So what is the community now?

[propsfan 52]

Community, The condition of sharing or having certain attitudes and interests in common.

Community, a unified body of individuals.

 

I've been moved to think about the concept of a flightsim community lately. I read a lot of the threads here and all to often they seem to descend to a level that seems to invalidate the definitions above. 'I like P3d/FSX/SE/X-Plane now so obviously that that makes you as a P3d/FSX/SE/X-Plane user an unenlightened fool!' kind of threads, you know the sort. Barely concealed contempt masquerading as conversation.

We all have FS in common at the most basic level which would seem to satisfy some of the first definition but what are the attitudes that we have in common? Are we a unified body of individuals?  What is your view of the community now compared to the past? How has it changed or has it changed at all, was it always thus? Is it any more than a my sim is better than your sim every man for himself kind of gig or am I just being too negative? Maybe I'm overthinking it and I'm the fool, I don't know, you tell me. What's your opinion?

[~Craig~ 10]

Good, well articulated, thought provoking analysis, @propsfan.

 

Firstly, before anything else, I'd say that in my opinion. the wider 'FS community' is not better nor worse than it's ever been, and that some of the problems that you refer to, that characterize it, are pretty common to any and all internet based community forums.    I've attended Buddhist forums with as much (if not more) animosity from time to time, health based forums - you name it, if there's a community of forums for it, you'll see the same examples of petulance, unneccesary competition, and animosity.

 

One of the key words I just offered there, I'll reflect on again;  'competition'.   I personally feel that as a western society, there's far too much of a bias on competition, and not enough on co-operation or collaboration.  I think this is particularly evident in a lot of American culture.  (but not by any means exclusively in American culture).  Every one seems intent on status and 'one-up-man-ship', on showing that they're more successful than the next man.   I think this attitude rubs off into many aspects of people's lives - including their persona on internet community forums.    

 

If we could all just relax a bit, be a bit more secure in who we are, and not feel the need to add our 'qualifications and titles' at every opportunity, I think we'd have a more equal-based forum, where people could be judged purely on their content and contribution.

....and you're dead right, people just need to "get over" the fact that other people may like things that they don't like, and vice versa.   There is no 'perfect platform' ; just platforms that best suit us as individuals.   But people get insecure when they see that people have made a different choice to them, and their reaction - all too often - is to denigrate the other person, to try to prove that the other person is 'wrong' or mis-guided, and they are right, and wise. :smile:

 

The solution - not sure there is one.  Personally I like the forums that I attend that don't show any form of 'status' for each user;  no post count, no tenure, no 'ranks'.   Just people.  (Clearly there's a need for moderators to be identifiable).   Here on AVSIM, look at the "member" title above each users avatar on the left of the posts..... some people have put in there, their non-FS related job titles, purely to create a sense of superiority.  It's really laughable in my view.   

 

I can appreciate that "member" title showing that someone is a moderator, or even that someone is a donor - being a donor is a very practically supportive status for AVSIM, and arguably deserves special recognition.     .....but putting a high and might job title status in there....  :rolleyes:

 

Hopefully we can all just try and respect eachother, and as you say, concentrate on the one thing that we all here have in common - the love for flight simulation.

[philmurfin 73]

Hi,

 

I understand where you are comming from and to a certain extent I agree. However, I believe we still have a community. I must say that we do have a lot of moaners and we do have a lot of the  "mine is better than yours brigade"

However, if you filter through the crudd, there's st a good lot of interstig stuff to be had.

 

PPARTICLARKY IN THE X_PLANE SECTIONS!!!!! :P :P

 

Phil

[Ramjett 27]

We are a unified body of individuals...loosely unified, but unified nonetheless.  What you describe happens everytime there is...as Sheldon Cooper would say...there is a shift in the paradigm.  It happened when FS95 became FS98 became FS2002 became FS2004 and so on.  It happens with every core added to a computer, every graphics card created and...again...so on.

 

And yet I would be shocked if I read in a "Car Guy" forum that someone said "No, dump that '69 Camaro and buy a 2016...they're way better and faster."  Different hobbies, though, different standards.  I understand the "Bigger, Better, Faster" mentality, however...if one has the "resource" as Don Sheldon, Alaskan Bush Pilot, called money,  to move up.  Unfortunately many of us don't.  Thus, the posts asking "I have FS9, how do I .....fill in the blank?"

 

Sadly, the typical response is "Buy P3D" or "Get a Gazillion Jigawatt, 85-core, with a 6,345 Terrabyte Graphics Card from the 'We'll Be Obsolete in One Year' Computer Company."  Seldom is a question answered in these forums that actually addresses the question.  Alternatives (New System/New Platform) are offered, but seldom answers.  It gets frustrating because while I have FSX and use it from time to time, I started my hobby way back with a B747 simulator for the Commodore 64, then Airline Transport Pilot for a simple computer, and finally had the "resource" to move up to a better computer and FS2004. 

 

I've stayed there long enough to amass quite a bit of freeware and payware sceneries and aircraft.  I can't afford to do that with FSX and certainly won't even entertain a move to P3D, not because I don't want to, but because I really don't want to go through the gyrations of "Bigger...Better" all over again everytime something new and shiny hits the market.  Others can do that...I cannot...it takes "resource".

 

Good post, good observation.

 

Randy

[jzimmermann 238]

What's your opinion?

 

Hi Matt,

 

Community is respect, respect for individuals and intellectual property, something which you seem to lack.

 

You have the gall to lift my screenshots and text from here for your own website and now you're going to start a thread here on "So what is the community now".....are you freaking serious?

 

Community most certainly isn't starting threads for the purpose of pushing your own news site!

 

Cheers,

 

Jerome

[Christopher Low 5,341]

I can see the link in his signature, but what has that got to do with this thread? Or is it not allowed?

[jzimmermann 238]

I can see the link in his signature, but what has that got to do with this thread? Or is it not allowed?

 

Hi Christopher,

 

It has to do with him using my AVSIM posted screenshots for his news site WITHOUT my permission:

 

http://forum.avsim.net/topic/468643-attention-propsfan-aka-matthew-cummins/

 

And on top of that he copied my entire text as well.

 

If anyone wants to talk about community...........well yeah, I think you get my point.

 

Cheers,

 

Jerome

[Christopher Low 5,341]

Ah, I see. That does sound a bit naughty.

[EngineRoom 205]

I've been checking out flight sim sites since I first got online in 1997.

 

Without a shadow of a doubt the "community" is a lot less friendlier and less inclusive than it was 18 years ago. The only thing I can put this down to is the growth of payware and the monetisation of the hobby. It's fundamentally changed how the community interacts with itself and whilst it's provided us with a glut of incredible addons, it's also sucked a lot of the fun and community spirit out of the hobby.

[propsfan 52]

Hi Matt,

 

Community is respect, respect for individuals and intellectual property, something which you seem to lack. Community most certainly isn't starting threads for the purpose of pushing your own news site.

 

Cheers,

 

Jerome

 

Hi Jerome,

 

I'm afraid I hadn't seen that thread. I have of course removed that story and I apologise for infringing on your intellectual property rights. I am nothing more than an average flight simmer who enjoys as an extension of the hobby providing what I think is worthwhile news to the community, I thought your story about the freeware scenery newsworthy. I intended only to spread the word. I can but apologise and hope you can accept this. I did not intend to offend you or anyone else and had not, to my fault, considered that what I was doing was wrong as in fact I should have. I truly intended no disrespect. I am sorry Sir, it will not happen again.

[Christopher Low 5,341]

This is why I highly recommend attending a flightsim show if you have the chance. Talking to other flightsimmers face to face was an enjoyable and rewarding experience, and it certainly gave me a boost as far as "community spirit" is concerned.

[jzimmermann 238]

Hi Jerome,

 

I'm afraid I hadn't seen that thread. I have of course removed that story and I apologise for infringing on your intellectual property rights. I am nothing more than an average flight simmer who enjoys as an extension of the hobby providing what I think is worthwhile news to the community, I thought your story about the freeware scenery newsworthy. I intended only to spread the word. I can but apologise and hope you can accept this. I did not intend to offend you or anyone else and had not, to my fault, considered that what I was doing was wrong as in fact I should have. I truly intended no disrespect. I am sorry Sir, it will not happen again.

 

Hi Matt,

 

Apology accepted and thanks, no hard feelings.

 

Cheers,

 

Jerome

[propsfan 52]

Hi Matt,

 

Apology accepted and thanks, no hard feelings.

 

Cheers,

 

Jerome

 

No hard feelings at all SIr, you were entirely right to point this out!

I've been checking out flight sim sites since I first got online in 1997.

 

Without a shadow of a doubt the "community" is a lot less friendlier and less inclusive than it was 18 years ago. The only thing I can put this down to is the growth of payware and the monetisation of the hobby. It's fundamentally changed how the community interacts with itself and whilst it's provided us with a glut of incredible addons, it's also sucked a lot of the fun and community spirit out of the hobby.

 

This was essentially my analysis also. I suppose based on that that it's reasonable to assume the trend will continue. I wonder what this will mean for the hobby in the longer term?

[DarkstarF16 72]

I'm sure the passion of the train set enthusiast and the HIFI buffs and the crochet makers and the dry stone wall builders and the list goes on, is just as strong and opinionated as us lot.

 

The community and the civility of what just happened above is testament to how great it is.

 

This is an interesting debate so here's my take on things...

 

...Firstly, I do think we are a community and a close one at that. Our hobby is very niche. Our hobby is also very technical and what we simulate, 'flying' we do with total passion. What we see on our screens is an art form and because of that it's very subjective. Because we each use a multitude of different hardware all set up differently, we each see something slightly different to the next man or woman doing the exact same thing.

 

Secondly, as a demographic many of us have grown up with this hobby and perhaps have settled into a groove. Another assumption is that maybe some are suffering from grumpy old man syndrome. What this means to me is that some appear more opinionated than others.

 

Thirdly, we forget because we visit these pages, what we do we do completely on our own. When doing this hobby it's on the whole totally insular. We may use VATSIM to talk to a real person but for the most part we are alone.

 

Throw all this into the melting pot together with the ingredients mentioned above and you have a recipe for an outstanding diverse community which goes out of its way to help each other and of course have some heated arguments, scrub that, debates, over many subjects along the way. Our moderators do a brilliant job at shutting things down when the fires start burning but deep inside so long as the arguments are respectfull don't you just love em? Hehe. Sometimes the passion goblet runeth over that's humans for you.

[jzimmermann 238]

I've been checking out flight sim sites since I first got online in 1997.

 

Without a shadow of a doubt the "community" is a lot less friendlier and less inclusive than it was 18 years ago. The only thing I can put this down to is the growth of payware and the monetisation of the hobby. It's fundamentally changed how the community interacts with itself and whilst it's provided us with a glut of incredible addons, it's also sucked a lot of the fun and community spirit out of the hobby.

 

Hi Nick,

 

Quite true, that coupled with people often behaving very different online than in person.

 

To me respect is a cornerstone of society and the communities therein, once that crumbles, it's all downhill. I grew up in South Africa, out in the countryside, where there are functional communities, there is respect, and there is much less lawlessness than in the big cities. People steal because they have no respect for others....amongst other things.

 

Cheers,

 

Jerome