The List... (Edited)

[Anthony Baker 1080999]

to add i little more detail to tims post

 

look how good zau was starting to do in december and noevmber up to mayish

 

the website was taking shape

 

a traininh program was being implomented

 

and look where it is now... going down hill

 

I'm not blaming anyone but thats my 2 cents.

 

 

" A Plane cannot move if there is not a compentent pilot in the cockpit"

 

They don't allow some dude who has had problems with an airline in the past all of the sudden be PIC of a fully loaded 747. do they?

[Kyle Ramsey 810181]

So we should just view it as a coincidence that a facility with a founder as its DATM has its rightfully removed ATM reinstated?

 

Is ZAU its own Kingdom following around one person? Im not trying to sturr up issues im trying to understand some things because i have many different altercations from when some people said "I will burn ZAU to the ground if i cant proove GRP's are S#^%". So is making your point by puting yourself before your ARTCC important? We have 7 new controllers here at ZMP from ZAU why. You guys tell me why. Im wondering and curious from the years we had FNO's and all were good partners here in the Mid region helping each other from FNO to FNO and one time we had nobody online from ZAU and had 24 arrivals. Who was the ATM then and how is he back in the same spot again after giving endless bashings to the VATGOV BOG's from years past on policies and issues that turn out to this day not to change anything.

 

I dont think you can blame discruntle members in this, the past two years shows cause and effect, ZAU was getting back on track, now all of a sudden where is it gunna go now. Lets see down the road guys. And if you are wondering where i got the quote, just ask the man himself he'll tell you or he'll tell you another story to put you in your place.

 

The finding of the CR process was that he was not rightfully removed, thus he is reinstated. Ron had nothing to do with it and stayed out of the process the whole time; for that he has my admiration and respect.

 

If the new VATUSA1 has issues with this ATM, or any of them, and follows proper process to remove them, then they shall be removed.

 

What quote?

[Kyle Ramsey 810181]

Oh that quote. Yeah, I heard that too. I heard in through hearsay so I can't really use it, but if someone wants to produce the evidence I will be happy to send it to the VP CR for you.

[Ross Carlson]

I am not here to talk about me. I will give you a more in depth answer in another medium, whether it be email, phone, or TS.

 

No need. You answered the question just fine here in the forum.

 

To sum it up very briefly; my desire to allow others to use this hobby as a launching pad to a real aviation career (as it did for me) is what keeps me here.

 

Thankfully, the network will meet that goal with or without you. Put simply, VATSIM is a much better place than you make it out to be, and it will succeed even if you abandon your smear campaign (cleverly disguised as an "I want to help make it better" campaign.)

 

As for VATSIM being good enough... ever. I will disagree with you. I think that VATSIM was an incredible organization. Top to bottom. Severed from SATCO for honestly noble reasons. There were people involved who had NO agenda whatsoever other than the very best for his organization. We had incredibly talented, smart, capable people running ARTCC's. When was the last time that a brain surgeon applied to be a Chief? Honestly. We had one running ZLA for a period of time. Gone. Why? Politics. Agendas. I still talk with these people, and they are incredibly disheartened and sad by what they see. Why do I speak out? Because I care enough to. Because I believe that VATSIM is broken and needing to be fixed. I agree that there is no such thing as perfect, but we can do significantly better than we are.

 

Somehow, VATSIM has managed to thrive, despite your insinuation that we no longer have people without agendas involved, and your insinuation that we no longer have good people running ARTCCs. How so? Because your insinuation is false. We still have people involved that want nothing more than the best for the network, and we still have good people running ARTCCs. Yes there are people with personal agendas, and there are people running ARTCCs who might not be the best for the job. It's always been that way and it always will. You seem to think that everyone has an agenda and everyone running the ARTCCs is incompetent. It's just not so. You seem to focus on specific bad situations and project them onto the entire network ... you only deal in absolutes and extremes. Reality is much more gray.

 

We shifted from being about the members, and the network, to being about the business, and not being sued, and how to maintain profitability, and exposure, and FAA/Mitre/corporate relationships. This is where we went wrong.

 

Personally I see the items you list here as things that contribute to the long-term health of the network, but you see them as the harbingers of doom. I guess it can be spun either way.

 

As for maintaining profitability, where did you get that one? Do you know anything about how VATSIM works from a financial perspective? Maybe you know something that I don't, thanks to your purported insider access, but the last time I checked, VATSIM represented a cost to several individuals, and a profit to none.

 

As for VATSIM becoming an LLC, I'll leave it up to GSM to explain why that was done, if he so desires.

[Brad Littlejohn]

 

As for VATSIM becoming an LLC, I'll leave it up to GSM to explain why that was done, if he so desires.

 

Ross, my friend, no need. I believe Kyle summed it up nicely in a reponse to the question in the General forum:

 

The Founders are the legal owners of VATSIM, LLC. By being an LLC, the individual Founders are not subject to legal actions that could take away their personal [Mod - Happy Thoughts]ets like their homes. Doesn't seem reasonable to ask them to risk everything they have for VATSIM, does it? Thus the LLC.

 

BL.

[Gary Millsaps 830104]

With all due respect to everyone's opinions, thoughts and whatnot...the one thing that seems to have gotten lost in all of this is: The system worked!

 

From the information supplied by those involved, it would appear some measure of irregularity and questions existed about the incident of Jason's removal. As would be expected in a judicially sound organization, an appeal process exists and was evidently used. Further, as evidenced by Norm's post re-instating Jason, just cause in support of an appeal did indeed exist. As happens in most appeal cases, it takes a m[Mod - Happy Thoughts]ive amount of time and effort to gather the appropriate information and come to a sound and fair conclusion. I for one, applaud the efforts and am pleased to see such care and concern for fair and equitable treatment was expended in this case.

[Luke Kolin]

This is his HOBBY. You said it yourself, that this is a HOBBYIST environment, yet you expect the fulltime work of a corporate CEO.

 

Both Bo and yourself miss the point. David's post shocks me - because it boggles my mind that the simple removal of an ATM needs to go all the way to the President of VATSIM and involve legal counsel. You are arguing about David's priorities, and no one seems to be asking the question why is the the President of VATSIM getting involved with this in the first place?

 

David shouldn't be the VATSIM forum cop. David shouldn't be involved with silly political nonsense like this, and the fact that he is allowing himself to do so is troubling. It's even more troubling when you figure how many levels in the VATSIM hierarchy there are between the ZAU ATM and the President of VATSIM. We have VATUSA Regional Directors, VATNA, the EC, a VP or two and then there's the whole DCRM hierarchy. If such a simple squabble needs to escalate so high, it begs the question of why do we need so many levels in the first place? It also encourages people to go "straight to the top" - if everything will eventually get escalated to that level, might as well save some time and go right to the destination.

 

I fundamentally disagree with Bo when he says that one day the Founders will look at VATSIM in disgust and shut it down. They created the structure quite deliberately, and if they have problems with the monster the structure has created, they've kept very quite about it. I don't think it's unreasonable to equate silence to acceptance, or at least acquiescence. The CoR (and as you point out) clearly outlines that VATSIM isn't a democracy - it's run by the Founders alone. At least one Founder has stated to me here that the users are not owners, or even stakeholders. The BoG are at best the "hired help" (and I won't even get into the fact that VATSIM seems to have more VPs than a mid-sized bank). That's fine. But no one should be surprised that when you create an organization with such an explicit power structure, that no one bothers with the lower levels. It's just a waste of time to deal with someone who effectively cannot make decisions.

 

What's even more amazing is this gigantic hierarchical monster exists to support a smaller user base than I deal with at my virtual airline. In the last 30 days, we've had about 2,200 people log into VATSIM as an S1 through I3 for at least 10 minutes. That's it - a gigantic bureaucracy to support a controller infrastructure that's only 15% of VATSIM members. It's a bureaucrat and title-seeker's dream. And every few weeks we get a new appointment to the BoG or the staff and everyone comes out of the woodwork to congratulate them, and we rinse, lather and repeat.

 

I expected that Alex wouldn't get far as VATUSA1, but I didn't figure we'd have a flame-out this quickly. Maybe VATSIM is onto something in their appointments. I don't consider them to be a true old-boys'-network, but they consistently hire people who've got experience in the VATSIM hierarchy, and have indicated an acceptance of the status quo. I think that's seriously harming VATSIM, but the alternative seems to be flame-outs. How many VATUSA1s have we lost recently? Did VATSA ever get straightened out? VATCAR had to be dissolved. Are we consistently hiring the wrong people, or do we have a fundamentally broken process that causes ambitious achievers to burn out, and the best course of action is to hire status-quo time servers, because at least they'll last?

 

But I will be blunt. If it is indeed a 'cesspool of political bureaucracy', why do you still put up with it? If you don't like it, leave. I go back to my first response a while ago. Honestly, I to this day, even with the ZLA incident, have not seen one thing positive come from you. You've spent more time complaining about what is wrong and should be done than doing something positive and active about it.

 

I can't speak for Bo, but I bet he posts and complains because he cares about VATSIM, even if he is wrong. Many years ago when I last took Chemistry, our instructor told us that when you stopped smelling the noticeable odor of sulfur dioxide, it wasn't a good thing - it mean that your nasal receptors had been killed off and you were next. When people stop complaining, there's one of two possibilities. Either everything is just peachy and everyone is happy, or there's no one left who cares enough to point out the problem. That's a really bad situation.

 

Does anyone seriously think that the situation in VATUSA is all good? Just a few weeks ago we were all unanimous that Alex was "the right person" to fix VATUSA. Apparently not. Or maybe he was, and the BoG aren't "the right people". Or maybe the whole system is messed up. But either way, something is broken.

 

Today we have the GRP2 being announced, or maybe not. Maybe it was a technical legal misunderstanding, or maybe something bigger. I don't know, nor do I care because I don't control. But if the President of the BoG and the Chair of the EC can't coordinate the promulgation of a controller policy, it makes me question if either a) they don't know what they're doing, or b) the process has gotten too bureaucratic and unweildly to understand and handle. (From what I've seen of David and Kyp, I don't expect a) to be the case.) But either way, something is broken.

 

You've challenged Bo to try and improve things. I've tried to do that too, in the software development arena. But I'm still, after several months, stuck at the point where I cannot give my code to VATSIM. I've dealt with one Founder, three BoG members (maybe four, I've lost track) and we're still no farther along. It's taken me an order of magnitude more time to license the thing than it took me to write it in the first place! It's absurd. Maybe it's because David and George need to handle ZAU nonsense instead of software development, or maybe it's because we don't have a VATGOV5 and the search is going slowly because they need the "right" person who won't question the broken process and absence of progress. But either way, something is broken.

 

Bo is wrong, there is no "vacuum of power". Instead there's enough authority at the top levels, and a ton of levels below that don't have the authority to do much more than give themselves a new title and appoint equally powerless underlings.

 

Luke

[Alan Hensley 950569]

Gary, considering Norman via email and text told Alex what to do in the termination process (even instructing him not to respond to Jason's reguest for a reason). I doubt anyone will ever see these emails and text messeges though. I really don't believe the system worked. The system is multiple faced and broken.

[Harold Rutila 974112]

Where exactly is this announcement? All I've seen were some S1s posting congratulatory remarks...but I don't see any indication of a re-appointment besides speculation.

[Kyle Ramsey 810181]

In the place it mattered - the ZAU forum.

[Harold Rutila 974112]

Ah, can't see it I guess. Thanks, Kyle.

[Jeff Thomas]

I believe this thread should be locked up tight now.

 

Bo, you got what you wanted...a decision. I supported you while you were pressing for communication, and a change in leadership.

 

Well, both have been achieved.

 

The ZAU chief is announced. The VATUSA1, for good or bad, will be replaced.

 

VATSIM, the organization, may have failed to communicate thoroughly through out this affair. However, David explained that quite thoroughly in his post.

 

At this point, to use a military term, you are quibbling the point sir.

 

Personally, this issue is a done deal for me, because as Gary pointed out...the process worked...end of story.

 

Now, let's get back to controlling.

 

P.S.

As for those of you who think ZAU is "going downhill"...go take a history lesson. You haven't been here long enough to know what the absolute bottom is, believe me, we aren't anywhere near it. So really, unless you have thousands of hours in the ZAU, and weren't still learning to count when this network began, go away because you have no credibitility. Instead of bitching and moaning, ask what you can do to help turn the ship around. Running these things is not easy.

 

P.P.S.S:

Oh, and ANYONE who tries to say ANYTHING or even insinuate something bad about Ron Lemke is a clueless idiot who knows nothing about this organization and why it exists.

 

Jason, Ron, lemme know what you need done...I hope Sunday mornings can start up again

[Bo Gercke 845743]

Again... THE LIST was never started to highlight the ZAU boondoggle. The ZAU boondoggle was used to highlight the list. The decision was irrelevant to me, honestly.