Please join the ZMA community in welcoming Erik Quinn as our newest Facility Engineer! Erik has been a member of our community's Instructional Training Team for awhile. We are excited about the future with him moving into this new role.

Congratulations Erik!

It is important to remember a basic tenant of human psychology is an individual would rather be viewed as anything except stupid. Positive praise? Love it. Being setup to look stupid? Common reason a student (of any age) acts up in a classroom school setting...to avoid answering the question and looking (in their eyes) like a fool. Better to be known as a problem child than to look ignorant/stupid/a failure.

Often it is not someone's desire to or not to accept guidance, it is how the information was presented which can present a barrier. A criticism of performance, which fundamentally is what guidance often is, shouldn't be done in a public setting. Just because the giver doesn't see it as a problem doesn't mean the receiver won't. For most people, there is some topic/issue in their life they would have a royal fit being criticized about in a public venue. Sometimes we need to remember that translates to the virtual world as well.

Fred, VATSIM doesn't enforce rules that way generally.  VATSIM enforces the other way and usually only when a complaint occurs.  There are lawyers within the BOG and on staff for the BOG, I'm fairly sure this is one of the areas that has also been checked by them.  It is actually a good thing, in that members cannot get away with threatening other members, treating them like garbage, etc.  As soon as a complaint occurs, an investigation is done and the issue handled but the supervisors don't go around policing teamspeak servers.
...
The ability of VATSIM to do so is not a secret, it's clearly laid out in the Code of Regulations which is something you said you read and agreed to when joining the network.

Daniel, I appreciate you taking the time to respond. I guess my point on this particular topic is that it is clear legal representatives of the Board of Governors do not have realistic standing with the Code of Conduct outside of the virtual world (such as to a TeamSpeak server). A simple review the material and it doesn't take long to note irregularities that would not meet the mustard within half the countries network users call home (many with conflicting requirements, not even including states or cities with laws on the books to make online entities accountable for things like bullying). Now jumping to assert the Code of Conduct extends to assets not directly under the organization's jurisdiction (VATSIM servers vs hundreds of voice servers used by global regions) is a stretch I honestly don't believe would hold up. Note, I'm not disagreeing with the policy in any way, simply stating concerns regarding enforcability beyond the VATSIM network itself.

When transitioning from a virtual organization to the realities of a brick-and-mortar infrastructure this can become a problem. Case and point: If a legal complaint was filed within the State of Florida of cyber-bullying against a TeamSpeak server associated with a VATUSA ARTCC, the owner of that server would be the one needing to comply with legal requests and who a crafty attorney could claim was partially responsible. Claiming regulations of a third-party (VATSIM/VATUSA/VATNA) constitute a contract for use and they are responsible for management, especially considering the five components of a legal contract existing are iffy at best, wouldn't hold up for very long. This isn't even getting into legal definitions relating to what harassment is which can often vary country to country, state-to-state, city-to-city (which would supersede anything listed by VATUSA).

Before someone says it, this scenario isn't science-fiction. Such questions are nothing new and have been put to the test before, as noted with my earlier AOL example, back when they "were" the Internet in the 1990s. In that particular case, Community Leader volunteers (for those older than 20, think ARTCC Staff) who had assets on personal FTP websites were forced to discontinue use after a claim of harassment was made. Those items had to be relocated to official company servers, where the Terms of Service held legal standing since the CLs were acting as representatives of AOL. The exact argument noted in your post was used...and it did eventually succeed in a way...after an out of court settlement.

As I noted earlier, a slippery slope exists. We all agree VATSIM states the CoC is in place for all activities, but then admit there is no mechanism for ensuring compliance on the vast majority of their voice server related assets (which would be TeamSpeak style servers, not the 15 official network servers)? Having a regulation (Code of Conduct) without any type of enforcement mechanism (clearly the case here) is a black hole. Would a poll of most VATSIM users show they even knew of their right to report bullying on a TeamSpeak server? There is a reporting mechanism for it, okay. Does this comply with the legal requirements of country/state/city the server or server owner is located in? How about the person making the complaint? What about if the server owner has legal mandatory reporting requirements, which vary often (law enforcement official, educator, etc.)? This is a concern with claiming organizational jurisdiction with a private asset.

Honestly, to me, this is a grey area I hope never gets explored. I guess we will have to agree to disagree on how clear cut the practically of the policy is with enforcement outside of the core network infrastructure.

There are also circumstances where you will find a modified version of a "Ramp Ground" controller position. It is quite common for ARTCCs hosting larger events, such as CTP. In those situations, the Ramp position may actually be staffed but is operated by a certified Ground Controller to help manage traffic flow onto the active taxiways.

Sweet deal indeed. I didn't know that your middle name was "vHuerta"  

Don't worry about Fred. He's out of town at a vNatca conference feasting at their grand buffet. You should see the size of those shrimp.......

You read my mind. Now I know where that damn raise I was promised last year went...a bottle of Johnny Walker Blue in his new corner office. I didn't know we were now even simulating the government bureaucracy of the FAA!

Hey... a new candidate entered the race after some of the voters already cast their ballots. I smell voter fraud!! I see this ending in lengthy litigation.

In Florida, we call that a "pregnant chad" or a "hanging chad."

Got some feedback that the Founders have really been enjoying the ATC they've been getting.   I see that there wasn't a ton on tonight, so I'm hoping maybe some folks will be able to turn out Thursday and Sunday nights.  That said, they were glowing about how good their service was in ZME tonight.  Great job, guys!

To my knowledge they had coverage in and out of Tampa both days...