Application of Policies in VATUSA

[Scott Lansing 953481]

First off, Get your facts straight.

 

What facts? I didn't lay down any factual information. I think you need to get it together young man.

 

One voice should not be the only one to make vital decisions in our community,

 

I think this was pointed out more than once that this was a decision made by several persons who govern VATUSA. It wasn't one voice. So I'm a little confused on why you have chosen to lash out.

 

I'm not taking sides either. But we have people entrusted in positions of authority to do their jobs. We, as a community, don't really need to know the facts surrounding the why's and why not's. The original poster to this thread himself, agreed that VATUSA acted within it's scope of authority "to the letter" with it's removal of Sykes.

 

However, the original poster publicly accused Turner of having a personal vendetta against Sykes and demanded an explanation for Sykes' demotion from instructor to senior controller.

 

In closing, I hope that we can find a way to realize that personal vendettas have no place in a community such as this. Policies need to be applied uniformly, and people entrusted in positions of power need to exercise that power responsibly.

 

Those are the facts as I see them.

 

I have yet to see any credible evidence on behalf of Sykes that would indicate this was personal issue between himself and Turner. The accusation by Elchitz, the original poster, should have never been posted in a public forum. because he failed to include any factual statements that could be corroborated. If there was personal conflict between Sykes and Turner, the original poster left it up for the entire world to speculate as to what. You don't write an open letter to someone and leave out pertinent facts to plead your case.

 

Please enlighten me if I've missed some of the facts.

[Stephen Sculley-Beaman]

First off, Get your facts straight.

 

What facts? I didn't lay down any factual information. I think you need to get it together young man.

 

One voice should not be the only one to make vital decisions in our community,

 

I think this was pointed out more than once that this was a decision made by several persons who govern VATUSA. It wasn't one voice. So I'm a little confused on why you have chosen to lash out.

 

I'm not taking sides either. But we have people entrusted in positions of authority to do their jobs. We, as a community, don't really need to know the facts surrounding the why's and why not's. The original poster to this thread himself, agreed that VATUSA acted within it's scope of authority "to the letter" with it's removal of Sykes.

 

However, the original poster publicly accused Turner of having a personal vendetta against Sykes and demanded an explanation for Sykes' demotion from instructor to senior controller.

 

In closing, I hope that we can find a way to realize that personal vendettas have no place in a community such as this. Policies need to be applied uniformly, and people entrusted in positions of power need to exercise that power responsibly.

 

Those are the facts as I see them.

 

I have yet to see any credible evidence on behalf of Sykes that would indicate this was personal issue between himself and Turner. The accusation by Elchitz, the original poster, should have never been posted in a public forum. because he failed to include any factual statements that could be corroborated. If there was personal conflict between Sykes and Turner, the original poster left it up for the entire world to speculate as to what. You don't write an open letter to someone and leave out pertinent facts to plead your case.

 

Please enlighten me if I've missed some of the facts.

 

Jeez, 5 people making a decision, theres some good representation. BTW: don't call me young man, the only time people do it is when they are trying to instill some fear or respect. Not happening. I'm saying 5 people that were CHOSEN by vatsim founders to be on staff isn't our best representation. Its like asking the governors to elect the president: obviously they are going to do what is in THEIR best interest, not necessarily ours. Its Stephen, Not 'young man.'

 

Oh, and if you didn't figure it out yet, Mr. Sykes was demoted because he didn't meet the monthly requirements. You may have found the answer if you had read the full thread

[Scott Lansing 953481]

Its Stephen, Not 'young man.'

 

Stephen, you are a young man. It's nothing personal. If that bothers you, don't sign up for the military.

 

Jeez, 5 people making a decision, theres some good representation.

 

You think that's disproportionate? Look outside your window. The U.S. population is just under 298,000,00 people and we have 535 elected officials creating our laws in Washington, D.C.

 

That's just a fact of life. Not everyone can be the boss.

[Richard Green 810012]

This discussion isn't going anywhere.

Marc is done as the ATM in ZLA. What is left is for the folks in ZLA to make something positive come out of this...

I do know the kind of person MS is and he wouldn't ever want ZLA to suffer because of what is happening.

The flame war does nothing to help the situation... continuing this thread does nothing but serve as a conduit for flames.

[Stephen Sculley-Beaman]

Its Stephen, Not 'young man.'

 

Stephen, you are a young man. It's nothing personal. If that bothers you, don't sign up for the military.

 

Jeez, 5 people making a decision, theres some good representation.

 

You think that's disproportionate? Look outside your window. The U.S. population is just under 298,000,00 people and we have 535 elected officials creating our laws in Washington, D.C.

 

That's just a fact of life. Not everyone can be the boss.

 

The difference is that we elected those 535, no one elected vatusa staff. And, I'm in the Army JROTC. I prefer that my age is left out, it tends to make people think I don't have the ability to understand certain things.

[Scott Lansing 953481]

The difference is that we elected those 535, no one elected vatusa staff.

 

Here's a better analogy. The company I work for employs over 48,000 people worldwide and our board of directors consists of nine members. The CEO never sent me an email asking who I wanted on his board.

 

If the founders of VATSIM selected individuals to run their organization, who are we to question it? VATSIM is not a democracy. It's a privately run organization that is open to the public. We play by their rules or we don't play at all.

 

Again, I really meant no disrespect with regards to your age. I'm sure you'll appreciate that term one of these days. Enjoy your youth to the fullest!

[James Brickell 852953]

My hovercraft is full of eels.

 

Secondly.

 

Marc did a great job running ZLA, he did a great job instructing, and he did a great job bringing a center that was down in the dumps back into a position they rightfully deserve. With both of those things in mind, a) he should not have been removed as chief, b) he should not have been removed as an Instructor WITHOUT some prior review of his commitments other than time online. In fact, speaking as a Chief Instructor (oh look! I said a potty word) he shouldn't have been removed period by anyone other than Andy Cleeremans (did I spell it right? ) or Jim. Plain and simple.

 

I'm thoroughly disgusted with the politics that Jeff has decided to play with this whole issue. To point out the issue that I've witnessed first hand: Before Marc was removed, he had every right to post on the VATUSA staff forum. Deleting posts that you don't like is ridiculous, and don't play that "Oh, they disappeared, I guess phpBB is acting up." Nuh uh. I run a couple of phpBB sites myself, that doesn't happen. Forums exist to provide discussion. That's it - discussion. Not censored discussion, not VATUSA management approved discussion..just discussion. If you don't like that, obviously you should be sitting up on your high horse and p[Mod - Happy Thoughts]ing decrees, somewhat like King John. I guess we should all get busy on drafting the VATUSA Magna Carta.

 

Marc, I will miss your contributions to VATUSA and Los Angeles, both professionally and personally. Best of luck up in Toronto, hopefully I'll be doing the same thing in a few years (although maybe not if the FAA keeps that stick lodged all the way up there )

[Rey Lopez 883899]

Oh, and if you didn't figure it out yet, Mr. Sykes was demoted because he didn't meet the monthly requirements. You may have found the answer if you had read the full thread

 

 

and what about the others that do not meet monthly requirements huh?? is that fair???

 

 

 

 

You think that's disproportionate? Look outside your window. The U.S. population is just under 298,000,00 people and we have 535 elected officials creating our laws in Washington, D.C.

 

That's just a fact of life. Not everyone can be the boss.

 

stop with comparing this to real life things like govt and such please...its lame

[Stephen Sculley-Beaman]

Oh, and if you didn't figure it out yet, Mr. Sykes was demoted because he didn't meet the monthly requirements. You may have found the answer if you had read the full thread

 

 

and what about the others that do not meet monthly requirements huh?? is that fair???

 

 

 

 

You think that's disproportionate? Look outside your window. The U.S. population is just under 298,000,00 people and we have 535 elected officials creating our laws in Washington, D.C.

 

That's just a fact of life. Not everyone can be the boss.

 

stop with comparing this to real life things like govt and such please...its lame

 

[MOD - No need for this] 800012 RJ

[Rey Lopez 883899]

lol ok man i wont even touch what you sound like....is it fair though huh? what do you think? [MOD - No need for this] 800012 RJ

[Marc Sykes 852946]

James, I was banned from the VATUSA staff forum before I got the chance to mention that my respect for you (which was high even before last week) has gone up about 10,000% since then. Excellent points here.

 

To those who are advocating for the "letter of the law" approach to the 10 hrs/month time commitment, I'd like to point out that if you take a slightly longer-term approach and look at 2005 as a whole, I had 450 hours online. That works out to just under 38 hours per month, on average. In addition to that, I spent on average about 30 minutes per day, or approximately 15 hours per month, working on administrative tasks offline. So let's discuss how to enforce this; taking the hypothetical case of an instructor who logs the following number of hours per month online:

 

January: 100

February: 70

March: 140

April: 80

May: 30

June: 9

 

Does he get removed at the end of June for failure to adhere to the 10 hours/month commitment? I'd like to see the percentage of straight up yes/nos on this one, please.

 

I did, on many occasions, express my regret to the ZLA staff and controllers about not being able to get online as much over the last four months -- a period during which I 1) moved to a different country; 2) got married; 3) began a very demanding job that requires me to work nights, weekends, and/or early mornings depending on the day, and 60-70 hours per week overall; and 4) had to spend a great deal of time studying for my real-life ATC training. I chose not to resign or go on LOA because despite all of these things, I was still able to perform all of the administrative work (that 30 minutes per day, remember?), and because I knew I would be able to be online more often when things settled down. Unfortunately my time ran out before I had that chance.

 

It's interesting to see that the majority of well-respected, senior members of VATUSA have done nothing but express their disgust about these events -- the only ones in the "pro" camp are 1) Lance and 2) the people whose posts begin with "Well I don't know any of the people, and I don't know any of the policies, and I don't know what went on, BUT I'm going to shoot my mouth off and give you my totally uninformed opinion anyway ..." That can't bode well for VATUSA, can it? Systematically alienating and banishing your smartest and most productive people seldom leads to good things. For my part, I'm going to continue to do excellent work on the network -- [MOD - No need for this] 800012 RJ

[Rey Lopez 883899]

James, I was banned from the VATUSA staff forum before I got the chance to mention that my respect for you (which was high even before last week) has gone up about 10,000% since then. Excellent points here.

 

To those who are advocating for the "letter of the law" approach to the 10 hrs/month time commitment, I'd like to point out that if you take a slightly longer-term approach and look at 2005 as a whole, I had 450 hours online. That works out to just under 38 hours per month, on average. In addition to that, I spent on average about 30 minutes per day, or approximately 15 hours per month, working on administrative tasks offline. So let's discuss how to enforce this; taking the hypothetical case of an instructor who logs the following number of hours per month online:

 

January: 100

February: 70

March: 140

April: 80

May: 30

June: 9

 

Does he get removed at the end of June for failure to adhere to the 10 hours/month commitment? I'd like to see the percentage of straight up yes/nos on this one, please.

 

I did, on many occasions, express my regret to the ZLA staff and controllers about not being able to get online as much over the last four months -- a period during which I 1) moved to a different country; 2) got married; 3) began a very demanding job that requires me to work nights, weekends, and/or early mornings depending on the day, and 60-70 hours per week overall; and 4) had to spend a great deal of time studying for my real-life ATC training. I chose not to resign or go on LOA because despite all of these things, I was still able to perform all of the administrative work (that 30 minutes per day, remember?), and because I knew I would be able to be online more often when things settled down. Unfortunately my time ran out before I had that chance.

 

It's interesting to see that the majority of well-respected, senior members of VATUSA have done nothing but express their disgust about these events -- the only ones in the "pro" camp are 1) Lance and 2) the people whose posts begin with "Well I don't know any of the people, and I don't know any of the policies, and I don't know what went on, BUT I'm going to shoot my mouth off and give you my totally uninformed opinion anyway ..." That can't bode well for VATUSA, can it? Systematically alienating and banishing your smartest and most productive people seldom leads to good things. For my part, I'm going to continue to do excellent work on the network -- I'll control to the highest standards, and help other controllers --

 

MS as I stated in a previous post ZLA never saw a decrease in any of its abilities or anything to do with that in fact i felt controllers were getting better and better I don't know how you guys can do it all on center with 40 planes...that is amazing and the website is great for both ATC and pilots

 

seriously though this was really wrong of VATUSA to remove you it was clearly of personal reasons they removed you as Lance continues to prove (i agree i think they are one person with 2 personalities)

 

and IMO Lance does not have room to speak about MS's online time MS is one of the most dedicated to his ARTCC and worked hard at maintaining the website and the training from what I saw of course that is MY opinion as I lack a lot of information but I stand against VATUSA on this decision and I really dont see why they would make such a drastic move I mean come on the 10 hours stuff is BS if it was true I should be a C3 I missed 2 months of ATCing due to real life commitments and I didnt get a letter...

[Christopher Waldo 860237]

Mark Sykes

a period during which I 1) moved to a different country; 2) got married; 3) began a very demanding job that requires me to work nights, weekends, and/or early mornings depending on the day, and 60-70 hours per week overall; and 4) had to spend a great deal of time studying for my real-life ATC training.

 

Isnt this right there grounds for an exception... what he is doing in his real life, is the grounds for MAKING VATUSA BETTER. And I would also like to say that if I were getting married, I would like to get settled. I am disgusted that OUR VATUSA staff did not reconize this.

[Isaac Niedrauer 947516]

1) moved to a different country

 

If you moved to another country, why don't you just control that Vatsim division of that country? What country was it?

 

- Isaac

[Isaac Niedrauer 947516]

I have to agree with Stephen that Vatsim needs to be controlled more by the people and less by the government. In other words, LET'S BECOME A DEMOCRACY!!!

 

- Isaac

[Stephen Sculley-Beaman]

[[MOD - No need for this] 800012 RJ

[Scott Lansing 953481]

It's interesting to see that the majority of well-respected, senior members of VATUSA have done nothing but express their disgust about these events -- the only ones in the "pro" camp are 1) Lance and 2) the people whose posts begin with "Well I don't know any of the people, and I don't know any of the policies, and I don't know what went on, BUT I'm going to shoot my mouth off and give you my totally uninformed opinion anyway ..."

 

Marc,

 

Unless you're willing to share with us - the uninformed - all the facts, drop it. If you have personal problems with certain individuals, deal with them directly. But don't bring your personal problems to the public eye and expect everyone to see it your way.

 

When your pals brought this to the attention of the entire VATSIM community, it opened it up to public opinion. I'm sorry you're hurt that not everyone sees it your way.

 

I seriously doubt there was any one single event that brought you to your demise. I am quite confident a culimination of events led to it. But don't come in here and plead to the public for sympathy that you were wronged without due process unless you can supply factual information.

 

I doubt VATUSA removed you from your position because you were doing such a great job. Give us - the uninformed public - a little more credit than that. If I were a betting man, I'd say the egotistical attitude you display here is probably one of the issues that got you into trouble.

[Stephen Sculley-Beaman]

James, I was banned from the VATUSA staff forum before I got the chance to mention that my respect for you (which was high even before last week) has gone up about 10,000% since then. Excellent points here.

 

To those who are advocating for the "letter of the law" approach to the 10 hrs/month time commitment, I'd like to point out that if you take a slightly longer-term approach and look at 2005 as a whole, I had 450 hours online. That works out to just under 38 hours per month, on average. In addition to that, I spent on average about 30 minutes per day, or approximately 15 hours per month, working on administrative tasks offline. So let's discuss how to enforce this; taking the hypothetical case of an instructor who logs the following number of hours per month online:

 

January: 100

February: 70

March: 140

April: 80

May: 30

June: 9

 

Does he get removed at the end of June for failure to adhere to the 10 hours/month commitment? I'd like to see the percentage of straight up yes/nos on this one, please.

 

I did, on many occasions, express my regret to the ZLA staff and controllers about not being able to get online as much over the last four months -- a period during which I 1) moved to a different country; 2) got married; 3) began a very demanding job that requires me to work nights, weekends, and/or early mornings depending on the day, and 60-70 hours per week overall; and 4) had to spend a great deal of time studying for my real-life ATC training. I chose not to resign or go on LOA because despite all of these things, I was still able to perform all of the administrative work (that 30 minutes per day, remember?), and because I knew I would be able to be online more often when things settled down. Unfortunately my time ran out before I had that chance.

 

It's interesting to see that the majority of well-respected, senior members of VATUSA have done nothing but express their disgust about these events -- the only ones in the "pro" camp are 1) Lance and 2) the people whose posts begin with "Well I don't know any of the people, and I don't know any of the policies, and I don't know what went on, BUT I'm going to shoot my mouth off and give you my totally uninformed opinion anyway ..." That can't bode well for VATUSA, can it? Systematically alienating and banishing your smartest and most productive people seldom leads to good things. For my part, I'm going to continue to do excellent work on the network -- I'll control to the highest standards, and help other controllers -- but it won't be for VATUSA. Everybody who isn't Lance, or Jeff Turner (and I'm beginning to suspect that they're actually the same physical person -- just two different personalities within one schizophrenic mind), knows that's a great loss.

 

Marc, personally I think your removal is a load of &*#$. You are a great chief, and it was the lamest excuse for a removal I have seen. What I am mad about is that people are trying to save you by putting others out in the line of fire and making excuses for you.

[Isaac Niedrauer 947516]

What I am mad about is that people are trying to save you by putting others out in the line of fire and making excuses for you

 

I think you quite miss-understood the point of the first post. He was showing the fact that many in staff positions did not have the hours required. Not to flame them but making the point that the rule is not a reason to remove someone's rating. Removing Mr. Sykes's rating should not have happened. It just showed that Vatusa's director was acting out of anger not judgment.

 

- Isaac

[Isaac Niedrauer 947516]

When your pals brought this to the attention of the entire VATSIM community, it opened it up to public opinion.

 

There is NOTHING wrong with public opinion. We need to make this place ruled by public opinion.

 

- Isaac

[Marc Sykes 852946]

I moved to Canada. I will in fact be providing ATC services here, yes (both in real life and on VATSIM), but in terms of the VATSIM side of things, I would have preferred to stay in the ARTCC where I've put in over 2000 hours over the past 2 1/2 years (feel free to check my stats: 1885 hours as ATC, 635 as pilot, much of which was spent providing traffic for OTS exams etc., and that doesn't even begin to take into account the administrative tasks completed offline) and where all of my friends are. I don't expect anyone else to understand this, but it's quite wrenching when you spend nearly three years working in an ARTCC, the people who work with you there become some of your closest personal friends (people you fly across the continent four times to visit, and who fly across the continent to visit you), you put thousands of hours into trying to strengthen it, and then one day you wake up and find you've been removed because someone didn't like the posts you made in a forum. Then, to add insult to injury, they remove your instructor rating because you (with your 2000+ hours) "haven't logged enough hours." Since I became an instructor, not quite two years ago, I've logged approximately 500 hours instructing -- so only about 45 minutes per DAY on average, and that's ONLY counting the hours when I have an _I_ in my callsign (eg. LAX_VI_APP). Think about that a bit. Yes, I will move to VATCAN and I will make tremendous contributions, but that didn't have to happen.

[Stephen Sculley-Beaman]

What I am mad about is that people are trying to save you by putting others out in the line of fire and making excuses for you

 

I think you quite miss-understood the point of the first post. He was showing the fact that many in staff positions did not have the hours required. Not to flame them but making the point that the rule is not a reason to remove someone's rating. Removing Mr. Sykes's rating should not have happened. It just showed that Vatusa's director was acting out of anger not judgment.

 

- Isaac

 

Yes, you probably are right, it was cheap, but it is a rule. A rule is a rule is a rule is a rule, and when you break it, [Mod - lovely stuff] happens.

[Isaac Niedrauer 947516]

Stephen, it isn't an enforced rule! If it's going to be enforced to one person it needs to be enforced to all. That's not flaming the other people, it's pointing out that Vatusa's director is not fit to lead the group.

 

Mr. Sykes, I totally understand your position and completely agree.

 

- Isaac

[Marc Sykes 852946]

Unless you're willing to share with us - the uninformed - all the facts, drop it.

 

Apparently you missed a post from upthread where I did just that. I don't know how to direct link to a specific post so here it is again, quoted for truth.

 

Just a couple of amendments, Lance:

 

He removed himself from the management discussion list

 

Correct, because I was told to stop posting or I would be replaced. I made several posts about policies under consideration and continually received harsh, har[Mod - Happy Thoughts]ing emails back from Jeff Turner. That discussion list should have been called "St. Fum" since inevitably after making a post I'd get a private email starting with "Shut the f*** up Marc ..." (or words to that effect). Why should I continue to be a member of a mailing list if I can't say anything and am not allowed to contribute.

 

Following that, a separate list was set up specifically for training discussion by Jim Johnson (VATUSA3). I joined that list (in response to a specific invitation from Jim) and then was removed from it, not two days later, by Jeff Turner. Hmmm ....

 

He refused to participate in meetings

 

That I couldn't possibly have known about since I was removed from the staff discussion lists. Also, why should I take part in a staff meeting when I cannot reasonably expect to be allowed to make a contribution? It seemed quite reasonable to [Mod - Happy Thoughts]ume that the threats to remove myself from staff discussions, or else, would apply to meetings as it did to the discussion lists.

 

he publicly called for VATUSA resignations

 

True, and I'll do it again. In the interests of VATUSA and VATSIM, Jeff Turner should resign, or be dismissed. I say this not just because his tenure as VATUSA1 has been an utter failure overall, but because he has been guilty of severe har[Mod - Happy Thoughts]ment of ARTCC staffers, including myself. He has also continually censored dissenting viewpoints, most notably deleting my entire post history at the VATUSA staff forums.

 

yet always refused to participate in productive conversations on how VATUSA could be improved, etc, etc, etc...

 

See the parts above about the removal from discussion lists, deletion of forum posts, and email har[Mod - Happy Thoughts]ment. To the extent that I attempted to participate, my efforts were thwarted. I must admit that after a certain amount of this I gave up trying, but I think that's to be expected, and was certainly Jeff Turner's goal.

 

'd invite both you and Marc to come to the VATUSA convention. I'd love to discuss this further.

 

If you want to discuss this further, "discuss" it with a brick wall in your neighbourhood.

[Isaac Niedrauer 947516]

Correct, because I was told to stop posting or I would be replaced. I made several posts about policies under consideration and continually received harsh, har[Mod - Happy Thoughts]ing emails back from Jeff Turner. That discussion list should have been called "St. Fum" since inevitably after making a post I'd get a private email starting with "Shut the f*** up Marc ..." (or words to that effect). Why should I continue to be a member of a mailing list if I can't say anything and am not allowed to contribute.

 

[MOD - No need for this] 800012 RJ

 

- Isaac