Originally Posted by
ToiletDuck
If someone was willing to be charged with identity theft then by all means they could. As far as a subpoena goes what for? It's not illegal it's free speech. How many news stories do you read where the person's name "can't be given due to the sensitive nature of the topic" or "because the source close to the government is not suppose to be speaking of it"? That's VERY far fetched.
To the idea of people come here wanting to learn about aviation I agree 100%. It's an easy fix with a few possible options.
You have the forum kept public for the most part with a section made private for authenticated users. The Hangar and other areas could all be kept public where enthusiast, the media, or anyone else in the civil world could post meanwhile the "Major/Regional/Cargo/etc" sections would be in the area for only validated members. Any questions people had about flight training, education, meteorology, purchasing/selling items, general practices and so on could all be kept public for the whole world to read. When people want to talk more specifics about their companies or instances such as the buff accident they could do so in one of the restricted areas without fear of the civil world abusing your rights to free speech to twisting your words against you.
As far as the validation goes it would be a one time process per user. Give it a grace period where people have a month to submit their information so that way they could be verified without losing access or having the wait in line to get into the restricted area. Just ideas guys nothing to lose any sleep over but if it was decided to go that route I'd most certainly help with validation and think it could be done quickly. Make it NASA form style. All members get a generated ID# sent to their email. You send in your license information and include that ID# you were emailed. That license # is verified against the FAA database and the account with that ID# is activated. The people validating the members would never know which names went to which online names so no worries for those not wanting everyone to know who they are.
As a non-airline guy who would not be able to view any "restricted areas," should APC go to that, I will have to speak up on behalf of my non-airline APC cohorts. Part of the beauty of this site is the fact that people like me who are considering an airline career are able to see the good, the bad, and the ugly of an airline career in general, and at specific airlines. For people like me, that knowledge is extremely valuable, and I would be extremely disappointed if APC went to a "restricted area" format. In fact, I would probably quit visiting the site altogether, as would many other people in my position. This is the only place where people like me can obtain any useful information.
Sure, there are non-airline guys on here that make things difficult sometimes. Then there are people like me who just mainly observe, stay out of the way, and post a question or request clarification every once in awhile. I have found the most useful information to be in the Major, Cargo, and Regional forums. Honestly, there would be no reason for someone like me to visit this site anymore if access to those sections were cut out. You tell me...look at the number of threads and and posts in the Hangar Talk/Flight School/Flight Training sections and compare that with the number of threads and posts in the Major, Cargo, and Regional sections. There is a HUGE discrepancy. I would have OVER 85% LESS information to browse.