Building a virtual community to stand the test of time

When we created “VirtualFlight.Online” the hope was that we might attract a few fellow flight simulation enthusiasts to meet up online now and again - to share our interest and enthusiasm, and perhaps create a community of sorts.

Starting out with a blog advertising a group flight each week in the Flight Simulator forums, we quickly (and somewhat chaotically) grew from a handful of regular participants to a cast of thousands. The blog slowly morphed into a Facebook group, a Discord server, a newsletter, and a virtual airline.

Along the way we managed to avoid the worst of the “official” Flight Simulator community - setting our stall out early that everything should remain welcoming, inclusive, and above all “family friendly”. Our moderators and flight organisers have done a fantastic job so far - guiding and in many respects setting the example for other communities to follow.

We have always tried to encourage the community to “step up” - to organise your own events, to take part in those organised by others, and to contribute as much or as little as you like along the way.

We’ve tried hard to make the community “of the people, for the people”. In a perfect world the community would run itself - but we don’t live in a perfect world.

So I suppose that brings me rather circuitously to today’s “call to arms”.

An encouragement to everybody in our growing community to not only model the behaviour they would wish to find if they were joining us for the first time, but also to call out behaviour they’re not happy about.

As communities grow, it falls increasingly upon the community as a whole to police itself - to set an example. We only have to look at the downfall of X/Twitter, or any of a number of other Discord servers to see how quickly humor gives way to hate speech, bigotry and bullying if given the chance.

Communities can also struggle against the natural propensity of people to surround themselves with others of a like mind. We see it all the time with the various social networks that use algorithmic timelines - surrounding each person with concordant views - objectionable views quickly become normalised and amplified.

So how do we combat it?

While we are from all corners of the world, and from a huge range of cultures and backgrounds, we have one thing in common - a love of aviation, aircraft, flight, and everything and anything related to it.

Let’s celebrate that.