AVSIM.ru or SU is not AVSIM

[Jim Young 2,356]

This is just a friendly warning to our membership that AVSIM.ru or AVSIM.su are rogue websites and AVSIM Online! or AVSIM.com or AVSIM, Inc. has no associations whatsoever with these websites.  Be very careful when downloading files from AVSIM.ru or AVSIM.su.  We attempted to take legal action as they would not voluntarily shutdown their website but laws between here and the respective countries are hard to enforce.  This is just a warning that the sites are a scam and violate our name copyrights and users should be very careful if they visit these locations.

[Chris Bell 165]

that seemed as the Russian AVSIM extension to me; i had no idea!

[ryanbatc 12,820]

Actually I didn't know either

[Jim Young 2,356]

Thus the pinned topic.  For a long time I thought they were extensions to AVSIM until Tom abruptly informed me they were scams. 

 

Best regards,

[martinlest2 58]

I don't think, with respect, they are 'scams'. I agree it is very unfortunate (to say the least!!) they took the AVSIM name, but they only have their own software as far as I can tell, much of which is of excellent quality (especially the Russian stuff, airports and so on) which doesn't seem to be available elsewhere. In what sense, name apart, are the sites 'scams'? I doubt that many people think they are connected to this AVSIM, the look and content is entirely different.

 

And why should we be careful when downloading? Careful of what? I have downloaded lots from there over the years with no problems at all.

 

If they were copying stuff from this site and making it available on theirs, then I agree with you, and I wouldn't go there, but are they actually doing that? I try to support this site (the legit AVSIM, I mean) as much as possible, I've been coming here to post, read, download and upload for years, but I am sure that there are many who appreciate the unique files available over on the Russian sites too. They seem to be a serious operation.

 

More than willing to listen to counter-arguments Jim!  :smile:

 

Martin

[Jim Young 2,356]

Topic locked as there is no need for further discussions of a company that steals the success of other websites.

[martinlest2 58]

Wow Jim, I'm deeply unimpressed that you would delete my comments on that (pinned) thread, comments which were valid but which clearly somewhat differed from your view on the subject, and then lock it down. You could have commented on or refuted the things I said about the AVSIM.ru site. Pretty cowardly to just delete what I wrote and lock the topic. I've been posting and contributing here for over 12 years and I find that kind of censorship unworthy of this site, which has gone down in my estimation as a result. Way too easy for moderators to delete stuff they don't agree with.

 

Shame on you. I am not going to try to reiterate what I wrote, which said nothing that would justify such censorship. This forum should be open for people to express an opinion, even if it doesn't match your opinion, so long as the comments are legal and decent -and my comments were both.

 

Guess you'll delete this one now. What a sad thing.

[vgbaron 3,508]

Martin - what you fail to grasp is the the Avsim.xx sites ARE a scam. They are using a brand made popular internationally by THIS Avsim. Unfortunately, as I understand it, US copyright laws do not apply outside of the US. So they capitalize on THIS Avsim's efforts. And there have been many complaints about spyware and malware bundled with some of the downloads. Sadly, WE get blamed for some of it.

 

I am tempted to "moderate"  this thread as Jim did, but since he's been around here much longer than I - it's his call.

 

Vic

[martinlest2 58]

Hi Vic. I do not endorse that site using the AVSIM name, far from it. I do not visit there very often, unlike this site, which I log onto every day and have done so for a very long time, but I have downloaded a good number of sceneries and repaints from there (as will have so many others) that quite simply are not available elsewhere and have been uploaded by people, in good faith, the same way as they do to this site: they are not 'stolen' from here or anywhere else and I have never, ever had a virus in any scenery or aircraft I have downloaded from there, nor heard of such a complaint (though I am not contradicting you of course, if you say that it has happened). The site is, for better or for worse as far as this AVSIM is concerned, pretty well established, with links to their downloads all over the internet. I am not so sure their success is due to the name they have unfortunately chosen to use and, the legal aspects apart, it would have been interesting to learn why they are seen as such dreadful 'competition' to this site.

 

But the subject in hand itself, whether the site is a scam or not, is not the problem here. My serious objection is with Jim closing threads (not just mine) and presumably deleting posts, as he did with mine, with which he does not feel personally comfortable; and with his tone, which I find most unpleasant. My comment was polite and contained nothing offensive (or illegal!). By deleting such valid opinion, the value of discussion on this site is diminished. Had Jim replied with some rational answers to the comments I made and questions I asked, as you have done, rather than just high-handedly remove the post I took time to write and upload, all would have been fine. He similarly closed a topic about good and poor customer service I started - which I would have thought was the kind of thing that was useful here, scolding me at the same time like I am some naughty schoolboy. (I was not disparaging the software, as he wrongly accused me of doing, but the lack of support for payware purchased).

 

Well, enough. I have, as I say, posted and contributed here (to the library as well) for many years now, sending cash when AVSIM was in trouble. I am not going to do this any more, the odd purely technical thread aside, as I am very unhappy about contributing to a site with a moderator who acts as if AVSIM belongs to him and who makes free with such absurd censorship of what people post here. AVSIM does not belong to Jim Young, it belongs in a very real sense to the people who contribute to the forum and library, the people who for the most part create its content. It is a great pity when what can only be called 'freedom of speech' on forums like this, designed in part so that people can express an opinion, so long as that is reasonable and inoffensive, is curtailed by moderators who delete material and close threads that clash with their own opinions, rather than allow proper, free discussion, so long as good manners, mutual respect and good sense prevail. As such, I will post here no longer. That makes me very sad after all these years.

 

Jim's deleting of this post shortly and locking the thread (no doubt after adding his own dismissive comment, to which no one can respond) will be the proof of the pudding...

 

Martin

[jaydor 233]

I find a lot of these flight sim sites are too politically controlled by moderators who just delete topics because it does not suite their way of thinking and that is starting to create a lot of newer sites that are springing up, as people are fed up with the politic's of some sites.

 

AVSIM will also start to lose it's main core if to much censorship is noted by an increasing amount of members who are well educated enough to see where and when a community based interacting site becomes to politicised and move elsewhere.  Most simmers join a site for enjoyment not control.  Yes a certain degree of censorship is required at any site to control abuse and down-rite criminality, but freedom of speech should be maintained even if the moderator does not agree.  Deleting to many post's will soon be the demise of the site.

[martinlest2 58]

Indeed. The only possible reason Jim could have had for deleting my post is that it questioned some of the points he made on the subject. That is totally unacceptable, and a misuse of the powers that moderators are given here. No one else (thankfully) has the ability to delete replies that question what they themselves have written, and moderators doing this is, frankly, pretty shameful.

 

Jim suggested, as all can see in the locked thread about customer service, that if I don't like this, then I am not welcome here and should consider leaving the community. That, I think, speaks for itself.

[Jim Young 2,356]

 

 

I find a lot of these flight sim sites are too politically controlled by moderators who just delete topics because it does not suite their way of thinking and that is starting to create a lot of newer sites that are springing up, as people are fed up with the politic's of some sites.

 

See what you did Martin?  When you try to abuse the moderators here, it just never works out.  Did you see in our Terms of Service there is no Freedom of Speech here?  Did you read the term about intimidating the volunteer moderators here?  If you think you are going to shame me for removing your posts, that's just simply not going to happen.  Please go somewhere else.

 

Topic locked.