How long can ITS go before being banned?

[brianw999]

They are? By whom? And if they are, why is that standard not upheld in so many other instances, but seems to be upheld almost religiously with respect to ITS? Does that not show some sort of a bias and maybe even (gasp) bigotry, to which you are so vehemently opposed?

By their/our own terms of use in the first instance....but care must also be maintained when we take the international aspects of of the internet into account. What may be acceptable in some countries may not be in others. While not being internet based a classic example would be the joke cartoon published by a Dutch newspaper which inflamed the Moslem communities around the world to the point of calling for mass murder. An over-the-top reaction as far as the western world was concerned but a major issue for Islam.

In the UK there are laws against bullying and harassment. Bullying is rarely dealt with in the courts but harassment ( singling out an individual or group of individuals for their race, creed, social status or lawful views ) is a matter for the courts. Harassment isn't just seen as a face to face issue. It can be decreed to have occurred by direct contact, written contact directly or indirectly, hard copy general posting, internet posting....basically, if a person or group of persons believe they have been harrassed and can prove to a court that this has happened then they can commence legal proceedings. Obviously, if the harrasser is in another country, and is not personally identifiable then court action is nigh on impossible against the individual. If the harassment occurs on a website where there is an identifiable individual operating that site (in our case Chris Kilroy) then legal action could be taken against that person. Again, it would be difficult to take that action....unless that person were to set foot on British soil. The pre-existence of a court action against that person would be cause for them to be arrested at the port of arrival for potential further action.

ITS quite clearly harassed people on this site, that is very obvious from the answers to him. It didn't bother me personally, in my job you develop a VERY thick skin. It is not my place, nor anyone elses' to brand the complainers as thin skinned, need to get a life, wishy washy or any other degrading description of them. The fact remains that they felt harassed and / or threatened. ITS's response was to further derogate them. As a result he was given a warning and ( I don't know how many ? ) short term bans. He failed to heed those warnings and was banned. There's nothing biased about that, he was given every chance to modify his behaviour to a reasonable and sensible level.

There are other individuals on this site who fly very close to the wind. Action has not yet been taken against them but the forums are being watched and there may well a need to dole out some written warnings followed by a couple of short term "watch it" bans.
This may be an "Off Topic" forum but that only means that it is a forum for matters that do not relate to the other forums. It does not allow for a total disregard of common manners, racism, degradation or general "putting down" of others. It's very easy to hide behind a screenname and not put any identify data in the personal profile.

I should add that these are my personal views and do not reflect any attitude of the site owner or other crew members.

[TheRealAncientMarine]

"(300 lb paramedic from Britain !!, not many argue with me"

A 300 lb paramedic! Dear me, I'm so scared. The only thing that scares me more is a 600 lb jelly fish.
Per

[seahawk]

I think this discussion serves no purpose. ITS got a temporary ban for his behaviour in the Aviation Safety section. He returned and did the exact same thing again. End of story. The admins decided that after ignoring 5 warnings he had no intention to contribute in a sensible manner.

[arnie]

While not being internet based a classic example would be the joke cartoon published by a Dutch newspaper which inflamed the Moslem communities around the world to the point of calling for mass murder. An over-the-top reaction as far as the western world was concerned but a major issue for Islam.

Small correction that doesn't change your point: It was a danish cartoon in a danish newspaper....

[brianw999]

Small correction that doesn't change your point: It was a danish cartoon in a danish newspaper....

Thanks, I had a sneaking suspicion I had that wrong.

[Spad13]

In the UK there are laws against bullying and harassment. Bullying is rarely dealt with in the courts but harassment ( singling out an individual or group of individuals for their race, creed, social status or lawful views ) is a matter for the courts. Harassment isn't just seen as a face to face issue. It can be decreed to have occurred by direct contact, written contact directly or indirectly, hard copy general posting, internet posting....basically, if a person or group of persons believe they have been harrassed and can prove to a court that this has happened then they can commence legal proceedings. Obviously, if the harrasser is in another country, and is not personally identifiable then court action is nigh on impossible against the individual. If the harassment occurs on a website where there is an identifiable individual operating that site (in our case Chris Kilroy) then legal action could be taken against that person. Again, it would be difficult to take that action....unless that person were to set foot on British soil. The pre-existence of a court action against that person would be cause for them to be arrested at the port of arrival for potential further action.

Thankfully, we're not in the UK, Brian. We have free speech here. I was also under the impression that the issue of the British telling us how to operate was settled in the late 1700s and then again around 1812.

ITS quite clearly harassed people on this site, that is very obvious from the answers to him. It didn't bother me personally, in my job you develop a VERY thick skin. It is not my place, nor anyone elses' to brand the complainers as thin skinned, need to get a life, wishy washy or any other degrading description of them. The fact remains that they felt harassed and / or threatened. ITS's response was to further derogate them. As a result he was given a warning and ( I don't know how many ? ) short term bans. He failed to heed those warnings and was banned. There's nothing biased about that, he was given every chance to modify his behaviour to a reasonable and sensible level.

It's not ITS' fault that there are people around here who view anything short of loud praise as harrassment and/or threats. BTW, you say they felt threatened. How? With what? What can ITS really do to any of these people, Brian?

You talk about sensibility, but don't seem to display a whole lot of it.

[Alex - Spot-This !]

For me ITS did have his chances again and again so please stop crying and just answer that simple question :

- Why didn't he change his attitude after the numerous warnings and bans ?

it's a simple question isn't it ? but no one who complains about the ban seem to have a clear answer... maybe because there's NO answer.

As someone stated before many of you don't realise the dozens of comment that got deleted that were most of the time very insulting. Remarks like "you suck" coming from ITS are not acceptable, you can say the same thing in a more civized way, simple as that.
Personnaly I lost ALL respect for ITS the day that the AF crash occured. It was very early and the flight was still considered as missing and we had very little infos... someone started the subject on the forum and at the 3 or 4 reply there comes ITS with a very short post "Sure it's Airbus"
I got deleted whithin minutes but still... you have people anxiously waiting to know what happened to their friend and family, just imagine what was happening in CDG, we had NO info if the plane had crashed or not... and there comes ITS, Mr Pilot, who has nothing more interesting to say than spilling his hate for Airbus. That lack of basic human feelings and childish comment was absolutly unacceptable. So yeah after that day you could not convince me it was just humour and fun...

Spad, about freedom of speech
1) if you think you have a total freedom of speech in the USA, you're deeply wrong - like any country there are things that can be said, other not. But I don't deny the freedom of speech in the US is great in many aspects.
2) No freedom of speech is not always a good thing. Maybe some of you have visited the Ann Frank Huis in Amsterdam. At the end of the visit there was (or still is) a little exibition about freedom of speech where you could realise where total freedom of speech could lead with many many exemples like violence and racism in stadiums, dangerous religious groups, nazi organisations, the killing of Theo van Gogh, and so on...

And as proved in your last reply Spad13... why do some americans and europeans always have to start a USA-Europe or Boeing-Airbus war ??
Brian's reply has nothing to do about USA vs GB but can't help yourself and had to reply something like... Thankfully, we're not in the UK, Brian. We have free speech here. I was also under the impression that the issue of the British telling us how to operate was settled in the late 1700s and then again around 1812.

Thanks, most of the people here try to do their best to bring positiv and constructiv posts. For sure there are a couple of "kids" posting rubbish and if you remember some are now serving a permanent ban too...
And as a last note, I've seen nothing impressiv in ITS knowledge about aviation. Many people here are pilots too, others work in the aviation industry, and many others are also capable of posting mature and smart comments which was very rarely the case of ITS.

This is for sure my own opinion and .... but as you have guessed I strongly support the decision of the permanent ban.

cheers
Alex


PS : For those who don't thing banning ITS was right could I just suggest you the next experience ?

Take your car, go and drive too fast in front of a polic car. When they stop you, hope to only get a warning. Next day do the same again, and again hope very strongly to only get a warning... but you you guessed it ? Do it over again and again until they remove your license for a month. Getting your DL back, just pass the speed limit again and again... How patient do you think the police will be ?
Yes ITS passed that speed limit over again and again and got banned, I really see nothing unfair there.

[Spad13]

For me ITS did have his chances again and again so please stop crying and just answer that simple question :

- Why didn't he change his attitude after the numerous warnings and bans ?

it's a simple question isn't it ? but no one who complains about the ban seem to have a clear answer... maybe because there's NO answer.

It is a very simple question and I have an even simpler answer: it's not his job to change. To those who found him so unbearably offensive I say "use your ignore feature and move on with your lives". So yes, there is definitely an answer.

[brianw999]

...deleted....

[brianw999]

Thankfully, we're not in the UK, Brian. We have free speech here.

In that case, here's a little challenge for you. Next time Barak Obama is round your way, approach him and call him a rude name. I'll give it less than one second before your face is in the dirt with a .357 at the back of your head.

Oh yes, just remembered. Racism. Hows' about this for racism. At least our police don't treat fellow emergency service workers like this. What chance do the public stand if the police treat their medics this way. Very interesting that the white cop/white medic interaction was peaceful yet the white cop/black medic interaction erupted into violence within seconds. That's double standards in my book. The ambulance was pulled over because it didn't pull over when the cops came racing up behind it and only hit their sirens at the last second. The ambulance was carrying a sick woman to hospital at the time.

And you have the absolute gall to call ME racist and biased.

http://www.youtube.com/view_play_list?p=4338B785D5C09A3B&search_query=american+emt+assaulted+by+police

[Rtyrpics]

Guys,

I do understand this is not realy my place to comment but I do feel this discussion has gone a little far and in places has become personal.

The crew here do a great job of managing the magnitude of the site and I can clearly see they are very fair but to maintain a pleaseant environment they need to remain in control and people that are going to become abusive need to be taught a lesson that this type of behaviour is not acceptable.

I also felt the JP forums were a friendly environment albeit a little bit dead at times but a joy to post and contribute to.

I think perhaps the poll was aimed to make light of a members unacceptable and from what I can gather hurtful behaviour. So I now feel it is time for us to move on put our personal problems aside and just enjoy sharing our passion for photography and aviation.

We don't need the politics there are other places to that and if truth be know i take my hat off to the crew at this site for how accepting, friendly and down to earth this place is.

Let us work together to keep this forum the friendly place it should be regardless of colour, creed, ethic background or any other personal factors that influence our opinions of people.

Best Regards
Ryan

[BoeingBobby]

Some of you here probably wondered why I have been absent for the last couple of weeks.I have been reading the posts but have not take part mostly because of the constant childish behavior of some of you. The personal insults not withstanding, banning ITS for ever is a loose loose situation for all here. His wealth of aviation knowledge was colorful at times, and I think some of his comments were a little of the wall. But I DO NOT think they were said to inflame or harass anyone. Hell, I have a sticker on the side of my flight bag put out by Boeing that reads, “ If it ain’t Boeing, I’m not going”. Just a little bit of humor there. I have been spending more time over on Pprune where there does seem to be a bit more of a professional pilot dialogue going on.


BB

[TAP-A343]

To those who found him so unbearably offensive I say "use your ignore feature and move on with your lives".

That's what the moderators did. They used their "ignore" (ban) feature.

[Olbob567]

Weird Poll

[shakermaker]

To those who found him so unbearably offensive I say "use your ignore feature and move on with your lives". So yes, there is definitely an answer.

Hang on, so it is okay to ban other offenders who repeatedly breach forum rules (and you can be sure that they ARE dealt with), but where ITS is concerned, hit the 'Ignore' button and move on? Why is it necessary for there to be a double standard just for ITS? He is not God's gift to this forum, and while the knowledge base may be affected by his absence (as stated by many), we are however better off in having one less bigot in our midst.

If you are suggesting that this forum do away with banning, and with that the moderators too, and just let self-regulate (everyone ignore one another) then I'm afraid there will be just too much garbage floating around this space. If this is your suggestion, then I have to disagree.