WIX inaccessible

Well, I don’t have a lot of time to track down primary sources, so a few authors…well known and less so, are my references.

Luckily, I have a very good memory when it comes to nerd stuff (if I harnessed that ability for “good”, I’d be a wealthy businessman or..gasp…groan…attorney), so I can retain the details presented. I like nothing more than good developmental histories of types.

The trick of course is to pick your sources (books) carefully. I’m very pleased with my library.

It’s really not hard to find authoritative works, the Putnam manufacturers series is a good start. And I’ve found similar books on non military U.S. aircraft…written by a historian who specializes in general aviation types.

Of course those are backed up by biography and autobiographies.A sub hobby is collecting autographed books by famous aviators, so I have a few of those which are special to me.

People just havent the patience to do deep research these days.

“. In short, many or most of the people there come across as the type who get more of their information from TV and YouTube than from scholarly books (in other words, they know more about “Buffalo Joe” then Roger Freeman). Yes, I know that makes me sound like a snob :).”

Not snobbish at all: I find it to be about the same, and I don’t think there’s anything wrong with expecting better of people. In fact I’d go further because my goal is always to try and cite primary sources rather than scholarly books. Nowadays there seems to be too much “I Googled it” type of response.

I think I can see what JB’s getting at to a certain extent. I was never a prolific poster on WIX, as said it’s understandably American-centric, so half the time I’ve no idea what they’re on about and what I do understand, I don’t know anything about.

I have noticed that in recent years, I post considerably less often on the site, although I’ve never tried to analyse why.

As an aside – pilots, maintainers and operators had started to bale out from this site, even before it crashed and burned.

Fed up with armchair “experts” I seem to recall was one reason…

I agree, WIX can be a good place (though not a touch on this forum in its glory days).

If you read my initial comment I specifically lamented its lack of news, certainly insiders (owners,  restorers, staff) don’t share a lot of information, they seem to save that for Facebook and other social media outlets. But there is a few more of pilots and maintainers there then there were here in the old days.

As I said, the old photos are interesting, but again without context or an expert to answer questions about the equipment or unit, of limited value.

My impressions:  people are the looking for something to take offense to and when they disagree with someone can be pretty disagreeable about it.

A few use it as a place to espouse political opinions (a bit like a former moderator here who took every opportunity to let us know how much he hated Thatcher and religion).

My main criticism isn’t it being American centric, after all this forum was pretty UK centric, but rather most of the members are pretty predictable in their areas if interest or expertise..if its not about a popular type or unit, posts do not seem to generate dialogue. In short, many or most of the people there come across as the type who get more of their information from TV and YouTube than from scholarly books (in other words, they know more about “Buffalo Joe” then Roger Freeman). Yes, I know that makes me sound like a snob :).

Here, back in the “glory days”, someone would be able to engage you no matter how esoteric the type (a by product no doubt of English eccentricity and being anoraks by nature 🙂 ). 

There is some expertise there on “big picture” (structure, organizations,etc) topics…but many queries go unanswered.

It certainly has its place, but it certainly has its limitations.

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I’d missed that. But period, high-def photos that are new to me, are news whether they’re 80 years old or not. The “warbird” subject should not be restricted to present-day operation of warbirds or it would be a pretty thin crowd, with not much to talk about. WIX already has different areas for modern warbirds, models etc so I don’t see an issue. It also did a good job of replacing this forum when it died.

No, it’s the same site.

I’m not sure if I consider posting 80 year old photos news. While interesting, government photos without context don’t add much to the discussion of warbirds.

And the Al Casby thread last posting was an exception, announcing his new F7U book being available.

I’ve posted links to Instagram videos of a friend’s P-40 undergoing a gear test and engine start up, again not news, but at least it is about the operation of a warbird.

The bickering I was referring to is the thread about the B-17 Thunderbird getting a new name by its new owners.

This time its gone beyond the usual telling others what to do with their aircraft into pretty pointless political squabbling, complete with name calling which no moderator has attempted to prevent.

​​Seems like the place has a nasty mood, no wonder the warbird owners and operators, the people in the position to post real news about warbirds stay away.

Either we’re talking about a different site, or you’ve stumbled onto some errant threads. There have been some awesome early P-51 shots posted on there recently and the ever-insightful Al Casby F7U Cutlass thread is always worth a read.

Out of interest, which threads were involved in the bickering?

If it’s down don’t worry, you won’t miss much.

A look of bickering, name calling and other consent lately. If there is a moderator, he’s been napping.

Not much real news.

There’s a note on WIX saying that the site will be down in the next few days for updates.

PHP stands for “Hypertext Preprocessor”. It’s a scripting language that allows dynamic web pages to operate, on websites, and also allows for the recovery and display of data supported on those websites.

H

The PHP thing seems to be a common thread. WIX seems to be the only site that suffers.

Yes it’s back now, maybe it was a glitch 

I haven’t had any problems with it, and I’ve been on the site 3 or 4 times today.

I got the same PHP message but it’s working again now. It has been slow too.

Working fine here. First time I’ve checked since 10-ish this morning.