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stuneville said:
They still exist, but are hidden completely for the reasons Yith and I outlined. After the month is up, we'll discuss where we go from here. But they'll be left intact in the meantime.
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Aviation accidents: even if 'nothing' happens, and the plane lands safely, people's emotions would surely have been heightened by the thought of their sudden and horrendous death. The fear of death is at the heart of much forteana, religion, and associated ideas.

Of course people could suffer a sudden and horrendous death in a car crash on the motorway, but the potential for mass deaths is far higher in the aviation field, as modern aircraft get bigger. Planes may be getting safer, but when they do go down they usually make a horrible mess. Even more so if they hit a busy motorway or densely packed high rise buildings.

A bird strike may only kill a few birds, but knowledgable passengers will know it could have brought the whole plane down.
 
The risk, Rynner, as I'm sure you realise, is that if 'Fortean Subjects' are going to be interpreted so broadly, then anything is potentially a 'Fortean subject'. That could--conceivably--work, but in the vast majority of cases, the news articles cited made no attempt at Fortean analysis and employed none of the kind of alternative methodologies that Fort championed--they were just accounts of fact with no attempt to glean Fortean gold dust from them. I'm not now referring to just 'Aviation Accidents' and certainly not to your content specifically.

Fortean Aviation Thread? Go for it, but it needs work, not news-dumps.
 
I have mixed feelings about your comments, Rynner ...

On the one hand, I strongly agree there will be conflicting opinions among us concerning how direct / indirect a connection must be to qualify something as 'Fortean' versus 'relevant to Fortean events' versus 'entirely non-Fortean'.

On the other hand, I tend to see 'fear of death' or 'events that could have turned out to be fatal' as too general to assign to even the middle category suggested above. Fortean events are by definition extraordinary (if only to the observer(s)). Fear of death and / or stress from close calls are things that are universal, and hence 'ordinary'.

I suspect we'll all have to grapple with such issues over the coming weeks. Having said that ...

I'm glad you (Rynner) used the example of aviation accidents, because something that I've been pondering is well illustrated with respect to them. Consider the case of MH370's disappearance.

At what point (if any ... ) does an unexplained disappearance qualify as a Fortean topic?

Similarly, at what point (if any ...) does such a disappearance cease qualifying as Fortean?
 
EnolaGaia said:
I'm glad you (Rynner) used the example of aviation accidents, because something that I've been pondering is well illustrated with respect to them. Consider the case of MH370's disappearance.

At what point (if any ... ) does an unexplained disappearance qualify as a Fortean topic?

Similarly, at what point (if any ...) does such a disappearance cease qualifying as Fortean?
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Something that many of us have been contemplating...

For me, something is Fortean if there is some degree of mystery attached to it. And death is the ultimate mystery - do we survive it, and if so how? If not, how do we die, and how aware of the process will we be?
I can't agree that as we all have to die this somehow becomes 'ordinary'. It's very special to each and every one of us.
 
EnolaGaia said:
I have mixed feelings about your comments, Rynner ...

On the one hand, I strongly agree there will be conflicting opinions among us concerning how direct / indirect a connection must be to qualify something as 'Fortean' versus 'relevant to Fortean events' versus 'entirely non-Fortean'.
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But to be frustratingly narrow (apologies), I'm not saying that Fortean conversation couldn't take place on those news stories, but simply that it resolutely didn't. Go and look at the thread--it's a compendium of aeroplane problems with little to no discussion at all.

Once again, I'd say Fortean Aviation, fine; A Fortean Study of Death, of course; Fortean near-death incidents, ok--but none of this took place on the thread in question and there are other such compendia with very, very little actual discussion.
 
My attitude is that Forteana has something of mystery about it. I'm probably better educated in science than most posters here, but I still find a lot of mystery in Science, so that's all Fortean too! :p

But I don't feel it's necessary to bang on about stuff being Fortean, mentioning the word (in capital letters, in every sentence! :twisted:). If people can't sense for themselves what's Fortean, I'm not the one to explain it to them.
 
Yithian said:
But to be frustratingly narrow (apologies), I'm not saying that Fortean conversation couldn't take place on those news stories, but simply that it resolutely didn't. Go and look at the thread--it's a compendium of aeroplane problems with little to no discussion at all. ...
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Maybe I'm just unusualy dense this morning, but I have to say I'm feeling even more lost after reading this ...

- What are you connoting as "Fortean conversation"?

- Is it a deficiency in discursive 'back-and-forth' interactions among members that you're highlighting as the problem?

- Are you implying citation of (e.g.) technical issues relevant to reducing, if not resolving, a mystery isn't kosher?
 
I mean that, like other such threads, it looks like this:

Post No.1
Member's Comment: I bet this was a shock!
News Article quoted with link.

Post No.2
Member's Comment: He got more than he bargained for.
New Article quoted with link

Post No.3
Member's Comment: They were lucky to get out of this one alive

Post No.4
Quotation of Post No. 3
Member's Comment: Those old 737s always did have dodgy brakes.

Post No.5
Member's Comment: It's shaping up to be a bad week for Stanstead.
New Article quoted with link.​

Etc. Etc. for twenty-five pages.

No mystery, very little meaningful interaction, a few anecdotes of personal experiences and a miserly dash of (valuable) technical information.

If this kind of thread deserves a place on this board, I'm a turnip.
 
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Yithian said:
I mean that, like other such threads, it looks like this:
...
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OK ... I get it ... Thanks for the clarification.

I was simply concerned there might have been deeper undercurrents or connotations my antennae weren't picking up ...
 
Yithian said:
I mean that, like other such threads, it looks like this:

Post No.1
Member's Comment: I bet this was a shock!
News Article quoted with link.

Post No.2
Member's Comment: He got more than he bargained for.
New Article quoted with link

Post No.3
Member's Comment: They were lucky to get out of this one alive

Post No.4
Quotation of Post No. 3
Member's Comment: Those old 737s always did have dodgy brakes.

Post No.5
Member's Comment: It's shaping up to be a bad week for Stanstead.
New Article quoted with link.​

Etc. Etc. for twenty-five pages.

No mystery, very little meaningful interaction, a few anecdotes of personal experiences and a miserly dash of (valuable) technical information.

If this kind of thread deserves a place on this board, I'm a turnip.
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You're more of a swede.
 
davidplankton said:
Think about it though - if you went on a Political message board and started posting about your ghostly experiences or that ufo you saw.

I think most of us have read the Mainstream news before we log on here and get to see it again.
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If I might, the mainstream news section gives me a chance to see things from a British perspective and I'd hope that I've been able to provide the occasional American viewpoint on those same events.

Broaden my horizons, so to speak.
 
If Yith and Stu do decide to permanently pull the mainstream news section, my only concern would be the RIP thread. Contained within it are some lovely tributes to people who meant a lot to a great many people (I'm particularly thinking of the recent passing of Brian Cant, but other less well known people are also commemorated in the thread) and I think it would be a terrible shame to lose that record and the chance to continue it with additional memories.

When it comes to people yet to pass, the RIP thread is a discreet and tidy place to leave tributes and memories. Obviously if someone very or extremely high profile passes (such as [cross fingers that these people are staying for longer than the foreseeable!] the Queen, David Attenborough, or Billy Connolly) they would, if no RIP thread existed (or even if it did - David Bowie was commemorated in various places across the board), have their own threads in Chat and beyond, but fond memories are not only formed around the extraordinarily famous and everyone who has touched our lives should have a fixed place where their influence is recorded, even if it is not trawled in quite the same way as other permanent threads.

Anyway, just my tuppence worth.
 
MrRING said:
For the record, I’m fine with no mainstream news and politics on FTMB.
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But I'd contend that a lot of the news media like to lob in occasional weird stories as 'How about that?!' pieces. And what is that? Well, pure FORTEANA! The sort of stuff Fort collected in his shoe boxes!
 
rynner2 said:
But I'd contend that a lot of the news media like to lob in occasional weird stories as 'How about that?!' pieces. And what is that? Well, pure FORTEANA! The sort of stuff Fort collected in his shoe boxes!
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Well, luckily, we're the prime site already set up with the relevant threads to put those items into and discuss them.
 
Frideswide said:
I can find this via search but we may well have it. For me this is one example of fortean politics; I wondered if it would be good for discussing possible discussions? did it have any impact on his vote? was it mentioned at all? what areas of his expertise are going to overlap directly with his new job? Do we have links on fortean aspects of eu policy?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4666986/New-Tory-MEP-Rupert-Matthews-expert-ghosts.html
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Where the bloody hell have you been?
 
Frideswide said:
I can find this via search but we may well have it. For me this is one example of fortean politics; I wondered if it would be good for discussing possible discussions? did it have any impact on his vote? was it mentioned at all? what areas of his expertise are going to overlap directly with his new job? Do we have links on fortean aspects of eu policy?

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4666986/New-Tory-MEP-Rupert-Matthews-expert-ghosts.html
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Welcome back!
 
but what about my suggested link? :cry::cry::cry:
 
Frideswide said:
but what about my suggested link? :cry::cry::cry:
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I think it means that you are more important to us than an article in the Daily Mail. That is the case with me; the Daily Mail I have kitten blocked, you I have kitten loved!
 
Apparently he has been dubbed the Brexorcist, and i have no idea where that could go Frideswide, sorry, unless there is a thread on writers of the weird and wonderful
 
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