Hmm.... that's peculiar.
Why it is no more is only specuation to me at this point... ...but to be brutally honest, most CAP disucssion forums suffer from the constant bickering over Uniform items, ID Cards, Agendistic specuations, unfounded inuendo and people venting about personnal issues instead of the bigger picture of improving CAP. There are, interwide, countless posts that were attracting negative publicity to CAP. Vitriolic rants, incredulous cadets lecturing CAP Officers, e-hazing, dogpiling on uniform violations in photos instead of addressing them positively, nitpicking about uniform items and plenty of ammunition for the enemies of CAP.What adds to the mix is the number of High Level CAP and USAF officials that read these rants et al and forumlate theories and guage TOTAL CAP based on that mess.Only Civilian Airman can truely address and answer these questions. But I will say one thing...we must police ourselves better as e-CAPers.I am saddened...I will miss Civil Air Portal And so will all of us...
I had a conversation with CA about this last night (before I fell asleep face-down on my keyboard..Ouch..). Yep, the portal is dark. Reason? Well, there are a few, not the least of which is that CA is ramping up his USCG Aux duties alongside his CAP duties.
But part of it (and I don't want to speak out of turn for him, really, but I don't think he'll mind) is that he's not thrilled with the tenor and tone that many of the so-called "member participation" CAP sites have taken on. Instead of being burgeoning pots of gold-plated information nuggets for new & old members alike, they've become festering sores of dissent, acrimony and scuttlebutt. And CA just doesn't want to contribute to the rumor and innuendo mills.And I don't blame him.
MajC, I wouldn't venture to speak for CA. He's got his reasons and at some point will make them public in his own way. The issues you mentioned are equally true of real military members online discussing the Army uniform & all the same sorts of things we talk about. CAP has an identity crisis, we all know that, and much of the discussion is us as members trying to work thru that. The only thing AF should read from that is that we don't have our crap together yet - that's just reality reflected. On the other hand, CAP leadership should take it as a kick in the pants to get the job done. All of this is plenty reason to disagree & discuss issues, we become better for working thru those problems than we do by ignoring them. I don't know about enemies, if you're talking about NOTF, that guy is a joke to everyone & has no credibility, so screw him. Otherwise I'm not sure who you're referring to. I hope this move by CA is temporary. I hope he realizes the value & synergy that comes from such a forum for open discussion of issues. I hope he sees people connecting across distances & recharging in CAP rather than feeling frustrated by local problems & politics. There's a certain truth to the "knowledge will set you free" saying, and the portal helped serve that purpose very well. So, I hope he'll come back or pass the reigns for a while, but not let it die.
Anyway, I hope CA will take a break & reconsider. Officers needa place to interact w/ other officers to become better officers, and we don't get that at our Sqs. That same saying I've used before, "leadership is not taught, it's caught." That means you need to have conversations w/ good officers about anything & just talking to them, being around them, watching them talk to others is how you learn to be a leader. There is a lot of good in the portal, and it went well beyond a silly announcement or resource site, and I hope we haven't seen the last of it.
ummm.....what's NOTF? :-/
For those who admonish me for closing the site, I say how dare you! It is more than likely that you have been the problem rather than the answer. The mods I selected did a fine job policing the site without overstepping their boundaries. A real problem, however, is that a great many officers have refused to police themselves. Being a part of all the CAPolitical punditry has grown very tiresome, and has been surpassed only by witnessing the same in others.
Edit: As an aside, please consider saving your portalpeople to another space on the Web, because the files on CAPortal will go *poof* in a week.
Tedda,Thanks so much for all your work with CivilAirPortal.You'll always have a place to post if the mood strikes, over at CAPblog.Good luck with the Alterna-Auxie gig with the USCG.Semper Vi,Midway Six
Quote from: MidwaySix on October 31, 2006, 10:09:10 PMTedda,Thanks so much for all your work with CivilAirPortal.You'll always have a place to post if the mood strikes, over at CAPblog.Good luck with the Alterna-Auxie gig with the USCG.Semper Vi,Midway SixNice to see you over here Midway and Major Carrales
I am heartbroken....I don't get my own portalperson........
Quote from: CadetProgramGuy on November 01, 2006, 02:48:01 AMI am heartbroken....I don't get my own portalperson........You guys are certainly welcome to put your Portalpeople in your sigs here.