Re: The endless influx of low-quality, low-realism, quantity-over-quality aircraft into FGAddon

Thanks, Dave
I didn't really take it that way. I should have said "in", not "to".
I do understand where you're coming from.
If the problem being discussed wasn't sticky, we wouldn't be going round
and round.
Best Regards, Frank

On Mon, May 25, 2026 at 8:23 AM David Hudach <[email protected]> wrote:

> Frank,
>
> The "wooden" box reference was in no way meant to be a criticism or
> disparaging remark. If it came across that way, my sincere apologies.
> Actually, your point was well made that the sim back then was the best
> available at the time to train you. And the goal was to create an
> expectation in you what the real world would be like. They strived for the
> best realism they could at the time. To their credit and yours, you learned
> something. What they built taught you something, it created in you
> an expectation. I think that should still be the case now ... and following
> the developer forum I believe it is the case in terms of developing the
> underlying application. I just think I'm a bit surprised by the willingness
> to let our guard down and relax the standards on the final result - the
> aircraft.
>
> I was merely saying that if realism and continuing improvement didn't
> matter, development would have stopped at some point when the FG "owner"
> said, "well - we're done here, let's shut off the lights and call it a
> day." But the evolution does matter and development does continue. I'm
> suggesting keeping an open awareness of who might use FG and what that
> means in the long term.
>
> Dave
>
> On Mon, May 25, 2026 at 8:27 AM gallonf&z <[email protected]> wrote:
>
>> Hi Dave
>> I think you misunderstand my position.
>> No one wants to return to a wooden box.
>> The MD-11 is an outstanding simulation; but restricting simulations to it
>> and a few others of equal quality, would seem to me to be counter
>> productive.
>> Nevertheless, having broken aircraft that don't get fixed is a real
>> problem.
>> I still think that  the authors or maintainers should be notified; and if
>> there's no response, and the planes don't get fixed in reasonable time,
>> they should be sent somewhere out of the way of a new user. My last
>> suggestion was to relegate them to the FGAddon basement by stripping them
>> of their ratings.
>> {I agree with having the ratings displayed.} An aircraft with 0 ratings
>> would not be characterized as "bad"; it would just be non-rated.
>>
>> Kind Regards, Frank
>>
>> On Mon, May 25, 2026 at 6:47 AM David Hudach <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>>> > "the same way Google or Amazon don’t hide low-rated items"
>>>
>>> Yes, this is because they don't make the products, their job is to show
>>> a list of available items based on the search. They don't have a dog in the
>>> fight, they are neutral (possibly paid to rank some higher). Back to your
>>> pizza analogy and one that aligns more with the current discussion of FG.
>>> You own the pizza shop and one of your cooks wants to sell and uncooked
>>> pizza or one that does not meet the standards of the restaurant. Do you
>>> offer it on the menu? What is the impact to a new customer? It may be hard
>>> to predict. But what is the safest "bet" for the restaurant owner who cares
>>> about future and existing customers and his brand, his product, his pizza
>>> shop.
>>>
>>> I know, it's a bit of a goofy analogy but I think it brings into focus
>>> what we are really talking about here.
>>>
>>> And I will say that much of this discussion relates to an experienced FG
>>> user. I don't think that is the origin of this post. It has to do with the
>>> image of FG with a new user and the impact it has on new users when an
>>> aircraft is broken. As an experienced user it's easy to say, "write the
>>> author" or refine your search criteria and so forth. But to a new user when
>>> something is broken, that user will more than likely associate it with the
>>> app itself. And that's what ends up hurting the name, the brand.
>>>
>>> And back to this:
>>>
>>> >  So what, it is the experienced simmer that we will loose because they
>>> >  fly an aircraft and it doesn't perform as they expect, or it is
>>> missing
>>> >  lots of the panel gauges or switches and knobs. Well if the only way
>>> >  they will stick around is if all aircraft offered in addons is
>>> perfect
>>> >  because they are not interested in getting their hands dirty to
>>> improve
>>> >  a less than perfect aircraft, who cares, I want to the attract the
>>> >  simmer that wants to improve stuff, not the ones that demand
>>> perfection
>>> >  or they are out of here. The entire argument doesn't make sense to me
>>> >  and I don't believe it is even a thing.
>>>
>>> I repeat, we are not talking about perfection, we are talking about
>>> improving realism and not permitting broken aircraft into the app. Lest we
>>> forget the original subject: The endless influx of low-quality,
>>> low-realism, quantity-over-quality aircraft into FGAddon
>>>
>>> >  If that is so hard or complicated that it
>>> >  alone will cause a new user to bail, I submit, who cares! Where is
>>> the
>>> >  loss? Again, we are not selling something. We are not loosing
>>> revenue.
>>> >  Apparently we are not even loosing someone that is willing to get
>>> hands
>>> >  on and make something better. We are not loosing anything of value to
>>> >  the project.
>>>
>>> And there it is: "who cares"
>>>
>>> If there is no concern for loss of revenue then maybe it matters that FG
>>> takes monetary donations to improve the product. A new user may want to
>>> contribute with money rather than getting their hands dirty to improve
>>> things. I suppose the thinking here is that only developers use FG. Oh,
>>> maybe a new user will want to contribute if things are broken. Maybe. But
>>> what is the safest "bet" here to increase FG usage and likeability? I say
>>> it's that FG offer the best to hook the user.
>>>
>>> I think the problem here is that many are expressing a view of how THEY
>>> see and use FG without even imagining (or sometimes caring) how a new user
>>> sees things.
>>>
>>> I'll go back to this: I believe each and everyone contributing to FG is
>>> striving to improve it. That's painfully obvious to me from following the
>>> progress in the posts. That's a credit to all and a reflection that the
>>> goal is to make FG the best. So why does it seem like some just want to
>>> give up on what is the public facing aspect of FG - the aircrafts
>>> themselves.
>>>
>>> Again, the goal isn't perfection, it's striving to improve everything
>>> overall. If not, then FG would be content offering gallon's wooden box with
>>> a few instruments and an old TV from the late 1950's.
>>>
>>> Dave
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Mon, May 25, 2026 at 5:13 AM James Turner <[email protected]>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> > On 23 May 2026, at 00:51, Richard Harrison <[email protected]> wrote:
>>>> >
>>>> > The default filtering in the launcher already reduces the list of
>>>> aircraft from ~750 to 62; and some of those should be variants.
>>>> >
>>>> > There are some UI issues with how that filter works:
>>>> >
>>>> >   1. The filter controls sit at the top of the aircraft browser and
>>>> scroll out of view once you are into the list.
>>>> >   2. Switching from a currently-installed aircraft into the browse
>>>> view positions the list at that aircraft, which can leave the filter
>>>> controls a long way off-screen above.
>>>> >   3. Search ignores the filter entirely. It would help if results
>>>> indicated something like "not showing N filtered aircraft" so the user
>>>> knows the filter is still hiding results.
>>>>
>>>> Each of these was actually a conscious choice :) The first two are to
>>>> avoid wasting visual screen space, and the later is you can find aircraft
>>>> *regardless of their rating*, by design. Otherwise the discoverability of
>>>> lower-quality aircraft would effectively be zero, and previously we have
>>>> felt that was a worse problem.
>>>>
>>>> > It would also help if the average star rating were shown alongside
>>>> the favourite-star indicator - probably as "3.4 out of 5" with the stars
>>>> drawn beside it. Implementation is left as an exercise for the reader.
>>>>
>>>> Ahahaha :)
>>>>
>>>> >
>>>> > Point (3) is probably the reason users still encounter low-rated
>>>> aircraft that the filter would otherwise hide from them.
>>>>
>>>> Again, the intention of the UI is to allow the user to choose based on
>>>> the rating, *not* to hide low-quality aircraft entirely, the same way
>>>> Google or Amazon don’t hide low-rated items, if they do match your search.
>>>> It might be bad restaurant, but if you want pizza, and it’s the only pizza
>>>> place within 10 miles, *you* need to decide. Same logic applies to our A380
>>>> - it’s buggy and unmaintained, but if the user is determined to fly an
>>>> A380, are we supposed to prevent them?
>>>>
>>>> >
>>>> > Alan asked whether we have any statistics on aircraft usage.
>>>>
>>>> Those numbers also align with the data I get from Sentry.
>>>>
>>>> >
>>>> > Anything we can do to improve the experience will be a good thing,
>>>> whether this be UI improvements, fixing aircraft or updating ratings.
>>>> >
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> As Rhys said, MRs that update rating are welcome, we just see almost
>>>> none being submitted.
>>>>
>>>> One more thing about hangars: aside from differently licensed hangars,
>>>> it would be easy to allow a custom hangar to be defined based on Fgaddon,
>>>> but which subsets the aircraft (this is already possible) and/or overrides
>>>> the aircraft ratings. This would then become ‘James’ Top FGAddon picks
>>>> Hangar’, and maybe contains only the aircraft *I* deem to be suitable.
>>>>
>>>> (This works because hangar building is decoupled from where the files
>>>> live, anyone can make a hangar using the public scripts, based on what’s in
>>>> FGaddon, and do whatever filtering or overlay they wish)
>>>>
>>>> Kind regards,
>>>> James
>>>>
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