On Anonymity, Moderated Fora, and Usenet

Dudley Henriques wrote:


Of course this Usenet moron has no idea that we just buried our son
after losing him to cancer.



My heartfelt sympathy. I know firsthand what cancer does to its victims
and their family.

romeomike wrote:
Dudley Henriques wrote:


Of course this Usenet moron has no idea that we just buried our son
after losing him to cancer.



My heartfelt sympathy. I know firsthand what cancer does to its victims
and their family.
Thank you. I appreciate your post.

--
Dudley Henriques

On Jun 9, 10:07 am, Michael wrote:
I'm seeing a lot of people leaving usenet quite publicly, in favor of
a moderated forum, because the signal to noise ratio on the group has
become so poor. This is of course their right and decision. I don't
intend to follow them, and that of course is mine. I will, however,
point out some major advantages of an unmoderated, anonymous forum -
like this one - for some of the topics we discuss.

Aviation is a highly regulated activity. In fact, I can't think of
any activity undertaken primarily for personal convenience or
recreation that is regulated at anythink like the level of personal
aviaiton. Cars, boats, motorcycles, parachutes, scuba - you name it,
and the level of regulation is much, much lower. What's more, the
regulations are out of touch with reality. Many are broken on a
routine basis, especially by the more experienced pilots.

At the same time, the FAA is full of busybody inspectors, some
actually willing to follow up allegations of pilot infraction
submitted by third parties. Any forum will, unfortunately, eventually
contain a snitch - someone willing to take what is said on the forum
and pass the information on to a third party in order to hurt the
poster. It was done here, and as a result many went anonymous.

Thus any forum that lacks effective anonymity limits discussion
tremendously - it would be like a motorcycle forum where everyone had
to pretend that we all ride the speed limit or less all the time,
because if you admitted to intentionally taking those 45 mph curves at
70 or disabling your rev limiter, someone could call the highway
patrol and get you investigated, and maybe get you fined or get your
license suspended.

Here's an example: There is a saying that if the pilot survives the
accident, you will never learn what really happened. This is true -
but incomplete. I've observed several accident and one incident (in-
flight control failure not leading to an accident) investigations
where I had inside knowledge - meaning I knew the people,
organizations, and aircraft involved - and in no case did that
critical inside knowledge wind up in the report. People were covering
their asses - and understandably so. I wasn't about to say anything
tot he feds either. As a result the NTSB reports read like works of
fiction, and there was nothing useful to learn from them. With
anonymity, I can (and have) posted such details here for people to
learn from. That's not something I can reasonably do without
anonymity.

Note that what I'm talking about here is minimally effective anonymity
- not enough to really keep anyone reasonably bright from figuring out
who you are, but the sort that would give you plausible deniability
and would significantly slow down a busybody FAA inspector. That's
really all that any of the long time posters here have.

The other issue is moderation. Moderation does generally help keep
the off-topic backbiting to a minimum - but at a price. The price is
that it has a chilling effect on controversy. It only chops off a
fraction of 1% of the on-topic posts - but they're the most
controversial fraction, the ones that challenge your most fundamental
core beliefs, the ones that have the potential to teach you the most.
That's the sort of thing that gets filtered by moderation. Too
inflammatory. They're VERY hard to write, very time consuming to
research, and nobody will bother if the moderator might just decide to
kill it.

Here's an example: Imagine if being a more conservative pilot made you
more dangerous, not safer. And that most private pilots would be
safer if they were less conservative, not more. That has to be
wrong. Doesn't it? It goes against the grain. I can make a very
solid case for it being true - here. Where some moderator doesn't
decide to filter it out because it can't be right. Not on a moderated
forum. No matter what the moderation policy might say about being
only to keep the discussion on topic, there are some things you just
can't say. Check out this link for a better explanation:http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html

There's no question that if all you are looking for is an online
version of the pilot's lounge, a moderated forum is the way to go. It
will be more polite, more congenial, more like a real pilot's lounge.
Only if that's your goal - why not just go hang out at the real
pilot's lounge at the airport? But hey - that's not my call to make.
It's your choice.

Michael

ASRS is a good example of anonymous reporting. But it is not fully
anonymous because someone at NASA reviews your information and then
strips your name from your message. They are effectively the
moderators. I would be fine with a usenet group which is anonymous but
moderated.

However, it is an undeniable fact that people who use their full real
names on usenet have rarely posted inflammatory messages.

The one big factor in favor of usenet is that it is fully archived and
searchable by google. There is literally millions of pieces of great
information from past discussions that you can't find anywhere else.
But if there is a way to allow google to search these private forums
as well, that difference would go away.

On Jun 9, 4:00 pm, Andrew Sarangan wrote:
ASRS is a good example of anonymous reporting. But it is not fully
anonymous because someone at NASA reviews your information and then
strips your name from your message. They are effectively the
moderators. I would be fine with a usenet group which is anonymous but
moderated.

Unfortunately, ASRS is also a good example of how that system fails.
It fails because the 'get out of jail free' provision is null and void
if the violation is 'intentional' - and you don't get to decide if
it's intentional, the FAA inspector does. Thus much of what you read
has also been tainted by large doses of CYA. I have, more than once,
participated as an advisor when an ASRS form was written by
committee. By the time we were done, we were as sure as we could be
that nobody could reasonably consider the violation intentional. Of
course in the process, the educational value was lost. There was no
real chance you could figure out what actually happened by reading it.

However, it is an undeniable fact that people who use their full real
names on usenet have rarely posted inflammatory messages.

Really? What do you define as rare? If you mean less common than
those who use their full real names (as far as you know - I've seen
more than one person use a real, full name - just not his) then I
actually agree with you. But if you mean too rare to matter (as in -
it would be a nice place if we could just keep out the anonymous ones)
then I don't. Robert L. Bass is just one counterexample, and he was
probably the most inflammatory individual ever to participate here -
right down to complaining to the employer of one of the regulars here,
trying to get the man fired or silenced. But if you want to go for
garden variety inflammatory, I also recall Craig Wall and Juan Jimenez
- and I'm absolutely terrible with names.

Michael

"Michael" wrote in message
...
On Jun 9, 4:00 pm, Andrew Sarangan wrote:

However, it is an undeniable fact that people who use their full real
names on usenet have rarely posted inflammatory messages.

Really? What do you define as rare? If you mean less common than
those who use their full real names (as far as you know - I've seen
more than one person use a real, full name - just not his) then I
actually agree with you. But if you mean too rare to matter (as in -
it would be a nice place if we could just keep out the anonymous ones)
then I don't. Robert L. Bass is just one counterexample, and he was
probably the most inflammatory individual ever to participate here -
right down to complaining to the employer of one of the regulars here,
trying to get the man fired or silenced. But if you want to go for
garden variety inflammatory, I also recall Craig Wall and Juan Jimenez
- and I'm absolutely terrible with names.

Michael

Not to mention Dudley Henriques and Rich Ahrens.

On 2008-06-10, Michael wrote:
garden variety inflammatory, I also recall Craig Wall and Juan Jimenez

Craig Wall did at least make up - in person. After all the flame wars,
he actually did show up at Pinckneyville, and the flames and
misunderstanding went away. (Well, aside from the flames coming out of
the back of the pulse jet he brought along).

It's amazing how meeting in 'meat-space' will change things.

--
From the sunny Isle of Man.
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