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  • May 29, 2020 at 9:47 AM #8716
    David Webb
    General Member

    All,

    Hope everyone’s pitchforks aren’t sharpened up, but here goes. Attempting to accommodate as many of you as I can, although there are a lot of conflicting concerns/requests.

    Some of you have privacy concerns with having your name out there on the website, and yet there are other concerns about allowing people to post content behind the cloak of anonymity. Honestly, I get both sides of that. Quite a few solutions to that, but many of them end up dissing one side or the other or letting the bots and spammers to run rampant, so here goes with the most middling approach:

    • We still require that you use your first and last name on your account. This both makes spotting bots simpler and prevents folks from posting whatever they want from a position of anonymity.
    • Access controls will be added to the forums and the Member Directory so that you have to be a registered user to see that content. This prevents search engines and randos from scraping for content and names.
    • We can leave some of the forums open to anyone (I propose leaving open the Weather and Pilot Alerts forums so that visitors and travellers can get to that information easily). Suggestions for other forums are welcome. This would be a heads-up for those that don’t want their names to be publicly-visible to not post in those forums.

    Will turn this on soon, but feel free to reach out with any concerns. info@crestlinesoaring.org.

    Thanks for your understanding.

    June 1, 2020 at 1:40 PM #8823
    David Webb
    General Member

    Privacy-concerned citizens: access controls on the forums are now on. Now, only logged-in users and members can see the majority of forum content (including the author names), so your names will be more protected. The following 3 forums have been left open for the public to see, as a service to the wider community:

    If you have strong concerns about your name being put up anywhere online, do not post in those 3 forums.

    EDIT: same access controls are on the member directory as well, so if all you want to do is square away your membership without making your name public, you can do that as well.

    June 1, 2020 at 8:46 PM #8831
    Alan Coffield
    General Member

    I strongly favor leaving “Pilot Reports” unrestricted. Actually the only forums that I think should be blocked from non-members would be a forum or threads where we have “in house” discussions or arguments on heated issues that would project a bad image of the club to visiting viewers.

    June 1, 2020 at 9:18 PM #8834
    Alan Crouse
    General Member

    David:

    Perhaps a poll?  You have had feedback from various sources that individual posters will not have heard.  A couple of thoughts:

    a) some forums restricted to only forum members (current proposal);

    b) most (except member discussions) forums open, but names suppressed unless you are a forum member;

    c) use of pseudonyms for posts, but forum members can see ‘real’ names;

    d) ?

    I’m sure there are more options that folks have mentioned to you.

    Thank you,

    Alan

    June 2, 2020 at 12:17 AM #8835
    Jerome Daoust
    General Member

    Similar discussions were held at the start of the international Paragliding Forum, which has 49633 registered users today. The use of real names greatly improved the signal to noise ratio, with people feeling more responsible for what they post, having their real name next to it.

    There will be people who desire saying what they want, while hiding behind anonymity and claim “privacy concerns”. Those people can avoid posting where their comments are made public. While people unafraid of stating who they are, should be allowed to share publicly what they want.

    Where there is no choice (as in the CSS member directory), then personal information should not be made public, and only visible to those who need to verify their good standing with the club.

    Impossible to make everyone happy, but the above has been proven to work elsewhere.

    June 2, 2020 at 7:26 AM #8836
    David Webb
    General Member

    So far, the voice that wants for the forums to be public has been the loudest. I’m interested in the choice here that satisfies the most people and excludes the fewest from participating.

    I would not like to go down the road of developing a complex solution of code and rules that mixes pseudonyms, real names, and privacy controls across different parts of the site, so what sounds like the answer here (and feel free to raise any objections) is:

    • Leave the member directory as-is (only users can see that)
    • Open the forum back up – those with privacy concerns should not post in a public forum

    Comments welcome. This is a process and changes are easy so let’s all make it great.

    June 2, 2020 at 9:10 AM #8846
    Ken Howells
    General Member

    Jerome has it spot-on perfect.

    As a concession to those with anonymity concerns I will never again, in my CSS posts, refer to anyone by their real name.

     

    June 2, 2020 at 9:23 AM #8849
    David Webb
    General Member

    Thanks all, for your input. Since it was a change in the first place, I backed it out while we get more feedback on this, so the forums are back to the way they were for at least the time being. Member directory will remain protected, as I don’t see any downside to that.

    June 2, 2020 at 1:59 PM #8861
    Jonathan Dietch
    General Member

    The AZHPGA uses a dual part club forum. The sensitive topics are for club members only and cannot be seen by outsiders even if they have a logon. The rest of their forum can be seen by anyone or anyone with a logon. I forget which it is. You get the idea.

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