You may be wondering why Aktahoe1's post became inaccessible. I moved it to a private forum accessible only to moderators when it became apparent that he was in danger of being "turned in." I personally felt that he wasn't deserving of such treatment so I sequestered his post.

I've booted people from BCP before because I heard through the grapevine that they had reported fellow pilots to the FAA. While that's lawful, it's a detriment to the morale of the community and discourages open discourse about topics that could otherwise inform and educate, even if it's in regard to bad judgment.

Some pilots deserve it, when it's obvious they're a danger to others, and the only way to curb their behavior is through punitive action. Some people though feel that it's an acceptable way to settle a beef they have with someone who's rubbed them the wrong way.

That's an abuse of the trust our community members have, and an abuse of the FAA in my opinion. Do not misunderstand me, I'm not supporting covering events up, but alerting a federal agency is not the most productive way to educate or rehabilitate an offender. I don't support breaking laws or regulations, but I do value brotherhood and camaraderie more.

I created this site after becoming disillusioned with the pay-to-play format of supercub.org. I vowed that everything would always be free, because it's you, the users, that make it worth reading. However, if the only way to have a "circle of trust" (to quote the movie Meet the Parents) is to have a paid members only section, we'll do that, because I'm sure if you disregard camaraderie enough to turn in a guy like aktahoe1, you're not going to bother actually investing in the community with your wallet.

It's a pretty disappointing development.

I support you 100% Zane!!!!!!!!!!!!!

1SeventyZ,

I completely agree with all you've said and your approach to BCP. I have no problem paying and would do so in a heartbeat if necessary to maintain the trust of the members. It would be unfortunate that the couple of bad apples would force you to do that.

I'm here for the long haul, whichever way it goes !

Zane Ya gots my vote, and so does AK...

Hey "Z". I am with you 100% on your decisions on this forum. I would prefer that it stay as it is though.

Tim

There will always be 1% of any population that just don't "get" it. whether you pay or not. Just an opinion of course.

Zane,

Thanks for the explanation.

This isn't a site subject to the First Amendment (among it's members that is), and it is your site to generally run as you choose, with members as you choose.

But I would add that every community has its characters, a-holes, gossips, tattle-tales, and yes even cops Unless you want to rename this place backcountryutopia.org

One thing that I've been unpleasantly reminded of lately is how the search engine web-crawlers open up everything you post on here to anyone who gets lucky with a keyword. I generally stand by everything I post but at the same time I don't particularly like Google revealing my profile information or specific posts to anyone who happens to Google my name or the word "alaskaflyer." Same over at POA. On the other hand AOPA shields their forum from web crawlers.

So even if you don't want "paid" memberships, you could potentially shield the place with a more rigorous login scheme with a required cookie. Just a suggestion.

There is a fine line between a circle of trust, and an online forum circle-jerk (feel free to censor if that offends anyone) where everyone agrees with everyone and everyone pats everyone on the back. What fun would that be

Whichever you decide, I enjoy reading and posting on here, and I just thought I'd throw in my two cents as I am wont to do

I appreciate all Zane does in this forum. I think that whatever the common thread might be, the spectrum of human personalities will be found. I've met great folks and assholes in all walks of life. So I think you must deal with them as they come up. Each situation will likely be different. I don't think making the site a fee based forum would make a bit of difference. I don't think you can "filter" out these folks. There are too many "triggers" to set them off. This may sound a little like "steering by the wake", but you can consider it IFR if you please.
tom

once&futr_alaskaflyer wrote: I don't particularly like Google revealing my profile information or specific posts to anyone who happens to Google my name or the word "alaskaflyer."

I can make it so profile pages aren't crawled. However, if BCP is to be of any resource to the unknowing web surfer, our keywords have to be indexed. Unfortunately there is no way to exclude your username from the actual post containing the relevant information being indexed by Google about topic X.

once&futr_alaskaflyer wrote:There is a fine line between a circle of trust, and an online forum circle-jerk (feel free to censor if that offends anyone) where everyone agrees with everyone and everyone pats everyone on the back.

I totally agree. People need their balls busted on occasion, but unless they're grossly and impudently negligent, the ball busting should be done by their peers.

I think I may actually like you some day Zane

Zane Wrote
I totally agree. People need their balls busted on occasion, but unless they're grossly and impudently negligent, the ball busting should be done by their peers.

mr scout wrote:I think I may actually like you some day Zane

I totally agree. People need their balls busted on occasion, but unless they're grossly and impudently negligent, the ball busting should be done by their peers.

High praise,,,, from an A-Hole...

Let me know when, how much, and who to make the check out to....

M

Zane:

I'm with you 100% whichever way you want to go. It's too bad though that the group who like to sit around and memorize FAR/AIM have won a small victory of sorts on this one. That was a great thread.

The group you refer to are the ones who are quick to condemn anything they feel incapable of doing themselves. I found it comforting in Alaska that the unwritten philosophy of unconditional assistance meant that if I stuffed it up, the very next pilot to happen along would help me out of a jam without whinging about "What were your THINKING??!!", because he might be the next one to need help.

Sigh....

Keep up the good work Zane

BTW: Those guys who do the backflips on snowmobiles? They are ALL morons!

YB

Yellowbelly wrote: I found it comforting in Alaska that the unwritten philosophy of unconditional assistance meant that if I stuffed it up, the very next pilot to happen along would help me out of a jam without whinging about "What were your THINKING??!!", because he might be the next one to need help.

Yeabut: the next one that happened along after that would sawsall your engine off your mount and load it and your radio up and be gone before you even called your wife to tell her you were OK

Sign me up--again. As for the crawlers, is there really that much benefit to having the site so searchable? In light of what just happened, I don't think so.

Bad manners are bad enough. Name calling is not the tone on this site, and should be enough reason to send someone packing. What happened here is way beyond bad manners.

So what if the info was out there anyway, for all to see? The government's decision about whether to act might have been influenced by the level of interest/static/heat they got. So what if the government was going to get involved anyway? Someone needed to make sure of it. That's not right.

CAVU

alaskaFlyer wrote:

Yeabut: the next one that happened along after that would sawsall your engine off your mount and load it and your radio up and be gone before you even called your wife to tell her you were OK

Yep, too true. Guess I forgot to mention where everybody in the witness protection program ended up.

Sign me up, too!! Your doing a great job, Zane! Maybe there can be a way to do an interview process to weed out the Aholes !

Well it is unfortunate that some people were concieved when both parents were on LSD. Even more unfortunate that they ended up working for the government.

Tim

Zane I couldn't agree more! We all learn from posts like that. All the great comments gives all of us prospective. Makes me think of what I would do in a similar situation. If You take away any of it You loose a lot! If its free more will read and learn from the posts. I will stay in either way. I want the full story!
Thanks Stan

Zane- You are the tail gunner. You got our six covered. You can count me in.