The Free Market at Work

[DeltaRomeo]

A former VAF moderator, Glenn Brasch (Van's belt buckle guy) has created a new RV forum that uses a business model identical to VAF, with three differences that I can tell (described below). When I was informed of this new site two days ago, I changed Glenn’s status on VAF from ‘moderator’ to ‘regular user’ and emailed him about the change I had made (VAF moderators have access to email addresses).

What his site encourages discussion of that VAF does not (from the site):

Accident Speculation

“…we believe we can learn things by discussing accidents, even just after they occur, without official results determined. …………. We also believe we learn from all types of accidents, not only RV related. Feel free to post and discuss any accident you wish”

Non-RV Classifieds

“…you can advertise anything you want in this section. Why anything? Because we believe that people involved with RV’s are honest folks who can be trusted. So are you trying to buy a Cessna 150 to get your license in while you dream of flying RV’s, or want to sell an old washing machine to get money to buy tools with, feel free to list here”

Politics, etc.

“…Little, if any moderation will encourage you to share ideas more freely with less restriction.”

I think we have a winning formula here at VAF, tested and refined over nearly a decade and a half. Virtually all of the ‘moderation’ on VAF is fixing broken links, moving posts to more appropriate areas, and fixing typos for the original poster, but whatayagonnado? Having run VAF for these past 14 years (the last five full time), I obviously have a differing opinion on what works for a large, mostly alpha-male driven forum, but it’s a free country…and a free market. I’ve chosen to keep the scope of VAF a little narrower, yet competition raises the bar for everyone.

The URL to Glenn Brasch’s site is www.RVairspace.com if you would like to give it a look.

Yours in RVation,

Doug Reeves
www.VansAirForce.net RV-6 Flying Since 2002.

PS: The purpose of me posting this note is to make those folks who aren’t comfortable with the VAF posting rules aware of the new site. You wouldn’t expect Ford to make an announcement about a new Chevy model, but knowing you can’t please 100% of the people, I thought I would make folks here aware – even if it is a competitor.

Having said that, since this new site is in direct competition with VAF, this will be my only mention of it. I would ask the moderators here to delete posts from this point forward that point to or reference it, as they are obviously not a VAF advertiser.