Op-Ed Is Becoming Pointless

[DairyCreamer]

The Op Ed Pieces on Flightsim.com are becoming an absolutely pointless and stupid venture. They have degraded from a high-potential, opinion-worthy posting service to nothing more than a general forum for which people bat around arguments for this and that, in view of even more of the general website public.

Op Ed needs to be controlled moreso than it is now.

It should be restricted to higher-quality material than someone writing a page worth of text about how he doesn't care about realism and rules as much as others when he flies.

More informative than an extended, and increasingly personal discussion over the merits and flaws of VA's.

More flight-sim related than youngsters explicitly pointing out that they are young and defending their age, and for what purpose?

These discussions are as interesting as the libel published by The National Enquirer, or the slander put out by less than savory TV Shows. It may attract a little crowd, but it does our community no good to witness and read these pointless and personal articles.


So many of the posts on Op Ed, in an overall sense, are the sorts of things that should normally be discussed in a forum along the lines of The Outer Marker here. You have specific rooms set up for people to discuss a majority of the topics that come up on Op Ed. Flight Sim 2000, 2002, 98 discussions? There's 3 forums right there already posted and available to use. General Aviation, Military Aviation, and Commercial Aviation forums are available as well. Air Traffic Control is a topic too. The list goes on.

Op Ed Discussions about the merits of Flight Simming, and the real aviation community are wonderful. There are many other types of relevant, interesting, and forward moving Op Ed pieces that are GREAT to see on Op Ed. However, there are many that are not worthy of this community, at least not so much that they should be placed on the front page of this great website.

Opinions are opinions, and though everyone is allowed to have them without fail, the general banter should not appear in quite the context that Op Ed originally developed as.

Op Ed would be a great spot for more prestigious names of the Flight Sim community to voice their words. Not to say the general public cannot as well; however, only things of significant development, or quality opinions of true merit and sustinance for the Flight Simulation world should be on this section you call Op Ed here at Flightsim.com.

~Nate Johns

[DairyCreamer]

Bump...

[CXG101]

While I do agree with you on several of your points, I must also disagree.

I have been a avid reader of flightsim.com's main news menu for quite some time. I even am registered here so I can vote in screenshot competitions. And I have too, noticed a change in the way Op-Ed's are being handled.

It seems to me a great deal of the number of Op-Ed's recently, excluding the ones about terrorists and the associated attacks and represcussions, are about VA's. VA's suck. VA rules. VA sucks. VA rules. VA this. VA that. VA YOU! Same to you buddy! My question: Who cares?

If Bob the Flight Sim Pilot wants to zip around and proclaim to be a Hub Captain for BoobyAirlines, more power to them! I'm a member of a online flight club that does a tremendous ammount of bush flying along the Alaska/Canadian/US border. Does it make me a dweeb? Possibly.

Perhaps this is the way flightsim.com's editor's want this site to go. It's their site. No one forces us to come here.

[greggerm]

While I agree with CXG that the site and editorials are going to be run the way the webmasters see fit, I do agree with the original post.

I guess I have come to expect the people running the show to use the editorial sections for occasional comment, storytelling, or other "special" occasions.

It almost appears that its moved from an "Editorial" column to a "Letters to the Editor" column - which is what these forums are for.

I would like to see more big-name commentary there. We can butt heads with each other all we want out here, but we don't get the chance to pick on them all that often!

-Greg

[DairyCreamer]

Forgive me if I dont quite see where you disagree with my points :)

I too have read Flightsim.com stuff for the last couple years at least, I'm registered, and have done plenty of downloading and voting :) I understand that Op Ed is something the editors of this site wanted to create to provide a nice public forum for which people to express their opinions about the VA world and otherwise.

What I wonder is where the distinction between Op Ed's and Newsgroup Postings is. Of course besides the issue of where they are located.

~Nate

[pipeline109]

When I first started to go to flightsim.com, OpDd was all i read. i loved reading about peoples experience and their thoughts on innovation and tradition. starting about two months ago, some simmers wrote about the euphoria and the effemate side of the hobby, then someone in a bad mood wrote about VA's, and fanatics fired of one after another pointless 'VA's: a bloody wast of time part XXVII' crap. trudging through that, there wers some issues about realism, then finally, absolute crap about why not to fly. now OpEd is all I don't read.
Gallina Obscura
Humanity's (barely) legal alien

[tjkotula]

Ahem.........

Just a few quick points:

"It should be restricted to higher-quality material than someone writing a page worth of text about how he doesn't care about realism and rules as much as others when he flies."

Seeing as I am the author of that Op-Ed about not caring about realism and rules, I wish to respond. As the tone of my Op-Ed implied, I was rather ticked off about people who emailed me with their comments, concerns, and technical 'stuff'. I like to mess around on MSFS. As I stated, that's the beauty of it being a simulation. Sure, I make a serious flight a couple of times month or so, but the rest of the time, I'm out there buzzing the beaches of Miami at 100 ft. off the ground or circling buildings and flying low in downtown Chicago. I am entitled to my opinion which is why, as long as there is nothing obscene or potentially offensive in it, Nels agrees to posting it. Just to let you know, I recieved about 50 emails in my box this afternoon as a result of that Op-Ed. Just goes to show that people are interested and do care.

"More flight-sim related than youngsters explicitly pointing out that they are young and defending their age, and for what purpose?"

I would like to point out that certain "adults" thought they were superior to those kids and they were simply defending their abilities to start a VA or write an Op-Ed or aircraft review. Just because they are young doesn't mean that they don't know a thing or two about aviation and flight simulation. As a matter a fact, those kids were more mature than some "adults" that I know.

"More informative than an extended, and increasingly personal discussion over the merits and flaws of VA's."

Here's where I have to agree with you. To me, there's nothing worse than bringing up Flightsim.com's home page on a great afternoon, only to find that someone has posted "VA's A Bloody Waste of Time Part MMMLLCCCXXXII." I don't even bother to read these postings anymore. Don't get me wrong people, I'm all for VA's and own one myself, but there's no point to arguing about it. If you don't like them, you don't like them. If you love them you love them. Arguing about it just gives VA's an even worse image.

Tim Kotula

[argueman]

Umm, if you don't like the topic, then what's stopping you from not reading them??

Argueman

[alastairmonk]

Time ! I already spend at least an hour a day reading and contributing to the Forums, and at some point you have to say "enough" and chose to ignore certain threads. What with numerous "real life" concerns and, dare I say it, actually getting round to doing some flying, time is too short to devote to certain issues that have already been talked to death. It just comes down to choice.

http://www.flightsim.com/dcforum/Use...d85138992a.jpg

[Simon Evans]

The Op-Ed is clearly flagged as such. No-one is forced to read them.

The perpetuation of posts both here and in other forums hosted by this site proves that they ARE a valid source of debate and information. The mere existence of this thread shows that the Op-Ed still has place in the Flightsim scheme of things.

The day no-one reads `em, no-one disagrees with `em, and nobody even bothers to comment on `em, well, THAT'S the day they need to be reconsidered. Then they've become a complete waste of time and bandwidth.

However, I do agree that a little judicious editing of topics and choice of authors would probably not go amiss. `VA - A waste of time? Part 53` doesn't actually promote the debate any more than Parts 1-52 ever did, so why not call it a day and look for some new topics?

Fortunately, with FS2002 just around the corner, there should be a whole new discussion base for us to disagree over.


Simon Evans