Open letter to the AVSIM Staff

[RobertVdb 0]

----- OPEN LETTER ----------------Dear Staff members,There is a person in Holland, Robert-Jan Oosterloo, who keeps a list of all freeware sceneries available for FS2004 and FSX. This list can be found on http://walhalla.mine.nu/fs2004.phpThis person does this research continuously and in a meticulous way since a long period (surely, for more than 5 years).I have noticed that people in several forum posts are being referred to his site and found the freeware scenery they were looking for.My question is now the following. Why can such a guy, performing a non-profit task, not receive a reward in some way, if I compare with all the rewards that are given to commercial add-ons?I have in no way connection with this guy, but I just want to see that someone being all those years of strategic importance for the FS community would receive a kind of recognition for his longstanding work. This needs not to cost anything, but could be a kind of public award given to him.I hope that you, as claimed to be the n

[Gavin 99]

I agree that some sort of award would be appropriate.

[Opa 6]

Amen and Amen - That has to be one of the most valuable sites available to us all.

[Guest belga1]

Hello,My full support. Regards.Gus.

[mgh 89]

I was completely unawrae iof this site. However, I have already downloaded several smaller UK airports.I certainly agree the this site should be well publicised and its creator recognised.

[WhiteKnight77 0]

That is a great resource. Some sort of recognition is warranted.

[RobertVdb 0]

... and AVSIM hasn't still ears for it. Why do commercial companies receive awards and people doing for free long-standing work for the FS community not?At least I would expect an answer from the staff, but apparently they didn't. That's AVSIMPSLast year I started to give a donation ($10) which I would make to a yearly habit. I didn't receive even the slightest "thank you" whatsoever. The only way that I discovered that they received my money was when I saw it was withdrawn from my bank account.

[Robert W 3]

----- OPEN LETTER ----------------Dear Staff members,If some people feel similarly that a reward should be given to this person, please support me in this post.Kind regardsRob Vandenberghe

Hi Rob,We do have rewards for Freeware. The problem with recognition for these people is us becoming aware of them. Cudos to you for bringing this fellow to our attention.We used to have a staff reviewer who dedicated his time to Freeware material and we awarded Gold and Silver Awards of Excellence to these files. But alas, that reviewer has moved on with real life. If any simmer out there would like to take the time to write a review/story about this fellow's work, then I'd gladly edit/publish it on the Front Page for all to see.I'll head over to his site and take a look and try to get a short article posted, so everyone will know about this great Freeware site.

[momtchil 32]

... and AVSIM hasn't still ears for it. Why do commercial companies receive awards and people doing for free long-standing work for the FS community not?At least I would expect an answer from the staff, but apparently they didn't. That's AVSIMPSLast year I started to give a donation ($10) which I would make to a yearly habit. I didn't receive even the slightest "thank you" whatsoever. The only way that I discovered that they received my money was when I saw it was withdrawn from my bank account.

This is something the higher-ups have to decide. I hope you understand that Tom A. and the others are really very, very busy - not just with AVSIM but all sorts of other tricky issues. I wouldn't be surprised if you initial messages were missed or buried in a pile of 1000s of stuff they receive daily. People do not seem to understand that it is impossible to deal with every single request or suggestion sent to AVSIM - we are only volunteers and understaffed at that, and have a lot on our plate to deal with, not just with AVSIM but other difficult challenges in our lives and work.......... Take me for example I've been so busy processing files for the library and dealing with all sorts of other problems that I didn't even notice this thread until now.Personally I'd give an award for Robert-Jan Oosterloo for his scenery list at: http://walhalla.mine.nu/fs2004.php ; there are also others I'd like to give awards to - Rick Piper, David Maltby (http://www.dmflightsim.co.uk/), Milton Shupe, The Restauravia team (http://restauravia.com/); Team FS KBT (http://www.flightinfo.jp/FS_KBT/); a lot of the Russian Scenery developers (they've done some fantastic work) and many others for their great work. A lot of freeware developers (including some of the listed above) have alredy received a couple of awards from AVSIM - Its not true that AVSIM does not give awards to freeware developers. One of the most recent (that I am aware of) given out was to the Project Tupolev Team (http://fs-proteam.com/) for their incredibly realistic and complex freeware Tupolev Tu-154M aircraft. One of the main reasons that I decided to join the AVSIM team is because of the appreciation they have shown for freeware developers and their valuable efforts.I am also sorry that no one has said 'thank you' to you for your valuable support and donation contributions to AVSIM. My understanding of donations is that they are voluntary and unanimous. At any rate I am grateful to you for your help and contributions to AVSIM and Thank You for that.EDIT:

Hi Rob,We do have rewards for Freeware. The problem with recognition for these people is us becoming aware of them. Cudos to you for bringing this fellow to our attention.We used to have a staff reviewer who dedicated his time to Freeware material and we awarded Gold and Silver Awards of Excellence to these files. But alas, that reviewer has moved on with real life. If any simmer out there would like to take the time to write a review/story about this fellow's work, then I'd gladly edit/publish it on the Front Page for all to see.I'll head over to his site and take a look and try to get a short article posted, so everyone will know about this great Freeware site.

Heh...... :( See, one of the higher-ups is already looking into this. Posted at almost the same time as my reply....... its funny the way the forums work sometimes.........

[RobertVdb 0]

Thanks Robert and Momtchil,Finally, answers from staff members.Yes, I understand the argument that there are a lot of freeware developers which also need to be awarded in some way.But my special respect to Robert-Jan is inspired by his long-standing work, which consists of nearly each day during all these years searching on the net for new freeware scenery and cataloguing it. And, contrary to one might think, it is not only restricted to searching in Avsim libraries. I can assure that, for instance, the widely spread French scenery is moving all the time and not always easy to localize again. Even after AVSIM was hacked, he managed to change many links to flightsim.com for those files that were available there, all that in order to keep on serving the Flightsim community.I have never known an individual doing such constant task for us all. I still see in many forums that people refer to his site. His site must have a tremendous amounts of hits every day, but he is even so humble not to put a counter. I raised the demand here and leave AVSIM as the first big FS-site to think about it. But, not for long. I will try to put all my efforts in one way or another in seeing him to be awarded for his work.PS. I have no relation with Robert-Jan whatsoever. The only contact that I have with him is by sending him once and a while a correction for a broken link which he answers with a "thanks". I sincerely hope that he is not reading these posts.And ... concerning the donation, even an automatic mail with some kind of gratitude would be the slightest sign of politeness to someone who donates. At least he knows then that his money did arrive in the right hands.RegardsRob

[Guest Captain_S]

Thanks Robert and Momtchil,Finally, answers from staff members.Yes, I understand the argument that there are a lot of freeware developers which also need to be awarded in some way.But my special respect to Robert-Jan is inspired by his long-standing work, which consists of nearly each day during all these years searching on the net for new freeware scenery and cataloguing it. And, contrary to one might think, it is not only restricted to searching in Avsim libraries. I can assure that, for instance, the widely spread French scenery is moving all the time and not always easy to localize again. Even after AVSIM was hacked, he managed to change many links to flightsim.com for those files that were available there, all that in order to keep on serving the Flightsim community.I have never known an individual doing such constant task for us all. I still see in many forums that people refer to his site. His site must have a tremendous amounts of hits every day, but he is even so humble not to put a counter. I raised the demand here and leave AVSIM as the first big FS-site to think about it. But, not for long. I will try to put all my efforts in one way or another in seeing him to be awarded for his work.PS. I have no relation with Robert-Jan whatsoever. The only contact that I have with him is by sending him once and a while a correction for a broken link which he answers with a "thanks". I sincerely hope that he is not reading these posts.And ... concerning the donation, even an automatic mail with some kind of gratitude would be the slightest sign of politeness to someone who donates. At least he knows then that his money did arrive in the right hands.RegardsRob

Hi Sir, yes, often all it takes is a simple "Thank you" nothing more.. no point having a dontation button without an sincere !!!!!!!!acknowledgement...Sometime people shoot themselves in the foot... thats life "Jim", but not as we know it lol...Scott me up Beemy...... :)SO much to learn by so few for so little....