Review Policy

To maintain a constructive and fair review system, we have established the following guidelines and rules for user reviews. These rules aim to ensure that all feedback is valuable, respectful, and reflective of the actual quality of the addons provided by our talented community of developers.

TL;DR - Summary

Ratings must include explanations; vague or unjustified ratings will be reset.
Feature requests should not solely influence ratings.
Negative reviews based on user errors, hardware issues, or incorrect installation will be removed.
Reviews must be respectful, avoiding personal attacks or offensive language.
Creators can respond to reviews for clarification and may appeal unfair ratings to moderation if unresolved.

Review Guidelines

Provide a Reason: You are welcome to rate a mod or add-on that you have downloaded. If you do, please note that all ratings must include a reason or explanation for the rating. Ratings without a reason will be reset. If you encounter issues with an addon, be specific about what the problem is. Include details such as steps to reproduce the issue or error messages, and make sure that other users can understand the reasons for your rating.

Feature Requests: While feature requests are welcomed, they should not be the sole reason for a lower rating. Use the review section to rate the current state of the addon and provide feature requests as additional comments. Missing features can be a reason to lower your rating if these features are directly related to the specifics of the mod.

It is perfectly acceptable to lower your rating if, for example, a livery is missing details, a scenery is missing a specific building, or a mod lacks a useful feature directly related to its intended purpose. Constructive criticism about elements that should be included based on the addon's description and purpose is valuable feedback for developers. However, it is not appropriate to lower your rating for reasons that are unrelated to the core functionality or intended scope of the addon. For instance, rating a livery poorly because it is not available in your preferred resolution, critiquing a scenery addon for not including surrounding city buildings when it specifically focuses on airport improvements, or penalizing a mod for lacking features that fall outside its intended purpose is unfair and therefore not a valid reason to lower your rating.

User Errors and Compatibility: Ensure that you have correctly installed and updated the addon before leaving a review. Issues arising from incorrect installation or outdated versions should not be grounds for negative reviews. Problems caused by insufficient hardware or incompatible addons should not result in negative reviews aimed at the addon developers and will therefore be deleted.

However, it is acceptable to lower your rating if the incompatibility is due to factors within the author's control. For example, if the addon causes performance issues that could be optimized by the author or if it interferes with the basic functionalities or features of the game, these are valid reasons for criticism.

Respect and Professionalism: Always maintain a respectful tone. Avoid personal attacks, offensive language, or any form of harassment.

Monitor for the Creator's Response: The Creator might reply to your review seeking clarification or additional information. It is important to follow up with the requested details so they can better understand and address your concerns. Whenever a creator disputes your review, and if you fail to provide the necessary information in response to the creator's reply within a reasonable time, your rating may be subject to reset.

Dealing with Reviews

Creators are encouraged to respond to reviews to provide context, clarify issues, or offer solutions. If you, as a creator, feel that the above guidelines have not been followed, or if you disagree with a user's claim about one of your mods, you have the option of appealing their rating.

If a user reports a bug or a missing feature that you do not recognize, (1) politely ask for more details and context to reproduce the issue or problem in specific. If a user’s feedback is based on a misunderstanding of the addon's purpose or scope, (2) clarify what the addon is intended to do and why you believe that their rating is unfair in regards to the Review Policy. After stating your context, (3) encourage the user to update their rating.
Once an issue is resolved or clarified, for example after an update, you can ask the user to consider updating their rating to reflect the current state of the addon. You can also ask the user to update their rating if it is due to user error. However, if the user's intitial review was accurate, they are under no obligation to update their rating.
If the user does not respond or provide more context to your response 5 business days after you’ve requested more information about their rating and the review is violating the Review Policy, you may report the review to the moderation team for further evaluation.

Please be aware that users are not required to update their rating after you have provided an update to your addon. The initial rating reflects the state of the addon at the time the review was written. While it is considerate for users to update their rating following improvements or fixes, it is not a requirement. However, once you update your file, the system will indicate if the review was for an older version of the file. This helps other users understand that the feedback may pertain to a previous iteration of your addon.

The Moderation Team will apply the Review Policy outlined above to any reported comments. It is important to note that it is impractical for us to download, thoroughly test, and verify each claim or dispute between creators and users regarding a specific file. Therefore, the Moderation Team will only verify if the review adheres to the established Review Policy guidelines.

We believe these guidelines and rules will help maintain a fair and valuable review system for everyone in the Flightsim.to community.