1 hour ago, KL Oo said:

This is an interesting point. You (and many like you) create and upload you work to the file library here (or used to) and as a result, AVSIM see's an increase in traffic. As a result of that increase in traffic they incur additional advertising revenue. 

So I can see whats in it for AVSIM....but other than a (now gone) feeling of good will and satisfaction of sharing your work, whats in it for you? 

Never thought of it like that. Fully appreciate why you would take your work elsewhere if you didn't feel you were being treated fairly here. Maybe ask AVSIM to remove it all from the libary?

AVsim library requires registration and log in.    A large segment of the MSFS community aren't going to register or  give their full name to a site when they can just get content from sources that don't  require it,  like Flightsim.to.

The only thing that can't be found elsewhere,   is the AIG files hosted here.

AIG requires AVsim library.   I spent an hour and two email addresses trying to register at AVsim library,  only to come away with nothing for my time.   And I'm a member of this forum,  so I doubt that many people are going to jump through arbitrary hoops.

Now I'm just wondering why Avsim wanted to know my full name when I registered for the library.   Why do they need my full name if they aren't letting advertisers have it?

 

 

Edited November 13, 20214 yr by Waldo Pepper

27 minutes ago, bofhlusr said:

This makes me think of the camel and the horse. What is the difference between the two?  The camel was designed by a committee.

With the founder and the horse rider gone, it may be that no one is personally invested in Avsim now. And I don't mean financially. It's probably now all run by anonymous committee volunteers working a thankless job. If I remember correctly there was a call for volunteers some time ago. Was that call for volunteers answered? I don't know. Regardless, I have nothing but words of appreciation for whoever is managing Avsim today. Thank you.

Agreed. I'm very grateful to the many who make the forums function. That said, the file library is a product of and remains in the earl 2000s. I'd just be interested to hear the views of the AVSIM Board to hear what their thoughts are and if any consideration has been given to upgrading it to compete with the likes of flightsim dot to. 

 

16 minutes ago, Waldo Pepper said:

AVsim library requires registration and log in.    A large segment of the MSFS community aren't going to register or  give their full name to a site when they can just get content from sources that don't  require it,  like Flightsim.to.

The only thing that can't be found elsewhere,   is the AIG files hosted here.

AIG requires AVsim library.   I spent an hour and two email addresses trying to register at AVsim library,  only to come away with nothing for my time.   And I'm a member of this forum,  so I doubt that many people are going to jump through arbitrary hoops.

Now I'm just wondering why Avsim wanted to know my full name when I registered for the library.   Why do they need my full name if they aren't letting advertisers have it?

Yep - its clunky and out of date. Interesting that AIG continue to use it. I guess its a free hosting source for them for some of the required models....

2 hours ago, Waldo Pepper said:

AVsim library requires registration and log in.    A large segment of the MSFS community aren't going to register or  give their full name to a site when they can just get content from sources that don't  require it,  like Flightsim.to.

The only thing that can't be found elsewhere,   is the AIG files hosted here.

AIG requires AVsim library.   I spent an hour and two email addresses trying to register at AVsim library,  only to come away with nothing for my time.   And I'm a member of this forum,  so I doubt that many people are going to jump through arbitrary hoops.

Now I'm just wondering why Avsim wanted to know my full name when I registered for the library.   Why do they need my full name if they aren't letting advertisers have it?

 

 

Bobbyfuzzy ( who made a nice video-tutorial for AIG installation) confirmed that he used a normal AVSIM account with out any issues. 

9 hours ago, KL Oo said:

This is an interesting point. You (and many like you) create and upload you work to the file library here (or used to) and as a result, AVSIM see's an increase in traffic. As a result of that increase in traffic they incur additional advertising revenue. 

Ahhh...you get how webpage advertising revenue works!!! (unlike some on this forum).🙄

 

9 hours ago, KL Oo said:

So I can see whats in it for AVSIM....but other than a (now gone) feeling of good will and satisfaction of sharing your work, whats in it for you? 

The things that were ever in it for me were the sense of accomplishment one gets in completing a task successfully, and the main reason was ALWAYS to support and contribute to a hobby that I've loved since the beginning of time.

10 hours ago, KL Oo said:

Never thought of it like that. Fully appreciate why you would take your work elsewhere if you didn't feel you were being treated fairly here. Maybe ask AVSIM to remove it all from the libary?

You'd think that is where my disgust with the censorship issue would lead to...but I'm two things:

1. An Adult who doesn't play schoolyard brat who gets upset at the other kids and takes all his toys home with him so NOBODY can play with them.
2. A fellow simmer who realizes that if I were to demand that my 135 uploads be removed from Avsim, while it would minimally impact them financially (well...used too...not so much anymore), I feel the bigger damage would be to our community that may still enjoy my work and didn't realize that most of my work here is available at flightsim.com (which I uploaded to almost in parallel with Avsim after I lost all my uploads here in the great hack of the website years ago)...and many other unauthorized places on the web, where other webmasters thought my files could possibly generate more traffic on their site, and...well you know. 😉  Did I ever demand those webmasters take my files down immediately as they violated the EULA included with each of my files?  No... why?  See reason #1. 🙂   It wasn't costing me anything to have them grab my files for their sites, and if they made some revenue off the hits they generated, and simmers preferred downloading from there....it seemed petty to me to demand they take them down. 
   
   I never got into the painting hobby to make money, although its funny thing about karma if you've been a good person with genuine intentions of freely contributing to the community with no expectations of any monetary returns....sometimes the reputation of your work get the attention of commercial developers. 😉 

 

I managed to complete library registration in one shot this morning,  now sure how I did it though.  

I used a very basic username,  just 6 letters.   And a very basic password,  with just 7 letters/numbers.   And a very basic name,  with just 7 letters.   No special characters,  no spaces,   anywhere.

I guess the K.I.S.S. method works.

 

2 minutes ago, Waldo Pepper said:

I managed to complete library registration in one shot this morning,  now sure how I did it though.  

I used a very basic username,  just 6 letters.   And a very basic password,  with just 7 letters/numbers.   And a very basic name,  with just 7 letters.   No special characters,  no spaces,   anywhere.

I guess the K.I.S.S. method works.

 

did you try to connect with your main Avsim forum account? Didnt make a library registration yet 

 

And another reason...

I modified an airport AFCAD for a popular airport from a developer that dropped off the face of the earth long ago. It fixed some minor irregularities and made a couple of small additions, like additional vehicle parkings to dramatically reduce the wait time for a fuel truck at some of the gates. It was a single drop in file. Some users expressed interest, so I TRIED to share it by uploading it to the library. It had a nice little readme that basically said, "Backup the existing file and drop this one in it's place. Enjoy. If it doesn't work properly on your system, delete it and restore the original". Pretty straight up. A couple of days later, I get the following email.

Thank you for your upload

Upload ID:	xxxxxxxx
Filename:	@#%&^[email protected]

Your readme file needs to contain support information (i.e., e-mail address). Please add this information to your package, upload your file again and please read the library rules before resubmitting your package. See:

https://www.avsim.com/forums/topic/505812-reminder-about-uploading-files/

The current file has been deleted. Thank you for your patience and understanding.

They can manage it anyway that they want but with policies like this, nobody wants to use it. 

As far as I am concerned, "Delete it and restore the original file if it doesn't work." is all the support information anyone will ever need for a single file replacement. Quite frankly, if you need support to either get a a single replacement AFCAD file working, or to restore your original AFCAD if mine didn't work, I certainly don't want to waste my time reading or replying to your emails. I can't help you.

If they would just lighten up a little, we could use it more often and drive up their traffic so they can make them more money and we could share some files. 
 

Edited November 13, 20214 yr by MDFlier

9 hours ago, Seth2021 said:

did you try to connect with your main Avsim forum account? Didnt make a library registration yet 

 

Yes,  that didn't work for me.

12 hours ago, Seth2021 said:

did you try to connect with your main Avsim forum account? Didnt make a library registration yet

The library and forum servers are independent of each other and require separate logins.

21 hours ago, Waldo Pepper said:

AVsim library requires registration and log in.    A large segment of the MSFS community aren't going to register or  give their full name to a site when they can just get content from sources that don't  require it,  like Flightsim.to.

The only thing that can't be found elsewhere,   is the AIG files hosted here.

AIG requires AVsim library.   I spent an hour and two email addresses trying to register at AVsim library,  only to come away with nothing for my time.   And I'm a member of this forum,  so I doubt that many people are going to jump through arbitrary hoops.

Now I'm just wondering why Avsim wanted to know my full name when I registered for the library.   Why do they need my full name if they aren't letting advertisers have it?

As I understand the history of the library system, the system was designed to ask for a name because file uploads are done using the same account and we do want attribution for the content we host here.  We do NOT give that information to ANY third party.

As far as requiring accounts and logins, well, I just downloaded Rob Young's MSFS Bonanza at Nexus Mods a few weeks ago and--say it ain't so--it required an account and a login.

We're not going to apologize for the vetting process we have for file uploads.  We want any content downloaded from AVSIM to be uncorrupted, virus-free, and to have the author's identity and contact information in the file.  Otherwise we end up fielding hundreds of questions from people looking for the origins of something they downloaded, and we don't have the staffing to support that.  So it takes some time and effort--time we believe is well-spent--to make sure files meet those criteria before being added to the library.

For those wanting to stick a fork in our library system, with several terabytes per month coming down off our library server and demand increasing rather than decreasing, we haven't exactly gone the way of the Maytag repairman just yet.  The library's mission is to provide a cost-free venue where creators of content for a variety of sims can host their work where it can be freely and quickly downloaded.  We're approaching a quarter of a million files in the library--building a new system and backfilling it with the content we already have would be no trivial project.  It may not be pretty and slick, but it's still functional.

We're not here to make money.  We're here as a service to the flight sim community--not one member of the AVSIM team takes a dime in compensation.  Whatever we do in terms of revenue generation is done in order to maintain the infrastructure needed to run the site and to pay for hosting and bandwidth.  So the idea that we're profiting from traffic generated by uploads or forum content is flat wrong...donations and the advertising revenue generated by people coming for library downloads and forum content is what pays to keep the system available to them for that very purpose.  Nobody is profiting here.

3 hours ago, w6kd said:

The library and forum servers are independent of each other and require separate logins.

As I understand the history of the library system, the system was designed to ask for a name because file uploads are done using the same account and we do want attribution for the content we host here.  We do NOT give that information to ANY third party.

As far as requiring accounts and logins, well, I just downloaded Rob Young's MSFS Bonanza at Nexus Mods a few weeks ago and--say it ain't so--it required an account and a login.

We're not going to apologize for the vetting process we have for file uploads.  We want any content downloaded from AVSIM to be uncorrupted, virus-free, and to have the author's identity and contact information in the file.  Otherwise we end up fielding hundreds of questions from people looking for the origins of something they downloaded, and we don't have the staffing to support that.  So it takes some time and effort--time we believe is well-spent--to make sure files meet those criteria before being added to the library.

For those wanting to stick a fork in our library system, with several terabytes per month coming down off our library server and demand increasing rather than decreasing, we haven't exactly gone the way of the Maytag repairman just yet.  The library's mission is to provide a cost-free venue where creators of content for a variety of sims can host their work where it can be freely and quickly downloaded.  We're approaching a quarter of a million files in the library--building a new system and backfilling it with the content we already have would be no trivial project.  It may not be pretty and slick, but it's still functional.

We're not here to make money.  We're here as a service to the flight sim community--not one member of the AVSIM team takes a dime in compensation.  Whatever we do in terms of revenue generation is done in order to maintain the infrastructure needed to run the site and to pay for hosting and bandwidth.  So the idea that we're profiting from traffic generated by uploads or forum content is flat wrong...donations and the advertising revenue generated by people coming for library downloads and forum content is what pays to keep the system available to them for that very purpose.  Nobody is profiting here.

Fair enough. Good response well explained.

 

 

 

On 11/13/2021 at 6:49 AM, KL Oo said:

Agreed. I'm very grateful to the many who make the forums function. That said, the file library is a product of and remains in the earl 2000s.

Revamping the interface of the library to a more modern look and functioning is quite a big and costly undertaking, I do not see how that would be financed in the Avsim scheme of things (free uploads and downloads, volunteers and apparently a no financially active IP owner ) if there is not some investors. The financing of the .to is unknown but the money has to come from somewhere . Not implying anything shady here, it could a VC for instance with a long term project. 

On 11/10/2021 at 5:23 PM, Dominique_K said:

A philanthropic simming soul  or a clever business plan or both 😆. In any case, a masterful entry in the industry. These guys are good.

indeed, i do think the guys/guy behind .to are clearly very clever, and know the ropes for sure. They really understood the new flow of users that came with MSFS, just the scenery map is genius (but must be a lot of work to keep up to date)

 

21 hours ago, Steve Dra said:

I never got into the painting hobby to make money, although its funny thing about karma if you've been a good person with genuine intentions of freely contributing to the community with no expectations of any monetary returns....sometimes the reputation of your work get the attention of commercial developers. 😉 

We see this happen time and time again. GotGravel is en example of that, or the guy from the Bush Mission Generator. At Big Radials for example, our FDE guy genuinely offered his help for free, just for the love of it, but hes doing such a good job that its only fair we compensate him for his trouble. Same for a guy that made our logo and some other design. If you'r doing good work, for free, just for the love of it, you could find yourself getting more than "recognition" for it !)  and it think its great 🙂

23 hours ago, Steve Dra said:

I never got into the painting hobby to make money

Is that your subtle way of reminding me that I owe you a dollar each for the D-ABYA, D-ABTB, and "Andrew Air" 727 repaints?  I'd say that I'd buy you a Starbucks or something to make up for it, but that's like $11 and would violate your non-profit status.  🙂

14 hours ago, psbrandenburg said:

Is that your subtle way of reminding me that I owe you a dollar each for the D-ABYA, D-ABTB, and "Andrew Air" 727 repaints?  I'd say that I'd buy you a Starbucks or something to make up for it, but that's like $11 and would violate your non-profit status.  🙂

LOL....yeah I remember painting Andrew Air for you!  He's got to at least be in college now? Has it been that many years?

As for the Lutfy 747s...not many can claim to have 747s named after them. 🙂   I felt obligated to paint it for you.

And you forgot this one...that you know I painted for you. 😉  (Also helps that I love this livery) 😂