50 minutes ago, spilok said:

"A day without AVSIM is like a day without sunshine"!

🤮

21 minutes ago, Ron Attwood said:

🤮

As I recall, Ron likes to fly IFR, so this is a logical response.

39 minutes ago, Ron Attwood said:

🤮

Seriously, as an avid simmer for decades, I really look to AVSIM for the variety of forums, discussions, and long time experts in this hobby.  I dare anyone to show me another forum with this much diversity.

You can't do it!  PLUS, toxicity can only happen if you swallow something voluntarily.

Stan

Edited November 2, 20205 yr by spilok

Spot on Stan.

Problem will be solved to some degree once we start mandatory subscription model.  Use everyone's real name plus not have the forum searched by google/other search engines (some of us are public figures you know...seriously look at me - I am blue with googly eyes and I love cookies)  

No free option on the site but my suggestion is probably do radical but it will solve problems.

We should at least try this idea b/c it will be great avsim experiment.

 

Edited November 2, 20205 yr by Skywolf

And everyone should have to wear a mask.

Like this? 

5 hours ago, Skywolf said:

Problem will be solved to some degree once we start mandatory subscription model

Yeah, problem will be solved because Avsim will be a ghost town. Not a whole lot of forums survive when they make financial contributions mandatory.

 

10 hours ago, spilok said:

The question of toxicity is friggin' ridiculous.

Stan

Yup, I'm with this opinion too, largely because I don't really recognise this currently trendy use of the word toxic as being a sensible description for the phenomenon people are referring to in the first place; toxic would imply that it is poisonous to all who come into contact with it.

The suggestion that absolutely everyone will immediately start behaving like a complete jerk, just because people around them are doing so, is preposterous. Whilst it's undeniably true that some people can be encouraged by others into group behaviour, most people are well aware that someone has to be a complete @sshole in the first place in order to start behaving like one, the proximity of other @ssholes isn't required to trigger it.

Edited November 3, 20205 yr by Chock

13 hours ago, kaosfere said:

 

 

We tend to be a very insular community, and hostile to outsiders who do not take particular pains to "fit in" to our very specific culture.  But there's a problem, and it is this:  we do not present a welcoming face to new members of the community.   

thrive with a constant injection of new, diverse blood.  But I'm worried that's not happening.   At least, not here.

 

I observe that the MSF forum audience has significantly increased since release. Good people, young and old, they  knew  how to fit in all right. We do properly welcome newcomers when they want to integrate. We may not be as welcoming when they have bad manners. Anything wrong here ?

A forum is like a bar or a club, you come to chat with like minded people of all walks of life, polite, knowledgeable. Old and new.  It has no overarching mission to attract new blood to the hobby. Heavens forbid ! I do not come here as The Church of the Holy Hobby to help convert the ill-washed. I come here to shoot the breeze.

If we miss something that would certainly not the profanity loving  crowd of you-know-where but more people from Asia, Israel and the rest of Middle-East, from South America, Russia. Love to already see some Eastern Europeans active here. 

Gatekeeping ? What is wrong with gatekeeping ? Sharing a common interest with some standards of behaviour and expecting new comers to accept it ? Flight simulation offers a wide variety of places for all tastes. Forums, the comment sections of YouTube, Discord etc. Why Avsim should try to imitate any of them and cease to be what it is and thus reduce the choice ?

Oh yes, a last word. I do not see anything wrong in being a male. But I am biaised here.

Edited November 3, 20205 yr by Dominique_K

Just check out the night lighting thread in the FS2020 forum and see certain people telling us that we should only fly around big cities to see what people are talking about.  Again, toxic is far, far too strong a word, this is way below that, but there's a "you're simming wrong" vibe that I don't remember being around this place before.  I was a long time member here and sort of got burnt out on flight simming (and real life threw me some curve balls).  FS2020 has brought me back, as it is just too interesting to ignore, but I never remember being told that I was flying in the wrong areas at night.   

Putting people on ignore is an option, but has other issues.  You jump into discussions and miss posts and it can be downright confusing to read when you might be missing key posts. 

The other problem is that threads get locked, which is certainly a reasonable action by a moderator, but ultimately that's the person who is attacking other people's opinion wants.  They want to get their opinion out there and then shut down the thread. 

5 hours ago, Dominique_K said:

We do properly welcome newcomers when they want to integrate.

Integrate. Great word, has a kinda ring to it.

If most people on this thread think the forums are not 'toxic' and enjoy being on here, then it would be nice if they could donate towards the 2020 Avsim fundraising goal.

Fewer than 200 people have done so thus far, plus the current tally of $8,100 for this year is way down on the $24,864 achieved last year. While these are challenging times (economically and for other reasons), even a small amount from everybody on this thread would make a difference.

Just a thought.

6 hours ago, Dominique_K said:

Gatekeeping ? What is wrong with gatekeeping ?

Well yeah. Avsim should be gatekeeping to keep spam out, and keep trolls out (frankly they're not doing a great job on that because a lot of the "MSFS sucks" threads are clearly nothing but trolls), and keep unsavory elements out. But there is another level of gatekeeping that's present here, which is kind of hard to address. There's definitely a "I'm a hardcore simmer and you filthy casuals aren't" attitude prevalent in a lot of the posts, and that *can* be a turnoff to new people who just bought this game because it looked pretty.

 

Look, I'm pretty hardcore. If my wife knew how much I've spent on hardware and add-ons over the years, she'd probably insist I become less-so. 😉 But I didn't start out that way. I started out in the subLogic days just screwing around. As the sims got more sophisticated, so did my goofing off. "Hmm, can I land the Lear on the carrier?" I didn't really become *hardcore* until maybe 10 or so years ago. And even now, a lot of people would consider me a casual because I use a T1600M to fly a 747. I have a yoke, but it kinda sucks and isn't worth the effort to put up and take down all the time. One of the things that shifted me more toward the realistic simulation of actual flight rather than "hey, can I do X goofy thing with Y plane" was reading forums where people were talking about it. It wouldn't be a bad thing if the hardcore guys would remember that none of us started out 100% hardcore, and it's OK if someone isn't hardcore now.  

 

46 minutes ago, eslader said:

There's definitely a "I'm a hardcore simmer and you filthy casuals aren't" attitude prevalent in a lot of the posts, and that *can* be a turnoff to new people who just bought this game because it looked pretty.

Sometimes I wonder whether some of us are on the same forum ! I have rarely read a post at Avsim that would let  a newcomer think that he is a « filthy casual ».  At least on the P3D and MFS forums that I frequent. I said rarely and not never because there are, here as everywhere, a couple of boors.

We obviously have different expectations for what a sim should be and we express our differences. 

An example :  some are happy to fly the MFS TBM just to admire the ground below and great sunsets and don’t care for anything else, some are quite unhappy to have a rather bad turboprop engine modeling. Whats wrong in opposing our views ? Another example : some discard MSF as a game for sightseeing and not a sim because it has not yet top-tier airliners. I find the idea borderline preposterous but I don’t feel attacked by those who defend it. 

This is a forum, a place where you debate. Sometimes hotly. Hopefully politely. Good Heavens, this is what a forum is all about ! Disagree 🤣. 

By the way, I am not sure what is the contrary of « gatekeeping «  ? « Inclusiveness », the trendy buzzword ? Overrated. Smart newcomers do adapt, snowflakes melt, I mean, leave.  Life.

Edited November 3, 20205 yr by Dominique_K