Wow. Just... wow.
You know, I've long found their treatment of me personally and of the community in general to be draconian. But I kind of figured that it was partly me and my inability to keep from swimming against the tide. I get uncomfortable when in a community where certain ideas or concepts are unacceptable, especially when the community presents itself otherwise. Also, I'm just the kind of usability person to be able to see- if not use- basic behavioral principles. How Rendo handles its customers and its vendors tends to make all but a chosen few very angry. And I've seen even those chosen few have their dust-ups with the Rendo PTB. But as much as I've seen, as much as friends have personally complained to me about _and_ told me about their friends, I still kind of had it in my head that it was more me than Rendo.
This deep sixes that idea.
Just looking at this from a totally functional, unemotional perspective, this was a negative move for them. They upset a long-time community member enough for him to tell others. They did it not based on his behavior on their site, which they could logically police, his behavior on other sites. Which your average customer will think is none of their business. At the very least, this will have chilling effect, but not in the way they want. This isn't like being afraid of privacy violations from your government or some service you absolutely depend on like Google. The easiest way not to have to worry about their reaction is to avoid their site. That takes much less effort than trying to edit yourself according to an undisclosed set of rules enforced by unknown people who make unspecified accusations. I mean, they accused someone of lying without saying what they lied about, who said they lied, or any specifics.
No one likes to be told they're doing something wrong. It's easier to avoid negative feedback, which is what most people do. The most productive way to do this is by fixing a problem. But since Rendo didn't give a way to do that other than not to say anything about Rendo that unspecified people might possibly construe as negative, the only ways to do that are to never talk about Rendo again or leave the community. So even from their standpoint, where a positive outcome would be to enhance their reputation in other forums, their actions prevent a positive outcome. For most people, by _far_ the easiest way to avoid their continued negative feedback is to avoid their site. Unless a user is incredibly negative and disruptive, that's a negative outcome for Renderosity.
And if this had been my mother, she'd have torn them a new one for calling her a liar. She's one of those people who doesn't react well to that _at all_. Thinking about it, so does my best friend. And she tends to win in battles against companies that have pissed her off. They're just lucky they didn't accuse someone like that.
One of the things this site's consistently positive moderation- and DAZ's moderation failures and successes (as judged by others' negative and positive reactions, not my personal reaction)- has taught me is that you _cannot_ get a positive outcome from purely negative action. A positive reaction can go a long way, even when handing out correction. I watched Rendo's moderation get more draconian in the face of such rampant forum negativity that they felt compelled to take action. The problem with this was that it added to, not subtracted from, the negative emotions in the forums. Add in the fact that, as always at Rendo, some people get to be as negative and snide as they want (saying it's just being "honest") while others get reprimanded or worse for just voicing their opinion politely, and you just don't have an environment that invites discussion.
I don't think I'm any good at practicing this principle. But I'm also not trying to run a forum. And, well, I am trying to learn.
I used to spend most of my day in the Renderosity forums. Now I have to force myself to go there. I haven't looked at their gallery or forum in months. I have products that I sell here that aren't exclusive and could be submitted there. I haven't been able to force myself to make the promos and materials necessary. And it would be one thing if I were the only person I know that had been driven away. After all, I'm not important at all. But I've noticed that pretty much all the people I learned from have left Rendo. Most of the artists I talked with have left Rendo. And not just drifted away, they have ranted to me about how they left and aren't ever going back.
Rendo still has lots of great artists there. There's still some impressive and interesting work going on there. I'm not trying to say they're villains or horrible people. They can certainly run their site as they want. And there's lots of good moderators, admins, and testers there. I'm all for people who like shopping there to keep doing so, and people who like the forums to keep going to those. I just think it's worth noting that in a time when the CG industry itself seems to be losing money hand over fist (notice that Ballistic stopped putting out books?) and the content community is struggling, Renderosity keeps taking actions to preserve themselves that are so negative that the outcomes seem to be equally so.