pkfox wrote:
Anyone know of a site where we can at least setup a group and stay in touch?
Yes, I do.
pkfox wrote:
WE ARE FAMILY
...And this is why I find this situation to be of great importance. I used to be part of a website just like CodeProject.com for 15+ years. Instead of coding enthusiasts, the website was made up of a community of aviation fanatics. I had so many friends in that community, and I still have many of those friends to this day. What I'm seeing here is a carbon copy of what I experienced many years ago. I was an active member of a vibrant online aviation community. The site was massive. We had millions of active members. There were less than a half-dozen people who operated the site. It was far more work than they could handle, and they decided to accept an offer from a media company who wanted to buy the website. It transformed those half-dozen overworked owners, and operators into instant millionaires. I'm very happy for them -- all that work they put in over so many years paid off as it should have. That's about the only good thing that happened as a result of selling the website. When the transfer of ownership became official, it decimated the community. Tens of thousands of members just abandoned the site. What was left was a cauldron of anger and backlash. The new owners of the website didn't understand how the aviation community worked. They had no idea how to foster the community. Out of panic and frustration, the new owners came down hard on the community. They were hemorrhaging money, and were desperate to keep the site afloat. Their heavy-handed policies were inconsistently enforced. People who were in charge of moderating the forums were corporate drones who had no people skills. They had no interest in aviation. They clearly enjoyed abusing their power over members. They were outright rejected by the entire aviation community, and rightly so. It became a clusterf*** of dysfunction; a complete nightmare for everyone. Several members attempted to gather together and launch their own aviation website. They managed to gather enough funding to make a go of it. Sadly, they just didn't have the knowledge, experience, and skillset required to succeed. Their hearts were in the right place, but that was all. Their endeavor crashed and burned before it even started. The start-up funds were mishandled. This caused members of the group to become hostil
