Changes to the Training Forum - What do you think?

[DarkSarcasm]

Failing any further posts of constructive advice and suggestions I see a way forward on this is to have two forums - a general Students & Training Discussion forum plus the forum as it is now where a student can get special treatment.

I like this idea.

 

Sometimes you post in the training forum for an answer to a specific question other times you merely want other opinions on something.

 

For example, with my post on 'how to land' a while back, I wasn't asking a specific question (i.e. how do I land?) I was asking for other opinions in case someone said something that worked for me and helped me get around the issue I was having at that point.

 

I do think that the place to ask specific questions and get answers from qualified FIs is a good thing. Sometimes you have a question you intend to ask your FI but know that you may well forget it by next lesson or something - posting on here gives you an answer to that question while it's fresh and it's not like you can't ask your own FI later.

 

Just as a note, I think it is really important for everyone to remember to try and stay away from statements such as 'Your FI is wrong!' or 'You should change your FI now!'. I don't think statements like this help, for a number of reasons.

 

1. It encourages the student to distrust their FI which, particularly in the early stages of training, is a bad idea IMO
    
    
   
2. Their FI isn't here to defend themselves. Sometimes I've felt that I've done my FI a disservice by posting on here, because he isn't here to defend himself from any criticism. It's important to remember that what may be posted here by the student and what may actually have been said/done by the FI could be two very different things - whatever was done/said has been absorbed into the mind of a inexperienced student then restated here - it may not always come out sounding the same as when it went in!
    
    
   

 

 

I realise that many (all?) of the questions I've posted in the Training forum have been stupid/pointless/off-the-wall and I may well be one of the "dummies" that a few of the survey responses were talking about, but I asked them for either of two reasons:

 

1. I wanted to put it down somewhere so I'd remember to ask it next lesson (and I was interested what people here would say); or
    
    
   
2. It was some random question that popped into my head and I either decided wasn't worth using up lesson time asking or wasn't really relevant where I was up to in training but I was curious anyway
    
    
   

 

 

But despite the pointlessness of some of my questions, some of them have generated some interesting discussion (and some haven't...)

 

So, basically (turning into a longer post than expected, this), I like the idea of two forums - one where you can ask specific questions and one where you can ask pointless questions which may lead to an interesting discussion or may not but are more looking for opinions than a definitive answer :thumb_up:

 

 

[Thx1137]

I am 100% behind you there Ian. There is nothing wrong with trying to increase the signal to noise ratio of a forum. I don't subscribe to the idea that we should never do anything unless we can be 100% accurate. We would never have oozed out of the primordial sludge!

 

The main two caveats I have are:

 

1. People know that the information is "take it or leave it", ie. not gospel so they accept responsibility for taking or ignoring advice.

 

2. There is little aveneue to be sued for any information received. (there is never "no" aveneue, even if you say nothing at all!)

 

Steven.

 

 

[Guest rocketdriver]

Right...time to say my piece

I see a way forward on this is to have two forums - a general Students & Training Discussion forum plus the forum as it is now where a student can get special treatment.

Your thoughts!

Hello Ian. One of the issues raised by many including yourself, is that inaccurate or inappropriate advice on flying technique and fact often creeps into the general discussion forum and that this can lead less experienced pilots into false belief or understanding.

It has also been said that the true nuggets can be hard to find amongst the light-hearted and lively banter that is a feature of a friendly interactive forum.

 

I'm not sure if this is practical, but perhaps threads in the general discussion forum that touch on serious flying matters could be copied (not moved) into the student forum after sufficient time has passed that the thread becomes more or less inactive ..... The moderator doing the copying could leave a note in the thread to let everyone know that it has been copied across and what the new name is .... Once in the student forum it could be retitled if need be to better reflect the nugget(s) therein and moderated to include those nuggets in the name of the contributing poster whilst removing off topic material. This way

 

1. The student or otherwise enquiring pilot has a single resource to focus on to obtain good advice (that does not interpose itself between them and any training that they may be undertaking). This advice would be in the form of the moderated posts plus further comments, if any, by the mentor group, plus threads of questions posed by enquirers and answered by the mentor group.

 

2. All forum members have access to a light hearted (hopefully!) and lively discussion group in the general forum, and also to a moderated information source in the student area.

 

3. Accurate and useful contributions on serious flying questions are publically attributed to those creating the response to their fellow members genuine enquiries.

 

Hope this helps your deliberations

 

 

[Tomo]

Failing any further posts of constructive advice and suggestions I see a way forward on this is to have two forums - a general Students & Training Discussion forum plus the forum as it is now where a student can get special treatment.

:thumb_up::thumb_up:

 

I'm with DarkSarcasm with what she said...:thumb_up:

 

 

[Guest Crezzi]

Does the host s/w have the smarts to be set up so the creator of a thread could choose whether they wanted it answered by mentors only or not ?

 

If so, you wouldn't need two Training Forums - just a means to identify which threads are restricted.

 

John

 

 

[Admin]

Thanks Crezzi - in software anything is possible however this would require some extensive coding to change permissions, change the database for an extra field, change many pages etc.

 

It can be done...do you think it is warranted?

 

Thanks Mate for the suggestion

 

 

[Guest Crezzi]

Maybe not if you can achieve the same functionality with minimal effort by having 2 training forums . 80/20 rule applies ! Whats the s/w written in btw ?

 

 

[Admin]

Many things mate - over 20 different applications plus extensive own development and paid for customisations by two separate software development houses here in Australia and we use two completely different hosting companies (1 here in Aus and 1 in the US) - I will give you a ring

 

 

[sleemanj]

Now, off the soap box and back to the question...What would you do if you were given this information?

I would have made a moderated forum and appointed suitably knowledgeable people from different areas of aviation to be moderators (not limited to instructors), plus a few general "staff".

 

I would have also added a means to clearly indicate in that forum if a post is from a (verified) instructor (eg, change the background colour of the post so it really REALLY stands out as "probably good advice").

 

Even age-old experienced instructors get it wrong sometimes or simply have different opinions, even on fundamentals. Like wise, even low time pilots get it right sometimes, and have valuable contributions to make.

 

The student's task since long before the dawn of the internet, is to interpret what instructors tell them AND the general hangar chat, and whatever other sources of knowledge they draw from, then put all this together to form their own opinions.

 

There should be no spoon feeding "this is the answer" from somebody without the possibility for open, civil and organised debate if somebody disagrees, if people don't think about things critically and discuss things, there is no advancement in the combined knowledge (ie "flat earth").

 

 

[Bidgee]

The student's task since long before the dawn of the internet, is to interpret what instructors tell them AND the general hangar chat, and whatever other sources of knowledge they draw from, then put all this together to form their own opinions.

There should be no spoon feeding "this is the answer" from somebody without the possibility for open, civil and organised debate if somebody disagrees, if people don't think about things critically and discuss things, there is no advancement in the combined knowledge (ie "flat earth").

Amen - not often I agree with a Kiwi but the comments above sum it up nicely :-)