place to voice gripes about individual moderator rulings. And that has not been my intent. What I posted above connected to the Gripen E thread was an example of what I perceive to be a general forum bias favoring forum posters who are firmly entrenched on the eastern side of the fence. And those who moderate the moderators may, or may not agree. But it's still forum feedback. Just as the OP is asking for.
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As a forum feedback, I must agree with @AndersJ that I perceive in some moderations a strong bias towards the eastern side of the Courtain. I just hope that the forum administration will succeeed in keeping the forum as a discussion platform for everybody with a passion towards aircrafts and technics and will not let the forum to be aquired and transformed in an instrument of russian propaganda, especially now when the Russia has put itself in conflict with Europe and the rest of the Western civilisation.
 
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Wotan said:
I just hope that the forum administration will succeeed in keeping the forum as a discussion platform for everybody with a passion towards aircrafts and technics
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Thanks for the encouragement. Because it's going to be a hard task.

From the everyday readings from 2006, I've seen the forum losing most of its original spirit, which was "keeping the forum as a knowledge and research platform for everybody with a passion towards unbuilt aircrafts and technics".

The transformation into a "discussion platform" started about ten years ago and seems to have been successfully completed.

Are we fearing an eventual evolution into "a speculation and dispute platform for everybody with a passion towards various current events with special emphasis on armed conflicts and geostrategic rivalries"?

Depends on all of us...
 
Antonio said:
Thanks for the encouragement. Because it's going to be a hard task.

From the everyday readings from 2006, I've seen the forum losing most of its original spirit, which was "keeping the forum as a knowledge and research platform for everybody with a passion towards unbuilt aircrafts and technics".

The transformation into a "discussion platform" started about ten years ago and seems to have been successfully completed.

Are we fearing an eventual evolution into "a speculation and dispute platform for everybody with a passion towards various current events with special emphasis on armed conflicts and geostrategic rivalries"?

Depends on all of us...
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Unfortunately, this site is becoming more and more like a generic aviation sub reddit, with people arguing "my favorite plane is better than your favorite plane"
 
Antonio said:
From the everyday readings from 2006, I've seen the forum losing most of its original spirit, which was "keeping the forum as a knowledge and research platform for everybody with a passion towards unbuilt aircrafts and technics".
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Honestly, it's something I've noticed in most defense enthusiast communities. Staggeringly few people are actually interested in learning anything. Too many defense "enthusiasts" just want to collect and aggregate nuggets of information they they can later pull out to "win" debates with other enthusiasts. It's silly and pointless.

Why an actual defense professional would get so wound up over it puzzles me, though. I've been in the industry for decades and I don't really care. If no one wants to learn, it's no sweat off my back and no money out of my pocket.

Hell, I'd argue that having a bunch of misinformation out there is advantageous from a security standpoint!
 
AndersJ said:
I see now that my posts have been undeleted and moved to an appropriately named section, namely Gripen dispersed basing discussions.

Given the circumstances, I think that that was a very good compromise solution. So thanks to the moderator/s who took both the time to figure this out, and then make it happen. :)
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When moderating, actually deleting offtopic posts should be reserved for posts with no interesting content. Noone generally gets upset if you delete a such posts. If there's an off-topic but neverthless interesting side discussion happening, it should be moved to a more appropriate topic, existing or new, rather than deleted.

I've been less active in moderation for the last couple of years for various reasons. I'll try to be more involved.
 
Wotan said:
As a forum feedback, I must agree with @AndersJ that I perceive in some moderations a strong bias towards the eastern side of the Courtain. I just hope that the forum administration will succeeed in keeping the forum as a discussion platform for everybody with a passion towards aircrafts and technics and will not let the forum to be aquired and transformed in an instrument of russian propaganda, especially now when the Russia has put itself in conflict with Europe and the rest of the Western civilisation.
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And yet the most stridently pro-Russian or pro-Chinese users often perceive and voice to me a bias towards the western side.

Current events in Russia around internet access are deeply worrying in terms of making it increasingly hard for Russian users to continue to participate in the forum. We have a number of very useful contributors from Russia. It's worth remembering not everyone is Russia is a pro-war Putin supporter. If anything, the most stridently Pro-Russian users tend to be Russians living overseas, users from former WarPac countries, or Westerners.
 
overscan (PaulMM) said:
When moderating, actually deleting offtopic posts should be reserved for posts with no interesting content. Noone generally gets upset if you delete a such posts. If there's an off-topic but neverthless interesting side discussion happening, it should be moved to a more appropriate topic, existing or new, rather than deleted.

I've been less active in moderation for the last couple of years for various reasons. I'll try to be more involved.
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Sounds like a very sensible approach and thank you for getting involved. And I don't think anyone would disagree with the approach of removing posts with no interesting content. In addition, taking a sterner view on posts with thinly veiled personal attacks and/or posts throwing childish tantrums after loosing arguments would also be a huge step in the right direction. ;)
 
I see from the first post that this is a thread about the forum software.

Does anyone know why some threads are not visible to me unless I search for them? Take these two threads, for example:


They are not visible in the What's New page, and they aren't visible when I go to their respective forum sections. If I use the search bar I can find them, and if I subscribe to them I get notifications of new posts. Otherwise, they are invisible.

When I use an incognito tab, they are visible.

This is true regardless of device. Logged in = invisible, logged out = visible.
 
"I perceive in some moderations a strong bias towards the eastern side of the Courtain"

...The politics of moderators and old timers here isn't even disguised. Just go through their posts in the associated NASA or SpaceX threads.
 
Hi, got one of my posts deleted, have no problem with that really.
Just, the reason was "Joke, possibly in poor taste". I am sorry the mod deleting the joke didn't appreciate it.
Would gladly take any lessons and tutorials (pdf, vids...) on good taste, thanks !
 
overscan (PaulMM) said:
Joke post was this: https://theshovel.com.au/2026/03/25...negotiating-with-white-house-patio-umbrellas/

It was placed in a serious topic, not in The Bar. It's political, anti-Trump. Breaks forum rules on politics.

"Poor taste' was also about how the joke relies on the visual similarity of patio umbrellas to traditional Muslim garments like burqas (which are actually not very popular in Iran).
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Yes, I know what joke I posted thanks.
And yes it was making fun of Trump, but of his delusion and HIS likely perception of what Muslims would look, not making fun of muslims women themselves, and it's certainly not how I see them. Didn't thought it was that difficult to get, and sorry you took it at face value.

Now it was indeed political (if you take making fun of trump as political), and a joke, but I think you are the one joking here, because half of that thread is already political, there are numbers of jokes, “anti trump” or “anti something” posts as you might call it, there are even poeple being called "Jihadists" if you care to check.

That thread was “news only”, then some started posting politicians x posts , I pointed 2 - 3 times that this was political from poeple pushing their own agendas, and that the thread should be “operational news only”. Then the thread became “news and discussions “, now almost half is political and looking like "free for all".
If you really want that thread to be not political and serious, I think you have more work to do than deleting my silly joke and giving me "good taste" lessons, sorry.

Again, I don't care anyway my posts being deleted, any. I don't even care being banned. But please, next time you delete one of my posts, keep that kind of remarks for yourself. Because THAT pisses me off.
 
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galgot said:
Again, I don't care anyway my posts being deleted, any. I don't even care being banned. But please, next time you delete one of my posts, keep that kind of remarks for yourself. Because THAT pisses me off.
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That will win you a cookie. Maybe take your jokes elsewhere.
 

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