It is a lot better on a properly moderated forum, and EuroGA is probably the only one like that in Europe (well, that has any significant activity). On facebook, forget it, and the same on any aviation forum I have ever seen in Europe that carries adverts (all have to be de-moderated, to maintain the traffic levels).
Otherwise, the old saying holds true: never fight with a pig because you both get covered in sh1t and the pig enjoys it 
Normally, getting criticised doesn’t bother me, if the topic is helpful to others. I have posted a fair few of my videos with mistakes in them 
One issue however is that a mod/admin is a bigger target than most others and this has led to a lot of problems because a forum can develop an axis along the lines of “beat up the mod → hero, and beat up the mod and get banned → martyr”. It tends to be a tiny number of people but they do create a lot of work.
Yes, I agree that is a substantial topic in itself, recounting situations that may directly impact on you personally. I suppose even the case I had in mind might have resulted in some owners questioning why the need to mention it only to result in making it more difficult to sell their craft.
I get occasionally beaten up somewhere else mentioning AOPA UK, which I do only because it saddens me to see the state of affairs it has got itself into, and I actually hope they sort themselves out because I was a member for a long time and have always been a member of AOPA in the States. There is a fine line to walk sometimes and it is interesting hearing the experience of others.
BTW Timothy well done for mentioning the SI., it must have taken a little courage and was very interesting to read.
Well, I for one would like to thank you, Timothy, achimha, Peter, and everyone else who is brave enough to share their more and less serious mishaps. I’d like to think that your openness about those issues will, one of these days, help me, and countless others, out of a bind. Or, in some cases, keep me/them out of one. Besides, reading about them is a thrill in it’s own right. Please, do keep it up!
FWIW, there are times when I refrain from posting, but that doesn’t deprive the world of any knowledge, just means there is one less smart Alec-ish comment out there.
This popped up the other day when talking to someone. A big reason apparently for reading and not posting is that someone is active on another forum or in some GA organisation and would be accused of disloyalty
It would depend on what the consequences might be and whether the information can be posted in a way which is useful to others (my primary motivation behind posting) while not identifying the party or parties involved.
That is the best way to do it, of course, but if I thought you were reproducing information I had shared with you in confidence, in a strictly non-forum context, I would be disappointed, no matter how tactful your posting and no matter what the intention.
Some things are best handled privately.
Sometimes I refrain from posting because people tend to be emotional on some topics and not everybody is ready to accept good dose of black humor
Sometimes a whole week goes between me reading the forum.
I May find a topic of interest, and could really answer a post on page 2, but cannot go through pages 3 to 12 to check if the answer was given already, so I don’t.
A major barrier to posting questions for me (not necessarily on EuroGA) is that people don’t bother to read them properly and answer a question that hasn’t been asked. Tends to be where there’s a longer winded explanation, but true of simple questions on occasion.
I don’t post any answers/advices when
- the person enquiring is on my personal blacklist
- the person enquiring has a totally empty profile
- things have already been answered several times in other threads
- a post comes across as too opinionated
- it’s about Cirrus aircraft (waste of time usually)
