Grading Your CFI Website

[caliginousface]

Some old students of mine started a website for kids like them who want to know if a certain CFI is knowledgeable/competent/so on so forth. Figured you guys and gals could make some use out of it.

http://theleftseatreport.com

 

[upup89]

Neat website.

 

[OhioStatePilot]

Cool site and a great idea, but it needs some work in the functionality department. From what I saw, you click on Alabama and get Mississippi and in Ohio, it only has three test airports with no link to add an airport or flight school.

 

[RICHARD5]

Cool, I'm locked and loaded for this site. I clicked on CA and only 3 came up so I guess it's a very new website. I'll spend more time on it later.

 

[caliginousface]

Yeah it's pretty new, I'll let them know about the bugs.

 

[Joe Gremlin]

Neat idea. Shall we start a pool for how long it will be before either a CFI or a flight school sues them for liable?

 

[caliginousface]

Neat idea. Shall we start a pool for how long it will be before either a CFI or a flight school sues them for liable?

Haha, did you mean "libel" or "liable"? Either way, I figure they'll have to institute some sort of disclaiming policy ala ratemyprofessor.com

 

[Joe Gremlin]

Haha, did you mean "libel" or "liable"? Either way, I figure they'll have to institute some sort of disclaiming policy ala ratemyprofessor.com

True enough. But if I'm a flight school and there are comments on there which could not be verified and could adversely effect my business, they'll either be removing those comments or they'll be getting sued. Guaranteed. Airnav.com does the same sort of thing for FBO's. But since they apparently get contacted by lawyers just about every time someone says an FBO sucks, and they subsequently remove those comments from the site, it ends up being a for he's a jolly good fellow collection of FBO ratings.

Its a really good idea. I commend them for doing it and I wish them luck with it. But if I'm an independent CFI and someone writes my name on there and says this CFI can't teach effectively, they're either taking that comment down or they're going to hear from my lawyer. Probably both. And for all I know, and for all most CFI's know, they may be perfectly within their legal rights to allow people to write the name of a CFI and say that he sucks. But even if they are within their legal rights, they're going to have to count on getting hauled into court to prove and defend that right every time someone writes something bad on there. And that's going to add up to real money real fast so unless the site owners are also lawyers or they've got some sort of hard core plan for generating massive income with the site, I wouldn't expect it to be too useful of a tool for figuring out which CFI's or flight schools to avoid. That's my gut assumption on it. My gut has been wrong before. Time will tell if its right this time or not.

 

[CoffeeIcePapers]

Very good concept, very poorly implemented. It has a lot of potential if someone with the know-how worked on it.

 

[Tworotor7]

Well it looks as if I'm on there already...lol hmm

 

[caliginousface]

Very good concept, very poorly implemented. It has a lot of potential if someone with the know-how worked on it.

No feedback on how to make it better besides that?

 

[wheelsup]

Also what is preventing CFI's from ranking themselves?

 

[caliginousface]

Also what is preventing CFI's from ranking themselves?

Yeah, that is an issue too. Same thing with ratemyprofessor.com, apartmentratings.com, so on so forth. CFI's rate their own apartments...?

 

[CoffeeIcePapers]

No feedback on how to make it better besides that?

Sure. The overall layout is pretty bad. You could use some CSS to style the menu better and arrange content. There is no color scheme to speak of, and overall, it doesn't feel like the pages belong together.

Like on:

http://theleftseatreport.com/Texas.html

The right side panel doesn't even have valid links and it doesn't match anything else on the website.


It really needs a real design, not just something thrown together from Dreamweaver templates. You would probably do well to use a CMS like Drupal to get a nice code base down, so you could easily add things like user registration and the like.

If you want some help in this department, let me know.

 

[caliginousface]

Sure. The overall layout is pretty bad. You could use some CSS to style the menu better and arrange content. There is no color scheme to speak of, and overall, it doesn't feel like the pages belong together.

Like on:

http://theleftseatreport.com/Texas.html

The right side panel doesn't even have valid links and it doesn't match anything else on the website.


It really needs a real design, not just something thrown together from Dreamweaver templates. You would probably do well to use a CMS like Drupal to get a nice code base down, so you could easily add things like user registration and the like.

If you want some help in this department, let me know.

Cool, well I linked them to the thread so if they want help and all that,I guess they'll see your offer! Thanks man.

 

[CoffeeIcePapers]

Also, it would be nice to allow CFIs to add their info to the database, without requiring a ranking.

 

[OhioStatePilot]

You might be able to gain some rankings security by requiring a login... requiring a certificate number when you register, which can be cross referenced to the airmen's database.

 

[jwp_145]

True enough. But if I'm a flight school and there are comments on there which could not be verified and could adversely effect my business, they'll either be removing those comments or they'll be getting sued. Guaranteed. Airnav.com does the same sort of thing for FBO's. But since they apparently get contacted by lawyers just about every time someone says an FBO sucks, and they subsequently remove those comments from the site, it ends up being a for he's a jolly good fellow collection of FBO ratings.

Its a really good idea. I commend them for doing it and I wish them luck with it. But if I'm an independent CFI and someone writes my name on there and says this CFI can't teach effectively, they're either taking that comment down or they're going to hear from my lawyer. Probably both. And for all I know, and for all most CFI's know, they may be perfectly within their legal rights to allow people to write the name of a CFI and say that he sucks. But even if they are within their legal rights, they're going to have to count on getting hauled into court to prove and defend that right every time someone writes something bad on there. And that's going to add up to real money real fast so unless the site owners are also lawyers or they've got some sort of hard core plan for generating massive income with the site, I wouldn't expect it to be too useful of a tool for figuring out which CFI's or flight schools to avoid. That's my gut assumption on it. My gut has been wrong before. Time will tell if its right this time or not.

Would you like some cheese with that?

 

[jwp_145]

Sure. The overall layout is pretty bad. You could use some CSS to style the menu better and arrange content. There is no color scheme to speak of, and overall, it doesn't feel like the pages belong together.

Like on:

http://theleftseatreport.com/Texas.html

The right side panel doesn't even have valid links and it doesn't match anything else on the website.


It really needs a real design, not just something thrown together from Dreamweaver templates. You would probably do well to use a CMS like Drupal to get a nice code base down, so you could easily add things like user registration and the like.

If you want some help in this department, let me know.

I've messed around with building a few sites, but I've never had any formal training at coding or anything. I was a graphic designer for quite some time in my highschool and college days, but never got into web. I've never received a good explanation of what CSS is. Any chance you'd want to explain? I mean, I know it is like a style template that applies to every page, but it just all confuses the heck out of me.

 

[BillErvin]

Their user agreement defects pretty well, not sure it would protect them though.