An Open Letter to Curt Olson

[N3266G]

And round one goes to -------------------->JWOCKY!

Next up, Round two!

FIGHT!

[SHM]

Haha

[bomber]

No offence, but I met gays in my life who had a lot more balls than this coward ...

I wonder if this is what they mean by FGMEMBERS spreading misinformation?

Hahah

[SkyBoat]

I give credit to my wife who found this article by Seth Godin, a prolific and internationally known author and blogger on issues of social change. This particular post is very relevant to what we are observing is happening in the leadership of Flightgear and why they have been so resisitant to new ideas and new people into their inner circle. It also validates what I have been contending in my posts about the change they are refusing to face.

SkyBoat

Closing the gate

By Seth Godin

Sooner or later, tribes begin to exclude interested but unaffiliated newcomers.

It happens to religious sects, to surfers and to online communities as well. Nascent groups with open arms become mature groups too set in their ways to evangelize and grow their membership, too stuck to engage, change and thrive.

So much easier to turn someone away than it is to patiently engage with them, the way you were welcomed when you were in their shoes.

There are two reasons for this:

1. It's tiresome and boring to keep breaking in newbies. Eternal September, the never-ending stream of repetitive questions and mistakes can wear out even the most committed host. Your IT person wasn't born grouchy--it just happens.
2. It's threatening to the existing power structure. New voices want new procedures and fresh leadership.

Read more...

Seth Godin is an internationally renown blogger on the dynamics of social change: http://sethgodin.typepad.com/

Eternal September

From Wikipedia:

Eternal September or the September that never ended[1] is Usenet slang for a period beginning in September 1993,[2] the month that Internet service provider America Online began offering Usenet access to its many users, overwhelming the existing culture for online forums.

Before then, Usenet was largely restricted to colleges and universities. Every September, a large number of incoming freshmen would acquire access to Usenet for the first time, taking time to become accustomed to Usenet's standards of conduct and "netiquette". After a month or so, these new users would either learn to comply with the networks' social norms or tire of using the service.

Whereas the regular September freshman influx would quickly settle down, the influx of new users from AOL did not end, and Usenet's existing culture did not have the capacity to integrate the sheer number of new users following September 1993.[3] Since then, the popularity of the Internet has brought on a constant stream of new users and thus, from the point of view of the pre-1993 Usenet users, the influx of new users in September 1993 never ended.

The term may have first been used by Dave Fischer in a January 26, 1994, post to alt.folklore.computers: "It's moot now. September 1993 will go down in net.history as the September that never ended."[4]

[bomber]

https://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/ukhockey/info

I lived through it and the demise of the usernet ukh mailing list to resurrect it.... but even friends died with advent of Internet forums... you just have to accept change.

[legoboyvdlp]

Normal teens Must be responsible. Teen years are very valuable for you to acquire not only lots of knowledge but also a code of conduct and behavior. If you just acquire the former, then you grow up to be a Bugman.

Well now, that is correct. If one doesn't do so, one ends up being a 'bad egg' to quote my mother.
If you acquire a code of behavior (language is important, Jim and Oscar), then it will undoubtedly help.

[SkyBoat]

Fascinating!

All this week not once has a member of the other forum had the fortitude to stand and defend the bullying tactics of their moderators. Because, you see, to come out of the shadows and make a statement would open themselves up to criticism, and that is the one thing they cannot bear to face front-on.

Hmm. Only, it's not working. The longer they are silent, the more they hurt their own case.

You see, Curt could have sent me a brand new email and opened a whole new line of dialog, which, if he had presented it respectfully, I would have responded in kind. You all are aware that I honored his request not to publish his first two email replies to me, and I continue to hold to that. So, there is no way he can accuse me of having sold him out. Instead there has only been silence. Deafening silence. There are hints, however, that there has been some attempt to do damage control from the bannings last weekend. Of course, none of this was allowed to be printed because, nothing negative is allowed to be printed in or from the Land of the Bully's Forum.

What this comes down to is classic behavior how bullys try to control their victims. Only problem is, here at Free Flight, we're not big on playing the victim.

[KL-666]

Here we go again. Someone new (have not seen him before) makes a perfectly reasonable post, and immediately bully Thorsten jumps him, calling him a fool. I do not understand that anyone in their sane mind would want to be part of such a club.

Kind regards, Vincent

Re: Mumble trolling

Postby lastmin-II » Sun May 01, 2016 8:09 pm

Hello Hooray

Hooray wrote in Mon Apr 25, 2016 5:57 pm:
you know, there's the impression that the multiplayer environment is attracting the kind of people that are causing tons of work, and headaches, without these people contributing in any meaningful/visible way other than causing havoc

I'm not sure if you're generalizing or not, but I guess that the multiplayer environment mainly attracts people wanting to share their passion for flight, i.e. using FlightGear for what it is supposed to be: a Flight Simulator. Of course you will also have some clowns and trolls, but if every platform allowing users and contributors to interact was shut down just because of trolls, then the Internet would be a desert.

If I am allowed to share my little experience here, I've made some contributions to an aircraft, the Tupolev 134, that was lacking several instruments, including an IFR set. I got to know that aircraft thanks to a leg of the multiplayer USA Tour, which motivated me to learn something about aircraft modeling and eventually to share my contribution, which was included in the FGMembers third-party repository. Most importantly, I could fly the entire leg nicely with the IFR-modified model. Israel, the Tour organizer, promptly encouraged me to send my changes to Elijah, the creator and upstream maintainer of the Tupolev, who gave me his own feedback and in turn encouraged me to fix a few more details and to send him my final work for upstream inclusion. Unfortunately I haven't done this yet, as I've been busy lately, but I will. Just one example of how a multiplayer environment can encourage potential contributions.

I suspect that there's more than just Mumble trolling being discussed here, hence please allow me to go slightly off-topic. For instance, I don't know exactly what happened between you, i.e. the "core" developers, and the FGMembers contributors, but in my humble opinion a constructive collaboration would definitely be possible, and even highly desirable, as the FlightGear project could potentially take great advantage of it. Treating potential contributors as if they were "concurrents" is not the best approach in my opinion, even if some of you don't like each other personally. Look, if every modified aircraft in the FGMembers repository had its own maintainer, who kept in touch with the upstream author and official maintainer, then I guess that it would be possible to collaborate constructively, keeping technical, quality and licensing issues under control, while improving the project and attracting new interested people. The multiplayer environment is what allows successful events like the USA Tour to be organized, which in turn can attract (and it does) new contributors.

Regarding FGMembers, the project is out there, and I see that people are contributing a lot, hence I believe that it doesn't make sense to irrationally treat them as a menace, even if you don't like the outspokenness of some of its members. You know, the more you fight and censor them, the more you fuel the controversy, leaving users like me just wondering why a collaboration is not supposed to be possible. There are bright guys there, so why waste their skills and strong motivation? When I learned about the existence of the USA Tour, for instance, I thought, "Wow, this is a great way to promote FlightGear while encouraging people to contribute", and I really felt encouraged. This was my thought as a user, and I was surprised when I learned that the Tour was an unofficial project: I thought that Israel was doing a really good job, which would have deserved to be officially supported. However, you bailed and "censored" them away, and I'm not sure it was a wise idea. I suggest that FGMembers be less vocal on some issues, and that the official FlightGear crew takes their potential contribution seriously, while accepting them back in this forum.

Hooray wrote in Mon Apr 25, 2016 5:57 pm:
some have suggested, behind the scenes, to just pull the plug and get rid of many problems in the process.

Are you talking seriously? You would definitely "get rid" of a very large section of FlightGear's user base in the process. Honestly, I would not understand such a blind reaction.

Hooray wrote in Mon Apr 25, 2016 5:57 pm:
I bet the FlightGear forum would be a very calm place should someone roll out a release with the multiplayer feature disabled/ripped out entirely ...

Again, it seems that you're involved in some kind of unpleasant interpersonal issues, and for this reason I suggest that you think twice before you, as well as the FlightGear crew, make important technical decisions based on that.

Kind regards
LM

Re: Mumble trolling

Postby Thorsten » Mon May 02, 2016 5:02 am

Regarding FGMembers, the project is out there, and I see that people are contributing a lot, hence I believe that it doesn't make sense to irrationally treat them as a menace, even if you don't like the outspokenness of some of its members.

Ah, if someone uses phrases like 'slaughter it', 'torpedo them' with regard to your work, spices it up with personal insults (sometimes with sexual connotations I've heard), has a history of copyright violations on their repository and gives wrong legal advice to newcomers, then it's of course entirely irrational to not collaborate with these people.

Maybe you get your facts straight before taking a stand - makes you look foolish.

People can collaborate if everyone plays by the rules, respects copyright, respects decisions taken by the community. If you want to do your own thing all the time and are unable to respect the law or the rest of the community, you can do your own thing elsewhere.

[KL-666]

Just saw a perfectly reasonable response to bully Thorsten by Bomber. I hope he holds a copy as evidence in case they moderate it away.

Kind regards, Vincent

[bomber]

Well the community didn't make any decision just a select few..... and as hooray writes it about the MP server "behind the scenes"

Thorsten over the years you've treated people badly, with an arrogance that beggars belief.

Collaboration is about mutual respect but from the get go you show none and have no patience with new comers.... you stated the problems we have between us was instigated because of my belief that in a closed combat multiplayer environment that T4T would be looking to create mouse control of a plane would be removed...

That was my third or so post on joining this forum.

My opinion on that still stands and for the same reason as back then, and in the MP server we've seen examples of why.

On a multi player server you have a level of responsibility for other people's enjoyment, failing to play by a set of rules like obeying ATC instructions or having the equipment (such as a joystick) that makes you competitive as a combat pilot has a direct impact on your fellow pilots enjoyment.

It's as simple as that.

But you're so arrogant and obstructive to any others ideas that you work tirelessly to deface any other approach to a problem other than the one you suggest..

As young design engineers guys with your attitude don't last long. Listening to others opinion and understanding that there's many ways to skin a cat is paramount to having an harmonious and productive design team.

Other people having opinions different to yours are not threats to Flightgear... Other people having a different understanding of legal matters are not a threat. Other people being wrong about something shouldn't have this error thrown back at their face at every future disagreement we have..used as ammunition to discredit their present opinion.

I try regularly to forget about the past, to take each post and review each post / opinion on its content, but you... You're just a wrecking ball of puss and hate that smashes every attempt to build anything that's not to your liking.

I can't respect that approach.