Tom,I sent this to Brent.Brent,As an educator, I can tell you that from the writing style of some of the messages to this forum, they are written by 12-16 year old boys who have the 12-16 year old ability of commonsense, good manners, and intellectual capacity.Did I say 'spot the neuron'?Seriously, there are plenty of pleasant, and delightfully committed kids in this forum, to make it worth while. However, I would not let kids who wanna see their name on the computer, and enjoy starting a fire fight, in any way stop me from my hobby.I do, what I do professionally, and ignore them when they are in this self-destruct mode, and they WILL go away to some live chatroom where they can see their names repeatedly!! Deprive the idiot of an audience and they soon stop.We do all have times where our hobby is put on the back shelf. This is normal, my longest shelf was about 6 months, but I come back and start flight planning all over again.Stick with us, 99% of us are worth it!

Hehe. Certified idiot here and AOL user. Well, it's not my fault--only thing that works up on this little mountain. Maybe find an ISP that works proper one day. Must say, have followed your work. Good stuff.Not a poison dwarf -- just an old GZR.Frenchy -- out.

Well said, Will. I have no experience with Pro Pilot; but all of the sudden you've got me missing Flight Unlimited 3, and the FU forum here on Avsim...

Those were the days!Sigh....http://mywebpages.comcast.net/geofa/pages/Geofdog2.jpg

Basically everything that I

Sigh and double sigh :-)Chris Porter:-outtaPerthWestern Australia

Thanks. I probably shouldnt have made the AOL comment. That was a bit strong. However, I remember when I was doing payware a couple of years ago, that there was an direct correlation between need for tech support and an AOL email address. It got so bad that we semi-seriously thought of charging more for product sold to anybody with an AOL email address. Nobodys fault, just that AOL courts new users to the internet. For that reason, they tend to have a lot of users who are not very savvy relative to computers. You sir, would not be representative of that group!I still think the ability to plonk people in this forum would be a nice feature. Pretty soon the knuckleheads would find themselves talking to themselves. Eric

Hi Tom,I posted the following brief response in the thread your link pointed us towards. I hope you don't mind but I thought it might be worth repeating here.-------------------------------------------------------------------Hi Brent,Ronald stated:"from the writing style of some of the messages to this forum, they are written by 12-16 year old boys who have the 12-16 year old ability of commonsense, good manners, and intellectual capacity"......I think we can safely say that this age group doesn't have the monopoly when it comes to appropriate behaviour in a public forum such as this.Throughout my working career I've had to deal with monosynaptic idiots whose purpose on this planet seems to be a determination to make life uncomfortable for others. They are now, were in the past, and, in the future, always will be in the minority and their petty, ill-considered utterances serve only to remind us of the diverse nature of our species. Unless they are open to reasonable argument and exhibit a willingness to behave more appropriately in settings such as these forums, then they should be ignored, for they will never change.On occasions such as this I would think of the aphorism once told to me many years ago by a good friend: "nil desperandum carborundum"Believe me, it's the only way. Such individuals have not the right to behave towards any of us as they do. We should pity them and turn our backs until such a time as they see the error of their ways. Whatever you do, don't let them get to you, for that, I am afraid, is all they want or need.Good luck and I do hope you will change your mind. We need to stand firm shoulder to shoulder with one another :)------------------------------------------------------------------Mike

>Hi Jon..... I can certainly sympathize. Not being a>developer/designer in any sense of the word, I could only>comment on what I've observed over the years I've participated>at Avsim. Obviously there are folks who have left the hobby>-- such as yourself -- more because of the tone of forum posts>than because of any personal derogatory e-mails received. >>-Lindy :-wave >I think it is the hostile community in general that drives a lot of people away whether developers or just flight simulator users. I offer this example. In another forum there was a post complaining about the number of posts that concerned hardware and that they should be removed to make reading posts less time consuming. I joked that I was unaware that I didn

>>But most of all, I tire of the fact that no one ever speaks of>the joy of an early morning flight in Alberta, with the sun>just peaking over the Canadian rockies, and the air so crisp,>you can see your breath fogging the windshield. Or the>tropical breeze and the smell of the ocean that permiates your>nose as you accelerate down the runway on some small tropical>island.>GET ME THAT SIM!! i've always dreamed of what you describe here!:-xxrotflmao

You already have it!!!!! It's your imagination.All of us remember that. We remember how we used our imaginations to fill in all the "missing details" back when Flight Simulator was still named by version numbers instead of years, and detailed airports consistend of a vector outline of the runways and taxiways, with no "lighting" so to speak.We have been so spoiled with the amount of realism that FS2004 provides, that we complain when even the littlest detail is missing.Yet back in FS2 or FS3, we painted with our imaginations in such broad strokes. Simple lines and sticks became buildings. A series of dots made up an "urban" area. And a grey and white triangle stood in for Mount Rainier. Yet find it impossible to paint in FS9 with simple touch up strokes. We complain if a single texture is blurry, or if a cloud is misshappen, or there are slight jaggies on the building.Text adventures and books allow our imaginations to fill in amazing amounts of detail, yet it's amazing that the more detail we find in our flight simulations, the less detail we allow our imaginations to fill in for us.

Tom,How many times a year does this rear it's head ? Two-three at least ? The Poison Dwarfs as you aptly name them in most cases are here today gone tomorrow. Give them a month or so and they'll be off to the next "in" game and associated forum. There is no effective way of Policeing them as in most cases they're not here long enough.I hear people mention community ect ect, this path has been trodden so so many times here at Avsim and others. We have to remember "simming" as it was has changed, the internet explosion has changed the way "simmers" used to be. Alas, as a consequence we have to accept the dwarfs are and will be part of everyday life now and more will follow. I think the term is "throw enough s*** at the wall and some of it will stick". Thats where we are.There are of course lessons to be learned, not just from the dwarfs, but perhaps if some of the seasoned simmers, commercial developers also, toned things down a little, just maybe it wouldnt be so attactive for Little Johnny ? AD

you're right Will.i could never have imagined flightsim the way it is now...though i'm still flying FS2002(due to the fact my computer hates FS9...no hard feelings though :-lol ),i'm however baffled time and time again by what i see....it only gets better,and i love it.never imagined this on the cold day i picked up a copy of FS95 though...might have left it laying there if i HAD known...its addictive ;-),and the addiction gets worse over time.i must say i'm amazed with some of the demands i see on the internet...then again,it's normal for the time we live in now..me,i've turned of the frame rate indicator,i don't mind a fuzzy texture here and there,,i'm just enjoying wonderful places,given to me by wonderful people that still want to share this dream ;-),and relaxing at the same time.have a good weekend,

I haven't had a chance to read this whole post yet (as there is a whole lot of information!) but I'd like to make a few comments:For one, I've mentioned it to friends and family members many times - the Flight Simming community is probably the most mature, good natured, and generous of all the communities I've been part of. I've got anywhere from Quake/Half-Life/BF1942 forums where everyone, it seems, is a snot nosed kid who's parents bought him the game and he wants everything for free and right NOW. In this community, for the most part, people understand how much work goes into everything.I recently used VATSIM for the first time since FS98 (I think?) and certainly the first time with voice and I was in awe with how professional everyone was and it was FREE! Same goes for alot of the freeware designers - for the most part they're very professional and so are the "consumers."The best way I can explain this all (at least in my eyes) is this is alot like the news - no one hears of the thousands of perfect landings that take place every day, only the one botched one. The bad eggs stand out.

Dear Tom, dear everybodyI agree with Ian above on the generally very high-standard Avsim site. Congratulations. This is a very interesting thread and I hope you don't mind, this has become an extensive reply. What to do with plain simple rants (like the Mike Stone one the other week) and why does it take place? Or maybe: Welcome to the consequences of being a passive, satisfied, quiet, non-thanking by email user and an only downloading, reading and learning individual, Jaap de Groot... Herewith, I promise to change this behaviour... Although I shouldn't be making such dramatic and 'labourious' promises at this time of the night... Nontheless, also by this means, many thanks go to all real souls involved, trying to make this hobby - AND THIS FORUM - the great one it is. My site of preference. Healthy and helpful debates. Cheers everybody. Sadly sometimes, only after 'SIM-VIPS' threaten 'to leave Dodge,' a major uproar takes place and the developer suddenly realizes: Barely a few almost robbed my entire enthusiasm... After all, they're being covered with heaps of email-pleas. In certain occasions, the potential 'Dodge-out' reconsiders his position luckily... But, what's going on? I like this question... We're in a changing world... ok. Many, many more folks are coming online, ok. Avsim is linked to at MS, ok. Penmanship on the down... not ok really but... The internet bubble and Enron have imploded.. they had to. Global security is tightened... I feel really safe now... And people are more demanding... I'll ok that as well, as far as we can expect more from our machines and software than 16 years ago, when I touched my own 'electronic typewriter' (ca. 8MHz,1MB-RAM, 50MB hd running windows 3.1) for the first time. I don't know for others, but for me, computers are a perpetual love-hate relationship. I love to hate them... And now, on top of all, many have 'purchaseded' (cause in the US you only license) an either fragile DX9 or a fragile FS9. If I may claim..? Stut, stut... Many have problems of some sort. I don't dare imagine, how somebody gets this thing to run longer than 1 hour, without the deep knowledge in the AVSIM FAQ's (like the default.xml-bug) and in the forums. How otherwise would we have learned about the advantages of DX9.0b over DX9.0a delivered with the FS9-package? Or how would we know where the bridges are hiding..? What can happen is this: Somebody installs a downloaded plane. 'Fragile' FS9 becomes funny and the add-on author gets 'a not so funny' 'usefull'(in technical terms...) email stating: Your rubbish made my system crash and I had to reinstall my OS etc. etc. I will never download any of your crap again... Preferably garnished with various 'Not smilies' and other cartoonies. Great! Not to mention these people probably hardly bother to read the f manual... Then: The OPEN Flightsim structures and resources unjustly recieve a lot of the public bashing! We want more, we want better... In my perception, generally, only a very few really behave like this. Nontheless, as others have mentioned, many are blaming many. This evolution of the sim is seriously affecting our mindsets... In all different kind of ways. Mine is BTW: 'Cautiously optimistic a patch will come' (announced at Christmas..!! Nice Christmas gift, h