I totally get your overall want and need to keep politics out of the main civil forum, but when that hard and fast rule means that many people here are not seeing the biggest civil aviation story to unfold in weeks / months then don't you think it's time to review such a "it's set in stone" position? OK so the moderation would be more difficult in such a thread, but it's not as it such a big story appears every week.

The site cannot be relied on to be an all encompassing resource for up to date issues directly facing aviation. Add to that the lack of notifications on post deletions (especially when an otherwise fine post is deleted because it referenced another deleted post) and the reason for existence of the site is becoming blurred.

I also totally get that the moderators have to use the tools available to them, but if the moderators are the only people to reply in threads such as this and the "owners" or those in power to actually make a change for the better just let you get on with it without the power to make meaningful change, then I guess the Site Related section is also of little value.

Again, nothing personal and nothing directed towards the moderators themselves. I would say that the "bad attitude" moderation of the past seems to be exactly that. The frustration level from a user perspective is more around the forum tools not being fit for purpose.

At what point would the impact on civil aviation override the site's concerns about politics?

It's looking very much like there may be a new no-fly zone within Europe, a state-sponsored airline may be banned from the EU, and states are literally accusing Belarus of hijacking an aircraft.

All of this is, of course, political, but it's also a challenge to the fundamental assumptions that underpin the business model of modern civil aviation.

Have moderators discussed when it will become necessary for a civil aviation thread on this subject?

Would the site consider a factual thread, based on the MAX thread or COVID thread if the situation warrants?

I respect the job of the moderators, but where does the line go exactly ? Aviation and politics go hand in hand on so many levels. To pretend that it doesn't, ... is futile in my opinion.

I’m disappointed in the approach of the Mods to move the thread. Sometimes politics can’t be separated from things. This is one of those cases.

It might have helped the situation had mods tried to explain the situation rather than just move the thread.

There is also a lack of consistency in the approach of Mods. Political discussions such as green policies for France or Germany continued in the main forum.

It is clear from the number of comments in the threads that a lot of people disagree with the policy. What steps can users take to change it? Or is it Belarus rules...

Interference with a passenger jet strikes at the heart of civil aviation. Were other countries to follow Belarus’ example it would be chaos.

To shunt such a topic off to Non-Aviation is beyond ridiculous!

I can see moving a thread that turns into a discussion only about politics such as bashing a Politician or Parties position's (IE DT). This topic is totally inseparable from the politics of the incident. There is a lot of information to come out about the aviation side of this incident and I think we may be missing out on good information because of the location of the thread.

NameOmitted wrote:

Would the site consider a factual thread, based on the MAX thread or COVID thread if the situation warrants?

That is a great suggestion. I will being it up with other mods.

seansasLCY wrote:

I’m disappointed in the approach of the Mods to move the thread. Sometimes politics can’t be separated from things. This is one of those cases.

It might have helped the situation had mods tried to explain the situation rather than just move the thread.

There is also a lack of consistency in the approach of Mods. Political discussions such as green policies for France or Germany continued in the main forum.

It is clear from the number of comments in the threads that a lot of people disagree with the policy. What steps can users take to change it? Or is it Belarus rules...

We mods encourage your comments here.

However, the nastiness of the political comments is only convincing the mods the movement was correct.

The #1 rule of our moderation is we do not moderate the truth. When the politics stays on aviation, that is one thing. But the grounding has certainly struck a chord.

The forum was moved because the majority of the discussion was not aviation related.

Lightsaber

Surely more nuance is required for topics that touch both civil aviation and international diplomacy/politics?

lightsaber wrote:

seansasLCY wrote:

I’m disappointed in the approach of the Mods to move the thread. Sometimes politics can’t be separated from things. This is one of those cases.

It might have helped the situation had mods tried to explain the situation rather than just move the thread.

There is also a lack of consistency in the approach of Mods. Political discussions such as green policies for France or Germany continued in the main forum.

It is clear from the number of comments in the threads that a lot of people disagree with the policy. What steps can users take to change it? Or is it Belarus rules...

We mods encourage your comments here.

However, the nastiness of the political comments is only convincing the mods the movement was correct.

The #1 rule of our moderation is we do not moderate the truth. When the politics stays on aviation, that is one thing. But the grounding has certainly struck a chord.

The forum was moved because the majority of the discussion was not aviation related.

Lightsaber

I trust you’ll be moving any Pan An-Lockerbie threads in CA to Non-Aviation? Ditto for threads concerning MH17?

lightsaber wrote:

However, the nastiness of the political comments is only convincing the mods the movement was correct.

Then I would say leave it where it is. If the biggest civil aviation topic in months, possibly years, cannot be discussed in the Civil Aviation section, regardless of the reason, then the site is broken not the users. The site needs to work for the users that you have, not the users that you used to have or the users you want.

I understand your logic, but I also believe that you are looking at the issue 100% from the "politics is not allowed" stance rather than the "aviation has to be allowed" stance. Yes it will require additional moderation and I'm sure the inability to delete a message without it deleting every other linked message will come to the fore again.

You have my 100% sympathy and respect for the volunteer work you do (heck, you have to put up with me!), but surely you can see that such a topic not being discussed, in what you believe or want to be the premier aviation forum on the internet, is utterly ridiculous? It reflects very badly on the site, to put it mildly.

lightsaber wrote:

However, the nastiness of the political comments is only convincing the mods the movement was correct.

Wouldn't a simple solution have been to put a sticky thread at the top of civ-av, explaining why and include a link to the thread in non-av? Then everyone can find it to comment and not worry about political comments.

As much as the impact on civil aviation is significant, the politics of the action and reaction cannot be removed nor should they be ignored.

As usual, I don't get most decision-making by the mods here on a.net. By putting the thread into non-av politics now may be discussed. Which obviously doesn't change the existence of nasty comments by just relocating it.

An easier decision would have been to make a large red sticky mark, that for the fact of such an event being politics in nature, an exemption is granted for this very thread to keep it visible in GenAv.

Politics is such an integral part of aviation, it is awkward anyway to consider it a good decision to prohibit politics in GenAv.

Many users appreciate the apolytical nature of the civil aviation forum. The issue is, if we allow intense political discussion in one thread, we have set the precident.

Certain aviation threads have a history of becoming nasty political bickering. Because of the "absolute truth" nature of today's politics, it quickly leaves being an aviation discussion.

I personally agree this is an important aviation related topic, but we gave two choices by the forum rules:
1. Move it to non-aviation
2. Delete the majority of the posts

Because moderation is on a voluntary basis by a disparate group, we do not have as much flexibility as anyone, including the mods would like.

I understand there is a preference to move, but we have a difficult enough time of keeping out trolling from civ-Av.

Please continue discussion in non-Av.
Lightsaber

Virtual737 wrote:

If the biggest civil aviation topic in months, possibly years

While the Belarus topic feels very important right now, I would suggest that it may not be as significant as it seems

The impact of the Covid pandemic on civil aviation is likely a far bigger topic than Belarus. The pandemic and its impact on aviation continues to be felt very greatly in much of the world

The failure of the 737 Max is also pretty significant

What happened in Belarus is shocking from a freedom / liberty and human rights perspective. Belarus is not however a major player in aviation, and I don't think Belarus becoming a near no-fly zone will have a major long term impact on global aviation (unless flying in other countries with a repressive regime particularly interests you). The journalist was arrested because he seeks democracy in Belarus. There are plenty of other countries where seeking freedom of speech and free elections can get you into serious difficulty. The proximity of a repressive state to a large number of liberal democracies accentuates the surprise we all felt over the last 2 days

It is my belief that the significance is perhaps perceived as greater than it will be long term, only because it is happening *NOW*

The story is substantially a human rights and political topic... and the mods are right to treat it as Non-Av

Off the bat I totally respect that you may have a different opinion.

davidjohnson6 wrote:

While the Belarus topic feels very important right now, I would suggest that it may not be as significant as it seems

That may well be the case. However, how can you give weight to where a topic should sit based on how it might turn out? Surely the only factor that matters is what is happening in the moment. For instance, this story was covered by most news media around the world. How many of the other stories in the Civil Aviation section could say the same? Perhaps a handful at the most.

The slogan for Civil Aviation reads "Discussions about factual events happening in the airline and general aviation industries. If it's happening in commercial aviation, you'll get the information and opinions here first.". The forced diversion of FR4978 is 100% factual and directly affects the commercial aviation industry and so the subject fits perfectly in that category.

The slogan for Non-Av read "This forum is for topics not related to aviation. It can be anything really, reflections on why you think Microsoft is a cool company to why you'll never buy a Nissan. This is the only forum where political comments are allowed. This is also the forum to organize Airliners.net meetings and events."

The underlying reason for the move is that it was deemed likely to be difficult to moderate and will also likely attract political commentary. This means that the anti-political stance is trumping the pro-aviation stance which, in my humble opinion, is the wrong way around for an aviation site.

davidjohnson6 wrote:

It is my belief that the significance is perhaps perceived as greater than it will be long term, only because it is happening *NOW*

That's the definition of news. It it's not happening now then it's not really news. "If it's happening in commercial aviation, you'll get the information and opinions here first" just isn't accurate. Again, you cannot pigeonhole a topic based on how important you think it might be in the long term.

There have been a few political threads on here recently. See the thread about TLV being closed for a very simplistic pro-Israeli stance which goes frequently unchallenged, for example.
The inconsistency in this case is bizarre.

bergkampsticket wrote:

There have been a few political threads on here recently. See the thread about TLV being closed for a very simplistic pro-Israeli stance which goes frequently unchallenged, for example.
The inconsistency in this case is bizarre.

It's an effective way to deal with it though. Let them talk amongst themselves about it and by the time anyone gives a monkey's the moment has past anyway. Reminds me of the vegetables left to rot on ships while customs charges were "negotiated".

EDIT: Is ad blocking banned here? I can't see anything against it in the rules. If the owners of the site can't be bothered to give the moderators the tools to do their unpaid jobs (and so effectively and efficiently moderate an aviation topic) then I'd be very tempted to make sure they don't benefit from page clicks.

I come here for aviation.
I have never been to non-av because it’s not aviation.
Belarus is an aviation story
I can not view it because I am not interested in going to a non aviation section of an aviation site to discuss an aviation topic.
We are letting people hijack this aviation topic.
That is too bad.

lightsaber wrote:

The issue is, if we allow intense political discussion in one thread, we have set the precident.

Sorry, but no. Allowing exceptions to the rules are absolutely doable, as long as the users can comprehend why in certain cases it is indeed worthy to grant an exception. Aviation topics that are political in nature surely are such examples.

If that wasn't true, any discussion about WTO rulings, for example, could only be had in non-av, as they are pure politics.

CRJockey wrote:

lightsaber wrote:

The issue is, if we allow intense political discussion in one thread, we have set the precident.

Sorry, but no. Allowing exceptions to the rules are absolutely doable, as long as the users can comprehend why in certain cases it is indeed worthy to grant an exception. Aviation topics that are political in nature surely are such examples.

If that wasn't true, any discussion about WTO rulings, for example, could only be had in non-av, as they are pure politics.

Some threads the politics stays on topic.
In this thread the politics needs to many side branches to stay on aviation. If you could see the deleted comments, it would be more clear.

Lightsaber

What’s the difference in moderating the discussion in civ av since you are already having to be heavily engaged anyway in non av?

TVNWZ wrote:

What’s the difference in moderating the discussion in civ av since you are already having to be heavily engaged anyway in non av?

Civ av has a superset of rules that we are required to apply. This is our signature forum we attempt to keep up the discussion on aviation.

In non-av related political discussion is appropriate. If we allowed that in civ-av, we would have too much of a mess. In effect, our most contentious threads would be unpleasant, driving away traffic.

Lightsaber