Moderating a defamation

*** Moderation ***
Action:

  • Moved this discussion out of the thread Updated Forum Rules
    Reasons:
  • It does not belong to the topic of that thread
  • It is a pretty lengthy discussion on it’s own.
  • several requests from forum members

Please take into the account the top post was not designed as one.

Action:

  • Closed
    Reason:
  • The discussion is not constructive anymore
  • There is no need to continue this discussion

If you do not agree and want this thread reopened, report this post and give some arguments. We will review them and decide. You can even do that if you think you have a better name for this thread.

Thanks
Your moderator
Monster

Dear SilenceBe, you should visit that stinking cesspool called Renderosity. The admins clamp on every single sign of anything but hands clapping to the Party Line. Discussing moderators actions is a bannable offence. The result? 2/3 years ago is was a 6500-7500 logged users community, nowadays it rarely goes above 1500 and I have seen it drop to little more then 400 :D.

W.r.t. this community, you all have to understand that Blender is Mr. Roosendaal toy. He plays with it as he sees fit. Mine, yours or anybody else option (including money contributors one’s) are simply redirected to /dev/null. As long as we can live with Blender as it is and as it is being headed, fine. When this stops to be true, it is time for greener pastures.

silencebe , sour and jpb . 3 more people to ignore, good to know these toxic users as they show their true color.

What color of sort?
tell us, please

paolo

yii7, if you still see this,
is comfortable to ignore everything that we do not like, but not so convenient if you want to live in the world.

As to the point,
we can see that it’s all politic, so I want to say that I don’t like the politic of systematically ignoring what users ask for, and they must be aware of that.

paolo

Remember like three posts above when I talked about users going off topic, feeding into personal attacks, and having a discussion that belongs in a PM? C’mon guys… seriously?

You’re right, sorry!
you know, frustration needs to emerge somehow…

paolo

Don’t waste your time with the True Believers™; if you dare to express doubts about their favourite deity they go balistic.

Personally, I have made a mental note to keep under observation SideFX and Pixologic moves. If I outgrow Blender or Blender goes in a direction I do not agree with, there is are two potential escape routes.

You are right jpb06 about the fact that many of this posts are wasted time, sadly I’m not used to tag people, so I don’t know whether someone is this or that, I just tell what I think to everybody, also face to face.

About blender, I also love it, and I would be very sorry to leave.

EDIT:
I feel the need to elaborate a bit.
I am very grateful toward creators and developers of blender, without them no blender, and it would not be so fantastic.
However, blender is now a creature to itself, and if you consider certain politics to be wrong it’s right to speak, just like you can’t allow a parent to kill his own child just because he created him.

paolo

In the post that was merrily nuked by BlenderArtists Thought Police, I wrote I am golng to closely follow SideFX, Pixologic and Unreal moves. Even for limited (hobby) budget people like me, Blender is no more the only game in town.

I nuked that post so as to maintain context, since the post it was directly in reply to was deleted. Perhaps that was a bit over zealous.

Why was it over zealous ? He was accusing me of being a radical cult follower in the previous post before that. Isn’t that a personal attack ? Of course it should be deleted , because there is no context at that point. you would contradict yourself otherwise if you didn’t delete his post.

By the way “W.r.t. this community, you all have to understand that Blender is Mr. Roosendaal toy” is still a personal attack to Ton. I don’t see anyone deleting this post ?

It’s not really a personal attack. It’s an opinion that’s written without much tact and it isn’t particularly constructive (or accurate), but it isn’t a personal attack.

So this is not an attack and it is subject to personal opinion of moderators ? (The person is clearly ridiculing Ton,and it is clearly defamation of Ton’s character)

But when I say the posts of certain people are toxic and I will add them to ignore list; it is a “Personal Attack” ?

FWIW, I think the moderators did the right thing. The thread had for the majority of it’s last four-to-five pages been about the people complaining about / supporting the decision to make pie menus an add-on. It was irretrievably off-track and there were multiple posts (on both sides) over a screen in length just targeting individual posters - not about the subject, their opinion on the subject, or subject related - just the person & how the poster felt about them in general (i.e. negatively) here on BA.

Once you get to that level of personal focus & attack, the thread is not coming back.

yii7: There’s a difference between attacking a fellow forum member for their beliefs, and questioning the guiding principles of the man who is in charge of many of the long-term choices regarding Blender’s development. While I think the Ton bashing is out of line most of the time, questioning Ton isn’t quite the same as personally attacking someone in a comment.

Disagreeing about conduct / management is something else. Ridicule is something else. Lets not mix it.

DefamationAny intentional false communication, either written or spoken, that harms a person’s reputation; decreases the respect, regard, or confidence in which a person is held; or induces disparaging, hostile, or disagreeable opinions or feelingsagainst a person.

For whatever it’s worth, defamation is not explicitly mentioned or forbidden in the Forum Rules… though perhaps it should be more directly addressed. But even then, it gets somewhat sticky. In the definition you provide, a key phrase is “intentional false communication”. It’s very difficult to prove intent; that a person is doing so knowingly and maliciously. And even at that, they may actually believe that they’re telling the truth.

At some point, it often just makes sense to harken back to a grade-school “sticks and stones” mindset. In general, those people who throw out defamatory remarks (intentionally or otherwise) about a person… they don’t actually know that person, often never met that person, and are making judgments on far too few data points to be considered rational. They’re making comments about a Boogieman that only exists in their minds.

Zealotry -

  • fanatical and uncompromising pursuit of religious, political, or other ideals; fanaticism.

So same argument can be made for other posts ( including mine) , which makes everything blurry ( who said what, on what intent etc.)

However after being accused of attack , and my post getting nuked while a post falsely claiming bad conduct and defaming Ton is untouched. I wanted to point this out. That defaming post also should be filtered out. We all know how devs and Ton try their best with good intent, and posts defaming Ton or devs should not be tolerated also (again I repeat there is a fine line between criticizing and mocking/insulting ).

I am not sure you understand how extreme and dangerous that kind of mind set is. If you find something wrong as in you feel its not accurate, make a case for it rather than embrace the iron fist of tyranny and thin skinned totalitarianism via the forums. In the real world, people will offend others, intentionally or unintentionally. You cannot dictate that your belief, or perspective, is some how right and anything that goes against it is so wrong, that instead of reasoning with the individual its a call instead for censorship and punishment. Learn to have some tougher skin, intellectually and emotionally. Public Figures will always be topics of discussion, for good and for bad, and that comes with the territory. Its something to learn to live with.

I can tell you this however, if Blender changes for the better, if people start actually seeing things that inspire trust or instill confidence, do you know how quickly any negative impression of a public figure will be forgotten? Nothing is permanent, nor is it static.