AirVPN Website & User-Friendliness Feedback [Respectfully]

[LZ1 672]

Hello !

 

So they let me out of my cell today, which means I have a lot of pent-up nitpicking energy stored, haha

​At the bottom of this post, there's a respectful critique of how Air handles the explaining of this service to newcomers and my proposed solution.

 

My main arguments for improving the Air service are:

 

- This post about new-people seemingly not feeling welcome.

- And this post about Community Mods & more interaction from Air.

 

---

As the subtext to this forum reads: "Have some feedback and input to share? Don't be shy and drop us a note.

We want to hear from you and strive to make our service better and more user friendly for our guests and members alike."
 
So as they say, Challenge Accepted, Good Sir.

 

Time to unleash my inner OCD pokemon!

 

- Introduction & explaining the madness

I'd like to post a series of things which I think need some changes; such as the spelling & grammar of various posts. I understand if English isn't the native language of various Staff members and that's fine; that's why I'd like to lend a helping hand. I don't know if it would be wiser to post all this in a support ticket, because it can amount to a lot of content and perhaps by making it public, more people can contribute and then we can keep it nicely organised in one place. I realise it can sound very condescending, patronizing and/or rude to suggest changes in spelling & grammar, so to be clear, it's just because I currently have an urge to help out; I have the utmost respect for AirVPN Staff & those which contribute positively to the community :].

 

Why does it matter how things are spelled and such? Because appearances, user-friendliness & attention to detail matter, both in terms of technical subjects and non-technical subjects. When I first started, I thought some of the how-tos could use some slight changes, because it was sometimes massively confusing to juggle the technical explanations with the sometimes unclear or vague wording that accompanied them. I like to think that it's AirVPNs attention to security & privacy details which make it so great; so why should the presentational details of the site be any different? :].
 
I hope it'll be satisfactory & easy for the Air Staff to just copy/paste the corrected texts in, if they decide to make use of them. I'll of course not change the spirit/content of anything. If you have any input, please feel free to make a post. These are just corrections based on what I think sounds right; we're all different :]. I'd like it if the Staff could clarify something in the "About Us" section.

Blue text = My changes/corrections. (Sometimes the original isn't wrong, but could just be clearer, hence changes).

Red text = The item should be deleted. (In my humble opinion, thank you)
 

---

Main AirVPN Pages

 

This should cover the entire AirVPN site, except individual posts in the FAQ and the much-dread ToS

 

- Mission Page Corrections

 

Mission Statement

 

The AirVPN team will work to the best of its abilities to:

• Deliver technical tools aimed at enhancing the ability to exercise the fundamental Right to Privacy (Universal Declaration of Human Rights, art. 12; ECHR art. 8)
• Deliver a service capable of providing a strong anonymity layer in order to exercise the Right to Remain Anonymous (*), which has been widely recognized as a key to freedom of speech
• Preserve and respect Net Neutrality and the end-to-end principle
• Oppose with technical tools any Net Neutrality and/or end-to-end principle violation in the most transparent way possible
• Circumvent censorship and any other barrier to seek, receive and impart information and ideas without interference and regardless of frontiers (Universal Declaration of Human Rights, art. 19; ECHR art. 10)
• Support when possible a range of projects and NGOs whose aim is compatible with the AirVPN mission statement

 
 

If you know about a project that covers our mission,
read these guidelines and submit a post in this forum.
If you are an activist, journalist etc that works
in a country controlled by a human-rights hostile regime,
we can help you with free access: contact us.

 

 

- Technical Specs Page Corrections

 

 

Restrictions

• Outbound port 25 blocked to prevent spam.

VPN DNS Servers

• Each of our VPN servers has its own DNS server, which finds out information about the root servers, top level domains and authoritative name servers directly.
• Our DNS servers are neutral and do not ever inject or alter any requests (other services resolve to search results, try to fix typos etc).
• Where ICANN or root servers themselves censor things, we may apply specific anti-censorship fixes to our DNS servers. See the "AirVPN does not recognize ICANN authority anymore" topic for more information.
• Using our DNS allows our customers to use our anti-geolocation discrimination features, by for example allowing an AirVPN customer to visit a website that only allows connections from the United States, by using an AirVPN server located in the Netherlands.
• It's recommended to use our DNS server to avoid censorship and use our anti-geolocation features.
• For any kind of issue about censorship or geolocation restrictions you encounter using our services, please feel free to write to us on our forums or submit a support ticket.

Web Server - airvpn.org

• The AirVPN website supports Perfect Forward Secrecy, Secure Renegotiation, TLS up to 1.2, DHE, ECDHE and HSTS.
• The AirVPN website uses no external tracking applications or cookies from third parties.
• See Qualys SSL Labs for a peer review of our web site.

 

- About Us Page Corrections

I'm not sure what was trying to be expressed at the bottom of the article regarding "harsh contrasts against a project of sharing data, etc. etc." Can someone elaborate? Was there some sort of cross-VPN provider cooperation, wherein user data was or was going to be shared? Or was it meant to say that AirVPN was the opposite of all the other providers? Also, I suggest removing the very last bit "(we'll have some news on that probably within the first half of 2013)." since that's quite old and perhaps shouldn't be on an "About Us" page .

 

About us - AirVPN, the story so far: a magniloquent tale

AirVPN started out as the project of a very small group of activists, hacktivists and hackers in 2010, with the invaluable (and pro bono) help of two fantastic lawyers and a financing from a company interested in the project and operated by the very same people.The Pirate festival held in Rome and a lucky coincidence were decisive for the project. An extraordinary confluence of energies, ideas and people took place there. This included people from NEXA, Telecomix, Juliagruppen, the Swedish Pirate Party, the Italian Pirate Party association and the grassroots organization Scambioetico. In addition to activists from Mexico and the US, as well as lawyers very competent in the fields of in privacy, data protection and so-called "Intellectual property" fields, .It was the perfect place and time to envision a project like AirVPN.

 

AirVPN started out as a completely free service for everyone in April 2010. Soon after, a commercial side was added, which aimed at keeping the project financially sustainable and capable of supporting the impact which free access to the service for activists in human rights hostile countries would have. In addition to ensuring to the AirVPN team had a monetary basis from which full-time dedication could be based on.

Initially, AirVPN had two dedicated servers in one country and was operated by Iridium, a company which was born in 1998 and which employed, in the telecommunications field, only people involved in digital or non-digital civil activism. Iridium took care of AirVPN until November 2012, when all the handling, both operational and otherwise, was progressively transferred to a dedicated company called Air. Air retained the very same people and policies; with no changes for the customers or the level of privacy & data protection; even the person legally responsible for the AirVPN privacy policies is the same one to this day.

 

Today, AirVPN is operated exclusively by activists and people who pay attention to privacy, data protection and security-related issues. The team also includes experts in law; the same lawyers which helped create AirVPN. The service now counts more than 80 servers with high bandwidth lines and good or top-notch hardware in 15 datacenters across 16 countries spanning 3 continents. The robustness of the infrastructure is enhanced literally every week, so that most attacks, such as UDP and TCP floods, DDoS attacks, etc., that caused service issues in the first year of AirVPN operation now go totally unnoticed by the users.

The customer service is not and has never been outsourced. This is done in order to provide high-quality of support.

 

Access to servers is restricted to an essential core of the team and any access outside this core must first be authorized and the access performed under controlled conditions. No database is kept on any AirVPN server. The database(s) is clustered across dedicated backend servers, which never communicate directly with any client or with any other host outside our servers.  In fact, only three people know where the backend servers are located and additional security systems are in place to prevent any direct access to the database(s) from outside the backend servers - not even the VPN servers really communicate directly with the database(s).

As far as we know, AirVPN is the only VPN in the world which transparently lets anyone access a server monitor via a website, which is also updated every 60 seconds, in order to check the status of the infrastructure and verify that we respect our no-overselling and guaranteed allocated bandwidth commitments as stated in the ToS. AirVPN also provides some features which might go unnoticed by most people, but which are nonetheless important. Features such as separate entry and exit-IP addresses on every VPN server, in order to prevent various correlation attacks typically used against on VPNs which use "shared IPs" - wherein only one IP address which is used as both the entry and exit-IP address.

 

AirVPN is a tiny VPN when compared to the giants of the industry, yet a small "miracle" when considering the uncompromising security policies: no PPTP, no bells & whistles to mislead gullible customers, no investments in advertising and strong resistance against projects about the sharing of data with an association of VPN operators to supposedly "prevent frauds and improper use of the services". AirVPN has experienced boycotts from several ISPs due to our no-compromise network neutrality and privacy policies and refusing to pay for bribes for favorable reviews on various websites.

We who run AirVPN have, above all, a lot of passion for what we do. We all feel that AirVPN is a completely different kind of service, because it's not just a commercial enterprise aiming exclusively to make a profit. Profit is of course important to us, as keeping this infrastructure up and running would be impossible otherwise; but profit is secondary to the security of our users and the upholding of our policies and commitments.

 

One incident in particular might be interesting in order to let you assess our determination: a vile and sudden suspension of service by a major datacenters operator in France in 2010. All of our paid-for servers were cancelled without any prior notice and without any explanation - to this day, we have yet to receive an explanation from the operator. We had everything on those servers, except the database, so we had to restart almost from scratch and yet the service stayed down for only 4 days.

At the end of 2012, a dedicated company was founded exclusively to operate the fiscal side of the project and the handling of the data according to the relevant legal frameworks, in an optimal way. You can find the name of the legally responsible person for privacy and data protection in the Privacy Notice (he's the same old one ). The Air company exclusively operates AirVPN, and will be involved only in those AirVPN side projects which are related to network neutrality and/or censorship circumvention. (we'll have some news on that probably within the first half of 2013).

 

- Plans Page Corrections

"Accepted" sounds much more natural to me than "Allowed" Payment Processors. Oh and the period at the end of Free Trial access should go away too, in order to conform with the other headings.

Also, on the Enter page, it's not called OS X anymore, as Apple renamed it MacOS.

 

Accepted Payment Processors

Obtain a Free Trial access.

The request must be submitted to the administrators via our Contact Form.

Follow us on Twitter

Gift vouchers

"All plans include all AirVPN features."

"This is a dynamic list, which is updated every day."

 

- Ping Matrix Page Corrections

I'm not sure I understand this one correctly. Please say so, if that's the case.

All servers ping each other every 5 minutes. Collected data is processed every 5 minutes.

 

- Top Users Page Corrections

The list only shows users currently online. Limited to the first 100 users.

Data is collected from current sessions in real-time, as we will inevitably know. But no history is kept, no data-retention is performed.
By default, user nicknames are obscured, but the account holder can force them to be displayed if desired.

 

- Config Generator "More Help" Page Corrections

I'm not sure what's meant by "unique download" here. Unique zip archives for each file maybe?

 

This page will generate OpenVPN configuration files (.ovpn), for those who don't want or can't use our client. More help

• The configuration generator enables you to generate and download the necessary certificates, keys and configuration files for OpenVPN and any OpenVPN GUI or wrapper. Multiple choices are allowed so that you can download all you need in one hit.
• There's direct download for single files. While for multiple configurations you will be given the option to pick separate files to download or a unique download with all files in a single zipped archive.
• On the upper part of the panel, you can pick servers by country, continents and planets (currently only one planet). In the lower part of the page you can pick servers in a more granular way.
• Selecting servers either by country or contintent will allow your OpenVPN client to automatically switch between servers. This gives you a significant amount of comfort & ease of use, in that if one AirVPN server is unavailable, another fully-functioning one will be picked for connection automatically instead: with no need for you to take any action whatsoever.
• You can also pick options simultaneously from the upper and lower part of the panel (you might for instance want to access all the American servers, yet just a few in the Netherlands and one in Germany).
• When you are done with selecting servers, pick the connection ports and protocols (see FAQ 'UDP vs TCP' for more information).
• The generator also allows you to embed certificates and keys inside the .ovpn configuration file. This can be very useful for some clients, but be aware that not all clients support embedded files. For example, the network-manager for Linux (widely used in Ubuntu and Debian distros) does not support them and causes problems when embedded files are imported.
• The proxy section must be activated ONLY if you wish or are required to connect your OpenVPN client over a proxy. Please refer to your proxy type and settings to define the appropriate options.
• If you have any connection issues, please check your details page for additional information.

 

- Websites Support Page Corrections

Some websites may be censored by ISPs using DNS tricks.
AirVPN uses neutral internal DNS servers, which means websites may be unlocked without needing to be listed here.

However, it might occur that websites either discriminate contents on a country origin request basis or they are censored by ISPs.
Known websites are reported here, to check whether AirVPN supports them.
 
For the supported websites, a double-hop with our routing servers is performed.
For example in order to watch BBC from any Air server in any country.
 
 
Only our staff can open a topic here.
Submit your report in this forum. Popular requests are prioritized.
Website descriptions and logos are taken from public metakeywords in their homepage.

 

- Databases Page Corrections

Supported Websites Known ISP Issues

 

- Client Software Platforms / Environment Pages Corrections

 

Client Software Platforms / Environments

Any linux distribution has at least:
- a different desktop environment (GNOME, KDE, LXTE etc.)
- a package-manager with a specific format (deb, rpm, tar.xf etc).
- a different packaging signature for trust and security.
- a different method for obtaining administrative privileges, required by the AirVPN client because OpenVPN requires it.
- a different set of packages used by our client, that sometimes have different names (for example 'stunnel4' under Debian & 'stunnel' for Fedora)
- a potentially different DNS management system.

We are doing our best to support every kind of configuration managed by our source-code directly, when possible.

In this subforum, we report the working status of tested environments.

Threads can only be opened by our Staff, so if you want to suggest an environment to be studied, please start a regular thread in AirVPN Client -> General and it will be reported here by our Staff.

Topics here can be directly linked to from our Enter page.

 

- Privacy Notice and Terms Page Corrections

I assume it really was "extra-EU" and not "extra-UE". If not, what's UE?

 

Privacy Notice and Terms

Air recognizes the importance of protecting the privacy of all information provided by any user of AirVPN (collectively or individually "User(s)").

Usage of AirVPN is subject to the terms of this Privacy Notice.

Although the Air servers may be located in various European Union countries, all those servers and all data collected by those servers are subject to this "AirVPN Privacy Notice and Terms" entry and are compliant with the standards and requirements set by Directives 95/46/EC ("Data Protection"), 2002/58/EC ("privacy on electronic communications") and the best practices recommended by the EU Art. 29 Working Party and the EDPS (European Data Protection Supervisor).

Servers located outside the European Union will treat users data with the same (or higher) level of privacy and data protection; never with a lower level of privacy and data protection. AirVPN will not use or locate servers in countries which have laws which would force Air to violate the aforementioned European Union directives. However, in case of jurisdictional disputes, Air will not recognize extra-EU competence and will respond only to European Union laws.

Air servers and software procedures acquire only personal data which is strictly necessary for the technical functioning of the service, such as IP addresses. These data are not collected to identify, through elaboration or any other technique, users' personal identities. These data are not transmitted to third parties.

Pressure from private actors to obtain any data (including but not limited to IP addresses of users) is an illegal act and Air, in order to protect its business and the users' privacy, reserves the right to inform the relevant authorities and prosecute the private entities responsible for such illegal acts.

Data transmission is performed between Air servers network exclusively in order to erogate efficiently the AirVPN service. Data are deleted as soon as they are no more necessary for such purposes. During their transmission between servers, data are securely encrypted. Under no circumstances is data are kept outside the European Union. Due to the nature of the Internet routing, although improbable, it is not impossible that those data, exchanged between AirVPN servers located in geographically distant places, may transit outside EU borders; this is not a privacy issue since data are heavily encrypted from the moment when they leave one of the AirVPN servers and as long as they arrive at the final AirVPN destination server .

Data is aggregated in anonymous form for statistical reports on server usage, CPU stress and technical issues, in order to improve the service, fix bugs and as a countermeasure against network-based attacks.

When users connect to the AirVPN Virtual Private Network, no cookies are stored on their systems. However, when users access the AirVPN website (for example to enter the forums) cookies are only stored on their systems in order to make access to such additional services possible. Cookies are stored only for technical reasons and can be deleted at anytime by the user. Cookies are specifically meant for technical help. Under no circumstances does Air use cookies to track and/or profile users.

Users are free to send their personal information to the intermediary services such as payment processors (e.g. PayPal, Moneybookers) which perform physical payment in order to allow users access to AirVPN services. Failure to do so might prevent access to AirVPN commercial services; however, the information provided to those aforementioned services are not under the control of Air.

Users may optionally, explicitly and voluntarily send their e-mail address to Air, in order to receive technical assistance. E-mail addresses are stored in Air servers for assistance purposes as long as the user subscription lasts or the user requests deletion. E-mail addresses are not used by Air to identify or collect any other information about the users.

Users have the right to ask for information about their data and to ask for deletion of any data pertaining to them with a simple written request by e-mail to: info (at) airvpn (dot) org.

Data is handled by automatic systems for the time being, as necessary to erogate the service. Security measures are taken to guard against data leakages, illegal use of data and unauthorized access to data.

Person responsible for the handling of data is:

 

I hope it's okay I skip the ToS

 

---

Explanatory Posts

 

Here's where I would like to say something. A slight critique.

 

• I'm really glad that Air Staff have taken the time to put up such nice FAQs.
• I'm likewise also really glad that they're extremely knowledgeable and can explain things in a technical way.
• However... As I also said in my new users guide, the main problem with Air is that it's too technical, when it's not needed. This is GREAT for IT-people, but not everyone else.
• I mean, it's fine to be technical. But I would like to see it either be "toned down" a little in some places, such as the FAQs, where it's very likely that new people will go or:
• Alternatively, one could provide non-technical explanations alongside the technical ones. Perhaps in spoilers? I LOVE spoilers lol.

Case in point, in the FAQ titled "What is a VPN?". The explanations are great and for technical people, it's borderline pornography. But really, if someone doesn't know what a VPN even is,

what are the odds of them understanding what things like this mean:

You don't need to configure applications to use "the tunnel", because our servers perform a set of route and default gateway pushes that your client accepts: your applications are "tunneled" transparently. OpenVPN encapsulates your packets inside an UDP or TCP stream, therefore all same or higher layer protocols are supported, making a VPN a profoundly different and highly superior solution to any http or socks proxy.

 

 

I genuinely think that most new users, especially those who don't have an interest in IT, will have a seizure. An FAQ is, I think, meant to leave people with less questions, not more of them. After

reading that, I'm sure many would be asking things like:

• What's a default gateway push? Is it dangerous?
• What's encapsulation?
• What's UDP & TCP?
• Which stream? Twitch.com?
• HTTP? Socks? Proxy???

I of course don't want to sacrifice form or function for the sake of making things ultra-easy for everyone. We can hang a sign on the door saying "Brain Required" if you wish. But it has to be said that attention to things like this, helps us all in one way or another. Air draws in more customers, which means one of the best VPNs gets to keep running. More people see what a quality VPN service is like & perhaps more services like Air will appear. Likewise, more people protected on the internet is a good thing in general. Plus, all the hardwork & passion Air Staff put into this excellent service, won't mean a thing if no one knows how to use it; that's just a fact really. Our aim, in my view, should be to make the service as welcoming as possible, without sacrificing the aforementioned form or function; which is also one of the biggest problems with modern encryption & thus a barrier to mass-adoption. After all, then there'd be no excuse for people to not use AirVPN and we can finally call them on their bluff eh

 

- Original Text

VPN is an acronym of Virtual Private Network. Our VPN extends the private network across the Internet. It enables your computer (the "client") to send and receive data across the Internet through dedicated nodes ("the VPN servers") as if those data were an integral part of the private network. This is achieved through a point-to-point OpenVPN (in routing mode) connection. The connection is encrypted and each packet is authenticated both by your client and our servers, so that nobody (including your ISP) between your computer and the VPN server can see the data you transmit and receive, the real origin and destinations of such data, and, last but not least, can inject forged packets into your stream of data. The picked encryption cipher meets higher-than-military security requirements.

 

Additionally, when your client has established a point-to-point encrypted connection (often referred to as "the tunnel"), your data will "get to the Internet" without any reference to your real IP address, which is simply no more inside the packets. Anybody on the Internet will therefore see your packets as coming from our VPN servers exit-IP addresses, not from your real IP address, protecting you against privacy intruders and other malignant entities, such as sniffers in public WiFi hot-spots, hi-jackers, profilers and disturbed "copyright trolls".

 

You don't need to configure applications to use "the tunnel", because our servers perform a set of route and default gateway pushes that your client accepts: your applications are "tunneled" transparently. OpenVPN encapsulates your packets inside an UDP or TCP stream, therefore all same or higher layer protocols are supported, making a VPN a profoundly different and highly superior solution to any http or socks proxy.

 

- Attempted Example Of Simplified Text

VPN stands for "Virtual Private Network". It makes your computer, which we call a client, able to send information across the internet, using other computers called servers. In this case, VPN servers which belong to AirVPN. The sending of your information is made possible by a technology called "OpenVPN", which establishes the connection. This connection uses a technology called "encryption", which is a kind of "digital lock", that hides & protects your information. Because both your computer & the AirVPN servers manage and verify the data being sent, there are a range of benefits:

Nobody, not even your Internet Service Provider(ISP), can see the information you're sending and receiving.Nobody can see where the data is being sent from or where it's going.Nobody can change the information while it's being sent.

Furthermore, when your computer has established the encrypted connected, also called "the tunnel", websites won't be able to see where in the world you live, because your computers "address", called an "IP address", simply won't be sent. Every website you browse to, will therefore only see the address of the VPN servers, instead of your personal address, which protects you from many different kinds of threats, such as hackers & people or companies trying to track you.

You don't need to make other programs on your computer use "the tunnel" manually, because the AirVPN servers will manage what your computer does with the information which is sent. Due to how the "OpenVPN" technology works, the information sent from your computer is managed in a way that makes it easy for OpenVPN to work with many other technologies, which in turn means that using a VPN is a much better choice than using other technologies like "HTTP" or "Socks proxies".

 

What do you think? Sure, it's missing some details and maybe it's not all that accurate, but if it gets the main point across, so what? As I said, we could just make spoilers for both versions.

If Air wants, I'll gladly help make more of such explanations for the other things, since I'm quite good at doing so; mainly because I hardly understand it myself lmao, but shhh

 

Thank you for reading and as always, Thank you to AirVPN & Staff for providing this excellent service, as well as the AirVPN community for keeping this place going strong !

 

I want to know one thing: has Air got any plans on translating the service into different languages? I think it would be so great if they crowd-sourced this.

 

Anyhow, if you spot anything I missed or disagree with a correction, feel free to tell me!

 

Thanks. Now if you'll excuse me, my bed misses me, lol.

[zhang888 1066]

I see you took the "FAQ making" task very seriously.

[LZ1 672]

I see you took the "FAQ making" task very seriously.

Bruh, I gotta repay my life-debt to you somehow, lol !

[OpenSourcerer 1435]

I want to know one thing: has Air got any plans on translating the service into different languages? I think it would be so great if they crowd-sourced this.

 

There are real challenges with that. You might offer the website in german/dutch/french/whatever, but you would have to force everyone to use english in the forums. Some people don't like it.

To circumvent this, you can internationalize them. It's a very difficult step, too, since you need very big numbers of users using a given language to actually be effective. It also might separate the community, more or less.

 

About spelling errors and the like, well, you can't force anyone to use 100% accuracy in grammar. The important thing in communication is understanding each other, anyway. A few typos or missing commas in a post don't impact this... there are exceptions, though...

[LZ1 672]

​

​

 

I want to know one thing: has Air got any plans on translating the service into different languages? I think it would be so great if they crowd-sourced this.

 

There are real challenges with that. You might offer the website in german/dutch/french/whatever, but you would have to force everyone to use english in the forums. Some people don't like it.

To circumvent this, you can internationalize them. It's a very difficult step, too, since you need very big numbers of users using a given language to actually be effective. It also might separate the community, more or less.

 

About spelling errors and the like, well, you can't force anyone to use 100% accuracy in grammar. The important thing in communication is understanding each other, anyway. A few typos or missing commas in a post don't impact this... there are exceptions, though...

 

​How about just making Eddie available in a couple of European languages perhaps? That seems like a smaller feat, but I could be wrong . Maybe the logs could still be in English, but the UI in the user-defined language. Although English would be the default perhaps. Just a thought. I agree we wouldn't want to separate the community.

​

​You're right I can't force anyone to write perfectly and I don't want to either. However it naturally looks better when things are accurately and correctly written. We wouldn't want the privacy policies to be unclear for instance, would we? Of course that's a legal example and so they've had laywers on the job. But the general point I'm trying to make, is that precise communication and attention to detail, can be every bit as important as that which is afforded the technical side of the business. Plus, now that I've laid the groundwork and/or am willing to work with Air to improve it, in a sub-forum meant for making suggestions, then I think it would be nice of Air to pay attention :].

​

​But attention to detail in communication isn't just about accuracy. It's also about user-friendliness and considering the target audience, as I described with an example at the bottom of my OP, wherein things are clearly written in a way that is hostile to VPN beginners/newcomers; which isn't in Airs interest. I've proposed a way of serving both audiences, the technical and non-technical alike. So far, I haven't gotten any response to this, which is mildly disappointing, given I think it's one of the most glaring issues with AirVPN - again, respectfully.

[OpenSourcerer 1435]

​How about just making Eddie available in a couple of European languages perhaps?

 

This is a good idea.

[go558a83nk 362]

Just one more language then?  Or do you for get that English is European? 

[LZ1 672]

Just one more language then?  Or do you for get that English is European? 

That's semantics. But I did say a couple, which regardless of whether English is European or not, clearly insinuates adding more languages. So do you actually have anything to add? I also did say "You might offer the website in german/dutch/french/whatever", which we could instead just do with the Eddie client. But I haven't received any response from Air surrounding this topic of translation or user-friendliness; hardly an acknowledgement either sadly. I'm more concerned about the user-friendliness issue, than the language issues.

 

@giganerd

Nice. Maybe you can help with the German one - maybe you can sneak in a call-to-action to use Posteo in the Eddie "About" section   hahaha.

[Guest]

I'm curious why make the Eddie in different languages and why put the site in different languages as well? Personally I think if you are on the internet you should know English and be good at it translating something into different languages specifically the Eddie could prove problematic given the forum is community driven meaning most the support is done by other members and if the client is in a different language than the one trying to help them it complicates things more than it should but if every button and feature says the exact same for everyone there is no room for mistakes, including if someone have the client in German for example, I don't know german meaning giganerd and any other german speaker would be the only people able to help the one asking for help since I wouldn't understand a word of it.

[LZ1 672]

To make this service more accessible and/or comfortable for more people. Even someone who knows both English and say, German, might find German more comfortable, even if their English is okay. I have to say though, that I think that's a very narrow point of view, respectfully. Namely that you ought to know English if you're on the internet. The net is a big place and English might be one of the most common languages, but there's still many millions of people who use other languages. Why for instance, do you think that the AirVPN promo video was translated into Chinese? :]. Perhaps it would be possible to make English words appear if you hover over words in client, I don't know - all I'm saying is I like the idea. Besides, if you tell someone to go to Preferences>Advanced>DNS that's not too hard to put into a translator. If the client had multiple languages, there furthermore wouldn't be a problem in the guy speaking Russian changing it to English, even if only for a moment. So what I'm saying is, yes there's potential problems, but that these can be solved with a little thoughtfulness.

​

​But the bigger problem is that AirVPN is hard to understand even for native English speakers, if they aren't tech-savvy, due to the often needlessly complex explanations. I'd like to change this the most . Do you agree the explanations could be done in a simpler way, EdenSpire?

[Guest]

To make this service more accessible and/or comfortable for more people. Even someone who knows both English and say, German, might find German more comfortable, even if their English is okay. I have to say though, that I think that's a very narrow point of view, respectfully. Namely that you ought to know English if you're on the internet. The net is a big place and English might be one of the most common languages, but there's still many millions of people who use other languages. Why for instance, do you think that the AirVPN promo video was translated into Chinese? :]. Perhaps it would be possible to make English words appear if you hover over words in client, I don't know - all I'm saying is I like the idea. Besides, if you tell someone to go to Preferences>Advanced>DNS that's not too hard to put into a translator. If the client had multiple languages, there furthermore wouldn't be a problem in the guy speaking Russian changing it to English, even if only for a moment. So what I'm saying is, yes there's potential problems, but that these can be solved with a little thoughtfulness.

​

​But the bigger problem is that AirVPN is hard to understand even for native English speakers, if they aren't tech-savvy, due to the often needlessly complex explanations. I'd like to change this the most .

 

I'm not saying English is the only language that exists on the internet but my point was it's the "global" language, I got a german friend who will use English if it's the only option yes but choose German for everything else but the reason he does that is not about comfortable but because he ain't too good at it. Also sure there they could change it to English for a minute, however for lack of a better word so don't take it the wrong way some might not be too smart to do that. And I translate things in Russian for my German friend all the time.

 

And just an fyi, I am not saying it's a bad idea I'm simply curious on the reason you'd want it

[LZ1 672]

That's alright. I'd call it a nice feature, that's all. But then we return to the other central issue of the service being a little tough to understand, due to the technical jargon. What do you think about simplyfying it, by having a "simple" explanation alongside the "technical" explanation(s)? This is for official posts/how-tos mainly.

[Guest]

That's alright. I'd call it a nice feature, that's all. But then we return to the other central issue of the service being a little tough to understand, due to the technical jargon. What do you think about simplyfying it, by having a "simple" explanation alongside the "technical" explanation(s)? This is for official posts/how-tos mainly.

 

Hmm yeah I suppose it is a bit tough to understand if you aren't all that tech-savy, I suppose that is why many VPN providers like to use.. as zhang puts it buzzwords because that is something many would understand without understanding the technical "jargon"  I suppose It'd be useful with some simple explainations along with the technical ones

[LZ1 672]

Indeed and I think zhang is right about it. Do you think it's a good implementation, as exemplified at the bottom of my OP? Because we of course don't want to make it into 10 lines of "you're anonymous!!" haha. We want to keep it factual, professional and real. Just without the technical explanation being the only explanation. I mean I'm definitely willing to help Air do this, but I'm not going to, if Air is just going to ignore it ^__^. When I read various reviews, they basically said "Great service, superb security . . . But requires a PhD in networking to understand" lol. So imagine not being tech-savvy and also not being a native English speaker. That has got to be tough. Which is a shame. It's great to fight blocks such as censorship, but what is that worth if people don't understand your service when they get here anyway? You know? I don't know if it's just me, but that's inconsistent. I wish Air would make more use of its community, because we have some seriously intelligent and helpful people around here.

[Guest]

Indeed and I think zhang is right about it. Do you think it's a good implementation, as exemplified at the bottom of my OP? Because we of course don't want to make it into 10 lines of "you're anonymous!!" haha. We want to keep it factual, professional and real. Just without the technical explanation being the only explanation. I mean I'm definitely willing to help Air do this, but I'm not going to, if Air is just going to ignore it ^__^. When I read various reviews, they basically said "Great service, superb security . . . But requires a PhD in networking to understand" lol. So imagine not being tech-savvy and also not being a native English speaker. That has got to be tough. Which is a shame. It's great to fight blocks such as censorship, but what is that worth if people don't understand your service when they get here anyway? You know? I don't know if it's just me, but that's inconsistent. I wish Air would make more use of its community, because we have some seriously intelligent and helpful people around here.

 

Yeah I agree, we do get our fair bit of non tech-savys asking questions here, I usually try when I help people to simplify my explainations and solution steps for those reasons, so they understand what it does and how and what to do without messing things up

[LZ1 672]

Indeed and I think you make some good explanations and you're very patient, so that's good . A real asset to the community. I just worry that as much as Staff try to keep this place friendly, that it still feels hostile to new people. I mean really Eden, how many times have you seen people start threads with any variation of:

• "Sorry to be a newb..."
• "Sorry, I have a question"
• "I'm a noob, sorry"
• "If my question is too nooby, just ignore it"
• "Sorry to ask, but ..."

Etc. That's not ideal either. I've seen it quite a few times by now. It's a strange thing too, because this is a forum and they're meant for questions. But it seems many they simply feel stupid for asking, since things have already been "explained". I imagine that a sizeable amount of people take a look at the front page, sign up and then head straight to the How-To section, get confused and then wander onto the forums looking for answers to things which should've been explained in the How-tos section. I think we & Air can do better.

[Guest]

Indeed and I think you make some good explanations and you're very patient, so that's good . A real asset to the community. I just worry that as much as Staff try to keep this place friendly, that it still feels hostile to new people. I mean really Eden, how many times have you seen people start threads with any variation of:

• "Sorry to be a newb..."
• "Sorry, I have a question"
• "I'm a noob, sorry"
• "If my question is too nooby, just ignore it"
• "Sorry to ask, but ..."

Etc. That's not ideal either. I've seen it quite a few times by now. It's a strange thing too, because this is a forum and they're meant for questions. But it seems many they simply feel stupid for asking, since things have already been "explained". I imagine that a sizeable amount of people take a look at the front page, sign up and then head straight to the How-To section, get confused and then wander onto the forums looking for answers to things which should've been explained in the How-tos section. I think we & Air can do better.

 

Yeah I do see quite a few of those, and it's likely because as you said they feel stupid for asking something that makes them feel like the minority of people who do not understand what it is/means. Your guide you made for beginners is good and useful for new people and non tech-savys. And yeah if AirVPN was to reach out to a few Community members to make some updates to the how-tos and the like or something, maybe even link to your guide if people are still confused it might be good

[LZ1 672]

​Exactly.

​

​Sorry for the wall of text ahead.

​

​But the problem is that while I've tried making a guide aimed specifically at newcomers, both advanced and non-savvy alike, it's not as if it's actually in any of the How-to forums. Even though those forums are stated as being for "Guides" as well. Who checks the "General & Suggestions" Forum, when they're looking for a guide?...[Not that I don't appreciate the sticky of course, but you get the point].

 

But the thing is, I know Air appreciates my little contribution to this area, yet their responses to things which involve community-interaction and/or non-technical subjects often seems painfully absent. I'm not expecting praise to high-heaven or big banners from Air - just more open acknowledgements and obvious steps taken by them to improve things around here which aren't technical. Even just a declaration of their will to do so.

 

I mean really Eden, you know as well as I that if a new SSL bug or something was revealed today, which completely unmasked VPN users, Air would be the first VPN in the world to have a patch & community update available and posted tommorrow or within you know, 3 hours of it becoming known. Heck, it might even be ​before  the bug is officially published! . That's obviously supremely good and displays Airs absolute dedication to security and its high technical skill. If they'd put in even just a fraction of the same kind of effort into non-technical areas of managing a VPN, that alone would be a huge improvement already. But it seems to get brushed aside, for lack of a better expression and I don't understand why. I mean we know there's plenty of work to do and that there might not be resources enough at Air - but that's where the community steps in. It's just a matter of Air choosing to make use of it. But instead, there's more or less complete silence, from all that I can see.

​

​If you look here, you'll see it says:

​

EDIT: until now it has not been possible to build a staff of independent moderators. As a consequence, it's the whole community that proposes projects. Anyone can do that.

​Now that's in relation to funding projects of course, so it's a little different. But what would stop Air from, for instance, having "community mods" for other things? I like this idea. What about you? Just give them the powers to edit things and nothing else, but not the power to post them without first being reviewed; just like with new users. That way, you'd stop rogue mods changing things without Air noticing, but you'd still get things done around the forums and thereby improve the experience for everyone. For free. If there was then a small community of "community mods", then they could even police each other and thereby further lessen the workload for Air. You and me for instance, could go and edit the How-tos section and create links to useful posts from around the forum. We could add simplified explanations, to back up the technical ones. This directly benefits Air and is free; it's like piracy lol, just without the MPAA & all the other losers.   So what's stopping them?

​

[Guest]

​Exactly.

​

​Sorry for the wall of text ahead.

​

 

Huge wall of text indeed, but decent read

 

You're right tho people don't really go looking in general & suggestions when they are looking for a guide they go to how-tos, and official guides first and foremost. I agree AirVPN definitely show their technical expertise and dedication to keep AirVPN secure but lack in the community interreaction, None of us really know the size of the AirVPN team but I'm sure they are hard at work behind the scenes all the time many are probably making sure the servers run and investigating new server locations and the sort, due to the limitations of IP.Board tho you can't restrict Moderators in such a way. Primarily I'd assume the reasons there is not really any Moderators is because of the chances of rogue mods who may try to harm AirVPN after a disagreement or even abuse their power in a disagreement with another user, I think making zhang a moderator was a nice move he's been here for long and always shown a high level of technical expertise matching AirVPN he even helped me at one time when I was encountering an issue I couldn't quite figure out with linux. 

 

P.S. I spent a good 10-20 minutes writing this, reading it and rewriting xD

[Staff 9973]

​

​But the problem is that while I've tried making a guide aimed specifically at newcomers, both advanced and non-savvy alike, it's not as if it's actually in any of the How-to forums. Even though those forums are stated as being for "Guides" as well. Who checks the "General & Suggestions" Forum, when they're looking for a guide?...[Not that I don't appreciate the sticky of course, but you get the point].

 

Thanks,

 

your guide / tutorial has been promoted to How-To section. The delay is perfectly normal, nothing wrong in your guide or lack of time or anything else, it's just that we always wait for several feedbacks before putting anything in the How-To section. This usually requires some weeks and we normally should have waited some more time, but given your reaction we have moved it right now.

 

Kind regards

[Guest]

 

​

​But the problem is that while I've tried making a guide aimed specifically at newcomers, both advanced and non-savvy alike, it's not as if it's actually in any of the How-to forums. Even though those forums are stated as being for "Guides" as well. Who checks the "General & Suggestions" Forum, when they're looking for a guide?...[Not that I don't appreciate the sticky of course, but you get the point].

 

Thanks,

 

your guide / tutorial has been promoted to How-To section. The delay is perfectly normal, nothing wrong in your guide or lack of time or anything else, it's just that we always wait for several feedbacks before putting anything in the How-To section. This usually requires some weeks and we normally should have waited some more time, but given your reaction we have moved it right now.

 

Kind regards

 

Great, congratulations LZ1

[LZ1 672]

 

​Exactly.

​

​Sorry for the wall of text ahead.

​

Huge wall of text indeed, but decent read

 

You're right tho people don't really go looking in general & suggestions when they are looking for a guide they go to how-tos, and official guides first and foremost. I agree AirVPN definitely show their technical expertise and dedication to keep AirVPN secure but lack in the community interreaction, None of us really know the size of the AirVPN team but I'm sure they are hard at work behind the scenes all the time many are probably making sure the servers run and investigating new server locations and the sort, due to the limitations of IP.Board tho you can't restrict Moderators in such a way. Primarily I'd assume the reasons there is not really any Moderators is because of the chances of rogue mods who may try to harm AirVPN after a disagreement or even abuse their power in a disagreement with another user, I think making zhang a moderator was a nice move he's been here for long and always shown a high level of technical expertise matching AirVPN he even helped me at one time when I was encountering an issue I couldn't quite figure out with linux. 

 

P.S. I spent a good 10-20 minutes writing this, reading it and rewriting xD

Haha, because of your little note, I thought I'd avoid posting for a little while, to give you a break. Now it's back to work!

​Good assessment. I'm sure they're hard at work too; which plays precisely into my arguments about how there should be greater use of the community, when possible.

​I wasn't aware of IP.Board restrictions. Is that really true? That seems incredible. I'd call that a major feature lacking, if true. But if it was true, what would Air have meant by "Community mods". That's just regular mods then. To me it insinuated mods with only partial mod powers. . . You're right that rogue mods are a risk. Although I'm sure this can be avoided if you appoint the right people; guide-makers for instance (not to highlight myself, but it's unavoidable), because they, such as the guy who made the pfSense guide, have already contributed to the community in a big way. Indeed, zhang is perfect, as he's just as cool, composed and knowledgeable as the Staff account, haha.

​

​@Staff

​Thank you! I'd say it's an honor being "promoted", 07! (salute) lol.

​Now I don't want to seem ungrateful for your reply, but that might be unavoidable; apologies. I didn't mean to sound impatient about getting the guide moved, but Thank you.

​

​But what about addressing the other issues highlighted in the thread? Are there no Air thoughts, opinions or attitudes to any of these things? Future plans, roadblocks of various kinds or anything? I can't get these answers from anyone else besides the Staff account. As you once said, one should only assume that Air thinks what the Staff account says. I'm thinking specifically about:

• ​Adding non-technical/simplified versions of text to various FAQ threads, in spoiler tags. (I'll even write them! Then someone like zhang could check them perhaps)
• ​Doing more community-driven things like the promo video thread from 2014.
• ​Appointing those "Community Mods" you spoke about so long ago. Is it true what EdenSpire said, that IP.Board doesn't support Mods with limited powers??

​Thank you. I know it's a lot of reading, sorry, but this is your feedback talking <3.

[Guest]

Haha, because of your little note, I thought I'd avoid posting for a little while, to give you a break. Now it's back to work!

 

​

​Good assessment. I'm sure they're hard at work too; which plays precisely into my arguments about how there should be greater use of the community, when possible.

​I wasn't aware of IP.Board restrictions. Is that really true? That seems incredible. I'd call that a major feature lacking, if true. But if it was true, what would Air have meant by "Community mods". That's just regular mods then. To me it insinuated mods with only partial mod powers. . . You're right that rogue mods are a risk. Although I'm sure this can be avoided if you appoint the right people; guide-makers for instance (not to highlight myself, but it's unavoidable), because they, such as the guy who made the pfSense guide, have already contributed to the community in a big way. Indeed, zhang is perfect, as he's just as cool, composed and knowledgeable as the Staff account, haha.

​

​@Staff

​Thank you! I'd say it's an honor being "promoted", 07! (salute) lol.

​Now I don't want to seem ungrateful for your reply, but that might be unavoidable; apologies. I didn't mean to sound impatient about getting the guide moved, but Thank you.

​

​But what about addressing the other issues highlighted in the thread? Are there no Air thoughts, opinions or attitudes to any of these things? Future plans, roadblocks of various kinds or anything? I can't get these answers from anyone else besides the Staff account. As you once said, one should only assume that Air thinks what the Staff account says. I'm thinking specifically about:

• ​Adding non-technical/simplified versions of text to various FAQ threads, in spoiler tags. (I'll even write them! Then someone like zhang could check them perhaps)
• ​Doing more community-driven things like the promo video thread from 2014.
• ​Appointing those "Community Mods" you spoke about so long ago. Is it true what EdenSpire said, that IP.Board doesn't support Mods with limited powers??

​Thank you. I know it's a lot of reading, sorry, but this is your feedback talking <3.

 

Just to quickly clarify, you can limit their access to specific forums, but you cannot restrict them in such a way their actions must be approved.

 

Also wasn't about me needing a break I just kept getting distracted which resulted in me forgetting half of what I wrote so I had to reread it and then think of what I wanted to say and such xD

[LZ1 672]

Oh I see. Well maybe there could be a hidden forum for them then, where they can take a copy of a thread or something which should be changed, start a new thread and then explain their changes. Then other mods/Staff could comment, in order to approve it, then copy/paste the contents into the official thread. So if you thought an FAQ thread should be changed, you to the FAQ forum, copy the contents of the thread you want to change, then post it in the hidden forum. Staff approves, copy/pastes your content back into the FAQ thread and voila, changed. Then the thread is locked. Do you think this is feasible or is it too tedious? Just giving ideas.

​

​Haha, distractions eh . It's so annoying when reading something and you have to re-read it 5 times to get it lol.

[Guest]

Oh I see. Well maybe there could be a hidden forum for them then, where they can take a copy of a thread or something which should be changed, start a new thread and then explain their changes. Then other mods/Staff could comment, in order to approve it, then copy/paste the contents into the official thread. So if you thought an FAQ thread should be changed, you to the FAQ forum, copy the contents of the thread you want to change, then post it in the hidden forum. Staff approves, copy/pastes your content back into the FAQ thread and voila, changed. Then the thread is locked. Do you think this is feasible or is it too tedious? Just giving ideas.

​

​Haha, distractions eh . It's so annoying when reading something and you have to re-read it 5 times to get it lol.

 

It'd work sure but no need to be a mod for that specifically, plenty ways you can do something in that style without moderating abilities, I imagine you can even make a feedback ticket or something and do that, giving them something they could add to the FAQ threads although as AirVPN put it, it could take a while having to go through the whole team and the sort to be approved if it should be added might be a bit tedious