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Alan_A

Handling blowback: a different approach

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I'm hesitant to post this because I agree with the concern, expressed by others, that this is turning into an ORBX-bashing forum. I'd rather not see that happen.

 

However, I am interested - always have been, ever since the dispute started - in exploring different and possibly better ways for all of us to handle things. Let's call it a professional interest on my part.

 

So, in that spirit, here's a quick example from another world I participate in: classical music. On Monday, the Metropolitan Opera, a major international organization based in New York, announced this.

 

Then, on Tuesday, after a huge negative public reaction, they reversed themselves.

 

Beyond the mere fact that they reversed themselves, I thought two statements by the general manager (in effect, the CEO) were interesting: "I think I made a mistake," and "The Metropolitan Opera only exists with the good will of the public."

 

These statements - and the quick, complete reversal of a bad decision - did not cause the Metropolitan Opera to shatter and go out of existence. Nor did the world stop turning on its axis. What was accomplished is that the original the original bad decision became, at most, a two-day story. Now everyone can move on.

 

I bring it up here in the hope that everyone reading this forum - on both sides of the dispute to some extent, but of course I mean one side in particular - might consider the example and think about some changes in direction that would serve to move everyone back together.

 

Submitted for whatever it's worth.

 

Back, now, to your original programming, already in progress...

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Nice post Alan but if you think that calling a spade a spade ans not spreading lies is bashing Orbx ....well.... so be it.

 

I have not seen anybody here bashing Orbx products, me first, I always said that Orbx as some of the best scenery for FSX as I have a lot of them myself.

 

I remember a post overthere where the OP complained about a specific new Orbx scenery taxing his PC a lot (bad perf.), as far as I can remember the answer from the top management was that this particular scenery would be best used with new PC's hardware in 2 to 3 years down the road for best result....my own reaction after reading the answer was ...what??....so the poster raised his concerned by asking why this info was not disclosed to him and others before buying the scenery....should I ask you to guess what happened to the thread?

 

So, the difference between what happened in the link you posted and what happened at Orbx is very different, why would you ask, because Peter Gelb was man enough to say “I think I made a mistake.”.....

 

Like I said in another post on this forum ..."It's always easyer for some of us to show somebody the door than having to admit we messed up."

 

I would be the first one in line to buy more product from Orbx if what happened in you link happened at Orbx....I'm not holding my breath.

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Reversing the bad decisions that produced a blow back that produced a chain reaction of even more bad decisions should be reversed, all of them. No one wants refunds or blood. A simple "We made a mistake, in fact a lot of them. We are sorry, so let's move on and see if we can put this all behind us." That would work a miracle in public relations. Anything short of that would fall short of the landslide positive result it would produce.

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No one wants refunds or blood. A simple "We made a mistake, in fact a lot of them. We are sorry, so let's move on and see if we can put this all behind us." That would work a miracle in public relations.

 

Yes, absolutely, couldn't agree more.

 

I'd like to think the Met Opera situation could provide a model. I'm not optimistic about it, of course - I'm rarely optimistic. But I can hope.

 

For anyone from the other faculty that reads this and is inclined to dismiss it, I'd only mention that while opera might seem strange and arcane, the Met is a really big deal - one of the biggest arts organizations in the world, with a $300 million US annual budget, some very wealthy, powerful people on its board, and, as you can see, intense media and fan scrutiny. So this is really a high-level corporate example. The stakes are high, and that makes it even more impressive that they were able to reverse things after such a bad initial misstep. Also worth noting - the Met sells a very expensive entertainment product that people can easily decide to do without. Management seems to feel that customer relationships matter.

 

I'm sure others can decide for themselves if there's a lesson here that applies.

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Reversing the bad decisions that produced a blow back that produced a chain reaction of even more bad decisions should be reversed, all of them. No one wants refunds or blood. A simple "We made a mistake, in fact a lot of them. We are sorry, so let's move on and see if we can put this all behind us." That would work a miracle in public relations. Anything short of that would fall short of the landslide positive result it would produce.

+1


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Yes, absolutely, couldn't agree more.

 

I'd like to think the Met Opera situation could provide a model. I'm not optimistic about it, of course - I'm rarely optimistic. But I can hope.

 

For anyone from the other faculty that reads this and is inclined to dismiss it, I'd only mention that while opera might seem strange and arcane, the Met is a really big deal - one of the biggest arts organizations in the world, with a $300 million US annual budget, some very wealthy, powerful people on its board, and, as you can see, intense media and fan scrutiny. So this is really a high-level corporate example. The stakes are high, and that makes it even more impressive that they were able to reverse things after such a bad initial misstep. Also worth noting - the Met sells a very expensive entertainment product that people can easily decide to do without. Management seems to feel that customer relationships matter.

 

I'm sure others can decide for themselves if there's a lesson here that applies.

 

And that's why Peter Gelb said “I think I made a mistake.”......he knew his followers would have put their money where their mouth is.

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I see where all of you are coming from. but is it worth it to keep unearthing this corpse just to smell the decay?

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My reasons for posting are explained in the first two paragraphs of the first post. I don't think they're equivalent to, "Oh, boy, here's an opportunity to unearth this corpse just to smell the decay!"

 

You can certainly disagree with my rationale. As I said in so many words, I was hesitant about it myself. But I did in fact have a rationale, which was somewhat different than the one you tried to put in my mouth.

 

Agreed that it's best to move on.

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Alan your post comes with good intentions, thank you and it's good to see you.

 

Personally you posting here shows that you don't think the people here are winning, time wasting customers that have nothing better to do than post over here.

I did not spend 3 years on the Orbx forums for nothing. I got banned with out even so much of a warning. Alan look over my 1800 posts and judge yourself.

God only knows why Alain and Stephen got banned.

But I think you know this is not right or you would not have posted here. Like I said you came with good intentions.

 

Kind Regards

David


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For those of us without a clue as to what is being discussed, could anyone provide a synopsis or perhaps a link?

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For those of us without a clue as to what is being discussed, could anyone provide a synopsis or perhaps a link?

 

Prepare yourself for an extremely one sided story in which everyone here has done absolutely nothing wrong

 

Also carefully count the number of people posting. It is a lot of the same names over and over

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Well, commodor, you're a new name. And you seem to feel there's more to the story. Why not tell it instead of just sniping?

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Ok after reading this forum before making an account I will give summary in comparison to a store

 

-Company sets up store and customers arrive

-After a few year there is a sale that makes some people unhappy

-People complaining about it for a week and start becoming hostile towards the company

-Company uninvites some customers from the store. It is probably not many based on how many people are here

-Customers decided instead of finding a new store they go across the street and begin protesting every day. There protests are very direct and name specific people. The store does not respond, they do not insult the people across the street, they continue there business like before

-The protest continue even months after the people were uninvited. They want an apology. But the store obviously does not want them back inside. The store is now quiet and peaceful. The only problems are in the place across the street where the protest have run out of things to protest about, so they pick on every issue possible.

-A store worker who was laid off joins in out of spite toward his former employer

 

This is how I see it. Perhaps others sense there is a post called "Move on".

 

It is also interesting. Many of you say you do not have a care in the world for what happen at ORBX but you hang around here all day long. If you do not care why are you not going to other vendor like Aerosoft and Fltampa instead of hanging around here all the time

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Commodor -

 

Your verion of events isn't off base. Let me try my own quick summary. I'll try to be as neutral and factual as possible, and keep to forum rules (like not naming individuals). If I get it wrong, Stephen can either edit my post or shut me down, whichever works best.

 

The story in brief...

 

-- Over the years, a variety of individuals had disputes with ORBX for a variety of reasons. Probably nothing happened that hasn't happened with a lot of other FSX vendors and their customers. I wasn't a party to any of it so can't comment on who was in the right.

 

-- Late last year, ORBX produced a big run of new products. Following their policy at the time, these products were offered at a 15 percent discount to those who pre-ordered. The pre-order was time-limited and was promoted as such: pre-order now and claim the discount.

 

-- 48 hours after the last product went off pre-sale, ORBX staged their usual end-of-year sale with all products, including the recent ones, available at a 33 percent discount.

 

-- Some people were upset by this and felt they'd been pushed to spend more in the pre-order than they would have if they'd waited for the end-of-year sale. They were vocal about expressing this, both on the ORBX forums, here and elsewhere.

 

-- ORBX was upset by this. I can't speak for ORBX officially and have no inside knowledge but my guess is that they felt, look, it's our privilege to set prices where we want, we always have a holiday sale so people should have seen it coming, and we don't want to be flayed in our own forum.

 

-- Most of the critical threads over at ORBX were deleted and many of the vocal critics were banned.

 

-- ORBX tightened enforcement of their forum rules and a number of other people were banned for posts that ORBX felt were against policy or were unwarranted.

 

-- ORBX also reacted quite negatively to those who posted criticism in other forums. My understanding is that some of the people who posted elsewhere were banned from ORBX, but others would have to confirm this. I was critical of ORBX here and wasn't banned - I was simply told that I was "walking a fine line."

 

-- One of the complicating factors is that the ORBX forum really existed to provide product support. Those who were banned lost access to support for a time. That's primarily why AVSIM created this forum - so that banned members could provide tech support for each other. At a later point ORBX created a secondary forum providing tech support for those who weren't allowed to post on the main forums. I'm not sure whether this still exists since I'm not a participant.

 

-- The other reason that people have gathered here is that before the bans, there was a community of people on the ORBX forums who interacted in a variety of ways, the way people typically do on flightsim forums. They gather here in order to re-create that sense of community and continue their interactions.

 

-- Many of those people are angry about how they feel they were treated by ORBX and about ORBX' policies toward those who dissent.

 

-- However, I think it's safe to say that everyone agrees about the quality of ORBX products and supports the many talented developers who work for and with ORBX.

 

-- Some of us, myself included, would like to see the dispute resolved in some way and to see the original ORBX community restored. The reason for my post was to suggest, by example, a possible way of doing this. However, as others have noted, the post also seeemd to re-open old wounds and give still-angry people a reason to feel angry again. In that regard, my decision to post it might not have been good judgement. I'll leave it to others to decide that.

 

-- The better use of this forum would be for product support, and to recreate the old ORBX community for those who are either unable or unwilling to participate in the official forums.

 

 

I hope this gives you and TechGuyMaxC and others who come here a quick sense of what's gone on. It all seems like a big deal in the context of flightsim but really isn't in the overall scheme of things.

 

 

Peace!

 

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-- Some of us, myself included, would like to see the dispute resolved in some way and to see the original ORBX community restored.

 

 

Peace!

 

I have to agree with a lot of what you posted Alan but the ban on peoples started way before the sale you mentionned, why not copy/paste your post on Orbx's forums to see if they are welling to resolved the dispute, after all they are the one who banned some of us, am I right?

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