Consider this a love letter to the AVSIM community.

Dear AVSIM,

Thank you for existing. Thank you for being well-moderated and encouraging professionalism and decorum among your users. Thank you for being kind to newcomers. Thank you for being a wealth of knowledge, both in libraries and knowledgeable people.

Thank you for NOT being the Facebook groups. Even some of the bigger and better ones can turn into barren wastelands. Basically if you're not a teenager who owns the FSLabs A320 and thinks VATSIM is the greatest thing in the world you're not welcome on such pages Also the phrase "just Google it" is quickly becoming one of the most immature, go-to snobby answers ever. I've had a long day, if you can't tell haha.

Keep doing what you're doing folks. This is the best flight sim community on the web by a long shot.

Those are nice words Connor, I think you have found a good home with good friends.

Best regards,

Robert

 

Connor,

What a wonderful thing to express. I agree wholeheartedly.

Thank you!

Kind regards,

Stephen

Well said Connor,  I'm with you and Stephen (SpiritFlyer) in this regard.

I really only have 4 regular goto forums, I am proud to include Avsim in my select group.

But I must say the forum seems somehow quieter of late (maybe just my imagination though). I agree with you on the FB thing, I'm not into social media....... I like the directness of these FS specific forums.

One thing I would say, that sometimes support posts lack supporting pictures. I like a good snapshot because pictures provide valuable additional information where wordy descriptions often fail. (More pictures please guys, Word=1 / Pic=1000).

Always have to chime in and agree

I forgot to add, I prefer Avsim over Facebook and Twitter, I like to be told when I am out of line.  Free speech goes way too far sometimes.

14 hours ago, Cactus521 said:

Always have to chime in and agree

I forgot to add, I prefer Avsim over Facebook and Twitter, I like to be told when I am out of line.  Free speech goes way too far sometimes.

Free Speech is one of the most misunderstood concepts. Freedom of speech is the right to articulate one's opinions and ideas without fear of government retaliation or censorship, or societal sanction. Period.

This concept most decidedly does not apply here at AVSIM. We are not a government after all!

The chief problem with all social media such as Twitter, Facebook, et cetera is the absence of moderation. We here at AVSIM try very hard to be fair and equitable, bending over backwards at times to be understanding.

Thank you Connor for your kind words. They are definitely appreciated!

15 hours ago, Cactus521 said:

Free speech goes way too far sometimes.

Yikes that's a scary statement.

Topics like this are always welcomed!  Thanks Conner!  It's not an easy task to moderate a huge website like AVSIM but we try hard.  We hope to expand in the future and make things even better!

Best regards,

Jim

1 minute ago, WotanUK said:

Yikes that's a scary statement.

Why?! He's right...

Free speech, doesn't (and shouldn't) give anyone the right to say whatever they want in public. With every freedom, comes limits and moderation - and most of all, responsibility! We're all suppose to share the same room, and by that you're not allowed to express every opinion. It's a general misconception, that free speech gives anyone the right to say, draw, yell or otherwise express or voice their opinion. 

You're not allowed to slander or harras other people based on ideology, religious belief or ethnical background. It is not allowed to display or publish (or share) child pornography or sexual violent acts. You're not allowed to promote criminal behaviour or acts which implies criminal intent or activities. 

We all have to make room for each other and respect each others point of view. And by that everyone's required to oblige by some rules. Freedom of speech or not...  

5 minutes ago, Anders Bermann said:

Free speech, doesn't (and shouldn't) give anyone the right to say whatever they want in public.

Then quite simply it's not free speech.

What you are describing is moderated speech and who controls that moderation?  On a private server like here at AVSim it's clear that role is the moderators and they can determine what that is. 

In public who gets that role? If the ultimately arbiter is the state then North Korea could correctly claim that is has freedom of speech (within the bounds set by the state) as well as my country the UK (again within the bounds of the state sanctioned freedom) 

Frankly it's utterly ridiculous that you include "child pornography" (personally i find that term repugnant, they are child abuse images)  as free speech, any more so than me killing somebody as free speech, i would have thought that the phrase itself should have given away what it is...you know "speech"! 

Yes of course, we have to "make room for each other and respect each others point of view" and you achieve this by banning speech that you don't agree with, much like is happening in universities in the states and all over the UK.

America has it about right, Europe is hopeless on this subject

I totally agree with all the praise for AVSIM team.

It is not just the moderation, it is the patience, appreciation of novices questions, taking the time to offer help and guidance, writing reviews and manuals, trouble shooting manuals, informing about what is new in our hobby software and hardware and the list goes on and on. 

And when you meet these gentlemen in person they are amazing people.

I once met Jim Young in one of these Sim Conference. We never met before. He treated me like we know each other for years, he offered me to ride with him in his car from the Hotel to Conference Location and got to know him real well.

Jim, Thank you and thanks to everyone at AVSIM

 

Bill Hagag

Thank you, Conner for the kind words. I've been on this site for many years, and find it to be the absolute best all around flight sim site.

On another note, to some of the responders on this topic, please don't make this thread a debate about "free speech". That is not the subject.

 

Here here...  Jim and the team do a fantastic job and (as we often perhaps forget) - UNPAID!

There's no FS community out there that even compares.    Will people sometimes bang heads and rub each other up the wrong way?   Sure..... but that's not AVSIM, that's just people! 

I love it here, I return daily to catch up on everything and review the latest topics . Keep doing what your doing....

 

   and thank you AVSIM for your contributions and hard work.....

Connor, you should be writing love letters to your young lady, not us lot on a flightsim forum,  but your kind words are something I totally agree with about AVSIM, its staff and members.