Well, first of all, I hope my luck holds out and I myself do not get restricted since I am not an airline pilot and have absolutely no hope of becoming one. Having said that, however, I have a relatively long relationship with the site if the number of posts is any indication. And I have always felt a loyalty and sense of family that has precluded me from abandoning ship for one of the many other forums available. These same feelings have also, inexplicably, caused me to be very protective of something that is not mine.

The original poster’s issue was that he logs on and “can't view the regional, cargo, major areas” while “without logging in, [he] can see them.” He also cannot post or edit. Perhaps I misunderstood the restriction. I thought everyone who registers and logs on has the ability to view everything, but the restricted ones can only post in the lounge.

One “solution” might be similar to the policy making behind The Boneyard. Newbies and wannabes and lawyers and doctors initially cannot post anywhere but the lounge. After they prove themselves with X number of quality posts, the restriction is lifted. Not all their posts need to be read, just do a random sampling. My experience with databases is that it can be rigged to alert you when a certain poster has reached the requisite number of posts, whereupon you do the sampling. Hopefully, by the time they get there, their total time and flight experience would have increased also and they are even that much nearer to being a pilot, if not an airline pilot.

As already mentioned, there are only a handful of bad apples, and not all of them are the proverbial 17 year old kid who has always dreamed of flying. I have seen some very grouchy old guys here. The majority of us are ok people with a genuine desire to share, teach and learn.

I have said this before – this is a private forum and you do not have to explain yourself to anyone. You have a good thing going here and I hope you keep it that way. You know that I would help out more, but there are already too many demands by too many people on my limited personal time.