Suggestion Box - Flite Test Product Threads

[PsyBorg]

Just caught up with this again. I see you are focused on the Vortex 150 in particular. I don't know how much you have really looked around in the forums but quads in general are low on the totem pole here. The diversity of quads in general are pretty much down to what ever reviews some people do for toy grade gear and pre built stuff and Flite Test designs.

Unlike other forums where there is a really broad base of products being discussed this is after all "FliteTest" forums and people tend to stick to Flite Test products. The Vortex is an Immersion RC based product that FT sells. That is a HUGE difference. Flite Test designed quads are things like the old Rotor Bones, the Bat Bones and the Electra Hub. Those were niche designs from Flite Test getting their toes wet in the multi rotor community. Then came the Versa Copter and that is what really boosted quad peoples interest here and a sub community was started and has been growing since. Now they have put out the Gremlins and they took off like wild fire again stepping up participation in these forums for quad copters and recently the addition of the FT 210 to compete in the entry level 5 inch racers. Even the FT 210 does not draw much attention as they are mainly sold as a prebuilt starter set up.

Flite Testy being centered around new people in the hobby does not hold the interest of people that are fast paced and growing out of noob status quite quickly. I am currently in that dilemma of how much more time I can / will spend in here because I am at the point I am stagnating with my own progression and will have to step out side FT to start progressing again.

So to compare this with a place like RC groups and Multi Gp and other places where people gather this is focused in one area of getting people that leg up to build a solid rooting in the hobby. More advanced thinking will stagnate in that environment and have to seek higher learning elsewhere. That said there is a TON of knowledge here as a collected whole from the new guy who stumbles on to a new method to put a foamie together to the balsa builders like Josh Orchard who is putting out top level build and teaching advanced build techniques.

The over all workings of this forum do way more then intended for a broad base of hobbyists that fall within a certain level and pace as well as like minded ways of being human. Other forums not so much. Is it perfect? Far from it. Does it work? Very much so.

Its nice people come with ideas but take that deeper and look at (I hate this statement) "The Big Picture" and its not people shooting your ideas down so much as it is people who have been here and know the flow of things and see the amount of effort what you are asking for is beyond what an unpaid non professional IT community based self management could viably take on and keep up with. Add in that things change so fast specially in the multi rotor aspect and its better to let old questions and answers fade for new rounds of the same questions under different parameters to come out and address the changes as they come. Other wise every thread holding on to all past information would simply become the "Junk Drawer" and would take away from any real effectiveness I think.

 

[Ran D. St. Clair]

I see you are focused on the Vortex 150 in particular...

The Vortex is an Immersion RC based product that FT sells.

Flite Testy being centered around new people in the hobby...

...see the amount of effort what you are asking for is beyond what an unpaid non professional IT community based self management could viably take on and keep up with..

I used the Vortex 150 as one example. I would also like to discuss issues with the RunCam Split, as well as design mods to the Gremlin. There are more, but the common thread in many (not all) cases is that they are products that FT sells.

I have a lot of faith in FT and truly believe that their culture of educating, empowering, and enlightening is real. I also believe that they want their customers to have the best possible experience. I think they have a fantastic business model based on a sound moral footing. I appreciate it so much that I want to support it, both with my dollars and with honest feedback about the products they sell. I am asking for a better way to do that.

I am an expert modeler and a complete noob, all at the same time, it just depends on the subject. The FT community has a lot to teach me, and I just want to give back a little.

I am specifically asking for something that is NOT a lot of effort, or at least this is my intent. It may have been lost in the long conversation that was necessary to find common ground, but what I am hoping for is very simple:

A link on each product page to a sticky forum thread for that product. Those forum threads would exist under a topic called "Flight Test Products".

It's not zero effort, but I thought is was pretty minor. The fact that it has been so controversial and brought up so many emotional and wide ranging issues has been quite amazing to me.

 

[CrashRecovery]

The thing of it is we have seen this attempted before and it became a little overwhelming for the ft staff at the time. Now with more staff on hand it could be possible.
As for design mods for the gremlin either start a new thread or post in the thread I started. Mine was meant to be used as a location to find new gremlin ideas. So thinking about it i think your ideas would fit right in.
Let's put an end to this. (Jokingly in my best gangster impression) Let me make a call or two, get some people involved so we can talk about the you know what, and get you know who to do the thing for the other thing..... And badabing presto problem solved. Who do you love?

 

[JimCR120]

Considering this is a text conversation the emotion can be hard to judge accurately. My feathers weren't ruffled about this nor do I think this has been a heated controversy but rather thinking this through. Maybe I'm wrong but I prefer to give the benefit of the doubt.

I believe I have been after what you are describing as I have several times already created threads on products I've bought with the intention of having a sort of knowledge base to exchange ideas (Blade Inductrix, UMX F4F Wildcat, RCExplorer Tricopter V4). Some have grown lengthey and others not so much. There are plenty others generated by other forum members too (UMX Radian, FT DIY Gremlins)
Thoughts? Am I missing anything?

I'm trying to be part of the solution here but had no response. Am I that far off the idea?

 

[Ran D. St. Clair]

I'm trying to be part of the solution here but had no response. Am I that far off the idea?

Those are the kinds of threads I am talking about. Now put them in one place under the heading of "Flight Test Products", Name them according to the product, link to them from the store page, and make the "Flight Test Products" topic area a place where only FT admins can start a thread, that way you don't proliferate 7 Gremlin threads in that topic area.

The rest of the forum remains unchanged so there is no loss of freedom. It just means that people have a consistent place to go to find product related threads. They can still start 17 Gremlin threads in other topic areas if they want. The family friendly nature of the site should not be impacted. You are already doing this, so just get organized about it.

 

[CrashRecovery]

Let's put an end to this. (Jokingly in my best gangster impression) Let me make a call or two, get some people involved so we can talk about the you know what, and get you know who to do the thing for the other thing..... And badabing presto problem solved. Who do you love?

I wasn't joking about doing this, just joking with how I said it. I can contact Austin or Stepfan, who comes on here often, get them to read this, and see about making this happen. The only thing I see with this is yea there can be an "official" flitetest post, and they used to do that also, but I think they liked the fact the community started topics right after a product was released. So Lets get them involved and see what they think.

 

[CrashRecovery]

There you go. Man of my words

 

[PsyBorg]

Ran D no one here is "Emotional" This is not Emoville here. People here help others and when something like this comes up they state their thoughts. Your thoughts and everyone elses here are their own. You can not come to ANY public forum and ask something like this and not expect opposition. The only difference here is people are respectful in their comments and do not make a discussion personal.

So although we see different points of view please do not dissect my opinions and bullet point only parts of what I said that suit your thoughts. Please use my entire statements or do not use them at all.

As far as it simply being links on the store page here that is far from what will happen. The store is there to sell products and customer service is there to address issues or concerns with products. The community here is made up of people that use the products and choose to help other users as well as showcase ideas and things they have done with a Flite Test product or something else inspired by Flite Test.

I think you are failing to see the separation of the two complete and different entities. In fact if you read the threads there is one put up by Flite Test asking how the community feels about NOT putting out video support in the form of builds and testing. That alone speaks to the shear amount of work it takes to get a product put out as it has been.

Now back to that "Just a Link" thing.. On the sales page side this means someone has to cross link to the forums, manage links that for what ever reason tend to break with most software updates, including removal of old links if a product is no longer supported on the store. If and when that happens do they remove the entire thread they started because the product is no longer on the store? Do they leave it up and aid a product or company they no longer have faith in? Do they add extra staff to support the product because people will respond directly to the web page instead of coming here for community based support which from what I see has handled every aspect of it except the financial and movement of products.

From a company standpoint that would be a serious financial up take which would in turn take resources that could be far better used developing things like the STEM program. Again there is a much larger picture to look at here and all I am doing is pointing out parts you or others may not think about.

If a logical and feasible idea comes across the table I and many others would support anything that makes things better as a whole. To me this would just add extra work, financial, and logistical stress to a functioning entity that is far out pacing any other efforts within its same business and consumer reach.

 

[Ran D. St. Clair]

Ran D no one here is "Emotional" This is not Emoville here. People here help others and when something like this comes up they state their thoughts. Your thoughts and everyone elses here are their own. You can not come to ANY public forum and ask something like this and not expect opposition. The only difference here is people are respectful in their comments and do not make a discussion personal.

So although we see different points of view please do not dissect my opinions and bullet point only parts of what I said that suit your thoughts. Please use my entire statements or do not use them at all.

As far as it simply being links on the store page here that is far from what will happen. The store is there to sell products and customer service is there to address issues or concerns with products. The community here is made up of people that use the products and choose to help other users as well as showcase ideas and things they have done with a Flite Test product or something else inspired by Flite Test.

I think you are failing to see the separation of the two complete and different entities. In fact if you read the threads there is one put up by Flite Test asking how the community feels about NOT putting out video support in the form of builds and testing. That alone speaks to the shear amount of work it takes to get a product put out as it has been.

Now back to that "Just a Link" thing.. On the sales page side this means someone has to cross link to the forums, manage links that for what ever reason tend to break with most software updates, including removal of old links if a product is no longer supported on the store. If and when that happens do they remove the entire thread they started because the product is no longer on the store? Do they leave it up and aid a product or company they no longer have faith in? Do they add extra staff to support the product because people will respond directly to the web page instead of coming here for community based support which from what I see has handled every aspect of it except the financial and movement of products.

From a company standpoint that would be a serious financial up take which would in turn take resources that could be far better used developing things like the STEM program. Again there is a much larger picture to look at here and all I am doing is pointing out parts you or others may not think about.

If a logical and feasible idea comes across the table I and many others would support anything that makes things better as a whole. To me this would just add extra work, financial, and logistical stress to a functioning entity that is far out pacing any other efforts within its same business and consumer reach.

My apologies for bulleting your post. I meant no offense and was not trying to skew your words. I only did it for brevity. It never occurred to me that it could be offensive. I won't do it again.

Yes, keeping links working is a hassle. That they keep breaking for no good reason is a technical problem, but it is a hassle none the less.

You raise a valid point regarding products that FT no longer sells and no longer wants to support. It would be their decision to make but if it were me, I would either do nothing, lock the thread, or move it to another topic area..

Doing nothing is the easiest and respects the rights of the community to talk about anything they want. The thread would probably die a slow death due to lack of interest anyway. Eventually many such threads would clutter the topic area so they could be renamed "Discontinued - Product Name" and would naturally fall to the end of the list as the traffic died.

Locking the thread just prevents new posts which hardly seems necessary. If someone really wants to talk about something they will start their own thread in some other topic area anyway.

Deleting the thread seems disrespectful to all the people who put time and energy into the thread, some of it intended to be helpful to the community. To lose that information would be a waste. Also, even if FT no longer sells the product, they would probably not want to go out of their way to deprive the people who previously bought the product of this valuable information.

Another option would be to move the thread to a general purpose topic area where it can die a slow death without cluttering up the "Flite Test Products" topic area. I don't know how difficult it is to move an entire thread.

It would be up to the FT staff to decide how much work this really is and what it's value might be. It might ultimately be less work for the staff because the community would handle a greater percentage of the questions and reduce the ones that come back through the customer service channels. Yes, the community is already providing this service, but I am assuming (hoping) that a more organized forum structure will lead to better communication.

You are correct, I really don't see much separation between the store and the forum. I also don't see much separation between the video content generation and the store, and the forum, and the articles, and the STEM program for that matter. They are all part of an integrated marketing strategy. All these aspects of FT support one another. I don't think it was originally intended to be like this, but it has evolved into a powerful combination. I am not being cynical, it is not just about money, and the FT founders may not think of it as a marketing strategy. I suspect they see it from a higher moral perspective, but they have also stated many times that the store is what pays the bills and allows the rest to continue.

 

[Ran D. St. Clair]

There you go. Man of my words
View attachment 98190

Indeed.

And with that, I will respectfully withdraw. I think the issues have been hashed and now it is time for the FT folks to do what they think is best. Thank you all for your input.

 

[CrashRecovery]

Psyborg is right a most accounts and I think I have made mention of some of those points in the past threads. Like I said FT started the forums to help community grow and bond. I think about my second year on the forums I really noticed that the forums ran on their own. "FT official" post seemed to dwindle only to reply posts and when asked to intervene. Like the Facebook Fan page that was started and run by fans for so long, until the owner gave FT the ownership of it, the forums kind of run on their own and are almost a separate entity if you really look at it.
Like I said the word has been given to the business director of FT, Austin and Stephan because he took over the "social media" side of things. I contacted both because Stephan can make the changes to the forum and Austin can "approve" the changes to the store pages and can change someones job description to add that job. I hope both chime in. I don't expect to see them till monday as I respect their family life.
I honestly hope this whole discussion has not given you a "bad taste" and you continue to post in here. I for one would love to see more VTOL stuff. I think they are some of the coolest designs. Please feel free to discuss anything with me in a PM. This whole discussion has really got me back into the forums and I must say thank you.

 

[JimCR120]

I really like the idea of this. I think we should all target some threads or generate some that would be ideal examples of what we are after before throwing this up the chain of command so that the value can be seen before asking anyone else for any help.

As for design, I'm not sure if it would be more user friendly to have the main threads colocated or dispersed in there respective categories. Either way we can have redirecting links. I'm inclined to think that the store linking to the forum would keep this more our baby to care for and easiest for the FT guys. For example, right now Sponz has his gig doing the drawings and maintaining the index. What if our role was similar except it would be the community bearing most of the burden collectively? There's also an index for skins. These valuable reference threads are already maintained by community members. How about using them as models for format and content is whatever is needed for each product.

I think we need to pick something and mold into what we're after. Let's all get on the same page and work out any wrinkles. There are bound to be some. We can pick one that's been around a while or we can get a new one going on a newer product, say the Scout for example.

 

[CrashRecovery]

Well Austin has seen my FB message so FT is aware of this. Lets see what comes about. We can always develop or own system and implement it as long as the moderators are cool with it. Everyone work on a few ideas and lets say by weeks end we can post our Ideas in here and we can go from there.