A strange way of working.

[Bonnie2001]

I just feel very upset and more than a little bewildered, I thought it wold seem better after I had slept on it but, if anything it seems worse.

Yes well being treated like you were would hardly make your day. But you will feel a bit better tomorrow, and a bit better the day after.

 

[Alisa]

I would hate to see you no longer posting here because of this. Many of the active members here enjoy and look forward to your posts and the images you create.

This!! You are an important part of this community.

My personal opinion here... I think it would have been far nicer for the site in question to contact you, explain that they've received complaints about some of your comments made at {fill in the blank} forums ...with some specific examples. Explain why they are untrue, and ask if you would be good enough to delete those remarks. Or write to the place it was done and nicely explain and ask the same...

 

[Hornet3d]

Yeah. And you're like a brother from another mother and father. You think more like me than my actual brothers do!

Well ... more than my two highly conservative brothers do anyway. My liberal brother does tend to think a lot like me. He just ... like the other two ... is more into sports than art. Totally amazing that I come from the same family. They all lived and breathed sports. Baseball, Football, Basketball. I was the only Art minded one in the bunch. Both a girl and an artist. I so didn't fit in.

That is really strange, I have two brothers and two sisters and they all tend to think along the same lines, I am always the one off on a tangent. I know my strong sense of fair play comes from my father but none of the rest of my family think that way, not since my Mother and Father died some years ago. I am the second eldest son though oddly I tend to align closer to my sisters than my brothers as regard principles and the like. Even stranger is that I have a niece and we seem to have the same reaction to most things which surprising considering the massive age gap.

Likewise I am the only art minded one and neither my family or my in-laws (who are great by the way) understand why I create what I do.

 

[Hornet3d]

Hornet, I'm really sorry that this has happened and totally get your reaction to this.

Something to consider in all this though is that there are many people who visit the hive who do not actively post or participate in threads. I would hate to see you no longer posting here because of this. Many of the active members here enjoy and look forward to your posts and the images you create.



Pen

Thank you so much for that. Somebody else took the trouble to send me a site mail, for which I was very grateful, making very much the same point. I was being very naive not to realise that while the vast majority of people here are good honest people with a genuine interest in art and deserve my respect, there are a few others that are just out to make mischief. Why they should waste their efforts in this manner is alien to me.

This is the second time that I have reached a point where I wanted to chuck the whole hobby in. The first time was when every thing became so vicious and personal on another forum that I began to dislike the hobby I am part of. It occurs to me now that some of same people involved then are the same now, it is just they cannot get away with the same behavior here and therefore lurk in the shadows and perform their cowardly acts from there. Guess what, I refuse to let them win. I have long since stopped shopping at Rendo, removed my gallery over a year ago and only really frequented the forums in a ad-hoc basis. I have multiple copies of my downloads from there, one copy of which is to s set of M discs that are said to last 1000 years. I have no idea how accurate that is but I am fairly sure they will out live me. In short the total loss of Renderosity will have little to no impact.

So to those involved I only have one message go on with petty little games, I hope they make you very happy. I will be happy, getting fun from my renders and the good people here. I ain't going nowhere.

 

[Hornet3d]

Yes well being treated like you were would hardly make your day. But you will feel a bit better tomorrow, and a bit better the day after.

Thank you. Now some others have taken the time to offer an explanation of what went on, an explanation that makes total sense, I am more angry than sad. I refuse to let them win.

 

[Hornet3d]

This!! You are an important part of this community.

My personal opinion here... I think it would have been far nicer for the site in question to contact you, explain that they've received complaints about some of your comments made at {fill in the blank} forums ...with some specific examples. Explain why they are untrue, and ask if you would be good enough to delete those remarks. Or write to the place it was done and nicely explain and ask the same...

Thank you for your support, there are no words I can conjure up to tell you how much it means to me.

Once I had the email I did respond to it saying that I was surprised about the complaints and if they could show where I had stated any thing that was untrue I was not only happy to delete the posts but also admit I was wrong and apologise to those who were offended. I also asked for further information on statement that I had been given a previous warning because I honestly don't remember. I did this in a respectful way and made it clear that I was not challenging the ban. So far I have no reply to that email but as far as I am concerned it is in the past.

Without any explanation to the contrary I am minded to believe that the suggestions made here of what actually went on. My personal belief is that they complained to Renderosity because they knew they could get away with it here without reasonable justification. To my mind anyone who had really been upset may not have challenged medirectly, but it would be common sense to complain to the admin here and not to another site. Even a compliant to both sites would make more sense. The fact it was only made to Renderosity, to me at least gives a great deal of credibility to the explication given by others here.

Thank you again for your support and to everyone else who has commented here in a effort to try and clear up the massive confusion this has created for me.

 

[Alisa]

I will be happy, getting fun from my renders and the good people here. I ain't going nowhere.

Good!

Thank you for your support, there are no words I can conjure up to tell you how much it means to me.

Once I had the email I did respond to it saying that I was surprised about the complaints and if they could show where I had stated any thing that was untrue I was not only happy to delete the posts but also admit I was wrong and apologise to those who were offended. I also asked for further information on statement that I had been given a previous warning because I honestly don't remember. I did this in a respectful way and made it clear that I was not challenging the ban. So far I have no reply to that email but as far as I am concerned it is in the past.

Sounds good. That's exactly what my reply would have been, had it been me.

 

[Hornet3d]

Just to update everyone, the ban has been lifted, for now at least, and I have access to my account. Whether I use it again in the future will be another matter. I did use the forum today but that was to respond to someone I had started helping and did not want to abandon them.

As with a lot of cases where things go wrong there are aspects of this that show people in their true colours. I am really touched (many have said so for years) at the support that people have given me here. Whether it be just moral support or trying to help me through the confusion this created for me. Some even took to site mail here to try and help and one person even took the time to look back through my posts relating to Renderosity so they could make their own judgement as the accuracy of the action that was leveled against me. For people to take such time and trouble to assist me has literally brought me to tears on more than one occasion.

I have always been prepared to criticise where I feel something is wrong or I have been baldy treated but I firmly believe that if you do that you have to accept you should praise when things are good.

I owe all of you a debt I can never repay and I cannot begin to describe what your support has meant to me so all I can offer is a sincere and heart felt thank you to you all

 

[Pendraia]

Glad to hear your not going anywhere.

 

[Alisa]

You're repaying the debt by staying and being you

 

[Miss B]

You're repaying the debt by staying and being you

+1

 

[Riccardo]

In my opinion, they should instead consider a good thing to have customers/users as respectful as @Hornet3d

 

[kobaltkween]

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.

 

[Hornet3d]

In my opinion, they should instead consider a good thing to have customers/users as respectful as @Hornet3d

Thank you for comments. I don't always succeed but I do try and voice my opinions in a way that upsets no one.

In truth Renderosity lost me as a high spending customer some time ago and a few months ago lost me as a customer totally. I stayed in the forums trying to help Poser users, as many of the skilled poser users have already abandoned Rendo, and in the vain hope that things might change for the better. My only contact now is with one user who I was trying to help so I do go there when I am emailed to say the thread has been updated. I am now trying to take that help off line so I can leave Renderosity entirely. I do so reluctantly because it now leaves the field open to a certain number of people who will give advice to others which has more to do with their own agenda than truly trying to help. Despite the reluctance I have come to the conclusion you can only bash your head against a brick wall so long before you realise the only outcome will be a massive headache or worse.

Even now I wish Rendo and the staff there all the best, I cannot say the same for their style of customer service or method of moderation.

 

[Hornet3d]

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.

Thank you for that I think that is a well thought out and accurate description of the trend at Rendo. I also felt the action was strange in the way it was applied, but then I would sat that wouldn't I. It has been a few days since I emailed my response asking for further details of the complaint and also details of the previous warning they maintain I have been given. They have so far they have decided not to reply, not even a response saying they will not be providing further details.

While you were writing your post I was adding the final chapter in my relationship with them, at least as far as I am concerned.

I would however like thank you for taking the trouble and a sizable amount of time in writing your post. It gives, I think a very balanced view from an individual I have always respected and who's words I value.

 

[eclark1894]

A few years ago, I exiled myself from posting on Rendo and cam here to Hivewire. I was just tired of dealing with the trolls and flame starters that kept getting threads locked at Rendo. You probably all know who I mean. I've never had a problem with those people here. Interestingly enough the thread that got me fed up was one I started at Rendo titled, "Why are you still using V4?" Sure enough, out came the trolls and flame starters trying to get the thread locked or just trying to be as annoying as they could. I asked one moderator over there to lock the thread. Oddly, she wouldn't. That was when I'd had enough of Renderosity and decided that I had to leave. I did delete all my freebies, as I said, and just stopped posting. Instead, I posted here and at RDNA. Well, I've since started posting again at Renderosity. I make one or two comments every now and then whenever something grabs my attention. Every now and again, one of the "Is Poser Finished?" threads pops up. Oddly enough, the moderator I asked to lock the thread I had started, but wouldn't, the thread that was definitely getting out hand, is so gunshy these days, she's preemptively locking threads. I'm not calling anybody out, and I' not using any names, although some of you might have figured out who I'm talking about.

I'm not even mad anymore, because i do know that usually being a moderator is a tough and thankless job. That's why I just wanted to say THANK YOU, ALISA. You have both my gratitude and admiration for the wonderful job you do moderating this forum.

 

[Hornet3d]

A few years ago, I exiled myself from posting on Rendo and cam here to Hivewire. I was just tired of dealing with the trolls and flame starters that kept getting threads locked at Rendo. You probably all know who I mean. I've never had a problem with those people here. Interestingly enough the thread that got me fed up was one I started at Rendo titled, "Why are you still using V4?" Sure enough, out came the trolls and flame starters trying to get the thread locked or just trying to be as annoying as they could. I asked one moderator over there to lock the thread. Oddly, she wouldn't. That was when I'd had enough of Renderosity and decided that I had to leave. I did delete all my freebies, as I said, and just stopped posting. Instead, I posted here and at RDNA. Well, I've since started posting again at Renderosity. I make one or two comments every now and then whenever something grabs my attention. Every now and again, one of the "Is Poser Finished?" threads pops up. Oddly enough, the moderator I asked to lock the thread I had started, but wouldn't, the thread that was definitely getting out hand, is so gunshy these days, she's preemptively locking threads. I'm not calling anybody out, and I' not using any names, although some of you might have figured out who I'm talking about.

I'm not even mad anymore, because i do know that usually being a moderator is a tough and thankless job. That's why I just wanted to say THANK YOU, ALISA. You have both my gratitude and admiration for the wonderful job you do moderating this forum.

I second your comments to Alisa I think we are very lucky here.

I remember the post you are talking about I think I even added a few posts. I remember thinking at the time it was very strange that they refused to lock the thread even when asked to by the person that had created it. I could not see why, all the information would still be there and if there were any further questions anyone was open to start another thread concentrating on that particular aspect. The refusal did not make sense. While I agree with you that the moderators job is a difficult one I think the actual problem at Rendo may go far further up the chain. That is a personal view and I have no information to support it so the source of that belief is me and a gut instinct.


I think the final straw for me was in trying to help some over there who had purchased Poser 11 and was disappointed with the result they were getting with Superfly. I wanted to offer some encouragement and suggested they come here to see some of the wonderful Superfly renders here. I realised as I wrote that I was just giving ammunition to those that would see this as a criticism of their favorite software/company even though I was only doing it because I had first hand knowledge of those renders. As I have said they only reason I post there was to help others and in the vain hope I might see changes for the better. I have been hoping for the latter for over three years and now accept it just ain't going to happen. I now find that even my ability to help others is restricted because I can't say what I want to say without the fear I will be persecuted. As such I have no further reason for visiting Renderosity. I revised my post to a very much shorter answer and sent the person in question my personal email so they can contact me if they feel I can help further.

 

[Alisa]

Aww, thanks . It really can be hard to know when to stop something and when to let it go, and it's not a one person job. I'm sure the mods at other forums do the best job they can. CVs (Community Volunteers) and community members have let us know when someone's posting things they shouldn't.

I've had many times where I've asked Chris or Lisa how they feel about something someone has posted, so they're great helps when I'm unsure. They set that line and they do it by following the 5 "Cs" - the principles by which they started HiveWire, which you'll see in Lisa's sig - Create, Collaborate, Communicate, Commit, Care.

It's a matter of THINKING about and caring how others, and it follows one of my favorite quotes from the book, All I Really Need To Know I Learned in Kindergarten by Robert Fulghum:

All I really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to be I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate-school mountain, but there in the sandpile at Sunday School. These are the things I learned:

Share everything.
Play fair.
Don't hit people.
Put things back where you found them.
Clean up your own mess.
Don't take things that aren't yours.
Say you're sorry when you hurt somebody.
Wash your hands before you eat.
Flush.
Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.
Live a balanced life - learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.
Take a nap every afternoon.
When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands, and stick together.

Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.

Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup - they all die. So do we.

And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned - the biggest word of all - LOOK.

Everything you need to know is in there somewhere. The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation. Ecology and politics and equality and sane living.

Take any of those items and extrapolate it into sophisticated adult terms and apply it to your family life or your work or your government or your world and it holds true and clear and firm.

Think what a better world it would be if all - the whole world - had cookies and milk about three o'clock every afternoon and then lay down with our blankies for a nap. Or if all governments had a basic policy to always put thing back where they found them and to clean up their own mess.

And it is still true, no matter how old you are - when you go out into the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together.

And with that, (with thanks to Rosetta for the Cookies, Greenpots for the Table, and Trumarcar for the Plate and Milk Carton) here are some milk & cookies for everyone (more appears magically when some is removed ):

 

[daywalker03]

Good to hear that you're staying; I don't know you very well, but find that anyone that will have as little to do with Renderosity as you have can't be bad.

 

[Hornet3d]

Good to hear that you're staying; I don't know you very well, but find that anyone that will have as little to do with Renderosity as you have can't be bad.

.

Thanks, it is a real shame though, a few years ago Rendeosity had a group of people who were not only extremely skilled in the use of Poser but also more than willing to share their knowledge. Over the period of around 6-8 months they stopped posting in their droves. Some do still post there and are a great help to those who have questions, but the forum is a shadow of what it used to be. The rest seemed to be scattered to the wind. Some appeared at RDNA, but that came to an end when RDNA did, and a few ended up here. Many were lost to the forums all together and I suspect a few were lost to the community.

Renderosity still has some very good tutorials but that does not replace the need to have someone willing to assist with a particular problem someone is having. At that time the forums were very busy, a lot busier than here, but then there were a lot more members (mind you if you removed a lot of the ' mine is better than yours' post the number of useful posts were probably a lot closer to what we see here. These days the main Poser forum can go for a day or two without a post, and the forums for each of the Posers versions are mainly quieter still. Poser 11 forum seems to get a fair amount of traffic but entering the forums for versions before Poser 2014 can result in a message saying there have been no new posts in the last 80 days. Hard to say if that is a drop in traffic though as these forums are fairly new, they did not exist when the Poser forum was really busy.

I hope Renderostiy can get back to where it was it is a real loss to the Poser and wider community as it stands. It will be a long hard climb but I still feel it is possible but someone there has got to want it to change first.