Hello from Calmissile

[calmissile]

I don't believe I posted an intro before, so lets give it a whirl...
My screen name came about some years ago in one of those panic situations where I was trying to  generate an email name that was not in use.  You all know how that goes.

I am a semiretired Aerospace Engineer.  For the past several years I have been doing consulting work for several government agencies.  My specialty is Telemetry and I work on various programs including missile, aircraft, and satellite.  I also owned an Avionics corporation for 12 years.

Some of you may know me from a different forum in which I posted a lengthy Trip Report and many photos of my FSU journey which is still ongoing.  I had a disagreement with the owner of the board over the Terms of Service on that site.  I am still trying to digest the terms of service (TOS) at this site before deciding whether to post trip reports here.

The on the ground, real experiences people have in this adventure seem to me to be much more valuable than the opinions spouted off constantly by those that have never even been to the FSU.  If the TOS is acceptable to me I will copy my previous Trip Reports and hundreds of photos over here for your enjoyment.

I recognize a lot of screen names here from the other board so at least I don't feel lonely

My last trip to Ukraine lasted a month and my fiance and I spent the time together both at our home in Primorsk as well as some other exciting places.  We are expecting to get married shortly after my fiance and her daughter arrive in the US about Feb/2012.

I hope to meet you all and share in this great FSU journey.

[acrzybear]

Welcome to RWD Doug
You will find that RWD is like a large extremely dyslexic  family, we have everything from blue collar to highly educated and everything in between. With some common sense and time you will be able to separate the wheat from the chaff.  Dan (the owner here) encourages lively civil discussions and has only kicked out 4 or 5 folks since this board started in 2005. 

[Vaughn]

Welcome, calmissile, from another over-60 guy. I look forward to your story...

[Kineo]

   to the forum.
 
It sounds like you are well on your journey. And probably already have plenty of experience to share. I hope everuting goes well over the next few months getting your fiance here.

[Hammer2722]

Hi Cal, great to see you on the noards here at RWD. I too am no longer posting on the other forum you mentioned but I think you will find these boards have a much more refreshing atmosphere. Welcome!!!! Glad to know your new family will be with you soon! 

[wicheese]

Clamissile!


Don't eat too much turkey today!


 

[Faux Pas]

Welcome to RWD calmissle!


Not to start out as a burr in your butt, however, it might be worth mentioning that one doesn't have to be married or made dozens of trips to offer something to constructive to a discussion. Advice here or any forum is usually worth every penny you paid for it. With that said, most of the experienced people do understand what you mean.


Congrats on your impending nuptials!

[calmissile]

Thanks for the welcome messages.  Happy Thanksgiving to all.

[viking]

Welcome. I am up there with Vaughn. Would like to hear your story.

[calmissile]

You'll have to hang on until I find a place to post it.  I have not yet heard back from the site owner here.  If necessary, I guess I could post it on youtube and just provide the links.

I tried to submit a proposal to the other site owner and got the most unexpected, arrogant reply that I could imagine.

I'll keep you posted as I find a solution and have the time to repost it along with the updates and hundreds of photos.  I really think trip reports are some of the most interesting and informative data that a newbie can use to decide whether to persure this adventure.

Tell me, is the owner of this site more respectful and appreciative of his(her) members than where I just came from?

[Hammer2722]

Hi Cal, you'll find Dan is a much fairer and friendly owner here as long as you follow the site rules. At the very least you won't won't be treated disrespectfully.

[calmissile]

Thanks Hammer,
If you want to be entertained you can read the last couple of posts over there he directed to me.  You will then know why I asked the question.

[Faux Pas]

You'll have to hang on until I find a place to post it.  I have not yet heard back from the site owner here.  If necessary, I guess I could post it on youtube and just provide the links.

I tried to submit a proposal to the other site owner and got the most unexpected, arrogant reply that I could imagine.

I'll keep you posted as I find a solution and have the time to repost it along with the updates and hundreds of photos.  I really think trip reports are some of the most interesting and informative data that a newbie can use to decide whether to persure this adventure.

Tell me, is the owner of this site more respectful and appreciative of his(her) members than where I just came from?

calmissle


We have trip report sections. One allows responses called Trip reports and a  subsection called Trip reports Sans responses that does not allow responses. As far as I know you are free to post your trip report in either of those you choose. Please adhere to the TOS

[ML]

If you are going to post your TR in only one segment and all at once, you can put it in the regular TR section.

But if you are going to post in several segments, I suggest the Sans Response section of the TRs.

Reason:  If you post in segments, you are likely to get chewed up by many here after each of your segments, and the end result will be a very disjointed TR that lacks continuity.  And, you might even want to give up before you finish posting your TR.

[calmissile]

 Thanks for the responses.  Even though I saw zero guests when I looked in that section, I could not determine if you have to log in to read them.  I was curious if both sections can be Google'd.
Don't worry about the TOS.  I have learned my lesson on the other site

[calmissile]

ManLooking,
Thanks for the tip.  I have seen what you are talking about in other threads and it doesn't make much sense to have a TR disjointed with a lot of comments.  Some of them get so bad you don't even want to finish reading them.

[Manny]

Please adhere to the TOS

Watch this space: He will soon be trying to rewrite it.

[calmissile]

Manny,
You are an embarrasment to yourself, your forum members, and probably your advertisers.  Please don't try and bring your problems over here.  From what I read above, this site owner is not likely to tolerate it.

Our disagreement was over a suggestion I made concerning the Terms of Service on your web site and the possible implications it could have on the members posting TR's.  I suggested a solution that would satisfy the members as well as your business interests.  That is all there is to it.  I have not even spoken to the owner of this site yet, and you are trying to move the battle over here.  Good luck!  I am not going to play your game.  I did notice that this site has a thread for suggestions from the members.  Hopefully it is treated much more fairly than you handle similar suggestions on your site.

You can keep your arrogance over there on your own site.  That is probably why it is only 1/2 the size that is reported for this site.  Anyone that has any interest in  the discussion can read your posts over there and draw their own conclusions.  From all the emails I received it appears that you do not have much of a following on your position.  After your arrogant and disrespectful response to me I really don't care whether you or your site survives.  Perhaps your advertisers will take a look at what you have done to destroy what was once a good site.  The number of members you are loosing that are showing up here ought to be some indication to you about your performance as a site owner.

[Daveman]

Hi Doug, and welcome to RWD.


I'm looking forward to reading about your experiences. 


Just something to keep in mind... a squabble between fora, or a public venting of grievances concerning other fora is not what RWD is about.  So, whatever happens/happened on another forum stays on that other forum (or at least apart from RWD).   

Thanks for the responses.  Even though I saw zero guests when I looked in that section, I could not determine if you have to log in to read them.  I was curious if both sections can be Google'd.
Don't worry about the TOS.  I have learned my lesson on the other site

Yes the TR sections are open for public viewing and will appear on a google search (as will any public area of the site).


Only logged in members may view photos in posts.


If you want to post something in a more viewer restrictive area, then feel free to use the member only areas.  If you scroll down the the main forum page, you should be able to locate an obvious candidate location for your thread.  I could post a link, or mention the name, but that information is highly classified so I would then need to perform mass eliminations of the reader loose ends! 


Dave

[calmissile]

Thanks Dave for the response.

I already like the atmosphere here
I'll search for the members only spot you mentioned, please excuse I have only been here about a day and still learning the ropes.

The portions that had already been posted received a lot of very favorable comment.  I'm not that much of a writer, but tried to make up for it with lots of pictures

[Vinnvinny]

Welcome Doug! 

[Muzh]

Another one joins the crowd.


    Doug

[calmissile]

Wow, more screen names I recognize.  Thanks for the welcome.

[Manny]

Manny,
You are an embarrasment to yourself, your forum members, and probably your advertisers.  Please don't try and bring your problems over here.  From what I read above, this site owner is not likely to tolerate it.

Our disagreement was over a suggestion I made concerning the Terms of Service on your web site and the possible implications it could have on the members posting TR's.  I suggested a solution that would satisfy the members as well as your business interests.  That is all there is to it.  I have not even spoken to the owner of this site yet, and you are trying to move the battle over here.  Good luck!  I am not going to play your game.  I did notice that this site has a thread for suggestions from the members.  Hopefully it is treated much more fairly than you handle similar suggestions on your site.

You can keep your arrogance over there on your own site.  That is probably why it is only 1/2 the size that is reported for this site.  Anyone that has any interest in  the discussion can read your posts over there and draw their own conclusions.  From all the emails I received it appears that you do not have much of a following on your position.  After your arrogant and disrespectful response to me I really don't care whether you or your site survives.  Perhaps your advertisers will take a look at what you have done to destroy what was once a good site.  The number of members you are loosing that are showing up here ought to be some indication to you about your performance as a site owner.

Out of respect for the good people here who don't really care about your history elsewhere, I wont even bother replying that lot. Peoples eyes would glaze over.

All I will advise you, is that most large forums are broadly similar. In this genre, there are only two worth mentioning - you are a member of both. You get good people and idiots on both. Personalities differ, management styles differ, moderation styles differ, but the site purpose is the same.

If you think I am difficult; don't imagine Dan will be a pushover. He has been doing this stuff longer than me and is nobodies fool. I think I know him a *little* better than you, and I can tell you that you wont be rewriting his TOS any time soon to accommodate your whims either.

Something I learned long ago is that people cross inhabit both sites. So if you pull a stunt on one, you never entirely escape it on the other. Forum guys have long memories.

Good luck in your new home. 

[calmissile]

Thanks for the reply Manny.  I see that your tacky, disrespectul writing style isn't likely to change soon.....
"Out of respect for the good people here who don't really care about your history elsewhere, I wont even bother replying that lot. Peoples eyes would glaze over."

Your comments that peoples eyes will glaze over if they read the history about our TR discussion is a little presumptive don't you think?  Based on the PM's and comments from moderators on THIS SITE I think your mistaken.  In fact I invited folks to read it for themselves and make their own judgements.  Is telling them in advance that their eyes will gloss over your way to avoid having them read for themselves and forming their own opinion?

Now that you have brought up the topic of the TOS, for those not wanting to read the whole thing at it's origin, nor want to increase you page hit counts (or whatever it is called) let me explain the whole topic in only a sentence or two.  Bear in mind that it has nothing to do with the TOS on this site. I have not yet even spoken to the site owner, however several moderators have already contacted me and started a civil dialogue on the topic.

After posting my TR's on another site, I became alarmed at some of the suggestions being made by some members about the future of the site and the steps being taken to generate revenue.  No big deal, we all expect that.  Having a fair amount of business law experience from my corporate ownership experience earlier, I by chance looked up the terms of the TOS at that site.  Like many others, I had either not read or had forgotten the terms and it did not seem important at the time because there were no apparent reasons to suspect that our postings and TR's would be used for any profit making venture.

Upon re-reading the TOS, I discovered that we collectively and individually gave total and complete ownership of our TR's to the site owner.  He is free for example to relicense and sell the TR contents to anyone without the knowledge of permisson of the author of the TR's.  In fact he could sell our TR's to one of the documentary companies that have been doing TV shows on the MOB business.  He can also sell the TR's to an on line dating company so they can use it as promotional material to support their advertising to gain new members.  These are just a few of the many examples the unrestricted license in their TOS permits.

Seeing the potential risks that we that post TR's have granted (by our joining the site), I made a simple, civil request to Manny to modify the terms of the TOS to exclude the material in TR's from the unrestricted license. It was my belief (and still is) that TR's serve a great purpose on the forums and it would encourage more people to submit TR's if the TOS were modified slightly. 

Unfortunately, the topic evolved into a great mess about RSS feeds, and other non-related arguments that had nothing to do with the request I made.  After the owner dug his heels in and provided several insulting remarks I became suspicious as to whether I had accidently exposed his 'for profit' intentions.  I simply requsted that he delete my TR's as a courtesy to me.  It would not have created any problem for the forum nor messed up any continuity, etc.  They would merely be gone as though never posted.

He refused to do so, and that the was the end of that request.  Instead the topic continued with continued insults about me not having read the TOS etc. to which I had already admitted.

That is it in a nutshell.  For those that still want their 'eyes glossed over' you can read it all for yourself.

Sorry for taking more than a few lines but writing isn't one of my best attributes.

"If you think I am difficult; don't imagine Dan will be a pushover. He has been doing this stuff longer than me and is nobodies fool. I think I know him a *little* better than you, and I can tell you that you wont be rewriting his TOS any time soon to accommodate your whims either."

Thanks for the advice Manny, I did not know you knew Dan so well and could speak in his behalf.  I have never talked to him nor would expect him to be a 'pushover'.  Since you are certain that he will not be changing his TOS to accomodate the concerns I raised, I will take your word for it and will not be posting any TR's on this site.  You should also tell his moderators to discontinue thinking about the topic because you already know what the 'boss' will do.

" So if you pull a stunt on one, you never entirely escape it on the other. Forum guys have long memories."

Your reference to me making a suggestion for the benefit of the members as being a 'stunt' is typical of your condescending remarks.  My 'stunt' is described above and the members can make their own judgements.

If Dan is as you describe (contrary to what his members describe him as --- see posts above) then the answer is very simple.  I have a life, I do not need or want to spend my time writing TR's and sorting through hundreds of photos just to post on a board.  I don't have any financial gain for all the effort! 

The reason I was writing TR's is because it was the most valuable resource for me when I started this advenure and the forum members seemed to not only appreciate the TR's from everyone but wanted more and more.  If they are not appreciated or needed that is OK with me. 

I have a beautiful Ukriane fiance and once she is here in a couple of months I doubt I will have the time for writing TR's.  Between my family and professional career I am sure I will be way to busy to spend time on the boards.

Thanks to all for the many emails, PM's and letters from the moderators, I will take Manny's advice and not post any TR's unless the 'boss' weighs in and lets us know his feelings.