How to Improve the Discussion

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To make a great product, feedback (both positive and negative) from the player community is necessary and encouraged. However, we often see posts that are either too vague or could more accurately be described as “non-constructive” or “complaining” rather than “constructive criticism”. To make sure your concerns are heard by the devs, we encourage everyone to be constructive when posting negative feedback about Microsoft Flight Simulator.

Non-Constructive

:x: “The clouds in Live Weather look like garbage!”

:white_check_mark: “The clouds in Live Weather are too dark and are only displayed as cumuliform-type. Clouds should be brighter and should also include cirrus and stratus types to better match reality.”

The first example consists of vague, non-specific complaining. This is not useful feedback for the developers to take action on. The second example is specific and provides useful, constructive criticism that the developers can address. When posting any negative criticism of Microsoft Flight Simulator, please do your best to keep toxicity out of your posts and add value to the forums.

Being Intentionally Disruptive

:x: In a thread about someone having issues with their installation on Xbox, coming in and saying, “I’m on PC and everything works fine.”

There is clearly no well-intentioned message here, as it is not related to the problem the original poster presented, and it comes across poorly.

:white_check_mark: In a thread about someone having issues with their installation on Xbox, coming in and saying, “I don’t have this problem, as I am on PC, but have you tried power cycling your Xbox first to see if that solves the problem?”

Derailing Threads

:x: In a thread about someone complimenting Asobo for a certain feature, coming in and saying, “I completely disagree. feature sucks, and I can’t believe you posted this.”

Many threads have a constructive negative or positive tone when created. Please keep this in mind if you would like to share your experience. Do not belittle, derail, or take over the thread with your personal agenda.

:white_check_mark: In a thread about someone complimenting Asobo for a certain feature, coming in and saying, “Thanks for sharing your perspective. I have a very different experience with this feature and did not enjoy using it. I’ll create my own thread if there isn’t one already about how I think this feature should be improved.”

Creating Threads just to promote other threads

:x: “The AN-2 is broken” - And within the thread, a link to a second bug report with your issue.

This is unnecessary; just the bug report thread is needed. Multiple threads promoting the same issue will bloat the forums and confuse new users looking to find specific topics.

Creating posts or threads intended to cause unrest in the forums

:x: “I’m sick of this game and quitting! Who else is with me?”

This kind of thread is usually not only non-constructive, but harmful to health of a community. If your goal is to get attention on a particular issue, please do so with respect and curtesy.

Bumping Threads

:x: “Bump. Don’t forget about this topic.”

Ultimately unnecessary. If you do want to constructively raise awareness that a topic hasn’t been tagged or looked at, then:

:white_check_mark: “On version x.xx.xx.xx, I can confirm this issue is still occurring.” Add any additional details.

Discussions that deviate from Microsoft Flight Simulator

We know that within the context of conversations, sometimes it can fall out of the scope of MSFS. If this happens, please bring it back to the point of MSFS and avoid lingering on the subject.

:x: “Speaking of that bridge being underwater in the sim, I remember a time I was driving over that exact bridge in real life and it was completely flooded…” [delves into 10 back and forth posts about floods and driving]

:white_check_mark: “Speaking of that bridge being underwater in the sim, I remember a time I was driving and that exact bridge was completely flooded…[moves on] but yes, I do hope they are able to fix that bridge in MSFS in the future!”

Off-topic posts

This covers posts that go completely off-topic in the thread, even if it’s MSFS-related. Some deviation from the original post is to be expected in some discussions, but if there is a clear shift in the tone and conversation, there is a chance your post will be flagged as off-topic and removed. Please do your best to stick to the original poster’s topic.

:x: OP’s topic: Windsocks are completely wrong at this airport. Your comment: “I use the G1000 to see what direction the wind is blowing in, so who cares about the windsock? What are your favorite functions of the G1000?”

This type of post is derailing, not about the original issue, and doesn’t help fix the problem the OP was presenting.

Posting memes that break any of the other rules address in this Code of Conduct

We all love memes and gifs. Please use them appropriately.

Discussion in Bug Reports

The Bug Reports section is for those reporting reproducible issues in the sim. If you see an issue in this section that you are also able to reproduce, please feel free to vote on the topic and add relevant information on the subject. If you are more interested in discussing the issue with fellow simmers, we encourage you to create a new topic in General Discussion in order to keep clutter out of official bug reports.

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