Interesting thread.
I find Sim-Outhouse contributors to be generally knowledgable and on the whole extremely polite, even when they are raising genuine issues or faults. I think that's very encouraging and over the years Sim-Outhouse has I think built a reputation for lively discussion and fair minded posts.
There are always just a few gratuitously awkward posters on any site (and there is one here whom I've never replied to and don't intend to) who seem to relish not only hijacking some threads, twisting them, then making a bold and negative general statement which was not the subject of discussion, but do so regularly and with an unpleasant arrogance. They are easy to spot
But they are a rarity.
Forum posts are now in an accumulating way arguable more powerful than reviews, which some websites now have compromised due to a commercial interest in products they both sell and review, and this can and has diminished the integrity of the reviews they offer, but many others manage to separate commercial interests from editorial independence.
That power places a responsibility on posts to be fair and balanced, but even more important, to be in proportion to the flaw or fault reported. Some posts I've seen on other sites refer to a tiny flaw in a given addon with such ferocity that the impression is given of this being a disaster for the entire product. That is very rarely true.
Others often post something like: "XXXX addon does not work!!". What they mean is that a certain aspect of it doesn't work ON THEIR SYSTEM. It is also often likely they might not have read the manual or documents, or have OTHER software which is conflicting (for example many traffic programmes disable other already installed traffic), or have tweaked FS9 or FSX to death and in the process have ruined any chance of some addons working properly.
Another example is when a product is slammed for a "bug" which is in fact not a developer bug at all but a major flaw in the core of FSX, of which there are so many it would take a day to list them. This is of course grossly unfair and it is perhaps a little known fact that many developers (particularly of aircraft) spend a very large portion of development time working around, avoiding or troubleshooting basic flaws in FSX itself. The fact that one developer finds a circuitous route successfully around these flaws is not necessarily something another less successful attempt should deserve criticism for.
But these are rare cases here and in the main I find most at SO very fair minded, independent thinking and genuinely appreciative where they see that an developer has gone the extra mile to accomodate their customers.
I think there is a good natured spirit of civilised banter here also - which makes for a stimulating and enjoyable site to be on, and that is down to the people that run it, and the moderators here who I think do a superb job.
Rob Young - RealAir Simulations
