A semi-answer to Roger - Why you see fewer NEW developers posting

[Astoroth]

The answer is very simple, in my opinion. And yes, it is just my opinion, so let the bashing begin...

And remember, I am talking about NEW freeware designers trying to get started, NOT established Payware developers, those are a whole other ballgame.

The comment has been made many times: "With this release the bar has been raised to a new level."

Is it possible that the bar has been raised TOO far? Have people come to expect too much?

I really miss the days when people got excited over Mike Stone releasing a new aircraft, or Naji or Don Moser releasing a new bush scenery for Alaska.

I miss the days when a new release was HUGE and had everybody talking if it was 40 megs.

Look at the packages being released today. 250 - 350 - 500 megs, zipped, and taking up almost a gig on the HD when uncompressed..... 10 different models with 40 paint schemes each and individual VC's for each model color matched with the exteriors, panels that have all the bells and whistles and systems modelled down to the proper thread count on the screws holding the panel together.

Then throw in the people that have to whine and complain because that's not the exact color that was on that bird in real life, it should have been maybe .05% lighter grey on the front, with a .40% darker blue on the back, and 64 rivets in a counter-clockwise pattern holding that panel on and you only have 62, in a clockwise pattern......

GOOD GRIEF, PEOPLE!!! Wake up!

Who in their right mind would want to even think of releasing their first works these days? It's like throwing a bucketful of tuna into a pool of sharks that haven't fed in weeks....

How many times have I seen an established modeller with several releases under his / her belt been savaged by the nit-pickers because something wasn't quite right, instead of receiving helpful, constructive "suggestions" as to how they could do better?

Or a budding scenery designer that maybe didn't have photoreal textures with the correct number and placement of moving jetways, and the runways weren't "exactly" in the proper lat/long coordinates....Maybe it was a really nice scenery but the naysayers didn't give themselves a chance to just shut up and try in out, instead they were too busy falling all over themselves to tell the designer "what they did wrong" instead of just enjoying the fact that someone did take the time to try and design something for our hobby.

And before you go and tell me that I couldn't possibly have any idea what I'm talking about...I have been in this hobby since the days when CFS1 was going strong on the zone. I have developed and released numerous Freeware sceneries for CFS1, CFS2, FS2002, and FS9. I have founded and ran a virtual Squadron in CFS1 and a VA in FS2002 and FS9. I designed the base scenery for the flight club that I currently belong to, designed scenery for the club that I was in before that. I have repainted numerous planes, mostly Fleet Liveries for the clubs, VA's, and Squadrons I was in. I have designed and released from scratch 3 aircraft. I currently make FSX Missions and Races, and am the Fleet Director for the club I'm in. So I do have a pretty good idea what I'm talking about.


Would I release to the general public any of the designs that I am currently working on?
Hell no, not with the poisonous atmosphere of "It better be perfect or it's not worth having" that has replaced the sense of community that the flight sim hobby used to have. Now it's Payware Perfect, or nothing.

I'm sure this will get locked or deleted quickly. So what. I've had all I can take of sitting here and reading all the bashing that goes on, day after day. Just be grateful that you still have designers willing to develop and release new things for you. Relax, sit back and just fly. If you're not so busy looking for things that are wrong, you might even find that you accidently enjoy it.

Joe Spencer
Astoroth

[Roger]

Thanks Joe,
The poisonous atmosphere will go I can assure you.

[Stratobat]

I'm not entirely convinced that developer bashing can be labeled as the sole cause of the issue, Roger.

Regards,
Stratobat

[Roger]

I'm not entirely convinced that developer bashing can be labeled as the sole cause of the issue, Roger.

Regards,
Stratobat

No forum can be perfect because none of us posting are perfect but we believe it's a good start.

[Lewis-A2A]

To be honest I actually believe its the complete reverse. SOH has got so far the opposite that having no 'bashing' or constructive criticism makes this just a forum of people saying how good everything is. And if everyone is just saying that then what is the purpose of the place? Certainly if I personally want a honest opinion on products, SOH isnt up there on my list, and with this new rule I can only see it slipping either further.

It certainly serves no purpose for payware developers other than to advertise and thats just silly and rude?.

For me personally, looking back at Huubs recent comments in the Spitfire thread, they were brilliant for us. We were able to take things away from his perception of whats happening and I like to think Huub was able to take something away from our response. Sure it can get heated at times but the idea to ban out right is silly and makes me posting here rather un-comfortable as you have in effect for the payware developers turned this into nothing more than an advertising venue, and since no one is obliged to pay anything (though I know many of us do donate) I must question the moral ground when posting on behalf of the company re: new products, updates etc.

I would warn the staff here not to be too heavy handed and de-value the forum.

[bstolle]

I fully agree with Lewis.
But as with the new A2A Spitfires wrong yaw/roll interaction I also think it's more appropriate to post that in the A2A forum.
Problem is who decides when it is constructive criticism or just bashing?
Turning SOH into a fanboy platform is definitely not the way to go.
SOH is an exceptional mature forum where most people know what they are doing.
Restricting these guys is plain and simple wrong.
As was the idea to make an inital post about this and immediately locking the thread!!!!

[Cazzie]

Well, there is still Piglet and Milton and Co.. And those Polish and Czech lads do some awesome freeware work.

I think one thing is, developers are running out of aircraft of interest. Piglet is peculiar, he is always going to come up with something of interest, fact or fiction! :>)

I kind of got burned out on World War II subjects during my plastic model days. In simming, I only get what I want. But there was never enough Golden Age GA aviation aircraft to whet my whistle in plastic, simming solved that.

I am not a jet person, period.

But now World War I, you want to throw me back in my brier parch, there you go. I am seriously thinking of returning to plastic, because the injection industry has so many interesting and very good WW I kits out now. The sim industry whetted for awhile, but the interest in WW I subjects for FSX just is not there.

But I can see Lewis's POV, so he'll get no blast from me.

Caz

[expat]

Interesting.

Are we talking only about unreasonable, unfair OTT developer bashing? Or are we saying anything negative no matter how slight? There isn't a black and white difference, it is more a matter of degree and subtle shades of grey. When, for example, a new payware plane arises more often than not they are never perfect in every respect without anyone - the author or owners - offering any further mods. If someone says "I just bought X and can't get the engines started" or "there may be a texture missing," if said politely, is that not allowed, i.e. even if probably only offensive to the most sensitive developer? If there is a consensus formed and that leads to a "request for a patch", perhaps raising the heat (in my view mildly, but maybe not in others') is that where we want to draw the line?

I don't disagree people sometimes go way too far, are unecessarily harsh or unfair, that this could be driving developers away and that on balance that is not in the interests of the SOH and people should use better judgement. Problem is, people differ greatly in their level of self awareness and exercise of sound judgement, as to whether their own interest in free expression and importance of their opinion should or should not take priority over the wider interests of the SOH community or the feelings of someone who has invested time and effort in creating something for our enjoyment.

Maybe we should add a rating/award (3 gold stars) system for members' "use of good manners"?

[flaviossa]

Mr. Lewis is completely right in my opinion. :salute:
If it´s do in a civil way, good or bad feedbacks is part of this business. The "pos-selling" interaction - i don´t know if this word exists in english - is as fundamental as the purchase process itself.

[SpaceWeevil]

In the recent payware thread that (presumably) triggered this, it's fair to say that the dev did most of the bashing! That apart (and I didn't join in..) what I have seen, mostly, is good, robust dialogue between customers and responsive developers. In a couple of notable cases it helped the dev to make the finished product amazing instead of just good.

No-one could argue the rule about posting problems and complaints on the dev's site first. Likewise the need to phrase any criticisms constructively - the first is common sense and the second is plain good manners. For the rest, I'll just observe that there is already far less spirited debate here than a year or so back.

It's clear that the public face of one of the major payware devs doesn't much like the idea of stifling critical comment. Of course, Lewis represents a developer that doesn't get 'bashed' very often. I wonder why that is, by the way?

[Roger]

Expat,
"Good Manners" sums up what we want and frankly some of the criticism I've seen has not been well mannered and that is the problem.
So it will be somewhat subjective but I honestly believe that most people know where to draw the line. Those that don't may have a problem.
Positive criticism is still encouraged.
Lewis the place for the sort of criticism you want is of course your own forum...that is where it belongs.

[Francois]

Personally I think there are just that many LESS (freeware) developers for FSX than there were for previous versions. Period.

Except for a very limited number of known vinegar pee-ers that you'll find on any forum, I have never felt that our developers were bashed more than average here on SOH, or 'there' on Avsim.

As long as our customers also know to find our dedicated support forums, there is nothing wrong with them trying to help us iron out any errors..... nor with hearing OUR reasoning why we sometimes can't.

And frankly, EVERY forum in the industry has its 'fanboys'. SOH or our own support forums are no different in that respect.

I wouldn't worry too much.

[PRB]

There are two issues that shouldn’t get mixed together and jumbled into one.
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If something is wrong, we should be able to talk about it, with respect, here. There was a payware Grumman fighter released for FS9 some years ago, and it was seriously miss-shaped around the canopy. It didn’t take long for somebody to point it out, and not in an impolite or bashing sort of way. There ensued a very heated discussion during which this person was told that not only was he mean to bring it up, but he also didn’t know what he was talking about. Well, he wasn’t wrong (that’s a true statement) and he wasn’t mean (that’s an opinion), and I always thought he was treated unfairly. In my opinion, we should be able to talk about the shape of wings and tail surfaces without being labeled as “rivet counters”, which is a mechanism for intimidation and stifling of debate. But at some point even this can turn into simple bashing. Pointing it out and discussing is one thing. Bringing it up 50 times, along with witty commentary, and it starts to diverge from constructive criticism into something less civil. The endless comments about the recently released Sunderland seaplane comes to mind. Exactly when this line has been crossed is a judgment call and we won’t all agree.
<o></o>
The other problem we seem to be having here is people running around saying things like “it’s a true statement that developer X must not begin work on a new plane before the old one that I bought has been ‘fixed’ to my satisfaction.” These are opinions, of course, and not “true statements.” The inability to distinguish one from the other, I believe, is a contributing factor to the dysfunction we are experiencing. The fact that a developer came here to proudly announce a new product, and among the first comments received is “dude, go back and fix the last one before coming around here with new stuff” is what gets me spun up…

[Prowler1111]

What Lewis said...and let me add, that one of the purposes of getting exposure here for coming products, is looking for public opinion on the product itself..criticism is exactly what we are looking for, either bad or good, reasonable or unreasonable, we are here to LISTEN what potential and current customers need to say.It can´t all be strawberries and cream, one member bashing a developer is a personal agenda, more than 3 members pointing out the same issue means there is something to be fixed...leaving means you need a personality check, pronto..IMHO.

Best regards
Prowler

[ManuelL]

Hmmm, looking at this from the perspective of a customer, not a developer:

As a plain user I am seeing every freeware addon (regardless of quality) as a gift that enriches the flight sim experience. I therefore think that every freeware developer should be treated with respect. However, I still believe that even to a freeware developer objective criticism can be very helpful. We just should all keep in mind to keep the focus on the addon itself and not turn towards the developer. Often simply starting a post with "In my opinion..." instead of "You have..." can do the trick.

Now, when it comes to payware development, I am seeing things slightly different. As a customer I am aware that most payware developers will not get very rich doing there job and still a lot of idealistic enthusiasm is involved. However, when I spend my hard earned money on an addon, I want to know what I will get. Before buying any payware addon I usually spend some time looking through reviews and comments on various community forums, trying to get a clear picture about what I can expect.

Doing all this reading, I often find almost only positive comments about products. In reviews all across the community addons are only very rarely rated lower than 80 out of 100 (4 out of 5) and you really have to read between the lines to find some information about the weeknesses of any product. Of course this reflects that many payware developers are doing a very good job nowadays (or else they already had to close their business). However, as a paying customer I would often find a little more objective criticism very helpful. And being someone, who will rather not buy something, unless I find some helpful information, I think this might also be beneficial for the developers.

Another thing we should keep in mind is that many people writing in this forum (including myself) are not English native speakers. Depending on where someone is living, the perception of what is friendly and what is not can be very different. Any post by intended as objective criticism by someone can (and often will) be perceived as rude by someone else. The problem often starts, when a third person not even intended by the post feels obliged to protect the developer and posts a snide response to the original message.

In my opinion we should all try to be a bit more relaxed about how people are writing and try to assume that a post might just be worded clumsily and not intended to be rude. And even if it is obviously rude, just give it some thought if we know flyerboy123 (I hope there is no one using this name) sitting on the other half of the globe and if we realy care what he might think about us. Then we can still see if we might be able to pull some useful information from his post.

I have the impression that there is only a very minute group within the community who is intentionally rude. It might be best just to ignore them. And any addon developer, who gets 20 positive and 2 insulting comments has still made 20 people happy.

[Roger]

What Lewis said...and let me add, that one of the purposes of getting exposure here for coming products, is looking for public opinion on the product itself..criticism is exactly what we are looking for, either bad or good, reasonable or unreasonable, we are here to LISTEN what potential and current customers need to say.It can´t all be strawberries and cream, one member bashing a developer is a personal agenda, more than 3 members pointing out the same issue means there is something to be fixed...leaving means you need a personality check, pronto..IMHO.

Best regards
Prowler

That's simple Ron,
Just ask for criticism in your thread. As long as it doesn't turn nasty then there will be no problem.

[Lewis-A2A]

Lewis the place for the sort of criticism you want is of course your own forum...that is where it belongs.

The issue is I personally believe you are fundementally wrong here. If you take it away from a place like SOH then you end up with a yes man forum. A forum that holds little value as all addons freeware or payware are then 'good' or 'amazing' or 'you gotta get this!'... maybe a great place to get the latest news on whats coming and been released, but hardly a place to come to see what one might consider worth, coming and being released.

Users should be able to criticise the good and bad points, if a few products are pointed out as being good across the board but have good and bad points it is fair, and right, that the points can be further explained by the users of a real community.

Public opinion and getting the feeling for how a product might be recieved is important and having a bunch of people who are bound to only say 'YES its good', immediatly takes SOH of my list of places to visit for any gauging of what customers might want, think or change about our products. Criticism is a part of life, and I do not want developers that cannot take criticism or take the odd comment the wrong way (To be honest we all do it!) to be spioling it for the vast majority of us who daily rely on it, just as I believe you do not want those that simply comment 'ITS CRAP! end off!' to spoil it too much for those can that give good constructive criticisms and place there feelings into a good textual form.

The real Issue, as has been mentioned, is the language barrier, and I think this coupled with the impersonal nature of the net does mean wires get crossed. However a crusade on rules and regs will not serve to correct this, it is the nature of this wonderful technology we use everyday.

[Lewis-A2A]

That's simple Ron,
Just ask for criticism in your thread. As long as it doesn't turn nasty then there will be no problem.

I see, I think I might have misunderstood the orginal post, see quite easy hehe. Sorry for any hassle caused Roger, I have a tendancy to grab the sloppy end of the stick before I realise its not the handle. :ernae:

However I would still be careful how far down the rules route you go before the members get as annoyed as whatever has transpired, as ive no idea what set this off. I should point out I was SOH member long before I joined A2A, and consider myself a part of the community outside of the work stuff.

[Roger]

Well Lewis you are quite free to disagree but what we will achieve is a forum that developers who have left will return and hopefully more developers will join.
I fail to see your real issue here. If you ask for comments and criticism in your thread then as I explained to Ron as long as it doesn't get nasty there will be no problems.
So please run your forum as you see fit as will we at the SOH.

[Roger]

Ok Lewis you answered my post before I typed it:costum:.

We will see how it all works out and of course it will be tweaked and judgements will be made but it will become a more pleasant place for all to enjoy.

[Lewis-A2A]

No problem, I have a feeling whatever really started this I must have missed out on. So ill levae it at that

[mal998]

I'll tell you what set it off. Someone posted some development shots of a proposed aircraft and that thread, instead of being used to discuss the upcoming model was used to comment on a second developer, and then on a patch that has yet to be completed by the first developer. Well needless to say the thread got pretty convoluted from where it began and I responded.

Trouble is, I responded emotionally, and I was wrong to do that.
I want to apologize to all concerned because after re-reading my posts I think I was a bit harsh and maybe even out of line. I had no intention and still don't of opening up a major discussion on how to treat developers or a debate about criticism in general. As a member here I do not feel that it is my place to tell others what is right or wrong. But that is what I did.

Again, please accept my apologies for creating a bit of a controversy where there did not need to be one. I will be more discerning in the future.

mal

[Roger]

Mal,
It was the combination of quite a few threads and a number of pms that decided us to take a little preemptive action, so don't feel bad.

[mal998]

Thank you Sir!

[Roger]

Well I think it's time to close this as nothing much can be added until a few weeks have passed. If as time goes by anyone feels we're being too restrictive than by all means pm me.

Cheers,

Roger.