Community Guidelines and Forum Team on the Microsoft Flight Simulator Forums

Updated

The Microsoft Flight Simulator Forums are the official community space for Microsoft Flight Simulator, and participation is governed by a set of published guidelines, a Terms of Service, and a Privacy Policy, all linked from the site. A Forum Team manages and supports the community; the site points new members to a "Forum Team" page to learn who manages and supports the forums. If you want to know what rules apply before posting, or who runs the place, the short answer is: read the Guidelines, Terms of Service, and Privacy Policy pages, and check the Forum Team page for the people behind the community.

What governs participation

The forum footer links directly to the documents that set expectations for behavior and content:

  • Guidelines – the community rules for posting and interacting.
  • Terms of Service – the formal terms you agree to by using the site.
  • Privacy Policy – how data is handled.
  • Terms of Use, Privacy & Cookies, Manage Cookies, and Trademarks – additional legal and cookie-related links.

These are the authoritative sources. The site does not summarize their contents on the homepage, so treat the linked pages themselves as the reference rather than secondhand descriptions.

Who runs the forums

The site states that a Forum Team manages and supports the forums, and directs readers to a "Forum Team" page to learn who manages and supports the community. That page is the place to look for the people responsible for moderation and community support.

Where new members fit in

The Discussion Hub includes a "New here? Introduce yourself!" sub-category explicitly intended for introductions. That is the designated place to say hello rather than posting an introduction in a support or bug thread.

The same Discussion Hub is described as the area for discussion of core or third-party products and features, with a note that help questions belong in the User Support Hub instead.

Where different kinds of posts belong

The category structure matters because posting in the wrong place is a common friction point. Based on the site's own descriptions:

Category Purpose
Official Microsoft Flight Simulator Version-specific areas, including msfs-2024 and msfs-2020
Sim Update 7 Beta | MSFS 2024 Discussion of regressions and feedback for the latest Beta builds
Community Content Hangar Sharing screenshots, videos, and tutorials, and finding fly-in events and groups
Discussion Hub Introductions and discussion of core or third-party products and features
User Support Hub User-to-user support questions
Bug Reporting Hub Bugs for the core sim and first-party content

Two rules are stated explicitly and are worth noting before you post:

  • Third-party support and bug reporting should go to the designated support channels of each third-party developer, not to these forums.
  • Bug reports should use the voting system, and you should only post if you do not already see your bug listed. Post one bug per topic, and use the required template that appears when you click "New Topic."

Practical takeaways

  • Before posting, check the Guidelines and Terms of Service pages linked in the footer.
  • If you are new, introduce yourself in the Discussion Hub's introduction sub-category.
  • Ask help questions in the User Support Hub, not the Discussion Hub.
  • Search the Bug Reporting Hub before filing; use the template and one bug per topic.
  • Take third-party product issues to that developer's own support channel.

The forum is powered by Discourse and is described as best viewed with JavaScript enabled, which is worth knowing if pages appear incomplete.