"Censorship" and Support - a Developer's viewpoint

[SQUAWKIDENT 3]

The service I have received from Real Air Simulations has been totally professional and always polite since I first discovered their products and purchased their aircraft. I have only ever posted negative remarks when I receive an unprofessional and patronising attitude from a company whom I have spent money with to use their products.Payware companies offering their wares to the Flight Sim community should take a leaf out of the Real Air book and I bet they would then receive a lot less abuse from purchasers of their products. There will always be a few people who complain REGARDLESS of the treatment they receive but a professional polite attitude from a company will mostly produce a happy contented customer base.Oh and regarding the censorship question? Well I would put forward my two-pennyworth on here but chances are it would be removed;-)Maybe AVSIM would consider stopping giving payware companies space on their forums? I always thought this website was for the Flight Simmer not the commercial developer and it is now difficult if not impossible to discuss certain payware developers and their products without having ones post deleted because their "forum" is hosted on AVSIM. Allowing companies to moderate their own forums is basically an enormous advertising opportunity for that company. Remove the negative posts and HEY everyones happy...RegardsAdam Moore

[Guest Paul_W]

>I firmly believe that this and other forums should urgently>review the way they allow people to access them. I firmly believe that people should practice being GOOD, COURTEOUS CUSTOMERS. I rarely spell out anything in caps online, but for heaven's sake there is an incredible "get-all-you-can" mentality when it comes to dealing with businesses large and small in the US, and I've no reason to believe it's any different in the UK (where I'm from), or any other business-oriented society. People want the very, very lowest price; they want to be able to take something back to the vendor for any old reason; and in my opinion they frequently have little to no regard for the fact that someone's actually trying to run a business and make an income, one of the most difficult things you can do (that's according to all the reading I've done; I wouldn't want to try it myself).For heaven's sake folks, if you can hear and understand this message, try thanking the person who made your coffee at Starbucks (I frequently do because I think they make a fantastic product); consider adding on a tip/gratuity for the computer repairman who went above and beyond; and be reasonable with customer service representatives.Now about the quote at the top Rob: I've seen FSD flayed in this forum over and over again. Flayed, yes, over and over again. One person got so carried away that he publicly called for the firing of a member of the FSD team by other members of that team some time ago. I couldn't believe it. His comment didn't come out of thin air either--it came well into another one of those scathing attack threads directed at FSD that seem to keep coming up around here. So I sent in an alert and that thread was promptly shut down. Given that misguided malcontents exist (folks who don't grasp that even if they have been wronged, they don't necessarily have to share their grievances with the world), I'm not sure whether the best solution is what you've suggested above; perhaps it is, but I'd like to strongly suggest to the moderators that they become a bit more active in controlling unreasonable, repetitive and damaging attack threads aimed at otherwise reputable, well-known and well-regarded businesses (bearing in mind that there are outfits that don't fit that mold).

[robert young 2,897]

HI Adam,We have avoided having a dedicated forum for support simply because we think we give a better service by direct e-mail, and on a good day we aim to reply within minutes if not hours, provided I am not involved in other work.But simmers do like to post on forums, and it would be impolite to ignore all of them. Of course that leads to accusations that developers use forums for publicity, but the other side of the coin (as we have seen) is that they are also open to review and constructive criticism, which is fair. I interpret Avsim's unwritten rule for general forums, which most developers seem to follow, as being that support can be announced, but invitations to buy cannot. Similarly, questions about an addon can be replied to and acknowledged. I can't speak for dedicated support forums because we don't have one.Generally I think this system works well, but I note a post here which suggests all posts from commercial developers should be completely banned. If that's what the majority wanted I wouldn't argue with it, but I doubt that is the case.Kind Regards,Rob Young

[SQUAWKIDENT 3]

Rob Seasons Greetings etc..Please don't think there was any element of criticism regarding Real Air Simulations in my last post. I have absolutely NOTHING bad to say about your company (how boring!!).The reason Real Air Simulations doesn't need a support forum is because your products are by far the best made reliable FS addons I have ever come across. Your support via email is also second to none and your manuals are brilliantly written for occasionally simple flight simmers like me:-)If a company releases a buggy product and treats its customers like children then they probably DO need a support forum. I was merely commenting that HOSTING one of these "commercial" forums on an independent flight sim site will always lead to accusations of censorship by the flight simming community because the company involved is allowed to moderate the posts (something that should never happen IMHO).

[Guest Ken_Salter]

Just a quick note that sometimes these conflagrations can happen in the forum so quickly that myself and the other moderators cannot get to them quick enough.It definitely helps for users to use the Alert function, which helps you to help us spot these trouble posts quicker.And now, I am going to move this thread out of the MSFS forum as it seems all sides have been expressed.

[Jeff Nielsen 1,385]

I can tell you from a marketing (non-OSS) point of view: some times negative publicity can be just as good as positive publicity. At OSS we've been fortunate enough with 2 products to maintain a very high level of customer service (from what we hear). It seems as some of you said (Tim D), I think, that 99.99% of our customers are very patient and well mannered regardless of the situation. Me personally, I welcome a "mad" customer just as much, if not more than a happy one. An unhappy customer can really give your company a chance to shine. As Tom, Tim, and the rest of you have said (or at least the underlying tone here) is that each case is different and there is probably no standard response to a particular issue, which makes readers of these types of posts feeling like they're in a catch 22 where the outcome is essentially the same: It all boils down to a company making a profit should be accountable, and probably the majority are. When they are not, the community will let us know. I think we've created our own little economy here (I may have said this before). I think that's a good thing. I also think that the issue of freeware versus payware is kind of mute. I think there will always be both. If you think about it, our hobby is kinda close knit and we all pretty much cater to the same market over and over again. I think the payware provide a valuable service because they money they make (at least for us), just goes back into costs and future products making that company's product more realistic. So that is probably a good thing (bad for the company, because it's hard to make a full time go of it with many members). Although we strive for the day when we can do this full time. As far as freeware developers getting slammed or flamed in the forums..yes..that's not right. The problem is that when you look at it from an onjective point of view, is that there still is a perception of an "implied warranty", even though there really is no warranty and shouldn't be. The downloader may subconciousley assume this because he/she knows that the freeware maker is also in the same hobby, just as the downloader...so they may just assume that the maker of the file(s) will continue to answer emails and fix problems. Over time this can become very overwhelming.Anyways, just some thoughts here. To all of our customers--Thank you..To the media-Our domain change should be complete in the next 12 hours...I sent emails today to you all thinking we had it up again (Mark R-Avsim). We are very sorry for the delay.