I don’t know if this post will be deleted, but in any case I would simply know the opinions about some recent facts happened here.

As several users already noticed, it seems that since some months the climate on AVSIM is changing. The two most evident phenomena in my opinion are the management of the MS Flight forum and the questions about Prepar3D.

Let’s go in order.

1. The Flight forum. Recently Arwen has been forced to resign as moderator because, by using her words, she intended the place as a discussion forum and not as a fan club, where only praises of the game are allowed. Some Flight lovers attacked her repeatedly, and the results have been very fast.
   

First, Arwen disappeared from the forum, and now the moderator place has been taken by SpiritFlyer, that in the last two days with the usual zeal has started to “clean” the forum. Actually today I received a message by him, saying that I can not post in the forum for 30 days. The suspension has been caused by a thread where I pasted the famous sentence by Howard in the interview by Avsim, saying: “I believe that Flight can appeal to millions and millions of people, far more than the simulation sub-genre ever”.

1. The Prepar3D question. We all read the strong warning that forbids to discuss any aspect of the famous EULA. Many people considered strange the fact, but anyway, not being a lawyer, I never entered in the complex issue, also because I noticed that it often determines a very harsh answer, as in the case of a recent thread started by a user that I know as always correct.
   I simply wrote some time ago a post in the PMDG forum, where I praised the decision expressed by Mr. Randazzo to start developing for X-Plane and not following P3D. I motivated my idea also by the fact that I don’t like to give my money for a sim/game to a company that has armaments as the core business. Another moderator deleted my message saying that this could be considered slander. I sincerely don’t think so, considering that the activity of said company is not secret, but well known and proudly advertised also on their web site.
   

 

So, in conclusion, I would simply ask the fellow forum users what do they think of these trends, also independently by my personal case, and ask to the forum moderators if they confirm the action taken by SpiritFlyer in the Flight forum.

 

A.

I have noticed this, and it is a little disturbing. I don't make the rules tho, and it IS Tom's site.

 

 

I motivated my idea also by the fact that I don’t like to give my money for a sim/game to a company that has armaments as the core business

 

This is a little rough. If you ever fly on a Boeing, guess what they also build? Plus I work for a multinational defence contractor, and I'm still a nice guy. :Peace:

 

Cheers, SLuggy

As Sluggy also notes, 'thems the rules', and if they are the rules one agrees to be bound by, then they have to be followed.

 

I don't necessarily always like it, but Avsim is not, and nor has it ever been a democracy in the sense that you can say whatever you like with no restraints whatsoever. Now, this might come across as unfair on the face of it, but we should bear in mind that it is always easy for us to dismiss such decisions which are made, as being 'uneccessary' or 'draconian', but it is also very easy for us to do that because it is not us who will get it in the neck for any repercussions stemming from any comments made, and that is especially pertinent in what is an increasingly litigious world. So, whilst I don't always like it, I do understand it.

 

In any case, instead of throwing one's toys out of the pram over the matter, a more dignified response to any dislike about the matter, would be to simply not post in the forum related to where you complaint is at all. If enough people feel the same way and do likewise, then they will make their feelings known just the same, and stay firmly within any constraints too. A silent protest if you like, and one which would indeed be entirely democratic, so you always have a choice you can make, even when you might think you do not. And on the subject of choices...

 

In relation to the other subject you raise. It's going to be very hard these days to buy anything which cannot be linked to military technology in some way or other. You are technically giving money to companies which deal in weaponry simply by having FS, since it has EADS, Boeing and Bell products in it by default, and MS had to pay them to be able to do that, thus such a moral stance is going to be hard to stick to for a simmer. But it can be tougher than that too, with any shopping list you care to come up with.

 

For example: buy a copy of the 1967 The Beatles album, Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band; what could possibly be war-like about that, it is the archetypal 'Summer of Love' album right? Well not if you dig deep enough it isn't: It is on the Parlophone label, which is part of EMI, and now part of Citigroup. But EMI did not simply make sound equipment and press LPs; even as early as 1942, Alan Dower Blumlein, EMI's chief electronics wizard, was working on the H2S radar which was developed to make the blind area bombing of cities through cloud cover possible, resulting in raids such as the infamous firestorm attack on Dresden in February 1945, in which at least 23,000 civilians were killed. Blumlein himself was in fact killed whilst engaged in his work on H2S, when a Halifax bomber he was on board crashed, killing the entire crew.

 

But, you might say, all that was done fighting against the ##### right? So was it a bad thing? Well again, this is a moral question, and one which I'm certainly not going to attempt to resolve, even if I could, but the point is that a weapon itself is not a bad thing, it is what one does with it that can be bad. For example, if one of those hastily scrambled F-16s over NY on 9/11 could have got off a Sidewinder missile at one of the aircraft heading for the twin towers of the World Trade Center, lots of passengers would have been killed, plus probably some people on the ground; but many more in the WTC would have been saved such a fate, so that could be seen as a good deed rather than a bad one, if you judge things purely off lives saved. And if you subscribe to that view, then giving money to Lockheed Martin would have been the right thing to do, since they make bits for the radar in the F-16.

 

The need to be ready for such terrible choices is even there in the name of the product you mention: Prepa3D, but we should bear in mind all of the things Lockheed Martin are intending people to be prepared for when using their software, and that is not simply war, but peacetime operations too, since it is a solution being touted as suitable for training civilian rescue operations as well, which is why one of the undersea vehicles it comes with, is one similar to a vehicle used to locate the flight data recorder of AF447.

 

So you can get hung up on moral stances and rights and this and that, but in the end it is always the reason for the choice which you make which is the important thing. A good man or woman at the controls of a weapons platform is not automatically given to evil intent; they could just as easily be doing the right thing, and there are numerous examples of weaponry being used for that purpose throughout history and mythology; i.e. with that bow and arrow, you could be Robin Hood instead of Genghis Khan.

 

Al

Also, as for Arwen's departure. A great moderator, who believed in reasonable freedom of speech (over "those are the rules" mentality). It is AVSIMs loss, that's for sure.

 

I respect AVSIM and adhere to it's rules; but also remember that nothing great was ever achieved by never challenging rules.....

 

This is a choice one makes when joining the Avsim staff, we are in some ways constrained more than other forum members, and that is because we are visibly representative of its persona. But it is worth bearing in mind that all forum members are representative of what Avsim is, and have a stake in what it becomes, but therein also lies a responsibility to adhere to good conduct. 'Those are the rules' is therefore not a mentality, it is a fact, but it is a fact that has been largely brought about by need to restrain the actions of some forum members who did not adhere to those responsibilities, and by their actions brought about the very condition which is the cause of the complaint. The fact is, there would be no need for such rules if that had not occurred.

 

Al

Well,

I take the opportunity of this final post to Avsim for greeting the nice people I virtually met in these months, and for thanking those kind souls that contributed to my excellent reputation rating (I am quite pride of my high posts/reputation ratio, I admit).

 

Then I want obviously answer to the people who participated to this thread.

 

Chock, in this months I read several of your posts in other sections, where you demonstrated to be both intelligent and cultured. So I checked with interest your reply.

As a “problematic pacifist”, I often thought, and still think, about the issues you raised concerning the complex intertwinement of civil and military economic realities.

A possible answer, I think, is related to the “closeness of links” concept. Some time ago I read that some researchers demonstrated that with less the 20 links you can reach any place of the web, independently from the starting point. This is probably true also in our real social and economic world, as your well put examples indicate.

 

So I think that, to avoid mixing all without any distinction, it is important to discern the “closeness” of situations and contexts. In our little case, I am happy to maintain separate my game/sim activities from companies directly involved in armaments. Also because, if the contrary happens, some regrettable phenomena start to appear.

One of them is surely the lack of transparency connected with some critical activities.

Here in our small world we have seen this with the absolute inhibition to discuss the EULA of a game.

But, being a good connoisseur of contemporary history, you probably remember some much more important examples, as the huge bribery scandal in the mid ‘70 involving L. (then still not merged with M.) and several countries, as Germany, Japan, Italy and Netherlands. Here in Italy the question even caused the resignation of the President of the Republic.

 

(So, dear Sluggy, I am sure you are a nice guy, but the problem is that some facts are rough themselves, more than my simple words).

 

A point where I have to strongly disagree with Chock is the idea that silence in a forum would be equivalent or as efficient as a clear expressed post. This in my opinion is simply not true, and really negates the basic idea of a place where to discuss with others different views or opinions.

On the other hand, this strange vision is fully in agreement with the recent formal declaration of Mr. Allensworth in the Flight section, sensibly pinned, red painted and immediately locked.

The post seems indicating a bit of irritation and discomfort, flavored with a pinch of coarseness (the Bur Preservation Society will not be happy).

There one can read that the section is now officially transformed from a forum into a fan club, where it’s strictly forbidden to discuss any possible negative aspect of the product. This is exactly the process Arwen tried to avoid just a few days ago, and now we can fully understand why she is no more moderator.

 

The funny thing is that the same producer of the game, Microsoft, seems much more liberal in this regard, the official site of the game and the Facebook page are literally full of complaints, also much harsher than those ever read here.

 

As a final note, I thank Padmasambhava for his empathic reply, and if he doesn’t mind I will steal for the future his wonderful sentence, with a little modification:

“remember that nothing great was ever achieved by never challenging rules, in particular if they try to negate freedom with arrogance”.

 

So, for all these reason, this is clearly no more a place for me. I surely feel myself closer to the free seagull invented by Richard Bach than to the silent and obedient soldier desired here.

 

I officially ask to the administrators of the forum to delete (possibly in an “heartbeat”, as by the aforementioned formal declaration) my account and all the related personal information from the Avsim database.

 

Bye, and have good flights (possibly inside a working cockpit ;-))

 

A.

Fortunately there are still a few nice subforums (like the PMDG one) where avsim staff has little to none participation, and where you are free to express your opinion without being scared to be banned.

..........................

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So, for all these reason, this is clearly no more a place for me. I surely feel myself closer to the free seagull invented by Richard Bach than to the silent and obedient soldier desired here.

 

I officially ask to the administrators of the forum to delete (possibly in an “heartbeat”, as by the aforementioned formal declaration) my account .................

 

 

If Chock hasn't convinced you - please see Tom's post on the subject here: http://forum.avsim.n...e/#entry2358265 (if that doesn't convince people, I don't know what will.........)

 

If you still wish your account deleted, fell free to stop using it and posting, and it will be automatically deactivated and deleted in due course.

If Chock hasn't convinced you - please see Tom's post on the subject here: http://forum.avsim.n...e/#entry2358265 (if that doesn't convince people, I don't know what will.........)

 

If you still wish your account deleted, fell free to stop stop using it and posting, and it will be automatically deactivated and deleted in due course.

 

Hello Momtchill

What is the period of time without posting for an account to be automatically deactivated ?

I hope you choose to stick around and remain one of the good guys. As I said before, the personification and identity of Avsim is created by all of us, and it would be a lesser place without thoughtful members. Yes there are rules, but your presence can help to steer it the way you would wish it to go.

 

Al

Hello Momtchill

What is the period of time without posting for an account to be automatically deactivated ?

Not entirely sure to be honest - this is a setting set by Tom and John. I think that if anything more than a year of a forums account not being logged-into and it would certainly be removed. Not sure if its necessary to post as by just logging-in you're showing to the system that the account is active. My guess is 6 months to a year of complete account non-use before deactivation becomes an issue.

You will receive a warning through e-mail before the account is deactivated - if at that point you leave it alone it will be removed automatically in a couple of months max.

Deleted