No, that other channel is free to read – for those who pay for some of the other features it offers 
However, EuroGA has ~1200 “apparently real pilots” reading it every day. We don’t know who they are of course but the overall stats are totally clear. Most forums behind a paywall have a negligible readership, especially in Europe (some US type specific sites are quite busy, but the community there is 10x bigger, and 100x bigger when you allow for the single language and a homogenous culture). The one you refer to, PPL/IR, consistently had ~40 in total ever (I was a member for 10 years until Dec 2015).
So, assuming one’s objective is to encourage GA activity, there is no prize for working out which place is better to discuss the stuff 
I realise that is not everyone’s objective (for example, a few people’s objective is just to beat somebody up ) but it is definitely the EuroGA objective
The problem with building a site behind a paywall is that you then have to work flat out to keep replacing those who leave when they get the bill, and keep generating content which doesn’t appear anywhere else. You also discourage (implicitly, or rather directly) participants contributing content to other sites; I was told my writeups would not go into the magazine because I put them on my website also. This is yet more difficult if you also force full names to be used in the in-house forum because nobody with any sense will write anything really controversial under their full name.
It is not the intention for this to read like a criticism of PPL/IR, which has had some great people working for IFR GA over the years. I just want to get the message out that some things are much much bigger and much more effective if you want people to get out there and fly.
So, I hope Timothy posts a summary here at some point, since he posted the question here too
Did I understand correctly that people from PPL/IR gather data over here with the intention to publish results of the research only over there?
No-one could accuse PPL/IR of keeping information to itself. We are extremely liberal when it comes to information dissemination, it is a prime function.
However, we have not yet decided exactly how to distribute all the stuff we are producing at the moment, that is still under discussion.
Why does GA always have to pull itself apart like this? And why does @Robin_253 think that @Peter speaks for PPL/IR? He doesn’t!
If you want to know about PPL/IR, please ask me, @Bookworm or @JasonC. I am sure that other Board members may also be on here, but I don’t know their handles.
On the specific point of
Robin_253 wrote:
Did I understand correctly that people from PPL/IR gather data over here with the intention to publish results of the research only over there?
Any information posted here is here for everyone to see, which is great. That is one of the great things about EuroGA.
Timothy wrote:
Robin_253 wrote:
Did I understand correctly that people from PPL/IR gather data over here with the intention to publish results of the research only over there?
Any information posted here is here for everyone to see, which is great. That is one of the great things about EuroGA.
Well @Timothy your post doesn’t answer my simple and straightforward question, does it?
If I remember correctly some people were surprised that Garmin takes taxpayer sponsored IFR charts, rebrands them and uses to generate income. I was just trying to understand if a similar mechanism is used in case of this forum or rather contributions of it’s members.
Robin_253 wrote:
Well @Timothy your post doesn’t answer my simple and straightforward question, does it?
Timothy wrote:
However, we have not yet decided exactly how to distribute all the stuff we are producing at the moment, that is still under discussion.
As a result of a change in structure, we are producing a lot of material at the moment. It is meant for wider dissemination, as it is about safe operations, which is a prime driver of the organisation. But how we disseminate, via magazines, YouTube, Seminars etc has not yet determined.
We do a huge amount for the wider GA community, both IFR and not, entirely voluntarily. Personally, I probably do at least a 20 hour week for PPL/IR, not only unpaid, but at my own expense (I don’t claim any expenses, even if I fly to a meeting and stay in a hotel.)
Just one example is my PBN seminars. I think I have addressed somewhere around 3,000 pilots. Many here will have attended my talks at Friedrichshafen. I do that for free and at my own expense (the only exception being Friedrichshafen, where the organisation pays for the hotel, but we still pay for our own meals.) There was one famous occasion when I was asked to pay for my own attendance at my own seminar (it was only £2, but nonetheless )
It is scandalous to suggest that I, or any of my colleagues, are in this for profit, or even any kind of self interest.
We are extremely liberal when it comes to information dissemination, it is a prime function.
That’s not quite entirely the whole story though, as I recall from when I was there, the Ts & Cs prohibited the transfer of forum information outside. Not just confidential information but anything. The concept of “confidential” is totally daft anyway because anybody can pay and join and read past posts – as some found out to their cost some years ago.
It’s all a bit daft since all information creates a general “cloud” of knowledge and everybody exposed to it gets (hopefully) a little bit smarter, so one cannot practically partition information according to where it came from.
The problem with a site which needs a €€€ subscription is that the members feel the need to post (what they consider to be valuable info) only inside that site. It is a self perpetuating system. We have seen this tendency expressed here with regard to COPA, CPA and others, too. Several chucked their toys out of the pram and left when we didn’t allow the posting of links into (the pay portion of) COPA for example – simply because only those who pay COPA the $50 or so a year can read the link.
I think it’s all silly and has a negative effect on GA as a whole since the vast majority of pilots are not paying members of any of these and never will be. David and I have done a lot of work to create a nice pleasant informative site which people should feel they can contribute to because it is nice pleasant and informative, not because they paid €X. This comment can be taken as being “anti” some pay site but is intended as a general one.
Peter wrote:
That’s not quite entirely the whole story though, as I recall from when I was there, the Ts & Cs prohibited the transfer of forum information outside. Not just confidential information but anything. The concept of “confidential” is totally daft anyway because anybody can pay and join and read past posts – as some found out to their cost some years ago.
That is very interesting. I was a member, but did not realise that was the case. You make a very good point.
It is also interesting that various forum have tried the model of paid for access. It seems to me most have moved away from that model for various reasons. I wonder what the advantages are perceived to be?
Timothy wrote:
Timothy wrote:
However, we have not yet decided exactly how to distribute all the stuff we are producing at the moment, that is still under discussion.
Thanks for clarification. The way I understand it: One is doing research here and maybe, just maybe, results of this research will be disseminated here. But maybe not. Maybe I will have to pay 70 quid to read it. Kindly correct me if I misunderstood. English is not my mother tongue.
Please don’t take it personally, but I’m sure other people her also contribute quite a lot to the euroga community but I don’t remember for example the moderator writing long posts on how much time, effort and money it costs to run this forum. I don’t know who suggested that you are “in it” for profit, certainly it wasn’t me. I suggested that Garmin takes advantage of taxpayers founded resources to generate revenue. What makes things worst, the company is not 100% transparent about it. A smart person might see similarities between this setup and you doing research here while somebody else talks about different communications channel. Don’t know how many of us her knew what this communications channel was. I honestly didn’t.
