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Creating a basic airport database (merged)

Well, in 2001, the internet as we know it now barely existed

If you started a forum – any forum, aviation, pedigree cat breeding, whatever – half the modem owning world would pile in. It was a golden era when everybody was mad keen to participate in every online community going.

Online communities grew fast. As the old saying goes, it is easy to make money in a bull market

All kinds of dodgy opportunities opened up too; you could have made 200k/year just by running a really crappy dating site, running on a PC at home. Knock up a few hundred fake female profiles (25-39, slim, looking for a casual relationship ) and 10k men would pile in each year, each paying 20 quid.

Over the years, most of these pioneering people got tired, found other hobbies, got beaten up too many times, died, got married, got a life, etc…

Today is different. For a site to be successful, it has to work well and it has to be secure. Then somebody has to put time into running it, stopping people trashing it, promoting it, stopping more people trashing it, etc I don’t mean to make money (EuroGA will never make money); I just mean look after it and give it a decent exposure.

We will try to do this project really well.

User guidance should not be necessary. The site needs to be totally obvious.

It will be open to all, of course. But if a site has no login to post, somebody is gonna be quite busy behind the scenes, just removing the fake passport ads, never mind all the stuff dumped in by people with other motives.

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Plenty of good ideas above. Maybe in the title of the free text field, suggest the writer to be precise like :

Your experience at this airport (taxi fares, bus lines, time to get airside etc…)

And for each bill given (pilot writing what he paid), ask the type of aircraft and duration of the stay. In SD, you have the bill and the aircraft type but not how long he stayed.

LFOU, France

Make sure that if asking for any prices that the price should be VAT inclusive. Too often prices seem to vary wildly, and that’s because some people are putting in VAT exclusive prices.

EIWT Weston, Ireland

Each data should be accompanied with date, so we can know how recent info is. In addition, some of us might give the consent to be contacted directly in order to provide some more details and advices.

LDZA LDVA, Croatia

These have probably been listed, but having just experienced a language barrier and some helpful pilots, I’d like to see:
- wifi details
- taxi information (local transport)
- courtesy car details
- quick link(s) to AIP info on the airfield (and/or the airfield website itself)

Indeed; all good stuff. Many thanks. Where to find the AIP is a key one, because this database should not be storing stuff for which the AIP is a primary source.

In addition, some of us might give the consent to be contacted directly in order to provide some more details and advices.

The current plan is to provide a clickable link to the poster’s profile on EuroGA. This profile is public anyway* and there, if you are a logged-in user with posting/PM privileges, you can send a PM.

I wonder if the clickability of that link should be configurable? If selected non-clickable, it would make it a bit harder to contact the poster, but you could still find the person’s profile (assuming he/she ever posted on the forum) and send them a PM. However only about 1/3 of all those who signed up have ever posted, so this would make the other 2/3 totally uncontactable.

The fully anonymous option is also possible but would be seen by most to produce reports that are worth less… Views? There are very good reasons for nicknames on a forum but are there good reasons for suppressing even the nickname on an airport report? Is somebody going to write something so negative about an airport that they want to conceal even their forum nickname?

Nothing stops someone putting an email address in the free text comments, but it would be a recipe for getting spammed. Even phone numbers aren’t safe these days.

* except that the public email address configured there (most people don’t have one there, which is sensible) is visible only to logged-in users

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

Peter wrote:

The fully anonymous option is also possible but would be seen by most to produce reports that are worth less… Views? There are very good reasons for nicknames on a forum but are there good reasons for suppressing even the nickname on an airport report? Is somebody going to write something so negative about an airport that they want to conceal even their forum nickname?

The only reason why I wouldn’t be happy to reveal identity (i.e. publicly post e-mail address or phone number) is spam. Other than that I don’t have any problem writing my full name when commenting something in positive or negative fashion – I always stand behind my words and the way how I express my opinion. However, I appreciate the reasons why some people have to remain anonymous and I’m not against anonymous posts in this database. IMO it’s better to have anonymous post than to force people to open another profile on EuroGA if they don’t want some report to be connected to their usual profile here. In other words, I would always leave poster’s forum name to be clickable (what’s the difference between leaving it clickable in database and being visible which can be copy-pasted to search EuroGA forum?) but I would also leave the opportunity for post to be anonymous.

LDZA LDVA, Croatia
Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom

@Peter I’m itching to add a few details to this database…
Flew through a couple of airports, and looking at hangarage for the SE England area, and can’t find nearly enough online.
I’d love to add these details to the list as well.

It is intended only for fly-in type scenarios, but I’d still love to add hangarage fees (and what they include, e.g. Gloucester includes landings for 500 pounds a month)

Last Edited by AF at 23 Sep 20:43

It’s coming along

Administrator
Shoreham EGKA, United Kingdom
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