Timothy – you have another forum you run, which has about 40 faithful followers, and may I suggest that may be a better place for this material?
No, I don’t.
If you mean PPL/IR, we have about 400 regular users, we only talk about aviation (IFR and touring) and I am just a member, not a moderator.
It is rather telling that you seem to label telling the truth about people of non European origin as virtue signalling. We have discussed in the past how that expression is used and by whom.
I’m more than happy not to discuss it particularly on a flying forum.
Turning the point always to try to make it them and us, when that is certainly not what I felt it was about does appear to be signalling your virtue over others. Especially with phrases like are we the baddies? A reasonable question but perhaps looking towards China or the IS Caliphate may be worthwhile too.
I mean generally speaking so called western civilised democracies are not imprisoning over a million muslims (uighur) and harvesting there organs, It’s also extremely rare for fully functioning first world democracies to go to war with each other (has it ever happened?).
Religious discussions are always going to be difficult, but I think it’s fair to pick out some of the very odd stuff. The mormons and the stone prisms being a particularly amusing one.
It seems to reasonable to point look and point out poor behaviour wherever it is occuring. I think at the moment china seems to be getting off remarkably easily for their human rights violations.
That’ll be a no to Noe’s suggestion, then? 
I find not arguing on these discussions and coming here to talk about planes or other lighter (even if not aviation) subjects much more relaxing (probably for Peter too)
Coming here and see things that one personally considers unpleasant spoils a bit the whole experience. I am always torn between saying something or just ignoring. I often feel a bit bad by not saying something, but some opinions are so clearly cemented that it ends up like this on both ends:
I’m sure I’m not the only one!
In real life, one can more easily avoid what one considers unpleasant discussions (/views) by selecting the people you socialise with. I can choose who to have relaxing / enjoyable time with, while, on a forum, not a luxury I have. Avoiding hugely divisive societal subjects (yoke vs stick seems fine!) probably ends up making a net better experience for every one.
In all fairness, while Peter sometimes can’t resist to a little jab on the “other” subject , I found he’s always did a good job at editing his own posts when called out (a quick remark being enough). I find that much easier/healthier than going into long arguments and trying to thread lightly so as to not go off the mark.
I am going to think about what can be done.
EuroGA should not be used as a platform for political posts, particularly if the poster writes very little on genuine aviation topics.
I think what has been done already is fine and nothing more need be done: the “depository for off topic political posts” can be ignored by anyone who doesn’t want to read/discuss political things. I find Timothy’s posts on the subject of refugees very enlightening, especially as pilot forums are almost always right wing echo chambers in the “off topic” section.
The key difference between EuroGA and more or less all the rest of social media (including nearly all other pilot forums) is that here you don’t get beaten up.
It is not really politics; most flying content on the “one-liner” sites which are taking over the internet (FB etc) is firmly left wing.
That makes EuroGA an attractive platform for airing all sorts of views.
The problem is when this privilege gets abused. Brexit stuff was banned for reasons already given, way back in this thread. We just got a load of variously thinly veiled personal attacks, dressed up to look like political beliefs.
This thread was created to absorb OT (off topic) and political matters which pop up in the main threads and drive the discussion off the rails. A certain amount of OT content is always ok; it makes discussions more interesting. To post in this section, the poster still has to usefully participate in genuine aviation matters. We have exactly the same issue with people promoting a business. This is allowed, and posts from commercial people are most welcome, but over the years we’ve had lots of people trying to promote their business while (sometimes clearly deliberately) contributing as little as possible, or posting garbage. Most mods would not hesitate to remove these posters, and rightly so. I’ve removed a number of them.
I have deliberately kept my right wing friends (all pilots) on my FB page so my left wing friends can interact with them and no-one is in a bubble.
Timothy wrote:
I have deliberately kept my right wing friends (all pilots) on my FB page so my left wing friends can interact with them and no-one is in a bubble.
Ditto. I have FB friends across the political spectrum and there is nothing more fun than making some vaguely political statement and then watching a rightie friend and a leftie friend (who are unconnected except via me) go at each other in the comments.
Timothy wrote:
When I read about what’s going on, I continuously ask myself “are we the baddies?”
Hilarious clip!
