redhorse posted at 10:51AM Mon, 15 February 2016 - #4255104

It's interesting that this is coming up again. Long ago, there was a "New Products" forum here at Renderosity, that allowed any member of the community to post links to products on ANY site. That forum provided VALUE to the community and encouraged lots of people to hang out here and even buy some stuff. Frequently the product on the other site required or at least complemented something in Renderosity's huge store resulting in a sale for both Renderosity and the other site. Then advertising competing sites was banned and the forum was renamed "Marketplace" or something like that, and only contained announcements about new products in the Renderosity store. Pointless. If I wanted to see what's new in the store, I'd go to the actual store (crazy, I know). That's when I gave up on the forums, though I continued buying from the store. I didn't really come back to lurking around the forums until after all the recent changes to the site and Prime membership. I've stopped buying anything, but enjoy watching a good train wreck.

It seems that Renderosity is getting desperate to turn things around, but everything you do is simply reinforcing previous missteps and adding new ones. I mourn for the future of what was once my favorite 3D site. Coupled with DAZ's foolish foray into DRM and exclusion of Poser users by most vendors, this hobby is dying fast for me.

As for the "censorship", consider that passionate complaints are a sign of a healthy community. It means the members care enough to tell you what you are doing wrong so you can serve them better and ultimately make more money, keep your jobs, etc. If the complaints stop, it isn't because everything is OK, it's because no one cares anymore. If the complaints are censored, you will simply drive away your most passionate supporters, the ones who care enough about your business to spend their time trying to help you fix problems you may not be aware of. Embrace the gift of complainers. They will help you grow your business.

As a public speaker, I always explicitly solicit negative feedback from attendees. Comments like "great job" or "loved it" won't help me grow and improve. I'm far more grateful to the guy who tells me, "Your explanation of X confused me..." or "I couldn't hear you in the back row..." because I now have something to work on to better my skills as a presenter. You should do the same with site members.

I don't see the the changes as censorship and as for negativity, well you only have to read my posts to see that negativity and complaints are definitely allowed. OK, once or twice I have been asked not to be negative but it is hard to be positive sometimes, the Prime changes being the subject the immediately springs to mind. That said, complaints are useless if no one listens and I agree with you in that, if complaints are stifled or ignored, it just goes quiet. Again Prime is a good example, most members have stop complaining and have just decided not to renew.

The point is something has to be done, the number of people that have stopped buying or deleted their account seems to continue if the forums are correct. This is just those who announce their exit, there are probably many that stay silent but just leave.

It is possible to criticise without being personal and accusing others of being idiots just because they do not agree with a particular viewpoint or use a certain software, unfortunately it takes moderators and TOS to enforce this which is a real shame.

 

 

I use Poser 13 on Windows 11 - For Scene set up I use a Geekcom A5 -  Ryzen 9 5900HX, with 64 gig ram and 3 TB  storage, mini PC with final rendering done on normal sized desktop using an AMD Ryzen Threadipper 1950X CPU, Corsair Hydro H100i CPU cooler, 3XS EVGA GTX 1080i SC with 11g Ram, 4 X 16gig Corsair DDR4 Ram and a Corsair RM 100 PSU .   The desktop is in a remote location with rendering done via Queue Manager which gives me a clearer desktop and quieter computer room.