Censorship in official MSFS forums

[AnkH 2,282]

Seriously, it is getting more and more ridiculous, what kind of posts of myself get "redacted" over there. And come on, do they really think that anyone believes this "was flagged by the community" bull? Never ever was my last post "hidden due to flags from the community", this is straight forward impossible and it would be absolutely embarrassing for our simming community, if this post was flagged. 

Heck, I even get this message sometimes after (!) a comment got 5 or more "hearts", clearly indicating that people share my thoughts and then, bam, half an hour later it was so called "flagged by the community". Come on, do they think we are all utterly stupid? I wonder, why this kind of "flagging" always only happens when a post is around something they simply do not get right, did not do anything about for years, is on the longtime buglist since months or even years and no progress is visible etc.

Go to a topic which is completely unrelated to any potential failure by the devs from Asobo and you can post basically whatever you want, it will never get a "community flag". Ridiculous, this is straight forward censorship at its best and they think we are so stupid to not realize it. 

What are your thoughts? Do you believe the rubbish they write you if one of your posts gets "flagged"? I mean, it is their forum and they can put up rules they want, I am aware, but then they should be honest and not try to tell people that it is the community "censoring" the stuff in their forums, but they do it on their own. 

Seriously, I am sick of this behaviour in the software world recently. Are there still companies out there knowing that it is us customers keeping them alive in the very end? They do NOT provide a service for US, they make a product and we BUY it, if we LIKE it. So it is US customers being the important part here, not them. 

/rant over.

[Jeeeno 314]

It makes that forum even more useless than it was before

[hansb57 501]

You're a guest at forums. As a guest you dont set the rules. It's as simple as that.

Because you are used to a certain degree of freedom on Avsim doenst mean other forums use the same standards.

[cianpars 1,179]

Pretty pointless forum where you can't say what you think or be critical of anything.  I rarely visit it nowadays as everything you need to know is on AVSIM without the censorship.

You even find some humour on AVSIM on occasions, something else banned from the official forum.

And don't even dare to mention a war or evil dictator over there either.

[MarcG 3,031]

The censorship over there has become ridiculous to the point they're actively locking threads wherever a serious issue is related, case in point the SU14 performance degradation issues some are suffering with. First they continually removed posts from the Bug Thread and told everyone to discuss it elsewhere, so they did, but then they locked the thread...

https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/performance-loss-with-su14-discussion-topic/

The Flagging issue is also an issue itself, you used to be able to view to the post but they removed that option, now it seems any slight negative comment gets flagged so no one can read it - so much for listening to your customers.

I only ever visit, I never post over there anymore as the moderators are clearly delusional when it comes to respecting the feedback of the community. Too many posts hidden, too many threads locked.

[AnkH 2,282]

4 minutes ago, MarcG said:

The Flagging issue is also an issue itself, you used to be able to view to the post but they removed that option, now it seems any slight negative comment gets flagged so no one can read it - so much for listening to your customers.

The embarassing and to me most important point here is the message you get if your post is "flagged". As I wrote, they make it look like "the community" was in charge and that supposedly so many people flagged your post that they only react to the community to hide this post. Which is straight forward impossible for several posts of mine that were flagged. So they are basically lying about why the posts get hidden and THIS is the thing that makes me rant here. It is a hidden censorship and this drives me nuts. 

[Dillon 2,198]

18 minutes ago, MarcG said:

The censorship over there has become ridiculous to the point they're actively locking threads wherever a serious issue is related, case in point the SU14 performance degradation issues some are suffering with. First they continually removed posts from the Bug Thread and told everyone to discuss it elsewhere, so they did, but then they locked the thread...

https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/performance-loss-with-su14-discussion-topic/

The Flagging issue is also an issue itself, you used to be able to view to the post but they removed that option, now it seems any slight negative comment gets flagged so no one can read it - so much for listening to your customers.

I only ever visit, I never post over there anymore as the moderators are clearly delusional when it comes to respecting the feedback of the community. Too many posts hidden, too many threads locked.

All I can say to this is, 'What do you expect?'.  All these big companies are over the top with censorship and control yet they blame others for this kind of fascism.  Isn't this the same group that can't deal with non-active weapons on FS aircraft?😔😶  All of us can remember what was happening before Twitter got bought out and Rumble was established.  I can't blame this on the Asobo/FS team as their trusting things are being handled responsibly.  There's a certain mind set, ideology, etc. that's crept in and it hurts more that it helps in these larger companies. These types can't deal with even common since challenging discussions about FS or elsewhere (for example) and in turn major issues don't get resolved.  Disney is the worst for this as of late. Using a term that applies, there's a snow flake that's the moderator of those forms and is hurting the growth of the product more than helping because of their over sensitive ideology.  These kinds of people are causing so many problems in the world in so many areas not just FS.🧐

Edited January 29 by Dillon

[jcomm 5,996]

Been a long time I've been there... Those forums are pretty much useless in terms of feedback from suggestions and bug reports.

Even the Devs forum leaves a lot to be desired...

 

[MarcG 3,031]

3 minutes ago, Dillon said:

All I can say to this is, 'What do you expect?'.  All these big companies are over the top with censorship and control yet they blame others for this kind of fascism.  Isn't this the same group that can't deal with non-active weapons on FS aircraft?😔😶  All of us can remember what was happening before Twitter got bought out and Rumble was established.  These are the people that control these companies hence you'll see things like this is their discord.  There's a certain mind set, ideology, etc. that's hurts more that it helps. These types can't deal with even common since challenging discussion about FS and in turn issues don't get resolved.  There's a snow flake that's the moderator of those forms and is hurting the growth of the product more than helping because of their over sensitive ideology.  These kinds of people are causing so many problems in the world in so many areas not just FS.🧐

Oh yes I fully expect it from an MS division, thing is I've been part of official forums since the 1990s, I've seen the good and bad and this is certainly in the bracket of bad. It's no wonder there's a puzzled look on jorgs face during Q&As as no doubt half the issues aren't getting through to the team because of the reporting measures laid out in place on the official forums (yes I know zendesk should be used but that's a black hole in itself), it's like the moderators don't want to admit there's issues half the time and yes that hurts the product as the developers are not getting the full extent of the issues. 

[Nuno Pinto 1,413]

Just don't go there. Censorship has no place in 2024.

I stopped going to those forums and i am way happier now.

[JacquesBrel 641]

4 hours ago, AnkH said:

What are your thoughts?

What was the content of your posts that got flagged?

[AnkH 2,282]

27 minutes ago, JacquesBrel said:

What was the content of your posts that got flagged?

It was a reply to the comment of one of the mods in this thread here: https://forums.flightsimulator.com/t/aerial-ground-tiles-changing-popping-in/547197/1028

Basically, I was just supporting an earlier post of stormraider1985 in the thread saying that although it has this "bug logged" tag and was part of an Q&A, nothing was done about the issue since then. Which is 100% true as the issue still exists as on the first day it was reported back in October 2022, it even got worse on some regions since then. So yes, I basically said that nothing was done since October 2022 and that the "bug logged" tag is useless piece of information as illustrated by other long-time bugs carrying this tag for months or even years. 

That's basically it. Only facts 😉 

[mryan75 281]

Well you’re talking to someone who got banned over there. And I suppose we all tend to favor our own narratives, but what I got banned for was doing the job the mods weren’t doing. There were so many clickbait thread titles it was absurd (“I can’t believe this happened!!!”, “WHAT CAUSES THIS?!”, etc.) and the mods never did anything. It’s against their terms of service, so I started flagging the threads. They were non-plussed as the kids would say. Then when people would be sniping at each other or in particular, ganging up on another user, I’d call people out. “Knock it off guys, this is not a place for personal attacks,” etc. Well that was apparently the last straw, as that got me banned. “You’re creating more work for the moderators” was the reason given. Well, maybe if they did their jobs to begin with…

But you have to understand people with small minds and authority, it’s always like this (and I am NOT an anti-authoritarian type). 

I check over there for any news of interest on a regular basis and I see so many things I could help people with, but nope. Oh well. 

Edited January 29 by mryan75

[JYW 2,989]

Exactly as Dillon says, I suspect at the corporate or 'Jorg' level, they've no idea this is happening.  I suspect this is much lower down the pecking order.  If you're a mod and feel pretty defensive about your "employer", how easy is it to have alternative account(s) that you can pop into and set lot's of "community flags".   Then, to the management, it appears that the censorship is community-driven.

Someone needs to get a question about this into one of the Q&As, so that the senior team can at least be made aware of it, and directed towards some examples.

It's rarely those with a lot of power that love to wave it about and misuse it.  More so, it's those with a tiny little bit, who are energised by banning people and blocking posts.  It points to some sort of distorted personality issue.

Edited January 29 by JYW

[STK 107]

I think one of the issues is the threshold in which a user over there can mark a post as problematic. I can't find a reference to the precise number but it seems to be low (maybe only one or two "downvotes" or "flags"). 

With that said, the system to report bugs to Asobo/MS I find is horrid. Despite moderator insistence to record all issues through their official forums by posting a thread, I have had much better success by emailing developers directly (example: Carenado) who have in turn told me that they do not consistently receive bug reports via the forums due to the need for a bug to be reported on the forums, pushed by a mod, voted on as valid/repeatable, etc etc. 

And with THAT said, sadly I've observed and/or been subject to significantly more animosity here at Avsim from users who seem to be incredibly aggressive (dare I say "troll-ish") upon initial engagement with a post, while I can't say I've ever experienced any sort of animosity on the Official Forums, and I regularly use both (just under a different name over there).

Moderation is a challenge in any community, with both forums having their usual suspects, and also one-sided stories. I would recommend all to leave ALL emotion out of issue-reporting, stick to the facts, and recognize different opinions as such.