Censorship at airliners.net

[sn26567]

Recently airliners.net has been deleting posts that made reference to what they call "competing websites", such as airlineroute.net or anna.aero.

This is childish behaviour. Other websites devoted to aviation are not competition, but complementarity.

Just one question: do they also censor posts that make refence to luchtzak.be ?

One of our members used to be an admin of airliners.net. What is his opinion on this behaviour?

P.S. Luchtzak.be has never censored or deleted a post making reference to airliners.net .

[DeltaWiskey]

So, what is your point and what has this to do with Luchzak.be?

Every site has it's own rules. I know quite a lot of forums which do censor links of 'competing' websites.

[fretn]

Airliners.net is not jut a website, it's a full grown business. The amount of money they earn is incredible, I fully understand that they don't want to lose any revenue.

[sn26567]

Yesterday I made a post on airliners.net to complain about the situation, in very polite terms, and to suggest relaxing the rules. I got one reply from a member saying that discussing "competing websites" would lead to ranting, hence it would be a bad idea. I did reply that I did not want to discuss other websites, I merely wanted allowing quotes from other websites.

Sure enough, less than 24 hours later my thread was censored and removed.

Here is the message I received from a moderator (I added the underlining):

Dear sn26567,

This is an automated message to let you know that your message with the title
"Deletion Of References: Censorship At A.net?" has been removed from the discussion forum on
Airliners.net for the following reasons:

This is a personal message from the forum moderator srbmod:
"Airliners.net is a privately
owned and operated website.
Freedom of Speech DOES NOT
APPLY here.

The owners of the site can
dictate what can and cannot be
posted on THEIR site. "


FLAMEBAIT / HARSH LANGUAGE (forum rules #1A, 1B, 1C, 1F, 1G)
Your post was determined to contain flamebait and/or harsh language. We
regard this as the most serious violation of our rules.

We do not tolerate flamebait or harsh language even in situations where a
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A copy of the deleted post is included below:
--------------------------------------------------

Deletion Of References: Censorship At A.net?

Posted by sn26567 ([email protected]) 2011-01-18 03:11:59

I have noticed that several posts making reference to so-called "competing" websites such as airlineroute.net or anna.aero have been deleted recently. I find this attitude childish. Those websites are not competing with A.net: they are complementary. Each website has its own specificity, and instead of deleting such references, moderators should encourage people to cite their sources when they come from such websites.

I hope that this message will not be deleted ((as it refers to "competing" websites), but that it will be the source for a frank discussion.

I still wonder which kind of flamebait and/or harsh language was found my message, and how and to whom my post was found to be disrespectful.

Should Luchtzak.be start censoring references to airliners.net ?

[SpottairBRU]

Here is the message I received from a moderator (I added the underlining):

Dear sn26567,

This is an automated message to let you know that your message with the title
"Deletion Of References: Censorship At A.net?" has been removed from the discussion forum on
Airliners.net for the following reasons:

This is a personal message from the forum moderator srbmod:
"Airliners.net is a privately
owned and operated website.
Freedom of Speech DOES NOT
APPLY here.

The owners of the site can
dictate what can and cannot be
posted on THEIR site. "

Wow, what a pleasant, argumentative, mature, non-arrogant explanation you got there

Even if I see his point, I thought that moderators had communication skills above the average...

I find this attitude childish.

Well, when writing this, you hit the nail, when we see the answer from the moderator...

moderators should encourage people to cite their sources when they come from such websites.

Major offense here: telling A.net moderators what they should do

Less ironically:

I still wonder which kind of flamebait and/or harsh language was found my message, and how and to whom my post was found to be disrespectful.

Flamebait: personally, I don't see any.

Harsh language: well, really to nitpick: the two sentences I quoted just above could maybe have been interpreted as rude (maybe because only the thruth hurts?)... but again, it is only to nitpick and absolutely find something that could hypothetically, possibly, have been harsh for them.

Should Luchtzak.be start censoring references to airliners.net ?

In my opinion, no. Don't play this childish game. Let's be above that, adult and mature.

A wise man said:

Those websites (...) are complementary. Each website has its own specificity, and instead of deleting such references, moderators should encourage people to cite their sources when they come from such websites.

[sn26567]

Should Luchtzak.be start censoring references to airliners.net ?

In my opinion, no. Don't play this childish game. Let's be above that, adult and mature.

You are right. I only wanted to be ironic in my proposal. It is not Luchtzak's policy to prevent cooperation with other sites devoted to aviation. We all play in the same league and address the aviation enthusiasts.

[andorra-airport]

One of the reasons I like Luchtzak.be is that most people (99%) are friendly to each other, that you are not afraid to ask a stupid question, and that you can post pictures, youtube, links to other (airline) websites and other things without any big trouble (within its limits) . I can not say that of many other (airline related) websites....

[tolipanebas]

Airliners.net is a purely COMMERCIAL website and it clearly shows, not only through the banners, but also by its constant censoring of content. While it may be okay to do so occasionally to keep discussions on topic, it is obvious they also censor factually correct content that they think will harm their own interests, for instance by pissing off all too many of their visitors and thus lose revenues.

Never noticed how many of the initial reports about the 787 delays immediately got deleted and members banned, all while it was already crystal clear the official Boeing line everything was just fine was not matching up with reality, for instance?

That was breaking news that was being censored for weeks in a row!

Really believe it was because the mods were truely believing what Boeing was still saying in public?

No way!

It's because 2/3rd of airliners.net members are Americans which are heavily slanted towards Boeing and its a common understanding people are known not to like to read bad news. Airliners.net didn't want its number of visitors to drop off during prolongued times of bad news as that would mean making less money then, so they simply censored the bad news about Boeing and killed the messengers for as long as they could.

Only when they couldn't deny the truth any longer, did they permit the 787 topics to continue, but then quickly the trend became to consolidate those topics into one or to delete new topics due to them being discussed already....

And it's not just Boeing that needs to be given a rest, it's basically everything they think their readers will like: from manufacturers, over airlines, over products, countries, political parties and yes indeed, themselves!

a NEWSSITE which censors BREAKING NEWS in fuction of its own interests, is not worth being visited, hence i quit years ago already. Airliners.net is the FOXNEWS of the aviation world: it's full of rightwing American nutcases and juvinile wankers, and they are so many, the mods give into their demands to please the owners of the site.

Good that you finally noticed it too: now, just do what most people working in the industry have done already long time ago: quit and move to other sites like this one, or pprune.org. You'll find much more interesting information there, BTW: it's not the quantity of the posts that matters, it's their quality.

[sn26567]

Again an interesting topic deleted for the mere fact that it contained a link ro Airline Route.

Civil Aviation Forum | Airliners.net

KE Downgauges LAX-NRT-ICN To A A332 From 77E!

Korean Air is making a significant change to their daily flight in the competitive LAX-NRT market. On the 27th of Marich 2011, KE downgauges it's daily ICN-NRT-LAX-NRT-ICN flight from a three class 77E with P/J/Y to a two class A332 with J/Y. LInk: http://airlineroute.net/2011/01/12/ke-s11-americasu...

Don't try to find the topic on A.net. The watch dogs called moderators have deleted it after one hour.

This is outrageous...

[luchtzak]

They must have become more strict during the last years as a google search still mentions about 600 links back to luchtzak.be

http://www.google.com/search?client=ubu ... 8&oe=utf-8

even the 'where is luchtzak.be'-topic wasn't deleted: http://www.airliners.net/aviation-forum ... n/1538247/

I guess that as the website is managed like a business they don't want to loose visitors to other (aviation) websites, furthermore they have a paid news section!

[RJ111]

I used to be a member of A.net for about 7 years, but i recently quit because the quality of the website became really bad and they started to delete far too many posts.

The site changed hands from its original owner who built it from scratch (i think he was a Swedish chap) to a company in America called Demand Media. Ever since that change the quality of the website has dramatically declined. There are hundreds of bugs, and with every new release they introduce more bugs. My profession is a web-developer and so i personally find it disgusting the lack of testing they did - completely unprofessional.

On top of that they started deleting everything. They never let the thread naturally run its course. I even started a thread in the site-related forum saying perhaps they should stop deleting so many post. Someone replied in agreement, but shortly after, they deleted the thread too! It was literally like a Stalinist regime.

It's a shame because for a long time it was a very good forum.