How to save the NHS England £150 million per annum.

I can move the thread to the off topic thread. However it is not a trivial decision; some factors need to be considered:

• Currently the description of the Hangar Talk section does not exclude non aviation topics. We can change that, but (a) it is debatable both ways because many aviation topics belong squarely under HT and (b) a vast number of aviation topics are already in there and it would be a shame to dilute these because many people visit HT expecting aviation topics.

• The off topic thread was created to absorb (a) political and similar stuff not related to aviation but posted in significant quantity (a reasonable amount of off topic stuff is always allowed and left in place, otherwise EuroGA would become a very “dry” site) in previously running aviation threads; (b) comments of no relevance to aviation, including some intended as “mod baits” by posters with a history of such; (c) off topic posts by certain (currently no longer present) poster(s) who created vast numbers of off topic posts but removing these resulted in toys flying out of the pram and extremely derogatory/defamatory posts elsewhere on the internet, and the off topic thread should be a way to reduce the chances of this (note that in any other forum anyone taking on a mod or admin is removed instantly).

• Various good contributors have told me they rarely read the off topic thread (which doesn’t surprise me)

• We should perhaps have a section called something like “The Pub”, or perhaps “Apres Fly” However one still needs to restrict certain behaviour there, because it is not possible to write something on one part of a forum without repercussions elsewhere. For example there is a ski forum which has such a section, which predictably has grown a brexit thread which is now as big as the rest of the (~15 year old) site and if a brexiteer makes some post there, he gets his throat cut in the ski sections afterwards when discussing purely ski stuff. Such is the venom, vitriol and spleen venting generated by some topics. Brexit is of course a special problem for an international forum – EuroGA. There is no solution to this; if a poster posts something in The Pub section saying that women belong in the kitchen (or pick your favourite inflammatory comment), everybody will regard him as an idiot even if his contributions elsewhere in the forum are outstanding. I don’t know of a solution to this, other than advise people who are looking for somewhere to vent their spleen should just do it on facebook etc.

I fully agree with Noe above but the only solution I am currently offering is a suggestion that people stick to aviation topics in Hangar Talk I don’t think this issue has come up before significantly since EuroGA started.

Given that it is easy to ignore a thread, I see little need to ban discussions like this.

So personally, I would prefer it if they just remained.

This is different from moving individual posts from otherwise aviation related threads to the “off topic” thread. These posts can derail threads and make them useless, and ignoring them does not help because the discussion, once off track, rarely recovers.

So I would say the way it is now (move posts, leave off-topic threads, ban stuff that can only be toxic / – don’t mention the war Brexit) is about right

Just my thoughts.

I agree with Cobalt