Quote - > Quote - So, you seem to think that you have the whip hand, instead of realizing that every time you chase away a member is a failure for you. Soon you will have no one left. No one need to ban me. It is enough to know I am not an asset. So good bye I wish you good luck.

I didn't get that AT ALL from what he said.  This response seems a little melodramatic.  

I truly believe that they simply do not realize what is being lost.  Or realize that what is being lost is actually an asset.  (Ends justify etc.)

They are not the gestapo for crying out loud, just humans trying to do a job.  The debate here is about the best way to do that job.  Which there are many different valid opinions on.  It's not something to take personally as an end user.  

Ambient,  I stopped posting here regularly a loooooong time ago.  There was a certain cat lady that was fairly active on the forums at the time and she managed to imo manipulate the moderators pretty successfully.  During this time there were many threads that lost responses to counter her attacks, while her posts remained.  That is when I began to get a bad taste in my mouth for what was going on.  I don't think you were a moderator at the time, I don't think Basic was either.  My memory sucks.  I definitely can't remember the thread name.  

So my personal experience is not with any current moderator.  Exept in that our opinions on the methods differ greatly.  I struggle  because things are taken so darn personally on the internet and I have NO issue whatsoever on a personal level with any of the moderators.  So it's tough to say "I disagree with the way you are doing things" without it being taken as a personal affront.  

I still see what is happening when I come here to read, when even more rarely I come here to post.  I get involved in these conversations  because I have a special place in my heart for this community and I retain the hope that one day it might again be what it once was.  Unfortunately I still only see people so steadfast in insisting that their way is the only right way that it's not looking good.  (On both sides mind you).  People completely unwilling to acknowledge that it is very unlikely that they are 100% right, therefore acknowledging that some percentage of what the other side says has merit.  

It is very very clear, to less inundated eyes, that the censoring is driving the forum into the dust.  Like I said in my previous post, you still have your percentage that like what it is and want it to stay that way, they vocally support this.  The ones who don't in large part have left.  I believe that the minority have won out.  

Hard world facts are that forums are not democracies.  So que sera sera.  It does not matter one single bit what I want, what I think is best, how I think it is best achieved.  What does matter is what the site owers think, or you moderators.  I continue to hope that the conclusion will be reached at some point that activity is of high import and possibly some acknowledgment of reasons that it may have fallen off.

When I first read you post on this very subject a few weeks ago (I think), I agreed, but kept it to myself. I still agree. I also left for a longish time because I got tired of participating in threads that got locked. However...

I gave it a lot of thought, while I was also participating in other forums on other topics. And I changed my mind for the most part. I'm not saying, by any means, that I'm right about everything. The only way to be right is to be open-minded enough to realize you are almost certainly wrong about many things. So I welcome input that expresses a different view.

In any case, I concluded that unless we're here 24/7, we're not aware of all the drama that goes on. We're particularly not aware of how many posts get reported, both legitimately and also  because someone has a grudge or is looking for a way to be offended.

The drama here has gotten intense at times. Two years or so of continual battling in the "apps wars". Much of what was said in thread after thread was useful and enlightening, but much of it was nothing more than flamebait followed by flamewar. 

If you're loyal to a company or set of products and you really believe in them, it seems intuitively correct that you should express that by showing your fervid disdain for the competition vocally. Just as you would as a fan of a sports team. There's a huge opportunity for bonding in an us v them situation. Something in we humans seems to enjoy that and we gravitate towards it.

As I'm sure most of us know, that's not how it works in the real business world. It's considered highly unprofessional to bash your competition publicly. Most of the forum members aren't professionals in the field of 3d -- but Renderosity is a legitimate business. And hosting a free for all flame war against the competition sullies the reputation of that business. Moreover, when you ban people from the forums (as opposed to constantly weeding out their posts and deleting), you're banning a person who may also be a customer. And that changes the nature of the relationship. So you can't just ban or suspend people without giving the matter serious thought.

Now if we were hosted on an independent server, the kind of topic restrictions we have could be eased, and anyone who caused any serious trouble could be suspended or banned at will. But we aren't. And, in my experience, most independently hosted forums tend to fall into the dust eventually anyway.

Edit: And I still agree that strong moderation does tend to put a damper on expression and drive some people away, and that this has certainly happened here. But I don't know how else the mods should behave under the circumstances because it seems to me they are doing the best anyone could.

Sorry about the "novelette". I type more than 85 wpm on screen, so I tend to get stupidly wordy. :)

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