To all those who understood and appreciated my recent informative posts, I thank you for your understanding and for your expressions of support and appreciation. I genuinely appreciate you and especially those who took the time and effort to express yourselves in a positive way, privately and/or publicly.
To all who have posted public objections to and complaints regarding my posting helpful informative articles found in AvFlash or on the AOPA website, I feel a need to explain since there appears to be a general lack of understanding by most posters. I am wondering if the majority of you feel you want an apology from me as well?
First of all, except for Jerry's two notes and Dr. B's private note (all 3 of which came through to my private Inbox instead of being automatically filtered to the Flyin list mailbox), I did not get a chance to read any of the objections until today. As I was surfing through the AOPA website for helpful informative articles that I felt could benefit the Coupe Community given the current reality in our world today with all the attacks on General Aviation, I was not reading any incoming mail at the same time that I was posting copies of what I considered relevant articles which could be helpful to Coupers in one way or another. So even Jerry's and Dr. B's emails went unread until after-the-fact of all the posts I made.
In my "other than aviation" life, I run several email lists devoted to horses (another lifelong passion) and, because I am the owner and/or moderator and/or actively-involved member of many lists, I read them first, to try to help head off any potential problems before they get to the point where there is a major blow-up (horse owners can be very passionate both in their love of horses and their reactions to various stimuli, and appreciate others helping to keep them on a positive track instead of descending into negative quarreling and personal attacks). And I also receive a great many personal emails from various people and organizations I am working to help via creative brainstorming/problem-solving, which in turn require timely responses from me. This includes the work I voluntarily undertook to help assist the Coupers coming to Sun'n'Fun to be able to have advance reservations for the planned group dinner at the Red Barn, and corresponding with Fantasy of Flight for the planned group visit there, and researching the feasibility of other early-proposed plans. Thus the Coupe lists are often left unread until I have processed through all the hundreds of other emails I receive every day.
I am, by nature, a person who volunteers to help, who does creative brainstorming/problem-solving without looking for personal gain, who is service-oriented, and who strives to pro-actively help create a better world than it is likely to be if people don't care enough to get pro-actively involved in the process of making good things happen and stopping bad things from becoming an unfortunate reality.
Unfortunately, too many people choose otherwise - preferring to instead apathetically sit silently back and allow bad things to happen (like various aspects of General Aviation being shut down for whatever reasons it is being attacked) and then reacting with outrage that such a thing was allowed to happen and why didn't someone work to stop it from becoming a reality before it was too late, and why didn't someone make them aware of it while there was still time to be pro-active and prevent it from becoming an adverse reality? Or, in the case of some others, preferring to just grumpily debate the semantics of what got posted while the important issues presented get left behind.
If I come across news that could be of interest or could be helpful for others to be aware of, I tend to share it because I figure in today's too-busy time-crunched world, not everyone gets around to reading through all the news items on - in this case - the AOPA website (which contains more recent info than AOPA's latest magazine), and I don't automatically assume that everyone involved with aviation receives and reads the AvFlash e-newsletter. I've encountered many pilots who don't read AOPA news due to lack of time, and who weren't even aware of the existence of the AvFlash newsletter until I brought it to their attention. We've also met many pilots who do not belong to any association, whether due to not wanting to spend the money on dues, or not being a "joiner" type, or just not having gotten around to it - and they are therefore not privy to the AOPA and EAA and other sources of information those of you who are members are fortunate enough to be privy to in a timely manner.
Many of us do have other dimensions to our lives which tend to require a great deal of time, and therefore may not have the luxury of time to do daily reads of the AOPA website in addition to the AOPA magazine in addition to the AvFlash e-newsletter in addition to the EAA website and magazines, and are therefore not able to be as current as some of you are fortunate enough to be (according to your recent posts to the list).
I personally am not currently an individual member of AOPA because my husband is, and we found it redundantly unnecessary to have two AOPA magazines and other publications coming in every month when we both held individual memberships. Same reason why I am not personally an individual member of EAA, or any of the other numerous aviation-related organizations John already belongs to. And since I am not personally a member of these organizations, I do not automatically ~assume~ that every single pilot or aviation aficionado is a member and up-to-date on all the latest news, as apparently several of you do so assume.
That is why I posted copies of those articles which I thought would be of particular interest to at least some members of the Coupe Community. I fully realized that many of you were probably members, and that at least some of you were up-to-date on all this information, but I felt it would be a mistake to ~assume~ that everyone here is a member and always has the time and opportunity to read these articles and is always up-to-date on these various topics. I never dreamed that my intended-to-be-helpful efforts would be met with such apparent outrage and distinct negativity. To those of you who were nice enough to express appreciation for my efforts, I sincerely thank you and I am grateful for your emails to help balance out the negative responses and very public reprimands.
To those of you who chose to publicly reprimand me, I have a few questions for you (and these are not rhetorical questions):
1 - Is it really necessary, do you think, to clog up the list with so many negative attacks on a fellow list member and fellow Coupe owner? To what purpose?
2 - Don't you think it would be far more effective and more considerate towards the entire Coupe Community to simply send private responses when you have an objection to something another member posts?
3 - Do you really want new members who read through the list Archives to see such negative attacks publicly posted against well-intentioned fellow list members/concerned Coupe owners who are simply trying to help ensure that ~all~ list members are aware of topics which may be of vital interest to at least some of the list members?
4 - Don't some of you ever stop thinking of just your own selves and your own interests and make an effort to see the greater good which some of us are attempting to create, which can only be beneficial to everyone (including you) in some way in the long run?
I chose to send the appropriate most important/relevant articles (and filtered out others as not suitable) as individual emails first because it makes it easier to keep each topic separate should any discussions about them get started, and secondly because I was in "pro-active working/research/education mode" and therefore copying and sending as I finished reading each article and determined if it would be of interest or concern to the various members of the Coupe Community. I even worked to crop out any graphics to help decrease the download time and the bandwidth each post takes up, in response to a complaint I received regarding the posting of the recent article in AvFlash about the MIT attempt to create a "new version of the Ercoupe."
On the horse lists I am simply a member of (as well as those I own or help run), even on breed-specific lists, it is always acceptable to post anything that is of general interest to horse people. All information is warmly welcomed and appreciated on the horse lists, including the single-breed lists, regardless of who posts it.
I had thought the same basic rule applied to the Coupe lists - that the majority of the conversations would be about Ercoupes, but when something came up which could make a huge difference to at least some members of the Coupe Community, that it would be OK to share it in order to help educate, and to help stimulate discussion, and possibly stir some people affected into being pro-active in a timely manner so they would not find themselves adversely affected via ignorance of the existence of these issues which do affect so many General Aviation members.
The Reality is that Coupers are members of General Aviation, and not everyone is ~always~ aware of ~all~ aspects affecting General Aviation without someone else bringing it to their attention. Just look at the recent discussion of cellphone use in the air for one such example (and I never read one complaint about the numerous posts involved in that discussion despite the fact that it was not Ercoupe-specific).
Please tell me if I am wrong in thinking that at least some if not most Coupers would want to know about things that could affect their freedom to fly in and out of local GA airports, or the insurance industry's latest round of creating more expensive and difficult situations for GA aircraft owners, or the FAA's upcoming meeting later this month about aging aircraft concerns (of vital importance now due to the potential for an AD affecting all Ercoupes, especially in the wake of that recent Ercoupe crash).
I love my Coupe, and I would like to be a good member of the Coupe Community, but I'm finding it difficult to understand what is acceptable and what isn't. I know I can't please all the people all of the time, but I would find it helpful to have some sort of guidelines as to what is less likely to generate criticisms if I decide to post. I'm almost starting to wonder if my posts would have been considered more acceptable if some of you didn't know I was a woman posting them? I sure don't read many complaints about posts from the male members of the community (including the decidedly non-Ercoupe-specific and rather derogatory "Why airplanes are better than women" post, or the many-times-around old joke about how many list members it takes to change a light bulb), yet both Spook and I seem to come under attack when we post far more often than when male members post, even when some of those "male-member posts" are in - at best - questionable taste.
And then some of you wonder why women, such as some of your wives or other female relatives or friends, aren't more actively involved in aviation...? You might consider how condescending and arrogantly self-righteous some of you come across via emails, when a person cannot see your facial expressions or body language or hear the tone of your voice or the expression in your eyes as you communicate which could help soften the impact and help create greater understanding. I am, of course, here giving ~some~ of you the benefit of the doubt that you are not really as bad as you tend to come across in your public emails.
I didn't complain when y'all got into lengthy discussions such as the huge controversy over "political correctness" on how to properly address list members/Coupe owners who happen to include either gender, or the lengthy discussions about cell phone use in the air, or the decidedly negative semantics exchange between some list members over some technical topics, etc.
I just now looked back through the various messages I've received since joining recently, and found several which were at best only mildly related to Ercoupes (such as our favorite colors or names for our aircraft, or posts about various GPS's for sale, or the decidedly non-Ercoupe-related post about the WWII glider project needing some help, or cell phone use in the air), but no one publicly complained about any of them. So why are some of you now complaining about my non-Ercoupe-specific but aviation-oriented educational/informative posts?
To the best of my knowledge (and please correct me if I am wrong), I have never once attacked any of you (publicly or privately) for anything you have posted, even when some of them have been in obviously poor taste (to put it nicely). So why so many public complaints and borderline-personal-attacks when I post things that are specifically related to General Aviation and therefore peripherally and importantly related to Ercoupes (which is realistically a segment of General Aviation and therefore affected by things which affect General Aviation) as well as the very public demands made to me that the only permissible posts are ones that specifically have to do with Ercoupes? You don't seem to hold your male members to such strict standards, so why are you demanding this now of me? Is it acceptable to all of you to have some members create and enforce such an obvious double standard? Don't you think it is a little hypocritical to give a woman a warm welcome to the Coupe Community and then turn around and remain silent when certain rather chauvinistic members post uncalled-for and rather misogynistic attacks on women? Don't you ~want~ more women to join General Aviation and the Coupe Community, and to bring our individual talents to work to benefit all of you?
I don't want to retreat into "lurkdom" and simply read and never post, and I sure don't want to resign from the lists, but I find myself feeling on the verge of this now. I just would very much like to understand how I might avoid getting blasted everytime I post something other than my introduction to the list about how much I enjoyed my first flight in my beautiful Coupe, or post suggestions for the Sun'n'Fun gathering which I volunteered to help with. If we have other women members other than Spook and me, I'm sure they are wondering the same thing. I now fully understand why Spook and other women members rarely post. I'm now thinking they've been through this same sort of experience and found it just as unpleasant and distasteful as I do now.
Any assistance anyone can provide in helping me understand what's appropriate and what isn't would be very much appreciated. I'm getting very tired of being blasted, and my Nomex flight suit is looking distinctly scorched (and yes, I really do have several military-issue Nomex flight suits, including the gloves, for when John & I do air shows together).
My initial impression of the Couper Community as being a warm and friendly and welcoming one is now being seriously questioned based on my recent experiences on this list and my recent treatment by some too-quick-to-publicly-post members of this list.
If you all want to encourage more people to become active helpful members of the Coupe Community (and General Aviation) and to enjoy remaining active members of it, you might want to think twice about what & how you choose to react to, and read your as-yet unsent post as though you were the new member trying to fit in harmoniously and how your objections to some posts and not others could possibly drive new members away. If you find yourself unsure of the wisdom of posting something you quickly wrote, use the "time away from it test" - put it aside, spend some time doing other things, then come back and read it as if someone else wrote it and think about how it could be received. Then decide if it is really worth posting to a public list, and how it is likely to make you appear to others.
On some of the lists, we use "moderated status" to help give certain known too-hasty negative posters a chance for that necessary time-out to re-think about how they might want to reword their proposed post before it hits the public list and makes them appear to be loud-mouthed fools. Yes, it creates more work for the owner and moderator of the list, but in some cases it is necessary when people refuse to behave like responsible adults aware of their responsibilities as individuals and refuse to take responsibility for the undesirable and negative backlash some of their posts create (and that negative backlash is usually against the negative poster).
I've noticed several unsubscribe requests posted to this list lately - you may want to consider why this is happening, and what you can each do as an individual to help build up the Coupe Community (and General Aviation) rather than drive people away from it.
And this applies doubly so if you would like to see your wives and female friends and female relatives get more involved in enjoying your passion for aviation and flying, and to use their unique talents and abilities to help keep General Aviation alive and well (and free of the currently proposed and often enacted overly-burdensome restrictions) for all of us aviators and aviation aficionados to enjoy.
Blue skies and happy landings,
Susan
On Mar 9, 2006, at 11:39 PM, Dr. B. wrote:
<x-tad-bigger>A private note off the list; thanks for your trouble in sending these things. I greatly enjoy them and I’ve said so to the rest of the list. I wanted to say so to you individually as well.</x-tad-bigger>
<x-tad-bigger>Robert Beeman</x-tad-bigger>===================================
"Start by doing what's necessary; then do what's possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible." - Francis of Assisi
"It is much better to live in a world that you have participated in defining, than in one that has been defined for you." - Susan Horton
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has." - Margaret Mead
"As life is action and passion, it is required of a man that he should share the passion and action of his time, at peril of being judged not to have lived." - Oliver Wendell Holmes
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