Forum restrictions...

[Luke Hall]

Having spent many hours with FSLabs in P3D and now being a user of MSFS2020 and the Fenix A320, I am naturally excited about FSLabs' offerings. 

However, I'm always keen to research aircraft before purchasing and one of the best ways to get a 'feel' for a product before buying is to read the associated forums. 
Why then, do FSLabs insist on restricting read access to their forums for aircraft I have not yet purchased? I mean, I cannot even read posts without getting the "You do not have permission to view this content." message. 

I'm not even asking to make posts or ask questions. I just want to view the content. So, why can I not access them? It doesn't feel very friendly or inviting and is certainly putting me off making a purchase...

[Antti Salo]

Agreed! I never had the Concorde for FSX/P3D but am really looking forward to getting the MSFS version once (if) it comes out. I really have some studying to do on that one and it's quite a shame I can't access all the good discussion and resources in the current Concorde forums.

[Norman Blackburn]

Hi Luke, 

Its for a very simple reason.  Support is offered within the forum to confirmed customers. 

There are numerous people streaming our products so plenty of places to watch it in action and interact with the various hosts - something a forum isn't going to give you. 

[Luke Hall]

@Norman Blackburn Thank you for your reply. However, I would beg to differ regarding your statement "There are numerous people streaming our products so plenty of places to watch it in action and interact with the various hosts..."

In the case of the A321 NEO there is currently very little out there, as the product has only just been released. The "MSFS A320 Family" forums on the other hand have hundreds of posts, many of which I'm sure would offer a potential purchaser valuable insight into the product, its current state and details of scope, limitations and workarounds or fixes.

I understand that the forums are intended for support purposes and that's fine. However, there is clearly an appetite on the part of potential buyers to at least have read access only to the specific forums and nothing that you wrote suggests a clear reason why this should not be allowed. After all, what harm can it do? By allowing people to read the forums FSL would send a clear message that they are open and proud of their product(s).

To reiterate, you haven't given any compelling reason not to do so, just an explanation of what the forums are for....

[Norman Blackburn]

3 minutes ago, Luke Hall said:

To reiterate, you haven't given any compelling reason not to do so, just an explanation of what the forums are for....

I would suggest quite the opposite Luke.

A lot of time and effort goes into product support and the preference is that is maintained solely for those who are current customers.  

Those streaming are not affiliated with FSL and therefore completely unbiased which has to be more beneficial than a read-only subsection of a forum. 

[Luke Hall]

“A lot of time and effort goes into product support and the preference is that is maintained solely for those who are current customers…”

I appreciate that. However, your statement seems to imply that the current support effort would in some way be compromised if non or potential users were able to read the forums. If this is the case, then I’m sure that I’m not alone in wondering what the reasoning behind this is. Again, I’d invite you to elaborate…

“Those streaming are not affiliated with FSL and therefore completely unbiased which has to be more beneficial than a read-only subsection of a forum...”

Sure, but again, you are assuming that potential customers want to gain information from streamers alone, whereas my preference would be to combine both third party input with knowledge gained from existing users discussing things within the forums. 

This notion of keeping the forums exclusive to buyers only is not only unusual, but doesn’t seem to have any grounding in a business sense or in any advantage to the support process. On the contrary, it serves only to obfuscate and exclude interested parties like myself for no apparent gain to either FSL or its existing customers. 

Indeed, I am an existing customer of yours, having purchased all of the A320 aircraft for P3D, and so to be denied the ability to even read the forums to better inform my decision as to whether or not to buy more of your products feels unnecessarily hostile and unwelcoming. 
 

 

 

[Norman Blackburn]

Thanks Luke,

Whilst I appreciate the time you have made into your reply, and value the feedback, we don't have any plans at this time to change the forums for customers of specific forums.  Thats not to say never, merely not right now.

Here in General Forum of course remain open.