Where reviews by journalists from websites with a large audience are concerned...
My understanding is that those websites want news, i.e. things that are new that the public cannot immediately try out and see.. They value some measure of exclusivity.
Is there anything to be gained by contacting journalists/websites and sending them links to 'review code' 1-2 weeks early?. This might make them more inclined to spend time reviewing a freely available sim. It does not matter if the review binaries are publicly available via the unstable branch, it is just sufficient that it's different from the main download link presented on the FG site which most of the public uses.
Hooray wrote in Mon Feb 22, 2016 12:01 am:it might be a good idea to gather some community feedback on reviewing a flight simulator like FlightGear, and what to include in such a review - ideas appreciated
Most reviews on websites provide a conclusion that sums up the value of a product. Often it's aimed at the lowest common denominator (the worst example of this being a score), and sometimes it even goes against the tone of the rest of the review. Ideally reviews should try to separate out how different categories of people might value FG based on their criteria, as far as the experience of the reviewer allows them to say.
(This is something FG reviewers should be conscious of because FG can suffer from a conclusion aimed at the lowest common denominator - which turns out less positive than it could be because of FG's quirks/entry barriers).
I looked up FG reviews on websites, when I was considering FG's first impressions. It seemed to me they were: outdated, written by websites whose audience were new to simming (often by reviewers who didn't specialise in flight sims to a great extent), and did not dig deep (perhaps put off by first impressions).
Some points a review could potentially talk about - stimulus material for reviewers:
A check list of things that FG does well, and that other sims do not have or are not likely to have might help with write ups? (for instance the weather simulation, and the way it interacts with terrain to both affect flight and provde visual cues). Examples of aviation situations where FGs strengths at simulating come to the fore would help reviewers. I think the promotional value of specifying unique aspects should not be underestimated for a sim that people currently invested in other sims can try out easily.
A list of links to evidence that give measures of the quality of JSBSim as well as accuracy of some of FG FDMs might help, as they can be dropped in reviews to great persuasive effect (e.g.
this link from an article in the tour section).
FG reviews have to contain some reference of FG's opensource nature and what it means. What are a checklist of positives to include? Are there examples of issues in closed source projects that an open source engine would avoid? e.g. aircraft devs getting stranded by lack of engine development.
(Is the
features page up to date? Any journalist reviewing FG would look at that.. come to think of it screenshots on the front page are outdated).
Kind regards,
vnts