ClearedtoLand

And there you have a perfect summary of the problem. 20% of Americans think they are in the top 1% income bracket. They can't all be right, 95% of them are wrong and would discover that if they could be bothered to have a think about it. Similarly, nobody goes through life thinking the way they are is the wrong way of being, but hell, they're going to be the wrong way in any case. Whenever someone goes mad at someone else for doing something in a way that differs from their preferred way of doing things, you are essentially saying to that person, the way you behave is the wrong way. It may well be, some ways are better than others, but better does not mean right, nor does it mean the only way. What you describe is such a familiar pattern of human thought that it can almost serve as a template, not thinking through all the different options for behaviour and realising that, as in almost all aspects of life, preference is subjective and not universal. And here is the problem with it, a subjective preference is based not on a logical analysis of all available options, and a careful weighing up of pros and cons, but almost entirely on personality, and one does not choose ones personality, so one did not choose to be the right way, one came to believe that being the way one is, is the right way of being because that is the way one is. Circular logic in so far as one can call it logic. This topic, and all the ones similar to it result from frustration with people who think that their behaviour and thinking is superior to that of others and that they are thus entitled to treat others badly. Of course, in so doing, they actually prove just how similar their thinking is to those they deem inferior to them. But I suspect very much that most people already, quietly, know this.

Hey Jim, that wasn't in response to what you said. It's in response to a post from a different user. I think your comments on the subject were some of the better articulated views on the subject.

You've just performed what we call in the trade a mental short cut, it's the emotion derived from getting annoyed at my lengthy posts (I grant you that bit). The parts of your mind that react emotionally operate faster than the parts of your mind that perform analytic functions and the analytic parts can't actually resume their functions until your emotions have run their course, and the emotional parts of your brain don't think, it's known as the Dual Processing Theory of Mind (or Cognition). What it says, in a nutshell, is that for as long as you are in an emotional state, you are not thinking rationally. So from everything I wrote, all that you took out of it was that it is not concise. Ok, but what about the bit where I wrote that the rational mind shuts down when people get emotional? It would seem to be relevant here, because you don't need cognitive science to tell you that people behave in silly ways when they get angry. You do need cognitive science, though, to understand why, because that also tells you what your best course of action is for dealing with it (nip it in the bud before it has a chance to take off). So what does all of this have to do with wonderful AVSIM? AVSIM, among other things, is a source of support, but that function is undermined by some people who let their emotions dictate their reactions, which in turn ruins it for other users, thus making it not so much a source of support, but some people's personal podium for self aggrandisement. And that brings us to this topic. And that brings me to my contributions. Cognitive psychology shows that people are very bad at understanding how their minds work, it also shows that, depending on the individual, understanding how ones mind functions can help one to develop better behaviour, to be less emotional and more rational. AVSIM certainly would not suffer from people adopting a more rational approach. The content of my posts, well, the scientific bits, are more relevant than you acknowledge. Did I offend you in any other manner or have I covered everything?

Jim, You understood my comment just right, and I think we share the same sentiment about some people's behaviour on the forum. I think that we sometimes go too far in trying to please people who demand that everyone express themselves in a way they deem acceptable, yet we don't actually stop to ask ourselves whether those demands are reasonable. Personally, I think those demands are unreasonable, and I think people deserve to be treated better than that. The problem here is not that everyone does not speak or behave in the same manner, the problem is the expectation that everyone should speak or behave in the same manner or be treated with contempt or as if they are stupid. There is an error in reasoning there that does not justify an attitude of being, as you call it, holier than thou. And unfortunately, they get away with it. I do find it reassuring though that the overwhelming majority of users are not seen to be behaving in this way. But if I may ask, how would you suggest the issue be addressed?

Jim, am I right in thinking that what you are saying is that Rob's proposals will not fully address all the issue of some people responding in a hostile manner to people who do not articulate problems in a way, or the way, preferred by some others? I agree with your comment about things like language barriers being obstacles to people conforming to a standard way of articulating problems, and I do think that in many instances, the hostile replies are without justification. By means of an example, I recall two people responding to someone's question by referring him to the manual, the fact that the way the question was phrased very clearly indicated that the person who posed the question was not proficient in English, and so the reference to the manual was next to useless. What was striking though was that neither of the two respondents recognised that the person was not a native English speaker, nor did they take the time to confirm this by looking at the location given by the person who posed the question, in this case, he was Brazilian, hence a native Portuguese speaker. I think what Rob is going to suggest to AVSIM is a great contribution, but I think it will be of limited to use to those who do not speak English. Too often, a hostile reply is not down to someone not having taken the time to search or phrase a question with sufficient detail, but down to the respondent not bothering to think through the possibilities that may be preventing the person who asked the question from living up to the required standards. That is not a failure on the part of the person asking the question, that is a failure on the part of the respondent. When did asking clarifying questions become a burden too far? I am struggling to understand why so much consideration is given to the expectations of those few who, through failure in reasoning, respond in unnecessary ways to other people on here, while we place the burden for pleasing that minority on those who have transgressed in so far as not being as fluent in English, or as IT literate as those for whom such things are a cause for personal outrage. Do we no longer afford people the privilege of having to decide for themselves how to prioritise their lives? Has it come down to people agreeing, when joining AVSIM or purchasing sim related software, to prioritise their lives according to our demands or face our wrath? By the way, if I have contributed to going off your topic, I apologise.

Dunning-Kruger is indeed alive and kicking, and since that addition to the hymn sheet of cognitive despair, a great many other equally sad findings have been streaming in about how bad we are at reasoning. Whenever I am required to talk about how brilliantly illogical we evolved to be, I always try to reinforce the point that this stuff is hard wired into our brains, and when we behave in a contemptuous manner towards someone for their reasoning errors, we are not all that different from someone getting angry at someone for having only two legs ... We don't choose to be bad at thinking any more than we choose to have asynchronous modular processing of sensory information, we evolved that way. All of us, so we can safely pack away the superiority complexes. And that's before you get to the truly bizarre stuff like the unconscious mind operating wholly outside of conscious control, which mostly is not really a problem, but it does make for scary implications when it offers your conscious mind any old piece of information at its disposal during arguments or discussions which are not going so well for the conscious mind. This results in the individual defending a point of view based on information they have never actually evaluated. Fun stuff really, right up to the point where one realises that ones opinions are based on mental processes which are thoroughly unreliable and that one possesses no internal mechanism for realising when one is being led astray by ones own mind. And, of course, just to add to the mayhem, intelligence does not mitigate any of this, in fact, in a disturbingly large number of cases, higher intelligence aggrevates bad reasoning. If we can accept just how susceptible to error our thinking is, we might develop attitudes to the thoughts and actions of others which are more considered and considerate. We may also find our interactions with others to be less emotional and more constructive. But it is asking a lot. In the end it may be best to simply accept that bad behaviour will surface, and that when it surfaces, to remind ourselves of why it does show up so often. It can take the sting out of such behaviour, and can even add an air of comedy to it. But I have gone way off topic ... Yet again.

Hi Jim, I don't know how much time you have on your hands, but might I make a suggestion, get your hands on a book by Keith Stanovich called What Intelligence Tests Miss, it is one of the best summaries of convergent findings in cognitive science that I have come across ... but far be it from me to spread my own cynicism about human behaviour, however, that book will give you a little insight into why people behave in this way and why there is next to nothing that can be done about it. The same author has written another book about how people can overcome their irrational tendencies, but I am not persuaded by it. I side with the cognitive cynics. As for those who defend the behaviour of those who come down harshly on others, well, a basic fact of the human brain is that once emotions kick in, in particular anger, the parts of the brain that enable rational thought are shut down, and with those, any possibility for rational interaction (think civility). In essence, we are saying that it is ok for those who have read the pinned topics and know their way around the forum to behave thoughtlessly (defined loosely), but thoughtless behaviour (again defined loosely) is not ok on the part of those who have not read pinned topics or know their way around the forum. It all gets very funny when you bring cognitive science into the equation. As for faith in the moderators, if I were a betting man, I would double up on bias and bet against a fair hearing, but not against good intentions though. I know they try hard, and I'm not calling their intentions into question, but merely the tool at their disposal. Or is that just my own bias? Sometimes it's best to remember that the brain is an imperfect information processor, and however justified one may feel oneself in attacking someone else for being lazy, being new, being a Martian, or simply just not being us, we trust our brains at our peril. It's a well known fact that there are parts of our brains which ignore us ... completely, that's your brain sticking two fingers up at you. Next time you get angry at yourself over anything, ask yourself who, exactly, is angry with who there? A bit of modesty, self doubt and patience when it comes to dealing with people is a far better, and justifiable approach than throwing the book, the kitchen sink, and possibly an insult or two at people who are, let us be honest, behaving just like we do, our brains are just very well developed for forgetting our own moments of inadequacy, hence we tend to see ourselves far more favourably than we are in reality. If we want to be honest, it comes down to a simple question, how do we want to be treated when we make a mistake in the eyes of others? Because, rest assured, unless you are evolved from a different species than the rest of us, you are going to make exactly the same mistake as those whom some of us roast on here. I'm going to leave this with one of my favourite findings from cognitive psychology, there is a proven inverse correlation between confidence and being right, as instances of the former go up, so instances of the latter go down. That is worth pondering for a moment. ... did someone mention coffee?

Absolutely agree, freeware developers often go unpraised, but there are some absolutely fantastic freeware add-ons that have made this hobby thoroughly enjoyable. A big thank you to all of them too.

What do you call two lawyers buried up to their necks in sand? Not enough sand. Sorry, psychologist humour. Let them discuss whatever they want to, they're not actually breaking any laws or license agreements, and clarifying the issue might just prevent someone from inadvertently violating a licensing condition in the future. Well, one can hope in any case. Besides, it's too hot to get stressed out, go have a beer, it's probably the best antidote for all of this.

I have it, bought it just over a month ago, and I would highly recommend it. I use it, very frequently, for American Airlines flights from KDFW. Not only is the scenery nicely done, but on my system I get smooth performance without any stutters when flying into it with the PMDG 737. Definitely highly recommended.

"They laughed when I said I wanted to be a comedian. They're not laughing now." Bob Monkhouse - British born comedian.

I'm willing to chip in ... Does anybody want to start an airline?

What a refreshingly awesome and useful contribution, Dave. Perhaps a bit presumptuous on my part, but on behalf of everyone who is going to come across this read and your comment, thank you.

My deepest condolences to Tom's family, may you be a source of comfort and strength for one another during this tragic time. Tom surely was a giant in our community, his family and all of us can be proud of what he achieved, built up and left for all of us. Long may his memory and legacy last. Ad astra per aspera.

I picked up FlyTampa Grenadines today, so I will be island hopping in my old A2A C172 Junkyard Dog over the weekend ... If the damn things battery let's me.

Well, this seriously complicates my approaching decision on whether to switch to XPlane or P3D. This, in a word, is incredible, Tony.

Hi Ed, I tried to install the Level D 767 on Windows 8, but it didn't work. It was quite some time ago, but from what I can remember, the gauges didn't show up and essentially, with that, the plane was unusable. I don't know if anyone else could get it to work, if they could, I'd love to know how, but I have my doubts about it being Windows 8/8.1 compatible. I don't know about the CLS planes. I never tried to install the Level D 767 on Windows 8.1.

I tend to buy scenery based around the aircraft that I use, currently only the PMDG 777 and 737. From there it is a matter of getting routes, times, and flight numbers right for the different airlines that I have for those aircraft. I select my flight based on what I can complete given my time constraints and which flight is departing at or round about that time. Where possible I try to get the published route of the actual flight and program that into the FMC. Then I make a point of not telling anyone about what I did, unless that person is also an avid simmer ... People go cross eyed when they hear about what we get up to.

Dave, I haven't misread your post. I pointed out something that is vitally missing from this debate. What you are referring to is the number of people who post questions already posed. What you are missing is a vital bit of information about the number of people who do not, that is, the number of people who actually DO search online and find answers to their questions WITHOUT resorting to posting a thread about a subject already addressed. Without that second bit of information, you cannot accurately assess whether repeated questions are of as little value as you say they are. Hence my reference to the small percentage of users who actually do pose repeated questions. The clue is in that small percentage. You focus your attention on the small percentage of people who actually post repeat topics and infer from that that there is a problem with people who do no search. But that has no logical validity, because the data that you use is incomplete. By making use of the simple mathematics of number of repeated threads/overall number of new threads, you get an understanding of the scale of the issue, and the scale of the issue is not of such a nature that you can say there is a problem with people who do not search. Let's make up some numbers here, 1% of new threads are repeat threads, 99% of new threads is not. This is not an unreasonable assumption based on the number of AVSIM users and new threads daily posted. Or, let's be generous, 5% of new threads are repeat threads, 95% is not. You can say that 5% of people not searching is quite astonishing, but what you can't say is that there is a problem because people do not search. Now, with respect to your friends who were driven away by this, I would say that they misread the situation (Btw, what percentage do they form in relation to people who were not driven away by repeat threads?). I imagine that you are probably referring to the PMDG forums, where I would be prepared to say that probably 20% of threads are repeat posts, but again, all that you can infer from that is that it is astonishing that 20% of people do not search either online or the manuals. But again, with 4 in 5 people not posting repeat threads, you cannot say that there is a problem that needs to be addressed. Again, with reference to your friends and their reasons for leaving, given that there are more people today who sim, there is almost certainly an increase in the number of repeat posts, but as a percentage of overall posts, it's still in the minority. Given the complexity of PMDG's products as well as their popularity, it should also be expected that there will be more people who ask repeat questions. Will telling people to use the resources available make any difference? Given that you tell that to people after they have already posted a thread, I doubt it would serve any purpose in reducing the number of new threads, it's still a reactive recommendation. What you are proposing is to provide people with guidelines on how to use the resources available, but if those people are already inclined to post first and read later, your recommendations are almost certain to make no difference. Given that it is a minority of cases in any event, would it not be better to adopt a strategy of treating it as a minor inconvenience rather than an overbearing problem? And you will struggle to prove that it is an overbearing problem, given the numbers we have at our disposal. It's not an emotional issue for me, I don't get angry at people who post repeat questions, nor do I get angry at people who get upset about it, but I do try to see things from more than one perspective without assuming that my perspective is right, that is an assumption too far for my comfort. It would be worthwhile to take into consideration the perspectives of others, especially those you disagree with, before attempting to formulate a strategy for dealing with them. That is the whole point of my argument around determining whether this issue is as much as a problem as you say it is.

A good way to test the internal logic of an argument is to apply the same logic of the argument to a different set. You fear that constant repetitive posts will ultimately lead to the demise of AVSIM as a valuable source of information. So, let's apply that logic to the Internet itself. AVSIM is a subset of the Internet itself, and the Internet contains immeasurably more data, and by extension, more repetitions of similar subjects than AVSIM does. So, has that constant additions of repetitive data on the Internet resulted in the Internet being lost as a valuable source of information? I doubt you will get many people who support that point of view. Does it make it more difficult to find something useful on the Internet? Sure, there's a lot of rubbish on there, but that is one area where AVSIM has an advantage over the Internet. Even though the repetitive questions asked are asked by people who may not be particularly knowledgeable, the people who tend to answer the questions on here are not buffoons who don't know what they are talking about, so the answers provided are actually useful. And that is the key to this whole debate about whether people should be told to RTFM, search Bing, or go to their local libraries instead, the problem is not with the questions asked, the problem is with the answers provided. If for every question asked, repetitive or not, the answers to the questions are accurate, useful and actually related to the questions, then it doesn't matter how many questions are asked, because whenever someone searches for a topic that leads them to a particular thread, they will find information which is of use. If the information on each thread is of use, then AVSIM not only is not in danger of being lost as a source of helpful information, but it actually grows in the volume of useful information that it provides. There is something else that is often missed in the emotionally laden discussions about whether people do in fact search for answers online before posting an already posed question. AVSIM has in excess of 100 000 members. I don't know what the exact number of people is who asked questions already posed, but I dare say, that they are in a vast, vast, vast MINORITY. The reason I say this is easy, imagine for a moment what the forums would have looked like if just 10% of AVSIM users every day each asked a question already posed. That would be in excess of 10 000 repeated topics every day. We'd all notice that. But let's be a bit more realistic, let's repeat that exercise with just 1% of AVSIM users, which would be, 1000 repeated topics every day. Maybe Jim can help us out here, how many new topics are made every day? Is it a 1000? Out of that 1000, how many of those are questions that have been asked before? And now suddenly, you have the perspective needed to accurately asses whether AVSIM is being lost to repetitive posts. It most certainly is NOT. If you are truly concerned about topics being worthless, then the solution is not to slam the door on people posing questions already asked, it is to ensure that each question asked is actually answered in a way that provides a solution. That does not imply that each question should get addressed in the same way with a repeated lengthy answer, sometimes, a simple link provided to a thread where the question is answered is also useful and more than enough. And not only does that not render the thread useless, but if someone who searches online and clicks on that thread comes across the link, that helps those who do search online too. Also, I think posting a link takes up a lot less bandwidth than an essay length answer about the merits of searching. And I dare say that in the haste to condemn those who post previously asked questions, no consideration is given to the perspective of those who actually search online and come to those threads and whether that is useful to them. And in the end, that is what matters, not whether a minority of people pose questions already asked, or how some feel about that sort of thing, what matters is whether anyone who searches online and comes to AVSIM is able to find information that helps them. And becoming irate at people who pose questions posed before has never helped anyone solve an issue or find an answer.

Excellent news indeed, thanks for sharing.

Indeed, I am going to pick this up tonight as well but only download if it actuallly gets positive reviews. It seems a small amount of money to risk in the event that it doesn't live up to my expectations.

I really hope it works well with FlyTampa Kai Tak, because I have been looking for a good VHHH for ages. I might just take the plunge and get this tomorrow and see the two work out. And thanks for the heads up, I had no idea this was in the making.

Stansted is the UK2000 airport that I fly from most frequently, at least 3 times a week, it is, in my view, better than EGPH and I get better FPS at Stansted than at EGLL. I would certainly recommend Stansted. For the record, the UK2000 airports that I have are Stansted, Luton, Heathrow, Gatwick, Manchester and Edinburgh, and I am very satisfied with all of them.