This is a Civilised Place for Civilised Discussion

Please treat this discussion forum with the same respect you would a public park. We are a shared community resource. A place to share skills, knowledge, experience and interests through ongoing conversation.

Improve the Discussion

If you are not sure your post adds to the conversation, think over what you want to say and try again later.

The topics discussed here matter to us, and we want you to act as if they matter to you too. Be respectful of the topics and the people discussing them, not everyone will be as experienced or as knowledgable as you.

Be Agreeable, Even When You Disagree

You may wish to respond to something by disagreeing with it. That’s fine. But remember to be constructive in your criticism. Criticise ideas, not people. Please avoid:

  • Name calling
  • Attacking the person
  • Responding to a post’s tone instead of its actual content
  • Knee-jerk contradiction

Instead, provide reasoned counter-arguments that improve the discussion.

Your Participation Counts

The conversations we have here set the tone for every new arrival. Help influence the community by choosing to engage in discussions that make this an interesting place to be — and avoiding those that do not.

The Discourse forum software we use provides tools that enable the community to collectively identify the best (and worst) contributions: bookmarks, likes, flags, replies, edits, and so forth. Use these tools to improve your own experience, and everyone else’s, too.

Let’s leave our community better than we found it.

If You See a Problem, Flag It

Trusted members have special authority; they are responsible for the upkeep of this forum. But so are you. With your help, our trusted members can continue to be community facilitators, not just moderators.

When you see bad behavior, don’t reply. It encourages the bad behavior by acknowledging it, consumes your energy, and wastes everyone’s time. Just flag it. If enough flags accrue, action will be taken, either automatically or by member-intervention.

In order to maintain our community we reserve the right to remove or modify any content for any reason at any time.

Always Be Civil

Nothing sabotages a healthy conversation like rudeness:

  • Be civil. Don’t post anything that a reasonable person would consider offensive, abusive, or hateful.
  • Keep it clean. Don’t post anything obscene.
  • Respect each other. Don’t harass anyone, impersonate, or expose their private information.
  • Respect our community. Think about what you are posting.

These are not concrete terms with precise definitions — avoid even the appearance of any of these things.

This is a publicly accessible forum and search engines index these discussions. Keep this in mind when posting.

Keep It Tidy

Make the effort to put things in the right place, so that we can spend more time discussing and less cleaning up. So:

  • Don’t start a topic in the wrong category.
  • Don’t cross-post the same thing in multiple topics.
  • Don’t divert a topic by changing it midstream.
  • Don’t use signatures on your posts — every post you make has your profile information attached to it.

Rather than posting “+1” or “Agreed”, use the Like button. Rather than taking an existing topic in a radically different direction, use Reply as a Linked Topic.

Grey Arrows Drone Club Committee, Challenges Committee, Trust Level 3 Members and Trust Level 4 Members reserve the right to edit any topic title and any post content in order to make it more relevant to the wider member base and to make it easier to find in search results. Your post may also be edited to fix or remove broken links, and to better improve embedded media.

This is a ‘No Drone-Police Zone (NDPZ)’

You are responsible for your own actions; nobody else.

Grey Arrows Drone Club committee are not the ‘drone police’.

Similarly, Grey Arrows Drone Club members are not the drone police either.

Do not police other members.

Powered by You

Grey Arrows Drone Club is operated by your friendly local drone operators and you, the community. If you have any questions about how things work here, open a new topic and let’s discuss!

If there’s an urgent issue that can’t be handled by a new topic or flagging a post, contact us via one of the methods listed at the bottom of page.

Trust Levels

We operate five different levels of community trust at Grey Arrows Drone Club.

Your Trust Level is managed automatically. The more you participate, the more you become trusted, the higher your Trust Level becomes.

Trust Level 0

By default, all new community users start out at Trust Level 0, meaning trust has yet to be earned. These are people who have just created an account and are still learning the community and the way our community works. New users’ abilities are restricted for safety – both theirs and yours.

We also selectively hide some of the more “advanced” functionality of the forum from new users, in order to make our user interface UI less confusing for them as they gain more experience.

Users at Trust Level 0 cannot …

  • “Reply as new topic” via Link button
  • Flag posts
  • Post more than 1 image
  • Upload any attachments
  • Have more than 2 hyperlinks in a single post
  • Have links in the ‘about me’ field of their profile
  • Mention more than 2 users in a post
  • Start more than 3 new topics
  • Post more than 10 replies

Trust Level 1

Here at Grey Arrows Drone Club we firmly believe reading and understanding is the most fundamental and healthy action in any community. If a new associate is willing to spend a little time reading, they will quickly be promoted to the first trust level.

We also believe that associates should be able to vouch for other associates. Therefore, all new associate that are invited here by an existing associate will automatically be promoted to Trust Level 1.

Existing Trust Level 0 users can get to Trust Level 1 by…

  • Becoming a Member (which will advance you straight to Trust Level 2)

Or by…

  • Entering at least 5 topics
  • Reading at least 30 posts
  • Spend a total of 10 minutes reading posts

At Trust Level 1, users can…

  • Use all core forum functions; all new user restrictions are removed
  • Upload images and attachments

Trust Level 2

Trust Level 1 users that keep coming back over a series of months; have not only read, but actively participated long and consistently enough to be trusted with Trust Level 2.

Trust Level 1 users can get to Trust Level 2 by…

Or by…

  • Visiting at least 180 days, not sequentially
  • Casting at least 1 like
  • Receiving at least 1 like
  • Replying to at least 3 different topics
  • Entering at least 20 topics
  • Reading at least 100 posts
  • Spend a total of 60 minutes reading posts

Trust Level 2 users can…

  • Browse our sites with no adverts, anywhere
  • Use the “Invite others to this topic” button for one-click onboarding of new users to participate in topics
  • Flag posts
  • Daily like limit increased

Trust Level 3

Trust Level 3 users are the backbone of our community. They are the most active readers and reliable contributors over a period of many, many months. Because they’re always online they can be further trusted to help tidy up and organise our community.

Trust Level 2 users can get to Trust Level 3 by, in the last 100 days…

  • Must have visited at least 50% of days
  • Must have replied to at least 75 different topics
  • Of topics created in the last 100 days, must have viewed 25%
  • Of posts created in the last 100 days, must have read 25%
  • In the last 100 days, must have received 20 likes, and given 30 likes.*
    * These likes must be across a minimum number of different users (1/5 the number), across a minimum number of different days (1/4 the number). Likes cannot be from DMs.

All of the above criteria must be true to achieve Trust Level 3. Furthermore, unlike other trust levels, you can lose trust level 3 status.

If you dip below these requirements in the last 100 days, you will be “demoted” back to Trust Level 2. However, in order to avoid constant promotion/demotion situations, there is a 2-week grace period immediately after gaining Trust Level 3 during which you will not be demoted.

Trust Level 3 users can…

  • Recategorise and rename topics to make them more relevant
  • Mark a reply as the ‘Solution’ to a question asked in the Questions & Answers category
  • Have all their links followed (we usually remove rel=nofollow from all links)
  • Immediately remove posts by Trust Level 0 users that have been flagged as spam
  • Daily like limit further increased

Trust Level 4

Trust Level 4 users are the most senior, respected and trusted members of our community. They have remained consistently Trust Level 3 and have been reliable contributors over a period of years. They have been excellent at facilitating discussions, community engagement and moderating.

Trust Level 3 users can get to Trust Level 4 by…

  • Invitation only

Trust Level 4 users can…

  • Edit any post made by any member
  • Split existing topics out in to new topics
  • Merge existing topics together
  • List and Unlist topics
  • Access beta versions of our applications

Membership

Our membership section has moved to: https://dronescene.co.uk/membership

Public Liability Insurance (PLI)

Our hobbyist and recreational drone public liability insurance section has moved to: https://dronescene.co.uk/drone-public-liability-insurance

Terms of Service

We must protect ourselves – and by extension, you and your data – against unfriendly folk and bad actors. We have a Terms of Service page which describes your behaviour and your rights related to content, privacy, and laws. To use any of our sites or service, you agree to abide by our TOS.

Privacy Policy

Grey Arrows Drone Club is registered as a data controller with Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) in accordance with Data Protection (Charges and Information) Regulations 2018 in England.

Our Privacy Policy is located at https://greyarro.ws/privacy

Contact Us

Address:
   Grey Arrows Drone Club Limited
   Unity House
   Westwood Park Drive
   Wigan
   WN3 4HE

Email:
   info@greyarro.ws

Forum:
   @GADC_Committee

Socials:
   twitter @UKDroneClub
   instagram /UKDroneClub
   Facebook /UKDroneClub
   YouTube @UKDroneClub
   TikTok @UKDroneClub

Grey Arrows Drone Club Limited (14538499) is registered in England and Wales with their registered office at Unity House, Westwood Park Drive, Wigan, WN3 4HE