Avsim, please open a payware discussion forum

[Geofa 108]

Pretty simple to use the search button to answer your question and find the history-if truly interested which it seems you are not.http://www.mediafire.com/imgbnc.php/1b5baf...b9f427f694g.jpgMy blog:http://geofageofa.spaces.live.com/

[Guest fsfile]

>Pretty simple to use the search button to answer your>question and find the history-if truly interested which it>seems you are not.>>>>>http://www.mediafire.com/imgbnc.php/1b5baf...b9f427f694g.jpg>>My blog:>http://geofageofa.spaces.live.com/========================================and you too mate ! to understand better how this forum has always functioned !ray

[Geofa 108]

Well frankly one doesn't even have to use the search function when posters suddenly appear (with 1-5 posts) using coincidental Australian colloquy to realize what is going on :-lolhttp://www.mediafire.com/imgbnc.php/1b5baf...b9f427f694g.jpgMy blog:http://geofageofa.spaces.live.com/

[David Roch 1,982]

:-lolFinally, an hilarious topic!

[Guest Robbo9]

At least I can say this is a healthy debate on a very wanted and serious issue. What can I say when reading a quote like this "3. It is not up to AVSIM to judge through advertising which products are good or bad. That is the customer's judgment. As long as they pay their fee, the worst product in the world should be able to be advertised.Maybe its the realisation that this is not a site that is truly in the best interests of flight simmers. That quote is tant amount to, we only sell the guns, we dont pull the trigger, and or its ok to advertise a car that has a design fault that kills people, ok you get the point. Yes adversing funds are welcome in all organisations, as revenue, and no, we are not talking about people dying, its only money, but the days of turning the blind eye to a product that is either fault riddled or down right wrong are going to come to a close, and i hope that Avsim will make a real stand here, and say yes we accept your advertising dollars, but if its at the detriment of our loyal and vastly worldwide supporters, we will withdraw that association until you rectify the faults etc. I am not going to mention the products at home that still adorn my shelves, as useless as the day I purchased them, but i need to keep them as a reminder that there are companies out there that are only after the dollars, and will say and do anything to prize it out of me. On the other hand there are the ones that I respect deeply, because I know thier committment to this hobby and industry is unquestioned by the fantastic and allmost error free products that they release, and continue to support with real forums for problems and answers, that they provide.So if I may moralize just for a moment again. Be carefull when you proport to be a freind of users, and then at the same time accept funds from a suspect organisation or developers, and sit on the fence claiming that this is a fair and reasonable arrangement. Please if you are to continue the free advertising from all, then allow a forum where those advertisers can be questioned on where the shortfalls are not being addressed. You say you allow this, but I have seen threads locked, and changes to statements that have been made as part of the official Avsim Organisation, where there was obvious coercement to change the dialogue of a notice or story etc.Finally, going back to my first statement, this is healthy dialouge, and one hopes that it will continue to the betterment of all

[maxter 0]

>At least I can say this is a healthy debate on a very wanted>and serious issue. What can I say when reading a quote like>this >>"3. It is not up to AVSIM to judge through advertising which>products are good or bad. That is the customer's judgment. As>long as they pay their fee, the worst product in the world>should be able to be advertised.>>Maybe its the realisation that this is not a site that is>truly in the best interests of flight simmers. That quote is>tant amount to, we only sell the guns, we dont pull the>trigger, and or its ok to advertise a car that has a design>fault that kills people, ok you get the point. >>Yes adversing funds are welcome in all organisations, as>revenue, and no, we are not talking about people dying, its>only money, but the days of turning the blind eye to a product>that is either fault riddled or down right wrong are going to>come to a close, and i hope that Avsim will make a real stand>here, and say yes we accept your advertising dollars, but if>its at the detriment of our loyal and vastly worldwide>supporters, we will withdraw that association until you>rectify the faults etc. >>I am not going to mention the products at home that still>adorn my shelves, as useless as the day I purchased them, but>i need to keep them as a reminder that there are companies out>there that are only after the dollars, and will say and do>anything to prize it out of me. >>On the other hand there are the ones that I respect deeply,>because I know thier committment to this hobby and industry is>unquestioned by the fantastic and allmost error free products>that they release, and continue to support with real forums>for problems and answers, that they provide.>>So if I may moralize just for a moment again. Be carefull>when you proport to be a freind of users, and then at the same>time accept funds from a suspect organisation or developers,>and sit on the fence claiming that this is a fair and>reasonable arrangement.>> Please if you are to continue the free advertising from all,>then allow a forum where those advertisers can be questioned>on where the shortfalls are not being addressed. You say you>allow this, but I have seen threads locked, and changes to>statements that have been made as part of the official Avsim>Organisation, where there was obvious coercement to change the>dialogue of a notice or story etc.>>Finally, going back to my first statement, this is healthy>dialouge, and one hopes that it will continue to the>betterment of all A brilliant and well written post... Well done and thanks.Cheers,Chris Porter:-outta

[Guest Robbo9]

Thanks Chris, it appears that the subject has been moved, to push under the carpet. What a shame, the first real entry into meaningfull dialogue, and they dont want it to be seen or responded to. Of course I will continue to watch what happens at Avsim, now along with a number of other sites in the hope that Avsim will change the way they respond, or other sites will fullfil my requirements

[vgbaron 3,620]

>Thanks Chris, it appears that the subject has been moved,>to push under the carpet. What a shame, the first real entry>into meaningfull dialogue, and they dont want it to be seen or>responded to. Of course I will continue to watch what happens>at Avsim, now along with a number of other sites in the hope>that Avsim will change the way they respond, or other sites>will fullfil my requirementsYou see, I sort of agreed with you up until this post. It shows a complete lack of understanding of even the general rules of the fora and smacks of a hidden agenda.I am NOT nor have I been a MOD but even *I* know this discussion belongs in hangar chat. And considering there is a link to same, what *IS* your problem.I'm sorry but if I continue I'll say something personal which will get me banned.VicQ6600 G0 CPU 2.4 o/c 3.65Evga 680i A1 with P31 BIOS 2G XP2-8500 DDR2 1066FSB Mushkin 996535 RAM 5-5-4-12-2T320G 7200 HD partitioned for XP/Vista/Programs 2 - 74G Raptors in RAID0 500G 7200 HD for backup SATA DVD burner Evga 8800GTS 640 PCIx 169.13 betaKandalf LCS case w/ built in liquid cooling 850W Thermaltake power supplyVisit the Virtual Pilot's Centerwww.flightadventures.comhttp://www.hifisim.com/banners/hifi-supporter-sigbanner.jpg

[Geofa 108]

If it was to be pushed under the carpet it would have been deleted.That is not the case. No-more like this thread belongs here than in a forum that is for simming.Hope you find the site that fulfills your requirements-perhaps your own?Robbo-by the way-I do find it stunning that we have all these new members from Australia suddenly appearing with <5 posts including you.(not Chris of course who has been here a long time) As they say-a coinkidink?To be honest (taking my mod hat off now)-I was all ready to purchase this title immediately upon release. I have my doubts now seeing these antics...if there is no relationship I will reconsider but appearances certainly looks unseemly to me.http://www.mediafire.com/imgbnc.php/1b5baf...b9f427f694g.jpgMy blog:http://geofageofa.spaces.live.com/

[DadJokeCinema 145]

"Hi Brian,"And it is hard to just brush off all the complaints and ranting we get leveled at us constantly, these volunteers who take their own time to try against all odds to make this a good place for flight simmers to come. "While I have no difficulty understanding your frustration and have tons of respect for anyone volunteering to moderate a public forum I see a bit of a double standard here. On the one hand you lump people like Jay and Nick, who volunteer their time and skills to a commercial project, into the "commercial developers class" yet on the other hand you bring up the "we're just volunteers" card every time someone points a finger at the moderators.AVSIM is not a charitable organization, it's a business just like commercial developers and publishers are. Whether you guys get paid or not is between you and your employer. You represent the public face of this business and thus presenting yourself as unsung heroes while holding other groups of volunteers to different standards isn't helpful, IMO."Holger, I wanted to reply to this because it's a very good point. AVSIM is a profitable business (from what I understand), because it makes money, but I definitely see a difference between a website like AVSIM and commercial add-on developers. AVSIM may make money, but it is not trying to sell anything (other than in the store, which, to be honest, I didn't even knew existed even after I was a mod in the forums). It's not a commercial enterprise in the sense that we are selling a product as much as we are supporting an effort through ad-revenue. If we were going into other forums and telling people that they should come post here instead with the purpose of attracting more advertisers, that would make sense. Commercial devs are trying to sell a product. I wanted to explain why I see them as two separate things. I think it's great that people volunteer their time to support projects that make flight sim better, regardless of what avenue they take to do that. I wish more people were willing to just put their work out there for free to make the flight sim world better, but that's a different topic, and I know all the sides of that debate by heart. But when it comes to the rules, there's no distinction. I don't want to point anyone out by name, but we privately chastised a volunteer here for violating these exact rules recently. So whether it's more public or private, I guarantee that there is not a double standard when enforcing the rules.

[Guest Nick_N]

I have been following this discussion. I was not going to get involved in the conversation past what I posted above however I do have an opinion about a payware discussion area, which is the topic at hand.First of all, if I thought that such an area would be used properly I would not have any problem with it. Any discussion that provides information and helps simmers obtain their goals through freeware or payware is desirable in a forum environment such as this.The problem is, this site is so popular, it

[Holger 0]

Hi Brian,thanks for fishing my post out of the ether and taking the time to respond. Good point about us readers not knowing what's happening behind the curtains.My main point wasn't that the business models are the same (ad sales and sim shop revenue vs. "direct" product sales are obviously different) but rather that both organizations include volunteers and that some of these were portrayed as belonging to "the dark side" ;-) whereas you moderators are supposedly "just volunteers". Anyway, it's not really what this thread is about, just wanted to post it as food for thought. Cheers, Holger

[mgh 89]

You've only been a member since 29 February 2008 which is also the date of your post I suggest that saying "I don't hang about here much" is a bit of an understatememt!

[Tom Allensworth 1,532]

Excellent post Nick and right on the mark.As for other subjects that have been brought up in this thread, let me deal with a couple of them in this post.Were we to stop accepting advertising from every advertiser that had a problem with a product and that some segment of the community found fault with, we would not have any advertisers, no revenue and the result would be no AVSIM. I used to pay for AVSIM bandwidth out of my own pocket. That won't happen again.AVSIM is not a "for profit" operation; that is, we do have income that pays for the bandwidth and hardware upgrades (like last week's $15,000+ replacement of equipment). What money we make over that we salt away for harder times, so that we can stay afloat longer. No one on staff, including me, is paid. As for a Payware forum; ain't going to happen. We have been there and done that. I don't want us to make that mistake again for all the reasons that have been mentioned above and more.As for my "arrogance" - I always get a laugh out of that. If people who know me were to read that, they would probably ask if the same guy was being discussed. I think when folks use the word "arrogance", what they are really identifying in me is a real short fuse when it comes to people who are trying to take advantage of AVSIM, our readers, or our moderators/administrators - short fuse that I have no problem with in communicating via the written word. Folks, you have to understand that there are others out there with agendas that are not necessarily in your best interest or AVSIM's either for that matter. We try to provide everyone leeway, but when it comes down to it, we will do what we think is in the best interest of our forum community and AVSIM. And if there are one, two or two hundred readers of this forum that take exception to our rules or the methods we use to enforce them, that's okay. The other 30,000+ members here will survive and flourish as they have for the last nearly 11 years.

[Holger 0]

Hi Tom,nice stump speech of the us vs. them type: "Beware, there are dark and evil forces lurking out there!" Ever considered running for office? ;-)Cheers, Holger