Ops-Normal.org

Not too strange, Boac. The ancient Gaelic economy was based on an bó, so Bó Mór would be good news. But values change with time.

One year old!

Thankyou Alison for all your hard work.

And thanks to all Ops-normalers for making this a great place to be!

Thank you all for providing food for thought, challenges, entertainment, and insights.

Just hope you all hang around for another year as I've just coughed up for another year's hosting .They seem to do a decent job with minimal drama. It's been a good year, even though everyone has ignored my post down the bottom of the index page re: Birthday Celebrations.

Will be doing an upgrade to all the software in the next week or so. Already have a copy of the site running on my in-house server for testing purposes. Work through the upgrade on the copy and checking for no "gotcha's" before I do it to the on-line site. So enjoy and thanks for all the good wishes.

Alison/Admin

Yeah, thanks Alison for all the hard work.

Much appreciated.

Alison, as posted on Trabb, congrats and thank you. I read the request on 'Members Only' but didn't 100% understand what the target was and how we can achieve it. Happy to help but please could you explain for retired pilots who have put their brain to rest in words of one syllable?

Ex-A, I think that we are being asked to forward some names of former contributors that have not been around for a while in order that they can be invited back to the fold if they so wish. I have posted a couple of names that I have missed.

Happy Birthday Ops Normal. Thank you Alison for all your excellent work.

Echoing all the above sentiments of congratulations and thanks to Alison

Late to the party as per usual. I did remember last week and meant to write something but brain went into mush mode. On the 22nd I was in the same place as last year: at the Aged Ps' home in Ontari-ari-ari-o.

Belated Happy Birthday Ops and many thanks to Alison for such a super site.

Yes, happy birthday, Ops-Normal! Sorry, haven't been on much lately, my sweetie has been having daily therapy, which is now at an end.

And tall Bird, greets from Toronto!

I always miss significant dates, been on holiday so haven't been on for a while. Happy birthday Ops Normal - thanks Alison for helping to keep us sane.

Tom

Happy birthday, Ops normal, and thanks Alison. Have another good year.

The subject of banning people using this site is an interesting one. I'd like to kick off a debate on the matter.

Surely there are three reasons for banning people.

1 Legal Compliance
Any site has to comply firstly with the law of the country in which it is located, and secondly with international law governing various crimes. Posters breaking these laws are not only liable to get banned: they also get the site into trouble. In these cases, the Chief Mod has to have an understanding of the law in order to ensure it's not broken (or bent).

2 Moral Compliance
Quite apart from legal constraints, there are what we might call moral constraints: things that are not strictly illegal but which most people in a given society (in this case, Western Society) recognise would not normally be discussed or promoted. Defining posts which come into this category isn't easy but would be solved with a button on each post indicating the reader feels the post has exceeded the bounds of moral decency.

3) Insulting Posts
There is no justification for personal abuse on a site, no matter how much one might feel another poster's views are wierd, illogical, have no basis in fact, or hint at an onsetting bout of paranoia or maniac depression. In other words we should tend towards debating behaviour seen in the UK House of Commons (and not, as an example, the Australian Parliament). Personal insults - after for example one warning - should certainly result in the poster being banned.

Comments ?

Whilst some of the postings may be considered to be offensive or in bad taste, I find the problem is the tedious lack of humour. The whole point of this forum is to offer a viewpoint that may hopefully give someone a smile.

Many of the offending posts are humourless, have no purposeful point other than to express disagreement, appear to be written when severely incapacitated by booze or wacky baccy and are mundanely repetitive.

There is a dividing line between banter and personnel insults, if you cross it persistently then you may have a reason to visit your GP.

I dislike banning except for cases that may result in litigation, and simply just ignore offenders, but can fully understand that admin has responsibilities that exceed ignoring puerile postings of bad taste.

The ethos of this site was NOT to become like TOP with bannings and officious behaviour. Seems we're drifting that way. I totally agree with OFSO in that there is a degree of hypocrisy operating here with some "multiple characters" stirring things up to seemingly entice others to over-react in broaching issues which are known trigger points for some on here.

Maybe it's symptomatic of the current attitudes of the developed world where it would seem that the disconnect of the ether allows people to write things that they wouldn't ordinarily do in real life and the refusal to see mores and attitudes as they really are rather than the idealistic construct that they have in their own heads. The refusal of the world to accept the democratic decisions of Brexit, the US elections and, to lesser extent, Scottish independence, are classic examples. And I won't even touch on some of the more delicate issues like gender.

It's time for everyone to take a deep breath and pull back a bit from the stand-off that we seem to have engineered.

Sisemen wrote:The ethos of this site was NOT to become like TOP with bannings and officious behaviour. Seems we're drifting that way. I totally agree with OFSO in that there is a degree of hypocrisy operating here with some "multiple characters" stirring things up to seemingly entice others to over-react in broaching issues which are known trigger points for some on here..

Can't possibly have it "drifting" that way can we, heaven forbid. If that is a general consensus then perhaps I should just pull the plug on the site. I get nothing out of it other than a heck of a lot of grief, and considerable work. Perhaps it's passed it's use-by-date.

I make no claims for "mental" stability. It is well known here that I am transgendered with Asperger's Syndrome/High Functioning Autism. If it's considered acceptable for people to wind me up, leading to a good old fashioned Aspie meltdown, then so be it. I'll just walk away. Like to hazard a guess as to how many seconds it would take to close the site down and change my email addresses so I'm no longer contactable.

Perhaps 500N's insistence that he has some kind of democratic right to write whatever he wishes, or Airborne Aircrews signature block are acceptable?

Reasons for being banned to date:-
1. Espousing extreme views
2. PITA, (love this one)...

One of those banned emailed me stating that I had good reason to ban him. So that's three of the four.



Nor do I have any desire to.

Alison/Admin

Dear Chief Mod: your - for want of a better word - "charactistics" play no part here*. What does matter is you have created and continued to maintain a fine website. And as far as I am concerned you have a mandate to ban (or whatever) whom you wish.

My comment was only whether we should have 'rules' so posters know what they are supposed to do.

* If we all started to post details of who and what we are there would be some surprised faces you bet. And no it wasn't me wrote that letter to the Sunday Times' Agony Aunt, Mrs Mills**, a couple of weeks ago about indulging in an 'odd practice' when mutually showering. Although I have wondered....

** I found her answer puzzling, by the way. Provided you use a good-quality silicone sealant I can't see any problem.

I'm not sure we require "rules", cordial exchanges without resorting to banal insults, foul language and belligerent racism should be normal behaviour amongst normal people.
Whatever "rules" are promulgated will be totally ignored by the offending minority, one of the other posts indicate that the multi-named culprit is leaving for fresh pastures, so things may quieten down.
For those under stress, post a photo of a public convenience in a remote market town in Tibet in the WOE thread, much more fun than insulting people that you have never met.

OFSO,

Sisemen was I suspect referring to an outburst of mine as being hypocritical. The inference that my meltdown in some way excused the activities of those I chose to ban. I took considerable offence at his suggestion that this site is "drifting" in the same direction as TOP. If that supposition is upheld then there would be little reason for me not to close the site down, as it was never my intention to replicate TOP in any way. Sorry Sisemen but you can leave anytime you like.

I put considerable effort into maintaining this site with minimal moderator interference. Let me assure those reading this, often doing nothing is considerably harder than jumping up and down and running around in circles at the drop of the hat. I regularly get to "bite" my tongue, choosing to monitor a situation instead.

Admin