I don’t know about what rules apply to defamation elsewhere in the world, but here in the Netherlands, it isn’t quite as you say. Yes, public figures will always be topics of discussion, but that does not give any one more right to damage their reputation with false statements. A public figure has the same protection against defamation as a regular person does. A person holding public office has less protection against defamation, but were are talking about civil servants here. Ton holds no such position.
And I disagree with m9105826 on the question of intent. Defamation does not require that the person making the statements has the intent to damage the reputation of the person he/she is making the statements about. The reason for this is that the rules against defamation are not designed to punish the person making the statements, but simply to protect the person that the statements are made about.
The problem is, PhysicsGuy, is that you cant just assume defamation, you would have to prove it, that includes intent. What this boils down too is subjective reactions. I could argue that you are trying to defame m9105826 because you intentionally called him out, and are implying he is stupid. See what I did there? I took something, drew conclusions based off my own interpretation (or confirmation bias) and made an absolute statement about it as a result. Thus, people have to accept that someone will say something that may or may not be accurate, and you need to use whats known as “critical thought” to find the answer for yourself, not a bias, or what is true based on personal assumption. Consider it, if its false say so, explain why or ignore it.
Its a crazy thought but, let people make up their own minds. Its a bad habit that happens here and else where, where people play word games to steer the direction or drive the sentiment. For example the use of the word “defamation”. Saying it enough and getting people to discuss it is an attempt to validate that it is indeed that. In the same way I could say opposing free speech means you have a phobia against freedom, say freedomphobia. Use this word enough and it becomes the talking point. So what I am trying to say is that the conclusion and intentional insertion of the word “defamation” to imply ill intent without any means to prove it is NOT good much less intellectually honest.
In this case its not rational to censor and punish based on your feelings that ill intent is there, that its a lie and that its defamation, all extremes someone choose to jump to and without any means to verify if thats true for the individual. It ignores the possibility for real concern. If you really dont want to reinforce this idea that blender/ton are for the dictorial types, then it makes sense to tread carefully on the kinds of demands you expect to see regarding what people say.
Now we had at least some kind of conversation between users and developers after a long period of silence. Even when it was clearly posioned. And you folks cut it simply down. Now that will solve everything.
This is your masterpiece in censorship so far. Well done BA crew! Well done! You are the real masters of PR disaster!
To be fair, it did move away from the pie menu talk again. I’m not too upset with the thread getting locked as long as its implied a new one can form with more pie menu information/intended implementation coming in. In retrospect, the was quite a bit of restraint on their end with how long the thread lasted, it probably wouldnt have had to end if the usual twisting of words and personal attacks at those posting criticism didnt happen.
The problem is that the actual conversation between devs and users about the topic of pies has been disrupted and drowned by walls of text that only were about other topics, like some fictional war, censorship, personal attacks etc.
Then channel it by jumping in when bad words appear. That’s what moderators are there for. Not censorship. But this kind of moderation did not happen as long as the “Blendercrew front” looked like the winner against the “Users front” …
<— see what happens here? See why i talk about PR disaster again? Not saying that this was really the intention of the moderators here. God, i know what a devil job it is to be a moderator and admin. You cannot make it right, no matter what you do. But this IS one possible angle to look at what happened with closing this thread. And it LOOKS obvious.
What we have at the moment are two war fronts. Now what happens when the war participants cannot even talk with each other anymore? They will continue with shooting. That easy. That there is steam when the boiler is close to explode is normal. But we’ve been nearly through with the accusations and attacks. The discussion went slowly back to a constructive track. And it gots closed in exactly this moment.
Yes, it did still move away here and there. And i guarantee you that it would have moved away in the further conversation too. There is still more than enough steam left. And to close a thread when it gets derailed too much is of course also a weapon of moderation. But it did more damage than good in the current situation. Because the situation is not cleared. And it looks extremely ugly.
Now the cover is back at the boiler, and the boiler collects even more steam again. Which will explode in the next thread then like it did in the current thread.
This kind of moderation will not lead to a solution. It just leads to even more frustration at both sides. Don’t stop what is necessary to clear the situation. To close the whole discussion is the worst decision that could’ve been done in that moment from my angle of view.
The problem is that the actual conversation between devs and users about the topic of pies has been disrupted and drowned by walls of text that only were about other topics, like some fictional war, censorship, personal attacks etc.
See what i mean with steam coming back and continue with shooting?
I think the discussion about how users and developers communicates, Blender Foundation PR etc… is so important. Putting a lid on these things is the wrong solution to choose (IMO). Then people will stay frustrated, and things can get even more toxic.
…and well, how much things are fictional or real will stay vague.
Let me first say that I am not a big fan of censorship in any kind and that I find that defamation law suits are often abused. I am just pointing out the legal facts here. And I would like to stress again that defamation does not require intent. Two things must be proved: 1) damage to reputation or character due to the statements made, 2) the statements made must actually be factually untrue. Intent to damage someones reputation is not required. Defamation is part of civil law, not part of criminal law. In civil law, it does not matter whether you did something to me on purpose or not, it matters whether you did and whether I experienced damage because of it. In criminal law there must be an aspect of intent, as when you are being punished for something that you did, you must
have done it on purpose. A grey area here is criminal negligence, but that is getting of topic.
Lastly, I agree that one should be careful to yell defamation, as sometimes a negative opinion is just a negative opinion. But the same argument holds for calling something censorship. Yelling censorship everytime your post gets deleted is in my opinion of the same order as yelling defamation every time sometime says something you do not like.
If my comment was false, a certain individual would act differently on issues which the community feels important, like, e.g., the colored wireframes.
If that individual cared for users, any widely supported request which is technically implementable would become an entry in the todo list.
Requests denial would be motivated by a rational technical or managerial explanation of why that is impossible (e.g. licensing issues or not enough resources) not with a “Blender is for Blender users” (I do not do this because Blender is for Blender users, the same users that are asking me to do this… admit that the logic of this statement is “Vulcanian”).
Anyway, the events of last days make all these discussions pointless.
SideFX and Pixologic appear to have chosen a different path from Autodesk/The Foundry trend by adding functionalities or opening their flagship product without price increases or even with lower ones. Buying the new Houdini, ZBrush and 2/3 times a year UDK costs little more than Vue Infinite support so it is within the range of a dedicated hobbiest.
I predict that these actions will put pressure on Autodesk/The Foundry and likely cause the release of some light versions of their products.
Blender is no more the only option for somebody who cannot shell out 4 digits prices in dollars; having not one but several alternatives makes me completely tranquil and detached about all the Blender issues.
As I wrote, as long as Blender fits me, good; when this won’t be true anymore, I will board my Conestoga wagon and ride into the sunset towards greener pastures <rising Tiomkin soundtrack here> :D.
FWIW, that particular feature (along with many others), is on the to-do list. You may disagree with how that list is prioritized, but saying it’s not on the list is demonstrably false. Let’s not over-simplify things here; it only adds to the confusion.
But I digress. In the spirit of trying to avoid confusion, let’s also try to stay on topic. There are plenty of other threads that discuss Blender’s position in the computer graphics world. That particular topic has very little to do with forum rules.
That being said, I think there is some agreement that we will make left click select the default, Ton agreed with it as well as long as we have a well supported way of switching to right click select.
the fact is that currently we have NOT a well supported way of switching to LEFT click select, and just because it is an 8 month old post makes people wonder whether they really want to do.
If you had any experience of office life and politics, you would know that the standard method to kill a project without overtly killing it is to schedule it to an undetermined future time. The project proponents are satisfied and stop making noise while the boss goes ahead with his idea. Eventually the whole thing vanishes in the mists of time.
If you had any experience of office life and politics, you would know that the standard method to kill a project without overtly killing it is to schedule it to an undetermined future time.
This is what happened with the UI.
Let me say it again… please stay on topic. There are other threads for the discussion you’re having.
Problems to get the spirit back into the bottle?
You have already closed the thread where this discussion happened.
Maybe this is the wrong place to ask for this but could the mod’s possibly split this off to a one post thread that is locked. Seeing this pop up I thought the rules had been updated or changed but oh no it’s just more arguing… I think most forums handle their rule stickies like that one post thread that only mods can change that way when forum rules are updated people are not forced to drudge through irrelevant posts.
