I promised myself I would stay out of this.

You didn't do very well there.

Josh, you said you feel out of the loop.  There isn't enough transparency.  We should have more town hall meetings, and the lack of a public forum troubles you and, you know what, it should.  So let me ask you, if there truly is a lack of a public forum why haven't you asked your ATM the questions that trouble you?  You have questions and concerns why haven't you brought them to your ATM?  I could go on, but each point ends with why haven't you brought your concerns to your ATM?   He is the point person for your ARTCC.  He has, or should have, the answer you seek and if he doesn't , he knows who to speak with to get it.  Your ATM is supposed to do more than just kick people off the roster because they haven't controlled enough last month.  He is your representative to the Division.  You want a democracy?  You got one.  Convince your ATM to keep you informed. Convince your ATM to make sure that all of the new guys get trained.  Convince your ATM to bring to the Division any questions, problems, or good ideas that he thinks will enhance what we do. Convince your ATM to sit down with the ATMs of the surrounding ARTCCs and develop a plan for sharing information and creating good time events.

Josh doesn't have an ATM to report to. Because his ATM got removed. For reasons unknown to most, if not all, of us. Speculation can run wild in a situation where your regular members don't know what's happening to those that are supposed to be leading them. And now, it's resulted in a situation to where it feels like there maybe something personal that caused all this to happen. But what do I know? I'm just a controller in the dark.

You want democracy?  You want a town hall meeting?  You want to meet with the Division to find  out what's going on?  No you don't. You want a town hall meeting because it's easy to roast people, policy and plans in a group setting than argue with your ATM about something he already knows about and maybe even agrees with. 

One last thing. Is a town hall meeting an important piece of this puzzle?  It is. But it is because it's a public relations requirement and not because anything good ever comes out of them.

Got it. We'll just go and sit in our own kingdoms and scheme up some cool things to try. God forbid we try and collaborate with others and make find improvements that we can make to have a more connected division.

But nope, it's apparently just a PR stunt, so let's pull up the drawbridge and fill the moats again.

Your ARTCC isn't being run into the ground is it?

My facilities staff hasn't been randomly fired yet, so maybe it is, maybe it isn't? How would I know?

The other issue I have noticed recently when giving a long instruction is that pilots will break in when you make a pause in your speech and have not given the full instruction.  A growing pet peeve of mine, 'wait until I release my PTT before you start talking.'

Or, you know, just don't pause in your transmission. Know what you are going to say, then key up the mic.

I can understand extra words in transmissions. But take your new VATSIM pilot who doesn't read much if any prior to logging on to the network, may not use charts, or has old navdata, and some people want them to be able to understand taxi instructions like "Runway 15L, taxi via NB NE WW." Sometimes long transmissions like "Runway 15L, turn left the first taxi way then proceed ahead to pass 8 taxiways then hold position."

Then they should ask for progressive taxi. There's a reason we don't do it normally - it takes too much time.

Is there a way to continue this discussion WITHOUT touching on pilot training in some way?  I know that's been a bit of a hot topic, and in my (limited) understanding, the answer thus far has been "no".

IMO, no. Events run smoother with better pilots, regardless of what operations are being simulated.

Maybe we need a secret code for vPilot that will tell ATC how smart we are, so we get front of the line 

Respond quickly and accurately to ATC instructions. I trust a pilot way more when I see the plane turn while the readback is occuring...

The appropriate answer to that question is "read again".

Where is this event actually taking place? MCO? JAX?

If you get walloped for refusing a handoff with valid reasons, please email me.