Back on subject….so how bout that retirement?

More bigger multiplier please!

Back off subject. Yes, this, precisely. Has it occurred to the "this is fine" folks that if 95% of threads weren't hijacked by BK's bottled spite or Fleetfeet and Sideshow's spittle-flecked political rantings, the 95% of the IPA membership that don't post on the B&G might start participating in substantive discussion of workplace matters which affect us all? That's what the thing is supposed to be for, right?

I was told to post sparingly on the B&G while on probation. After about 4 months of casual lurking I noticed it was the same 12 people saying the same Nickelback over and over amongst themselves i felt like it was 3000 people watching a dozen people have 14 different text threads going on. I know BK and Fleetwood MaC mean well. For the most part. But it's a major turn off to see the same characters play freebird for the 15th time this set. I tried to ask a few honest questions on there. The threads went unanswered and eventually buried in the stack under a bunch of bs. B&G. 10 out 10 would not recommend. It's a brown echo chamber of nonsense.

Most replies thus far have merit. But I think that the user should be able to determine who they want to listen to or not. Specially the people we all know and not love. Many people I fly with are of the opinion that the BnG is a cesspool, with the same members complaining and high jacking threads. If we had the personal choice to choose who to block it would make it a hell lot easier and more palatable to tolerate. The whole “read past it” gets annoying and eventually I still have to swift through the minutia to get a bit of information. It’s not worth getting aggravated over and like me, most people will avoid it all together.
I must admit, there is good information when the threads stay on point. I’ve had questioned answered properly and were very helpful. But even in those topics, they got highjacked and it got derailed.
the fact that “you’re fire thread” lasted in the main page for as long as it did, it’s a testament of the very little moderation the boards have. I muted the hell out of it and stayed out of it. But it’s quite annoying that it kept popping up every time I logged on. Of course I ignored it, but goes to show you how little care they put into it. Once if left to the politics section it mostly died.
goes to show you, what the above poster said, that it produces traffic thus they leave them there for a while.
I really believe that if we were able to mute and shut off the people we don’t want to hear from, which clearly is indicated by this thread here is that people are tired of these clowns. Once you remove their platform who are they going to argue with? BK will tire out of no one ever responding to his comments when everyone has blocked him, same goes for fleetwood and sideshow bob and the rest of the gang.

I'm agnostic to a "block" feature.

That being said, it still blows my mind that some self-professed adult professional pilots who fly big jets and are spoiling for a fight with the Company are also afraid to participate on a message board because, what, somebody might be mean to them on the internet? IGNORE THEM!

Work-related posts don't frequently get turned political. If you have questions ask them, if they don't get an answer bump the thread because sometimes stuff gets missed by people who actually might know an answer. Of course, direct communication with IPA staff and/or committtees is the best way to get accurate information from SMEs.

Moderators are line pilots and have lives outside of work, so sometimes things take a bit to move around to the most appropriate place. If you have heartburn about a particular thread, ping the EB about it...I doubt people are monitoring looking for a single post saying "Politics?".

My experience is keyboard commandos don't interact as adversarial in the real world...but their electron reputation preceeds them on the line, and impressions can be difficult to overcome. Going back to my comment about self-professed professional pilots, it is striking that more people don't follow "The Golden Rule"...but hey, that's both a human and pilot trait I've seen across multiple segments of the industry. We IPA members are not enemies but colleagues for goodness sakes, so let's pull on the rope together even if we disagree on a given topic.

Oh and retirement...raise both the DB and DC to maintain diversified retirement income, and if we can get a tax-advantaged vehicle for spill/CoC that'd be swell.

Agreed, because these are the only places where we will likely have room to budge. And pay, but that’ll go up accordingly. Article 13 will largely remain the same, sodomizer will remain at level 13 out of 10 and we’ll remain miserable in our work lives. But at least we will have plenty to leave behind to our heirs.

I’m an optimistic ray of sunshine flying these schedules. 😎

As per above, good for you if you can ignore some frothing-at-the-mouth lunatic suggesting that you eat babies for breakfast if you don't automatically agree that that the Bilderbergs run the universe and/or vaccines cause Carl Icahn. The numbers are in, though, and a very small number of IPA pilots participate in the IPA run (and funded) message board. Why do you imagine that might be? I mean sure, maybe we're all lazy and wouldn't be there anyway, but at least for my part I don't put my oar in the water very often because it's like asking for four or five totally insane but very persistent stranger-enemies forever with no upside, since (as Russel points out), any legitimate question is liable to get buried in the same old Nickelback, over and over again.

You're right that there is good info on the B&G. I still browse. But the signal to noise is ridiculous, and I think it's totally reasonable to expect for it to be better. Better than it is, currently, isn't a big ask, and it would bring back all of those people who sniffed the poison and said "no, thanks". We want everyone involved, right?

They have lives outside of work and the interwebs?

The number who actively post may be lower than some prefer...but a massive percentage of the pilot group reads it. Would improving signal-to-noise encourage more active participation/posting? Maybe, maybe not. I'm all for more wheat/less chaff but all I can do to that end is participate the way I would prefer others to. I also know with 3400+ opinions I'm probably not gonna change a lot of habits.

Legitimate questions get answered and work-related topics get discussed on the B&G every day without the overly political bunch jumping into those threads, but like much of the internet (this APC thread is a fantastic example) the original subject often gets derailed on side tangets. Also, some members seem to prefer crowdsourced answers from a forum rather than utilizing the IPA leadership/staff/committee resources that are available to them with far more knowledge than crewroom lawyers.

Again, I can take or leave a block feature...not asking for it but don't care if it happens...I personally find staying out of political threads increases the signal-to-noise ration significantly.

YMMV, caveat emptor, etc etc

Study a little psychology. You are obviously very self confident, were probably raised well by your parents who were themselves probably conscious enough to emphasize that you learned to value yourself from yourself more than from external sources (ie. peers). You were also most likely to have been supported in the same way by the culture of the community you grew up in. Completing the trifecta comes from innate factors helping to generate these aspects of your personality.

One of the big downsides of this subtype is the potential of blind spots and rigidity which I think the portion of your post I highlighted touches on: There’s deep frustration that some grown adults can’t help but to care about what others think of them and it can be inferred that this is some sort of weakness, personality flaw, or other undesirable trait when it’s more a question of a different upbringing, culture, and genetic predispositions. There’s pros and cons for each type (actually a spectrum) with no clear position being ideal. Maslow’s hierarchy explains a lot of it.

The other downsides are often ego protection and moral/value judging. It’s not a character flaw if people value what others think of them and it’s not weakness if people don’t want to be involved in toxic / judgemental situations. Telling others to simply ignore the chaff indicates one doesn’t seem to realize this variance exists (blind spots) or has little tolerance for people who aren’t like they are (rigidity). If these people could simply ignore it they would. Dude, you know me - I’m not shy about posting on the B&G but even I’ve lost sleep, more than once, over how the forum received and reacted to posts I’ve made even if I do shoot from the hip more than I should.

Anyway, this isn’t meant to be a character attack, critique, or criticism - just a possible explanation for why you are frustrated with this issue and it kills CML time for me. I think you’re smart AF, we are lucky to have you in the group, and really hope to see you back to you know where in the future. But I would suggest a little more sympathy for those who aren’t comfortable posting on the B&G.