New Comment System Is Live

Comments are back and yes, they are different, but should offer a better experience for everyone except those who habitually abuse the privilege of expressing their opinions. As part of our platform update, we've added the Discourse forum hosting platform to handle comments. Those who want to comment on stories and blogs will have to reregister. Just click on the log-in button and "I forgot my password" to get going.


This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://www.avweb.com/aviation-news/commenting-now-live
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I might be one of the only ones but, I believe the new forum is a great improvement… This is the kinda thing that makes reading news and communicating with my fellow Aviators much more interesting and entertaining. :flight_departure:

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Not a fan of any kind of censorship unless there is a threat of physical harm.

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C’mon now! A free and open society allows it’s citizens to speak and voice opinions that they have short of messages that are hateful to others or promote violent action for some perceived wrongdoing. It is the fabric of social coherence and needs to be acknowledged and practiced by all it’s members. Social acceptance of our daily living issues changes with time so there is a “moving of the goalposts” quite often. Our opinions may differ but there is no need to deny the other the opportunity to express those ideas within the reasonable framework society allows.

Market’s will take care of themselves. Avweb is no exception.

This is the owner of Avweb and Flying and all the other publications he bought trying to control the narrative. Everything is about selling, selling and more selling. Flying’s website is basically a store. Avweb has lost its soul and now sells more then it informs.

In two years, 1/2 these sites and the mag will fold. He’ll realize that the flying community wants content, not commercialization. The commercialization comes with good content. He’s got it backwards.

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Thanks for adding commenting, and I hope you keep the censorship low. We benefit from different opinions, and bring our own critical thinking. Agree with tommy, markets will take care of themselves.

Aside from a bit too much SPAM, and the loss of some great talent, it all seems to be going okay given a change in owners.

If the world ends for GA, it will be because the powers at be manage to finally make private travel a thing only the super rich can afford. Killing off the 550 and 540 engines is what I’d watch out for.

salcirrus, I wonder if the owner of AvWeb and Flying does indeed have it backwards. Aviation Safety magazine, with Jeb Burnside at the helm, was a critical standalone - and in-depth - mouthpiece for safety topics affecting the GA community. Now, this magazine is owned by Flying Media Group, so, instead of Jeb being the editorial compass, perhaps it’s Craig Fuller, former AOPA director and the Group’s current CEO. In any case, the mag would do well to maintain its focus on aviation safety. Yes, I’m sure they will fill up the white space with ads, maybe even start pushing out content and shortening word count in favor of advertiser content, in which case your 2.5-year prediction of mags like Aviation Safety folding would most likely come true. But I xsincerely hope it does not come to pass.

But your web weenies forced me to create a new account, I’m running out of email addresses to use.
(Yah, some people may cheer about that. :slight_smile:

I have a question for the moderators: Each topic is followed by a “This topic will automatically close in X days.” notification. What does that mean?
A. “This topic will automatically close in X days after its initial posting.”
B. “This topic will automatically close in X days after you read it.”
C. “This topic will automatically close in X days after the last comment is made to it.”
D. “This topic will automatically close in X days after the last relevant comment is made to it.”

How did AvWeb determine that deadline, and what, if any, mechanism exists to revive or extend that deadline?

‘A’ is arbitrary, and therefore cannot be based on any consideration of the value of the discussion. It is merely a deadline for the sake of having a deadline.

‘B’ would make sense if one assumed that any reader who had a comment to offer, did so immediately. It has been my experience in AvWeb that I often revisit a topic of my particular interest, and offer further comments reflecting the scope or direction that the commentary had taken.

‘C’ would work if the deadline were in weeks or months. Many of the topics raised by an AvWeb article have been resurrected by subsequent events. Why have fourteen different “Boeing Door Plug” commentaries, with a large percentage of the comments re-hashing the previous ones, with the loss of cogent previous commentary, simply because it was not re-posted by someone?

One might suggest that ‘D’ is the only policy that ensures that every member has an adequate amount of time to contribute commentary on a particular topic. As the owner/moderator of dozens of discussion lists of various sizes and activity over the last thirty years, that is the only configuration/policy that has consistently worked.

If ‘A’ is in fact the criteria, I am personally grateful that you didn’t meet your original deadline. As one of the pre-show volunteer crew setting up and staffing Vintage Operations at Airventure, I was offline nearly the entire month of July. I’m quite sure that a large percentage of AvWeb subscribers have similar single-digit spans of time in which they cannot access AvWeb.

It would be useful to publish the the community guidelines FAQ as an article. I didn’t the “rules” until I opened the discussion. The more contributors understand the rules the better the discussion.

Having opinions is now considered a “privilege”? Got it…

Craig is buying up everything in Aviation media. Good for him, and I get that it’s small market and it makes sense to consolidate. But AVweb used to be my go to source. No more. Flying, no longer subscribe. Not missing anything anyway, and I’m tried of the real estate push, and ads. Their website is all about selling something. I’m wondering if that’s why Paul B left.

Your rights are now “privileges” and can be taken away if you’re “naughty”.

My guess is that it is pertaining to (A) as that is the default rule for many other website forums out there across many different platforms.

{test} – Oh good we can edit too. In any event those other options are probably too labor-intensive for moderation management unless AI can get involved successfully.

Opinions were always a privilege, smv. Charles McCabe of the SF Chronicle famously said, “Any clod can have the facts; having opinions is an art.” Of course, he was referring to thoughtful, researched, and defensible editorial opinions, not just how your gut feels about a particular issue. You are welcome to have whatever opinion makes you happy. Even better, in the US, in most circumstances, you are free to verbally express those opinions at whatever volume you can muster, to whomever is within earshot.

But you do not have a privilege to paint your opinion on your neighbor’s fence, without his permission and according to his rules. And like it or not, the company that publishes AvWeb built this fence we are all using.

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Blah, blah, blah… Buh-bye…

See, now it’s working… BTW, what’s up with Boeing’s 777x test machines having engine mount

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