For what it is worth as a moderator I have seen a lot of discontent and downright ugly posts. I hope most of those stemmed from the hack of avsim., and people were venting in the only way they knew how. But that is no excuse to start throwing the mud shall we say.As a moderator I try to put myself in the shoes of the person who made the posts if the posts appears to be a down right malicious post then I will not hesitate to either delete the post, lock the posts so no one else can respond to it and if necessary ban the person who made the post. I try to see things from there point of view. :(

For further comments about reviews you'd have to talk with Robert. That's not my department. All I can say at this point is that my last rope finally broke last night, and I have taken a new view of what's going on in the forums. Members and developers WILL be seeing much more interaction from me as necessary, and I have it on good measure that I'm not alone in this venture. If things don't get better, than come back and call me a liar, but from this point forward I'm not letting any member or developer tell me how to moderate the forums. I know the rules, I know right from wrong, and I know what it means to disagree without being disagreeable. The proof of my new attitude is already present if you just look around. More will be coming.

Good to hear and it's high time someone took the yoke in hand a righted the course here. :(

Good to hear and it's high time someone took the yoke in hand a righted the course here. :(

That goes both ways Ron.

That goes both ways Ron.

No problem Geof. The Mods are not the only folks who can distinguish right from wrong. :(

No problem Geof. The Mods are not the only folks who can distinguish right from wrong. :(

They are here and I would ask all users to respect their decisions.

Good to hear and it's high time someone took the yoke in hand a righted the course here. :(

I'm probably misunderstanding this comment, but it's not I alone who am taking a stand against those who wish to diminish the unsurpassed quality of our beloved forums/hobby, and this is really nothing new. If you haven't noticed, Tom Allensworth takes zero nonsense from anyone at anytime. The problem is that he can't be here 24/7 watching the forums. David permits a similiar minimum level of incivility, but as with the rest of us, he has a life outside of AVSIM and can't be here every second of the day. I'll leave my private conversations with Geof private, but rest assured that he doesn't slouch on the job either. And if you've ever posted an image not adhering to the forum rules or let your signature exceed the terms, than I guarantee you've heard from Stag. In reality I'm the only one who hasn't been doing a good enough job around here, and that's because I took a different approach to moderating that was a bit too liberal. It's too bad you don't get to see all the results or you would probably notice a vast improvement already - refering in this case to the ERJ thread that led me to put my foot down.

They are here and I would ask all users to respect their decisions.

Again, good to hear. :(

I'm probably misunderstanding this comment, but it's not I alone who am taking a stand against those who wish to diminish the unsurpassed quality of our beloved forums/hobby, and this is really nothing new. If you haven't noticed, Tom Allensworth takes zero nonsense from anyone at anytime. The problem is that he can't be here 24/7 watching the forums. David permits a similiar minimum level of incivility, but as with the rest of us, he has a life outside of AVSIM and can't be here every second of the day. I'll leave my private conversations with Geof private, but rest assured that he doesn't slouch on the job either. And if you've ever posted an image not adhering to the forum rules or let your signature exceed the terms, than I guarantee you've heard from Stag. In reality I'm the only one who hasn't been doing a good enough job around here, and that's because I took a different approach to moderating that was a bit too liberal. It's too bad you don't get to see all the results or you would probably notice a vast improvement already - refering in this case to the ERJ thread that led me to put my foot down.

It was just an observation without hidden meanings.The place needs what you all provide if it is to become a less acrimonious and more civil spot for FS Users to participate.Your early efforts to that end have not gone unnoticed. The comment is intended to support the new direction. :(

Sure wish we COULD win the forums war, but I think the best we can ever expect is to surpress the battles and cause the least amount of backlash we can while using the tools we are given to work with. Sad to say, but we will always draw criticism from one side or the other, we will always be wrong in someone's eyes even when we only apply the letter of the law as far as the rules go.Those of us that try to make Avsim a better place by spending so much of our free time here, are not professionals at this kind of work and most times don't dare try to act as a professional on the matter at hand and must just resort to enforcing the rules set down by Tom Allensworth. The rules every member agreed to abide by when they signed up here I might note. We are not experts on handling the many problems that can come up and have to do the best we can, armed with the posted rules, common sense, and pretty much what we have learned from dealing with past problems. Sorry to say, many times we need to do something quickly and there is no time to consult other mods or administration before we act on the problem in order to keep it from escalating into a full blown riot of nasty posts. We don't always have the time needed to do things the "long" way that many seem to demand of us when they get a thread/post deleted or locked etc. Now and then things have to be stopped quickly in order to avoid having the topic/thread taken over by the members that just wait for such things in order to jump on others for whatever reason. I've deleted several of my paragraphs here as *I* don't even want to hear me going on and on about it.... point is, I wish I could come to the forums each day and not have to do my job, I wish people could mind their manners and use common sense in their posts, I wish those that have other agendas would find other forums where they could be happy and find lots of fights to get into... but we are dealing now with 68,000 members of all types of humans on Avsim and without the help of each individual member we can't ever expect things to be as good as the old days.No amount of moderation can make these forums a great place for everyone to visit........ but the general membership CAN, Please, help keep Avsim forums a nice place for flight simmers and people who love aviation to gather, help each other with problems and have fun.Tom

That goes both ways Ron.

Agreed!Speaking only for myself, I will make this pledge to you and the rest of the moderators:1. I will continue to read the forums, but will -for the most part- restrict my personal input to the various developer forums, as that is where my major interests lie after all.2. I will refrain from entering a reply to any thread that's discussing any other commercial developer's product. If I see a blatant falsehood, I will use the "ALERT" button to let you all know how and why it's false.3. I will actively participate in any threads which are directly related to Eaglesoft products, but will stirve to maintain a strictly professional level of communications. Any posts from users that "cross the lines of civility" or are "false" or "libleous" will not be replied to directly, but instead I will use the "ALERT" button so you folks can handle it appropriately.By this means I hope to assist the process of restoring control of the asylum to the officially designated keepers (er, moderators) .. :(

An interesting thread and some real positivity and hope. I believe the moderators do an excellent job and that AVSIM are blessed with hard working, intelligent staff. That's clear to me in Geof and Jeremy's posts above.But read the above thread again. I am concerned that some people who are part of the problem, clearly see themselves as exempt from the problem. I see some huge egos that appear unable to look inward and I am not talking about anyone in the AVSIM team.I am also concerned that what is being suggested in one part of this thread is "developers who financially support AVSIM should be protected from criticism of their products" (not in such exact words). Clearly this leads to a forum that is a front for developers, and voila; you have lost AVSIM.Jeremy's response clearly addresses this, but I am not convinced the messages are getting through to everyone they apply to.

An interesting thread and some real positivity and hope. I believe the moderators do an excellent job and that AVSIM are blessed with hard working, intelligent staff. That's clear to me in Geof and Jeremy's posts above.But read the above thread again. I am concerned that some people who are part of the problem, clearly see themselves as exempt from the problem. I see some huge egos that appear unable to look inward and I am not talking about anyone in the AVSIM team.I am also concerned that what is being suggested in one part of this thread is "developers who financially support AVSIM should be protected from criticism of their products" (not in such exact words). Clearly this leads to a forum that is a front for developers, and voila; you have lost AVSIM.Jeremy's response clearly addresses this, but I am not convinced the messages are getting through to everyone they apply to.

As to the highlighted comment. Let me simply say that Tom will have to fire me before I allow any developer to be protected from fair, unbiased criticism within the AVSIM terms of use. Keep in mind that there is a notable difference between that and personal attacks/those with an agenda. It's a work in progress, but I think we've got a solid gameplan that's starting to take effect already.

An interesting thread and some real positivity and hope. I believe the moderators do an excellent job and that AVSIM are blessed with hard working, intelligent staff. That's clear to me in Geof and Jeremy's posts above.But read the above thread again. I am concerned that some people who are part of the problem, clearly see themselves as exempt from the problem. I see some huge egos that appear unable to look inward and I am not talking about anyone in the AVSIM team.I am also concerned that what is being suggested in one part of this thread is "developers who financially support AVSIM should be protected from criticism of their products" (not in such exact words). Clearly this leads to a forum that is a front for developers, and voila; you have lost AVSIM.Jeremy's response clearly addresses this, but I am not convinced the messages are getting through to everyone they apply to.

My posting regarding that question are a valid concern of all commercial vendors in that it could be possible to have a situation where commercial vendors could be supporting Avsim with advertising and at the same time have their success undone by the noisy "axe to grind" crowd.The post needed to be mentioned for that very reason.The motivation for that post is quite simple. 1. No one had addressed it so I did.2. It is actually positive and supportive to Avsims goals and operations.If my motivation is in question then look it over again and perhaps you'll realise that there is nothing asked but a fair, evenhanded approach, to vendors concerns. :(

No offense, but I find this discussion interesting to say the least. There is nothing new going on here at Avsim. This has been the state of affairs ever since I started reading the forums. Perhaps we have peaks and valleys, but certainly no new trends. I know this has been brought up before by previous members, although nothing has ever come of it. I've been more vocal and willing to assert my opinion regarding other topics I felt strongly about, however, I've kept quiet about this one simply because I didn't think it would do any good.I guess all I can say is it will be interesting to see how things are handled. I'm not 100% clear on the desired outcome, although it seems the ability to discuss certain payware products has been subject to reverberations even when those products are unrelated to the developer in question. The right to express an opinion on a product seems to be taboo by this developer, all through thinly veiled accusations of piracy, lies about product claims and finger pointing, or character assassination. As I said, this has been going on for years, and I've had my one on one issues with EDG over a product purchased and the supposed problem experience on my end, regardless of proof otherwise. It wasn't worth the effort to fix a bug no one seemed to care about I guess. I just had to remove the EDG products and "blacklist" them, so to speak. I have kept quiet though regardless of my frustrations, but I did want to add a little to the point. It seems from the Citation thread in FSX that EDG still doesn't get the idea customer relations in not their strong suit. I have nothing against Bill or Ron personally. I don't know them. What is obvious is that they can't tolerate a fraction of criticism about their products and for some reason even feel the need to defend other payware developers. This is a personality problem and most likely won't ever get much better. No one is perfect. I have a mountain of problems myself. I wish the best to EDG, even though for now I don't buy their products based on previous experience, but I must say they're only hurting themselves by castigating so many customers who express negative reviews regarding certain payware products.

No offense, but I find this discussion interesting to say the least. There is nothing new going on here at Avsim. This has been the state of affairs ever since I started reading the forums. Perhaps we have peaks and valleys, but certainly no new trends. I know this has been brought up before by previous members, although nothing has ever come of it. I've been more vocal and willing to assert my opinion regarding other topics I felt strongly about, however, I've kept quiet about this one simply because I didn't think it would do any good.I guess all I can say is it will be interesting to see how things are handled. I'm not 100% clear on the desired outcome, although it seems the ability to discuss certain payware products has been subject to reverberations even when those products are unrelated to the developer in question. The right to express an opinion on a product seems to be taboo by this developer, all through thinly veiled accusations of piracy, lies about product claims and finger pointing, or character assassination. As I said, this has been going on for years, and I've had my one on one issues with EDG over a product purchased and the supposed problem experience on my end, regardless of proof otherwise. It wasn't worth the effort to fix a bug no one seemed to care about I guess. I just had to remove the EDG products and "blacklist" them, so to speak. I have kept quiet though regardless of my frustrations, but I did want to add a little to the point. It seems from the Citation thread in FSX that EDG still doesn't get the idea customer relations in not their strong suit. I have nothing against Bill or Ron personally. I don't know them. What is obvious is that they can't tolerate a fraction of criticism about their products and for some reason even feel the need to defend other payware developers. This is a personality problem and most likely won't ever get much better. No one is perfect. I have a mountain of problems myself. I wish the best to EDG, even though for now I don't buy their products based on previous experience, but I must say they're only hurting themselves by castigating so many customers who express negative reviews regarding certain payware products.

Fairly stated, don't recall the issue in question but if you bring me up to date via email I'll gladly see if we can find a resolution. :(