The State of the Sig

Our Contentious Little Secret

What We've Learned so Far

• Online discussions truly are different than face-to-face discussions.  Some online forum participants are naturals at conveying nuances like rolling eyes, winks, and grins without even adding emoticons to their messages, while other participants will always think nuances are things like rain puddles, ants at a picnic, or Geraldo.   Consider this circumstance whenever you get an unexpected and off-the-wall reply to a message, and please be nice. 

• The best sides of all people come out in online discussions that don't involve pre-invested positions like professional doctrine, politics, or morality.  For anyone wearied by the sometimes intense discussion on airmanship, regulations, or world strife on AVSIG, we suggest you balance your visit with trips to Hangar Flying and AVSIG People and Places.  We know some AVSIG participants limit themselves to just our "serious" sections ... and we've noticed that these same people are among the first to sigh that the joint just ain't fun anymore in the midst of a big throw-down debate.   The social places above have always been AVSIG's white light therapy ... our Yang to our Ying ... our Curly to our Moe.  Please do stop in, get some coffee, and shoot the breeze once in awhile.

• Spending your entire day or night on web discussion groups is not healthy, because:

... The best part about online discussion is that in time, forum participants become just like family. 

... The worst part about online discussion is that in time, forum participants become just like family.

During the cold, dark winter months especially, shut the internet out of your life for a few days.  Take up skiing ... hit the treadmill ... head for the Bahamas ... or wander around your neighborhood looking for cars to push out of snow banks.   Whatever you do, please resist the temptation to camp-out in front of an internet forum all winter.  (Besides, there will be loads of people who never took this advice.   They'll be posting messages, and they'll be paranoid ... insane ... maybe even grouchy).  Even in good weather, that place with trees, flowers, people, and honking horns is a fantastic complement to this electronic pixel world, and cross-training out there where everybody used to live helps put a fine point on whatever you thought was good and bad about that world while reading up about it on your computer.

• There is a sinister internet campaign to rid the world of the word "lose" and replace it with "loose."  It is a loosely-organized but pervasive movement, but in any case the world is clearly in danger of losing the distinction between "lose" and "loose" if this is permitted to continue unchecked.  We believe that the world's oldest online forum may in fact be the last defense against this scourge ... yet our success or failure is as always dependent on how we handle the battle.  Please be nice about when, where, and how you engage the enemy.

--MO                  1/1/2006

_______________________________________________________

AVSIG History  Notes on JBG  The State of the Sig  Our Contentious Little Secret What We've Learned so Far