More Awesome Than You!

Anyone seen this? 


There are questions included about what you think of VS, the moderators, the site, the administrators.  I was tempted to give bad marks but I thought of TJ and dizzy and bumped it up to Neutral, except for site administrators.   :-\  I was mainly just curious because I really don't care to win anything.  I don't use handheld gaming consoles.

No, I haven't seen this as yet. I was aware it was going to happen but not in what format. In light of recent events I wonder about including questions about site admin though.  :-\

I took it and got an e-mail saying I'm going to get 'something' via UPS...

It might be Anthrax. You never you know. Rentech is pretty crazy.

I don't suppose the site would let me take the survey.  I'm not even allowed to participate in the polls.  I got one of my moderation queue messages passed after 4 days and then Rentechd replied to it with a question as if nothing had ever happened.   She probably only passed it because she wanted to know something about it.   No "sorry this was held up" or anything.  Some of the people there are in serious denial.

And it is quite bitchy too... I've been astounded by the lack of maturity, and the ongoing resentment.  ???  I, personally, don't see the point in holding a grudge for something that is waaaay in the past, and seemed to be a matter of semantics in any case. And the ignoring, Inge, is just plain rude, as well as childish.

Antrax, hmm...they're ok, I've got a couple of albums. They should dish Beladonna though and get Bush back. The guy has a much better voice! OK, kidding aside (though they REALLY should get John Bush back!), the only reason I EVER get back to that site is TwoJeffs' hacks. And a couple of Dizzy2's if I can't find them in the labyrinth called MTS2. Too much Borg Virus paranoia in that site lately...

I feel very awkward about the whole issue. I don't like what's been said and done, but I have lots hosted at VS. I've been trying to decide whether to resurrect my own webpage but that has a 10MB limit, not much scope for having downloads, only pics of houses and links to bbs hosting.

I managed to read about 1-2 pages and thought Delphy appeared approachable, placatory and reasonable in the bits I read. The bickering I left, not interested, I play a game and like to discuss it on forums, that's it. However the final post before the thread was locked was vile, I followed a link and wished I hadn't, I hope it's removed although the damage has been done. Very sad, very bitter. I'm at a loss.

I wish TwoJeffs, Carrigon, Dizzy et al would get the hell out of there. I really resent having to go back to that place. She's such a Maxis brown noser too.  ::) And she doesn't even want me to take that survey lol. The answers would not be pretty.  ;D

@ Witch: Don't get me started on Delphy! You'd have to have all day. And you wanna talk about brown nosers? Hell that guy has groupies for some unfathomable reason.

The Sims community is filled with a lot of nuts, drama and unsavory types. Something about running a Sims site seems to go to people's heads and they suddenly think they have power and try and use it. Oh yes, Virtual power over the internet for a site about a game.

The whole 'rights' nonsense irks the hell out of me too. I've seen people make a new rug or poster mesh and then have the nerve to say 'DO NOT CLONE, RECOLOR, POST ON THE EXCHANGE' etc etc. Excuse me but you made a mesh that consists of 2 polygons, basically two triangles put together to form a rectangle. It's hardly Michelangelo's David.  ::)

There's other things that bug me too, the whole pay issue and just how much greed there is in something that's supposed to be a fun hobby. Oh and let's not forget the BBS.  ::)

There's been several times where I've just been utterly disgusted by the Sims community as a whole and I've left and given up on it a couple of times. Oddly enough, if I mainly just stay here and only go to a few other places to download, I manage to keep my sanity. We're kinda nuts here, but in a good way, uh I think. ;)

Motoki: But isn't Carrigon the one who thinks CEP can damage your boot sector?   For selfish reasons I have less of a down on her than the others in the thread, mainly because she seemed to understand where to draw the line in personal abuse.  However, I can't yet restore her to the ranks of Dizzy and Jeff and the others like Witch who didn't join in that tirade.

Witch:  I don't know if you're up for paying a monthly fee for a site at all, or if you're only able to use a free one, but I get 100Gb monthly bandwidth from Lunar Pages for $7.95 a month, and they're really great hosts, reliable and with customer forums so you can always give feedback and get help with the site.   You can choose whether you prefer to design html webpages or use one of their ready-to-go forum systems to upload your stuff to.

Is she? I have thankfully avoided the whole CEP debacle since I don't read any of their chat threads but someone here has informed me of it. She always seems pleasant and helpful, maybe she got sucked in by Pam's BS, or maybe my first impression of her was wrong. *shrug*

The whole thing, as I've heard it, sickens me. Numenor is such a nice guy and has done so much for the community. TSR threw money at him and he turned it down even. And he's never been anything but pleasant and helpful. For them to act so outrageous over something someone else made in their own free time and free of charge so that they could use it and then make demands that it be changed along with outrageous and slanderous accusations is just derranged.

As I told the person who informed me of the CEP mess, every so often Pam seems to need to go on some righteous crusade about some stupid shit or other. After this dies down, give her a few months and it will be something else then.  ::)

I take it that's US$7.95? That would be about $20 a month. I'll check it out and maybe some local hosters too. It would be nice to have everything in one place & ready made forums also sound good. Thanks for the suggestion.

Yup US$.  That's not even a fiver a month for me, which is the price of a round of drinks for a two!   It's given me so much fun too, even choosing the yucky colour scheme.  You can express your personality through your very own site.

The forum isn't there to start with but you have this sort of control panel thing and you click something and it sets you one up :D

You can read the Lunar Pages customer services forums and post any pre-sales questions you might have before taking the plunge http://www.lunarforums.com/

I'd offer to host you Witch, but I'm done hosting people or otherwise going into any joint sites with people. Back in May I did that for someone for a well known hack in the Sims 2 community and when myself and these people had a disagreement over what people can and can't say at the board, one of them took it upon himself to copy the whole database with all the posts and users from the board that I set up on my server and on the domain name that I paid my own money to setup and started a new domain name behind my back, moving the whole site there under my nose. Then to add insult to injury, they got Delphy of all people to host them when their complaining about him and MTS2 and only staying there because they had nowhere else to go was the whole damned reason I went through the trouble of setting them up that site in the first place.

Now admittedly, I could and should have communicated with my feelings with them better. And it's no secret I can be a hothead sometimes, but I have my limits and taking shit off of someone's server that they paid money for when you've been trusted with the password and full access to it is a line I wouldn't cross.

Basically I had shit rubbed in my face by these individuals. Some of it I probably deserved, but not to the degree it ended up. The amount of backstabbing in the Sims community sometimes astounds me. It would make a good soap opera.

Anyway, I've been loathe to talk about this whole thing because A) I want to forget about it and B) I don't want them coming here to start some bullshit flame war, but one of the times I dissappeared from the community for a while this is why. Well this and a cross country move irl.

I don't want to name names because I'm not trying to bait them or call them out, but some of you can probably figure out who I am talking about.

Motoki:  Yes I can rub along with Carrigon - she's normally at least civil.   But I have always had her down as a misplaced politician.  What I mean is I always wondered why she wasn't too busy with committees in RL to play The Sims.   For some time before she joined VS, I had been wondering what might be the effect of a Rentechd/Carrigon partnership.   I would imagine Carrigon quickly started to take the lead with ideas at VS.   I don't think Rentechd would have started that fuss publicly on her own.  Rentechd's own particular specialism is the ability to quietly maintain a position regardless of evidence that the imagined slight did not take place or even when you give in and make a false confession that you can abjectly apologise for.  Nope, the grudge stays.   But it makes her the ideal right-hand woman to an activist.    I'd be interested to see where they go from here.

This nonsensical behaviour isn't limited to Sim's forums either. Other forum's I have personal interest in are also full of people who are quite obviously thwarted despots. And the rivalry...! Dearie me...  ::)

My system runs on despotism tempered by apathy.

It seems odd to me that maxis would join VS in conducting a survey about what we think of VS and its administration, etc. Why would Maxis single them out?

I wondered that myself.  I know they do interviews on Snooty Sims, and TSR and MTS2 and maybe others are bigger sims sites than VS, so I don't get it.

Nothing to do with Maxis except that VS were given 50 discs of the new platform sims to give away as prizes. I believe a rep from VS attended a presentation at some point - didn't really pay much attention, I think the discs are only playable in America.

It was up to VS how they decided to give these away. There was a discussion, I didn't follow it, saw the announcement here about the survey, so that must be how they decided to give away the discs. I know Maxis was pretty strict that they should be spread around the community, not just shared out with site staff.

Resulting in the anarchy we have come to depend upon and enjoy here.

Thanks for the might-have-been offer. ;) I hear what you're saying and I agree, ethically that sucks. In the situation I'm in now I can see the downside of joint sites, or being hosted by sites. Glad you decided to come back and have another look at the community. :)

As for Delphy, in reference to an earlier reply you made to me, I don't know him and know very little of him, so I'll just shut up now.

I don't know that I'm prolific enough or committed enough to have a whole site for my lots, I'm not keen on getting into hosting for other people or trying to build up forums or whatever, seems like there's plenty of those already & I know which ones I prefer. *cogitating now*

Honestly, while I used to agree disagree as I came from a community where there really weren't any single creator sites, I now have to say I think people in the TS2 community are best off just putting their stuff up themselves on their own site if at all possible. Pescado went from posting his stuff at the TSR boards as attachments, to MTS2 (with a stint at Worldsims somewhere in between) to VS and finally ended up getting his own place. I've pretty much followed his migrations myself more out of getting disgusted with said sites than to purposely follow him (not that he isn't a cool old fart in his own weird way ;) ). I just am tired of being a refugee. :p

I know Inge's always been big on people spreading out, putting up their own sites and just general decentralization of the TS2 creation community and I've got to agree with her. In some communities, a few central site works and works well. In this community (and likely others) it just breeds greed, drama and megalomania.

I think where one has their stuff says something about them. That's why I yanked my few things from MTS2 some time ago. I did let a couple of people put a couple of my things on TSR of all places, but they were nice people and I felt bad about saying no (despite how I come off sometimes I'm really an old softie) and I felt letting someone else repost it wasn't the same as me posting it, the latter which at least in my opinion suggest some support of the site on my part where the former to me just says I have a very open sharing policy.

I have to really frank and admit that when you posted about your houses on VS my first reaction was to not want to go there and download them. I feel bad saying that, but I really dislike the place, the person who runs it, and the way she has treated myself an others. I actually did go there and download them and they're quite nice as I do love starter homes. :) I don't want to post there and don't ever intend to except for a brief recent post about my picture frames since TwoJeffs had an old link and someone had pmed me about it (it was an old PM as I hadn't logged in there in ages).

Every time this Sims drama crap goes down some very nice people get caught up in it. People leave the site and the exposure for their items that were made to be shared is lessened. When the aforementioned people I talked about above and myself had our big blow out, there were several other innocent parties there on the site, including a very nice lady whom I had invited and set up with a place to host her files. At first they took her section out on the 'new' site, but I asked that they keep hosting her stuff because she was an innocent party and thankfully they granted me at least that much.

Anyway, I'm babbling, but yeah, I think everyone should put their stuff up on their own, even if it means just some barebones page on their isp or geocities or whatever with links to the actual files on the Exchange or FilePlanet or RapidShare or hell even a yahoo group.

I can't believe I read that thread... and honestly that is one of the worst I've ever seen, and I've been around the gaming community and a variety of other places that can have some pretty big blowouts, for a long time. It's all full of overly dramatic exaggeration and misinformation and I don't even know Carrigon but she sounds kinda... out there.

None of these people must do very much html coding. Hasn't anyone ever used a wsiwig editor and then looked at the (side note: usually really really bad) code? Many of them (a particularly notorious piece of worthless junk by MS but many others as well) insert "created by" and copyright notices at the top of every page of html output using them - either in comments (that is, commented out in the code) or in meta tags (also invisible to joe public but easy to find if you actually look at the code - this page and VS have nice w3c lines, which is actually much more appropriate.) The creators of the editor certainly didn't *invent* html (not that Berners-Lee ever really gets the credit he deserves), nor do they own the copyright on the design, but they let everyone know their software was used in the process. And they don't "announce" they're doing it (you won't find it in the docs.)

Oh, and the opensource community does tons of things like that - all the various source codes for multi-user dimensions gives credit in the code to the original creators (many of whom left the community years previously - one way or another), and the license *requires* that that credit be untouched and that credit *also* be posted visibly for all who log in.

"Secret" credit lines :p Try and create a pdf without Adobe's name all over it - really... none of those companies give a whit if you own the copyright on the material you're creating on their programs, they're certainly putting their names into them any and everywhere they can (and for a pdf, you probably actually created it with some other program and did nothing but save it in that format for transferring.)

And no, your computer won't explode from CEP, and no someone can't just steal your work by inaccurately announcing a copyright. Copyright law is tricky, and it might be hard to prove if said person was fighting it (tho anyone with reasonable amounts of backups and developmental clutter on their computer could probably do it easily), but copyright is attached when the work is created, not when the notice is applied. *Claiming* something (truely or falsely, maliciously or benignly) is not the same as *having* something. Neither Numenor, RGiles (who I rather miss :p), nor MTS2 owns the copyright on any object created by someone else, whether they say they do or not (which I gather they don't). Although actually fighting for copyright on an object that requires Maxis' game to work would be opening a rather large can of worms anyways. None of us (not even EA) want to go there.

Snide remark: Wouldn't promotions generally be given based on the work done *at* the company, and certainly shouldn't job performance ratings be based on that, rather than (hopefully) extensive amounts of off-work time on a hobby? I've used freelance, voluntary work, or even self-promotional pieces as a part of my portfolio, but I can't see handing my bosses furniture and clothes created for the Sims2 and hoping that would aid in earning me a promotion - I think they'd be concerned my mind, if not company resources, wasn't more on my hobby than my job. </snide remark>

I'm not a big MTS2 fan - I like it well enough in some respects. In others I don't at all. But that was ridiculous and paranoid and... well just ... not completely sane...

(Yes I know I shouldn't drag it in here, but even if I could post there, I'd rather not, and I just felt a need to say something - so ya'll got stuck with my vent.)

Carrigon's okay, but has always given off a certain sort of "new age" vibe that I personally dislike. It may very well be completely erroneous, but it is the impression I get from her downloads, and that flavor is one of the reasons why I've never been that interested in them.

The social dynamics of forums would be an interesting topic of study. Combine censorship based control with internet anonymity, add a healthy dose of general idiocy (graciously provided by the joyous portal to the Sims community that is the BBS) and you get something . . . interesting. Backstabbing, drama, obsession. This is why I judiciously avoid tact. Although I can piss people off, at least they know about it, and have the opportunity to avoid me. And then there's always The Code. Generally, though, I prefer for creators to have individual sites, with linkage between them. Then you can get a fair idea of who's good and who's not, depending on who is recommended by the people you already get stuff from, and you can get stuff from just the people whose stuff you like.

I don't know, I read that entire ridiculous thread in complete stunned horror. I couldn't believe that it got that far, it was like a bad movie that I couldn't walk out on. It was locked when I got there, I was kinda thinking it should have been nominated for retardo land :-\

The way I see it is that if they as creators didn't even know it was there, why does it matter as very few, if any, downloaders ever will? I know everything I got from VS and who made it, as is true with 90% of what I've downloaded (barring recolours from tsr) ... but does it really matter? Does JM get a special twinkly feeling when I silently thank him because my Sim brought his brother over instead of a mailman? Inge, do you get any personal glory when I ban toddlers from the bathroom? As far as I know, there is no special reward for creators once people have downloaded their item anyway (though I personally wouldn't mind if there were).  5 years from now, will you care that people may be thanking you in their heads instead of cursing at their Sims if they're still playing the game? Will anyone really think Numenor and Captain Underpants (whatever his name is) created every Cep enabled object? And if they do, does their opinion matter?

As a completely neutral observer, I found Delphy's attempts at reason, uh, reasonable, Numenor, Quaxi and the rest of the visitors seemed to be attempting to explain and apologize and were met with insults, rants and the same stupid things being repeated over and over.

I really had no opinion on the MTS vs. VS, but I have to say that the VS people certainly conducted themselves shamefully. The way they shrieked and bashed like cranky toddlers made me lose any of the respect I may have had for many if not all participants (bashers) I hardly go there lately as it just doesn't seem worth it anymore. (plus it lags terribly despite my high speed connection)

I still haven't read that thread and I don't want to. I got the Cliff's Notes from someone in my PM when I asked about it and that was more than enough. Wow, some drama in the TS2 community and I'm not even involved. :p And you know what? I'm glad. I don't miss the drama, bullshit, backstabbing, egos, credit and rights bullshit and rude, demanding and demeaning behavior. I know some of you guys complain about Retardo-land and I don't go there too much myself, but hell it's downright civil compared to some of the other shit going on.

I've decided to just say no to the Sims drama and feel a hell of a lot better for it.

I'm going to be nosey for a moment. I've seen it mentioned several times that RGiles is no longer a part of the Sims community. What happened?

The level of arrogance and refusal to actually *read and comprehend* what was being said in that thread was astonishing. Are some of those people deliberately obtuse or what? Queen's completely personal attack on Delphy, regardless of any past history, was just base and uncalled for. Wintermute's ugly comments to Inge also left a very bad taste in my mouth. And Rentech "can't understand" Quaxi's English? WTF?

What I have heard about RGiles was that he had to turn his attention to RL matters and that his departure was not connected to things happening in the Sims community.   I don't know any details.

Thanks, Inge.

I agree wholeheartedly. I think Wintermute was what started the shock and horror for me as I realized (getting in as late as I did) that it was just allowed to sit there in all it's grade 6 splendor. I just can't believe they would allow their moderators to carry on that way. I've seen Forums moderated by 11 year olds that aren't allowed to get that far out of hand.
They really dug themselves a big deep hole, wonder if their big heads will allow them to fall into it. On the bright side, I finally figured out what the remove reputation button is there for... and gained a new respect for those who managed to stay the hell out of it or simply attempt to state fact. Inge, I had to giggle... particularly as Reg mentioned (in the post in retardo land) where you said you must have accidentally typed buttocks instead of server. Sarcasm isn't always clear in postings, but it sure screamed there :)

We've come to count on it J.M. But it is despotism thinly veneered with a yummy coating of sheep flavour, plus the ever present "I really can't be arsed with this, you kick it for me" stuff. Keeps us coming back.

/me points in some random direction

"Whoa, what the heck is that?"

/me sneaks away

Check it out. MTC at EA, in a promo:

http://thesims2.ea.com/about/console_videos.php?movieID=3

Hmm... gosh, more marketing. More raking in shit loads of cash.

Just thought I'd let everybody know I have decided, after a good night's sleep, to take my lots off VS and leave an explanation why.

Don't suppose my post will be there long, it's all very 1984, but I feel much better for having done it. I don't like conflict but I usually stand up for my beliefs.

Now I just have to make a webpage. This would be fine except I've just downloaded Pegasys' (sp?) new sims database and I also have a java assignment due in in a couple of weeks. And all I really want to do is play the sims. ;) Still, I'll let you know when I have something back up. I'm working on a split level house in shades of grey - based on Retroville set from MTS2 and a boarding house lot with elevators at the moment.

Edit: Well less than three hours I lasted. I had an auto-email from the thread I left, dizzy2 replied. I clicked the link. No thread, no witch. Gone, never existed. I feel a little orwellian today.

So, here is the text I posted at VS when I left.

If you have come to this forum looking for lots to download, I'm sorry but they have been removed. I hope this does not cause too much inconvenience to you.

I've decided I would like to put my lots on my own webpage, which will hopefully be ready in a couple of weeks.

Someone recently reminded me that I am known by the company I keep. The reason I am withdrawing from Variousimmers is because of a recent thread about CEP. Going by the abusive irrational comments I read in the first couple of pages of that thread, the first couple of pages was all I could stomach of the 9 odd pages, these are not people with whom I wish to be associated.

The final post, vilifying the character of a well known person in the sims2 community was nothing short of disgusting. I don't know the person being verbally abused, only of him, but no-one deserves filth like that. I followed a link to that post and wished I hadn't. I do not understand why it was allowed to remain there.

Variousimmers purports to be a family friendly site, so allowing that thread to rage unchecked, with participation from some of the staff of this site to boot, is almost unbelievable.

I'm not tarring all Variousimmer's staff with the same brush either, there were only a few here who participated, I've no idea how the others feel, some are possibly in shock.

I do say thank you to Variousimmers for hosting my lots, I hope many found enjoyment from downloading and playing them.

I'm sure I'll be seeing many of you round the sims community, those of us who just like playing a game and having a hobby anyway!

Cheers
witch

Yeah, I composed a thoughtful, heartfelt goodbye and it got FUCKING DELETED. I'm not happy about that, but oh well.  >:(

Thanks! Don't spose you kept a copy of your text? I kept a copy of mine 'cos I expected this to happen. If you don't like something, just vanish it and pretend it never happened!

Well I pretty much have to eat my hat again.  I tore this site off a strip about all that Sheep stuff, but it's certainly coming in handy as somewhere we can discuss this matter openly without being asked to take it to private email :D   And Pescado please don't rub it in again this time lol :)

The reply I wrote only made any sense in the context in which it was posted. Since the thread is gone, my context as well as my words are now gone. Either way, there's really no point in reposting it.

In any case, I now hold modthesims2 in much higher esteem than I did previously, though it is still far less awesome than *this* site.

Are you leaving your stuff there Dizzy?

I took about half of the survey but then it asked me a question that I thought was none of their business,  so I quit right in the middle of it.    ;D

Well, I was going to flee for the hills when I heard that they were planning to delete the thread, but they convinced me that it was simply the inconvenient way that witch suddenly left that urged them (and not, you know, censorship). I'm inclined to believe it, since there are still threads and posts of mine on VS in other forums that arouse RentechD's sincere disapproval even more than what was said in that goodbye thread.

 ::) Oh yes, it is all Witch's fault. What bullshit! You do know that she has the ability to just delete Witch's replies and leave the others.

At least she has some god damned balls to stand up for what she believes in take her shit off that place instead of getting snowed by them.

Pam, by the way, is very selective about what she censors and for reasons that don't always seem to make the most sense. She'll gladly leave a post cussing her out, but she went on a huge deleting spree when she was a mod at MTS2 deleting (not warning, out and out deleting on site) any threads where people posted their creations and didn't put "Testers Wanted" in the thread because it was her obsession of the moment.

In addition to the fact that "my" contributions are public domain, there is no compelling reason for me to stop contributing to VS. Even if there were some question of my fortitude of principle, the fact is that there is no connection between my contributions and petty bickering going on in other parts of the site. If there were a direct confrontation between the site admins and my right to post freely, that would be another story.

Well you obviously thought just several hours ago there was a compelling enough reason for you to compose a "a thoughtful, heartfelt goodbye". I've always felt where one hosts their files does reflect on them and the way Pam and her little lynch mob have treated people like Pescado, Numenor and Quaxi I personally wouldn't do anything to help promote her or her site even indirectly.

However you can do whatever the hell you want Dizzy, I really don't care. I just think it's a bunch of shit to let her pin the deletion of that thread on Witch. Witch didn't come over to her house, log onto her computer and delete it. She did and that's censorship no matter how Pam tries to justify it. As I pointed out, she also had the option of just deleting Witch's replies, which would have been bad but not as bad, but she just yanked out the whole thread. I think she must have realized the whole thing is spiraling out of control and is trying to do some damage control, but she needs to take responsibility for her actions and not blame it on someone else.

Being Pam means never having to say you're sorry...

I think I can see where Dizzy is coming from, I think he's trying to keep his modding separate from community politics.  Some of us have been personally insulted or embarrassed by rentechd, and Dizzy obviously doesn't feel he has been.  On the other hand he's an easy-going guy and if I'd been him I *would* have felt insulted by rentechd jumping into *my* forum, in *my* thread about my cloning and distribution policies and telling everyone her opinion of my policy.   Yes it's a point for debate on a sims forum somewhere, but no not on the space she had allocated *me* to run.  That would have smacked to me of weight-pulling - basically disrespectful.

But I have to practice what I preach and respect Dizzy's own decisions for his own work.  He's helped me out in the past and I wouldn't want to fall out over it.

See and I guess I just don't think that's possible in this community. I've become cynnical by having had to be a refugee going from site to site when the shit starts flying, but as I've mentioned above in my personal opinion the only way to completely avoid getting caught up in this kind of crap is to have your own site or host your stuff somewhere neutral at least (ie the Exchange, FilePlanet, Geocities, Yahoo etc).


That's fine, that's his right. I guess I am just a your screw with my friends then you screw with me type of person and don't really understand how people can stay neutral, but if they can more power to them. That's why I'm not going over there and never looked at that thread because I know I would feel compelled to comment and get sucked in.  :P


I saw that too and wondered what the hell her problem was putting her two cents in like that.


Obviously he can do what he wants. I'm not going to lie, I have my own opinions about it, but who the hell am I to tell someone else what to do? Anyhow, Pam's 'Oh witch made me delete the thread' bullshit irritated me far more than Dizzy's I'm leaving, wait, I'm staying stuff.

How can you have an "inconvenient way of leaving", and I read the post Witch left? She wasn't rude, or inflammatory in any way, just stated that she had doubts and real concerns, which is fair. Hmmm, I think it still smacks of spite and knee-jerk reaction, which seems to be a way for some people to deal with confrontation/criticism whether it is negative or otherwise.  ???

It's all lies. It's just her way to manipulate him into staying because she places more value on him as a creator due to his hacks. Notice while she made an overture to get Dizzy to stay, she didn't even try with Witch, in fact she used her as a scapegoat. If Witch was making hacks I'd bet you money she'd be kissing her ass to stay too.

Motoki, that's appalling, but it would seem to be a fair (if harsh) assessment of what is going on. Very, very sad.

Maybe I should clear something up, here.

I am a "forum owner" at VS. If I suddenly decide to quit being a forum owner, my forums are going to be deleted unless they institute some kind of archive at some point. This is something that hasn't really been kicked around in any public forum yet, but I have a feeling it's going to get mentioned eventually.

You can't drop your forums and expect to leave a goodbye message in them. That's just not how it's handled.

The problem is that people are confused about all this and can be quite irate about it when the forums disappear. This whole thing was very sudden for everybody, especially the admins who literally knew nothing about what Witch was intending to do until yesterday.

I can see what you're saying, but it's a shame that a little more understanding couldn't have been given to Witch in light of that awful, ugly fight thread and the inefficient way it was handled. After that appalling thread it shouldn't have been completely unexpected that some would want to leave as quickly as possible. And that they may feel uncomfortable discussing it with the site owners first if their (meaning the site owners) behavior is coming across as somewhat inconsistent and possibly untrustworthy.

I apologize if I'm completely off base. I can personally identify with why Witch left and how. All I know is that when I'm around people who act like they did, with a "scorched earth" mentality to win their argument, I want to get away from them as quickly as possible.

This is just my garbled $.02 for what it's worth. I know squat about making sims stuff, web sites, etc. but I do know that treating each other in a verbally abusive manner is inappropriate and more steps should have been taken to acknowledge that it should not have happened, apologies given and promises to VS members that more adult behavior will be taken in the future. It would have gone a long way in regaining trust.

I remember when I was giving up my forums on VS, I told the site admins privately, and politely, what I intended to do and I got loads of personal abuse over it between telling them and actually shutting up shop.  Rentechd mainly just started ignoring me, but Vampire was as abusive in chat as he was to me in the forums over the CEP thing recently.   I had totally innocent reasons for closing the forums at the time - but by the time they'd finished calling me a liar and everything else I couldn't have done anything but leave and wished I could just pull the plug immediately but I didn't want to inconvenience the people who were already using my forums.

I know creators moving between sites is stressful on everyone, the creator, the site owner and the downloaders, but I feel like if everyone were willing to be mature about it things don't have to be so bad. It could be agreed upon to leave current files up but that the creator would not be posting any new ones or a link could be posted to the creator's new site.

You (and I'm speaking collectively here) don't have to like someone to show them some basic respect or at very least have enough respect to keep your personal feelings personal and not subject those looking to download files to the site wars and drama. I'm definitely not the biggest MTS2 fan, but I have to say they've generally been pretty good about leaving files up when a creator decides to move on to another place. They also tend not to block links to other sites when people ask where the creator went. Pam on the other hand has gone to the extreme of blocking moreawesomethanyou.com sitewide on VS even to the point of blocking it in private messages. There's no reason for that other than to be vindictive.

VS seems to be having one of its erratic butt^H^H^H^Hserver moments right now.

I don't go to VS for the conversations, in fact I've pretty much decided to stay out of them. I saw that thread and it was awful, I couldn't get past the first 3 pages of it. I was appalled at the way people were conducting themselves and I didn't think it was really appropriate for people who neither made hacked objects or made objects of any sort (recolors or new) to stick their noses into the issue and make things even worse since it had nothing to do with them (it was like they were deliberately egging people on).

Rentechd is not on my good side (not that it matters) for reasons I wont go into but the only reason I even visit VS now is because of TwoJeffs and Dizzy-two (and if they left I would follow) though I have maybe 2 of Carrigons hacks. It doesn't help any that even though I have a very fast internet speed it takes ages for VS to load and often it wont load at all. I dont see how some of the mods at VS can attack MTS2 when their own site is nearly inaccessible. MTS2 loads much quicker, and yes while I did at first dislike the change of site layout I have since gotten used to it and found that it's much easier to find specific types of objects I'm looking for, but I don't visit that site for the conversations either as most of them dont make any sense. I dont visit the BBS for the same reason.

Thanks witch for the heads up about removing your lots from varioussimmers I was gonna headthere and grab a few. I only go there for the downloads for the most part.I dont care for the BS so prevalent in the threads.when I took the survey I had to  keep in my mind the creators there that I really like Two Jeffs,carrignon has a few I use,Merola. so I kept my opinion of the site etc  at nuetral. I came here as I have always used  pescado's hacks and I also use Inge's hacks. ie toddler sleep through the night a blessing for my sim parents ;D and it works on babies as well, not to mention anytime Ive needed the people here at least give advice that is useful

The pure, virginal server at VS doesn't have "server moments!"  Your computer must be 100 years old because VS runs at lightning speed for "everyone else*."

/sarcasm mode off

*'everyone else' being the VS nutswingers

Ah, politics. And tech community politics at that. Technical politics, between scientists or coders or other similiar types, is much, much worse than governmental politics. Makes campaign mudslinging look like a Victorian tea party. (Not that Victorian tea parties weren't riddled with politics, of course, but they didn't *look* like they were.)

These most recent VC inanities have made me very glad that Pescado moved a long time ago. Now I have a nice fuzzy interent box to snuggle in . . . with fire. Heh heh heh.

@dizzy - I thought I could keep out of the politics. I figured the large influx of bbs kiddies to VS would look for downloads and spend their time composing siggies. I suspected they wouldn't be involved in politics, would expect an authoritarian approach to posts and threads and I would get to disseminate my lots across a wider audience.

When I joined VS it was on the cusp of Pescado leaving, though because I don't go to chat or read politics much, I didn't know he was leaving. I nearly didn't post there anyway when I found out that some shit had gone down & JM was outta there, but then decided to give VS the benefit of the doubt.

As time passed I became more uncomfortable about being allied with the site, I didn't know any of the people and never managed to post there, apart from lots, because I found MATY far more interesting. I never really felt part of the site, though I didn't make any efforts that way myself either.

In the end, when I saw the irrational behaviour it just felt too hypocritical to stay. To an old feminist, the political is personal, even though it gets harder to summon the energy for each fight. And Cabelle is right, I had no desire to communicate personally with any of 'that thread' participants.

@motoki - as Laeshanin says, harsh but fair. My dealings with VS admin were always pleasant and helpful whilst I was there but never with a great warm welcome, they do indeed wish to be known as a modding site primarily, they definitely said while I was there they didn't want any more lot builders and fair enough, that's their choice, I was pleased enough to have my lots hosted for a time. Motoki, I don't understand how people can stay neutral either, I wanted to, I tried to, but I had an unease that nagged. Peoples' encouraging words here were a trigger, not a cause of my leaving VS.

@Inge - Your tale makes me bloody glad I didn't send any private messages to VS site admin letting them know what I was up to! Part of why I left a post was so VS posters would see an explanation of the fact that I disappeared, I can appreciate why you wanted your readers to have continuity.

@Cabelle - yes, once I made my decision I just wanted out of there as fast as possible, quick, clean, no argument. Scorched earth policy is a good description of that debating tactic.

@motoki - I thought about what was there and leaving the lots up that were already there, but I wanted no connection whatsoever. I think the site will implode. Edit: Sorry, sorry, forgot where I was for the moment. The site will explode of course, burninating into a BFBVFS.

@bangelnuts - was it the starter homes you were after? PM me, most are small enough to email. All other lots should still be hosted on thesims2ea.com username = bolshywitch. You just won't see my glorious piccies. ;)

@oddyssey - except when victorians start slinging crates of tea off boats during a tea-party, then you can see the politics.  :P

Witch: I know you're an adult and can well make up your own mind, but I must admit I started to feel a little guilt that I may have in some small way been responsible for what went down over there last night and at a time when I've told myself to stay out of the drama (which is hard for me lol!). Ultimately, I know we weren't the cause of you leaving but merely a few more straws loaded onto the camel's back, but it's nice to hear it come from you nonetheless.

I didn't mean to imply it was immature on your part to leave like that either. Hell, from what I gather you're a lot politer than I would have been. And I've no room to talk in that department as I got pissed a while back and took down all my stuff from MTS2 when some stuff went down between Delphy and I. In a perfect world, it would be nice if people could at least part from sites amicably but that's not been my experience and obviously not yours either. I very much agree with you that the personal is political and I know I could not associate myself with any site where those running it were behaving in a manner I found mean spirited and disrespectful of others so I do understand where you were coming from and why you did what you did.

Oh and about the Exchange and pictures, they do let you upload your own screenshots. I've seen some lots there where you can click on the little camera icon on the right side and access more pictures.

Unless you've a problem with them, or a problem waiting for approval (lots seem to get approved pretty quickly imo) or think they won't approve them, I think MTS2 is a good place to upload things (at least, I much prefer downloading from there than from the exchange :)) You can have any kind of screenshots you like.

Like it or not, Witch, you have made a political statement. I won't debate whether your statement is correct, but I will dispute whether you chose the right method.

There is no policy at VS about what forum owners can post other than the general policy against "harmful" posts (like obscene material or direct threats). You could, for example, simply make a statement that you object to certain opinions. You could also question whether the matter was resolved and deserves to be reopened. You could dispute any of the assertions that you found unpleasant or objectionable. It would be useful if there was such a thread for those who feel most strongly about it. Given that there isn't one, I have to question whether you really do feel that strongly about it, or whether you simply prefer to avoid the issue.

If there were, for example, some decree by the admins that further limited my own freedom to post, I would make a general statement on my disappointment with such a policy, perhaps post a poll on the matter, and maybe in some remote way hint that an ultimatum was on the way. That would be how I could best serve my interests.

Of course, I hate politics and I understand why you would avoid a lengthy dispute, but there is no avoiding making a statement of some kind.

Yes, I could have done any number of things, most of your suggestions involve becoming a participant and yes, you're also right that I choose not to participate.

Being adult means making decisions, taking action and handling any consequent fallout. Yes, I made a strong statement - intentionally.

I have no issue with any other members of VS, including you :) I think you should totally stick with what you feel comfortable doing, working within is just another way of trying to effect change. Please don't feel defensive if some posters here disagree, at least we can discuss these issues like adults.

First of all Dizzy2, let me state that I have great respect for you. 

Now, while I can't speak for Witch, it looks like it wasn't *opinions* she was objecting to, but the actions of the people.  And I have to agree.  If I'd had stuff hosted by VS, after seeing the behavior in the CEP thread I'd have to distance myself from that site as well.  I expect people I associate with to be reasonably adult.

And as Inge found out, if you have a dog that bites, but has never bitten you, it's easy to ignore the problem.  For a while.  I sincerely hope you never get bitten yourself.

Hook

Dizzy, I haven't been over to check for myself, but another thread here points out that you are indeed having your messages censored on your own VS forums.   I read that in one of your messages you give a link to this site in order for your users to obtain some further information.   That link has now been censored, presumably not by you.   If this is true, it will be at least the second occasion to my knowledge that they have interfered with something you're trying to convey on your own forums, in spite of not breaking any stated site-wide rules.   I hope you were informed by your hosts so that you had a chance edit the message to provide the information locally.

Back to the post where this thread began... erm, or something.

I took the survey, and because I'm not a huge VS downloader anymore - I only joined shortly before JMP left, and his forum was where I was spending the majority of my time, I felt free to bag them and tell them what I thought.  Not like I wanted their 'gift' anyway.

Now twojeffs is the ONLY reason I ever go back to that site, and I really wish he would up and leave it, too.

All I can say is that Witch has perfect right to do what she chooses in circumstances that were becoming untenable. And as it is not exactly an isolated example of immaturity, I feel she did the right thing too! It may be political, but if no-one makes a stand about these sort of issues others will get away with treating you (collective 'you') like a piece of shite the dog brought in. Surely people leaving a forum gets a message over, or is VS so obtuse as to not be able to understand? This is such a pile of crap, really, eh? I don't know what the answer to this nonsense is, but it feels like there should be a damn good mediator at times.

Interesting, had two emails today saying there were two private messages for me at VS. Full of curiosity I hastened to my inbox to find....


NOTHING


No messages, I mean no messages at all. None that I have received since being at VS and saved in my inbox. Zip, nada, nothing.

Must be a technical buttocks hitch.

Maybe they were very unflattering and got deleted by Rentech.

I could have sworn I posted a reply to this already.  I'm not on moderated am I?   Anyway let's try again:

I can't read PMs at VS either as from yesterday.  I can post them, and I can get notification of having a reply, but I can't read the reply.   I wonder if Rennie got something the wrong way round?

I thought I would send a test PM to Inge. VS cannot find Inge. :(

[attachment deleted by admin]

Witch, I think I was Inge Jones on there.  Try with both names.

Edit: No I think you're right.  Also as it's my birthday today I would have expected to be listed in the birthdays, but as I am not I have to assume the account has been vaped entirely.

A bit weird really, because whatever made them decide to put me on moderated, I certainly hadn't done anything since to deserve "punishment".  I am not sure therefore what policy has been applied to me.

It was Inge Jones...  searching brings up this:  http://www.variousimmers.net/vsimforum/member.php?userid=14

but only when you locate a post - I searched through all the Is in the member list, all traces of Inge have been scrubbed

ROFL!!!!  Oh dear oh dear oh dear....

Rentechd's motto thingey under her avatar says 'on vacation'.
Is that 'on vacation' as in 'the wheel's still spinning but the hampster's long gone'?

with VS of late anything is possible ;D

God help us all... utter nonsense at work in the 21st century! Don't it make ya glad to be alive?

A thought has just occurred to me, is it possible they're doing it for publicity?  Maybe Maxis have let it be known they want a site to make a documentary about?

of late that seems to be the Motto for VS

??? Well I have to say that none of this makes very much sense to me. Now I haven't been reading the threads in question, just gathering 2nd hand information, but from what I understand first Wintermute wanted to ban Inge, but Rennie wouldn't let him and made a pretense about taking some kind of stand about it or some such thing. That didn't make much sense to me because obviously Inge and Rennie aren't exactly best friends at the moment. All I could think of was she was just trying to make herself look good. So then Wintermute gets mad because of this and leaves in a big huff.

Well now Inge really is apparently banned? Which would sort of make sense and follow the pattern of the way things went with Pescado, except that if she was going to ban Inge anyway she could have avoided the whole Wintermute drama and kept him there, since hacks and beating MTS2 seem so important to them.

Only things I can think of is either she wanted Wintermute gone or just wants to create as much drama as humanly possible.

Well I am not banned, more sort of partially wiped.   I can actually log into my account I discovered.  But having done that, most of the system doesn't recognise me, so for instance I cannot view or edit my profile, nor view anyone else's.  I can send PMs and receive them, but I cannot read them.

I haven't tried seeing if I can post a forum message because I am already weary of having to wait several days to see if they appear.

So she was so firm that she didn't want you banned that she let Wintermute leave over it but she has no problem whatsoever with you being partially wiped and more or less unable to function as a normal user on their site?  ::)

Inge, aren't you totally cheesed off with this? You must have the patience of a saint because I think I'd have kicked her arse by now - preferably while wearing some decent toe 'tectors.

It's really getting to the point where I am more amused/bemused than anything else really.   I am intrigued to see what they get up to next.

I certainly wouldn't have had the patience for this BS  either

I'm betting she eventually makes some bullshit excuse that it was a server problem.

You can't just make some big dramatic stink over how you don't want someone banned, and then 5 minutes later do something that for all intents and purposes serves the same purpose as a ban without looking like a nut and a hyppocrite.

You mean a buttocks problem, don't you?  ;)  :D

In a perverse way, I see exactly where you are coming from. Sometimes it IS better to let them hang themselves and enjoy the flapping.

Ah, Inge is in my position now. That's what happened to my account when Rentech decided to "not-ban" me. But yes, it's more amusing than it is annoying. I mean, who really cares? It's obvious by now that Rentech.com is Not As Awesome.

Rentech is kind of shooting herself in the foot, "banning" all the best modders isn't she?

*shakes head*

I think the general rule of thumb is that you are not allowed to talk about other sites and certain people on certain sites lest someone is watching you and thus commences with the ban hammer. Its the Gestapo Regime!

So basically she can deny having banned either of without lying due to a technicality?

She should become a politician.

So basically she can denying having banned either of without lying due to a technicality?

She should become a politician.
[/quote]

I agree Motoki...she certainly has a politician's talent for speaking out of her 'server'  ;)

Happy birthday, although I'm guessing it's not that good a day if you're posting on here instead of getting buttocked in the pub. Whoops! I mean served in the pub. It's easliy done, isn't it?

LOL.....oh the endless connotations.....on a roll people  :)

that's about the size of it. reminds me of the 2003 recall election in California when Gray Davis was dubbed a smorgasbord governor, which ever special interest group was paying the most that day thats the position he supported  until the next day

Happy Birthday, Inge.  I do hope it has been a good one in spite of this other stuff going on here.  I decided to try sending you a PM on VS just to see what would happen, and this is the message I received:

I was just thinking about this today, the fact that Rentechd's posts have become much longer and more incoherent. Also her avatar says she's on vacation. I sincerely hope we haven't been watching a rl mental meltdown. The behaviour is irrational enough.

Professor VonBall to the rescue!

9I hope not  as of late it seem like VS is in a constant uproar . its no wonder the members ie peons like myself are staying away from VS the administrators appear to have some serious issues going on and its affecting every one from forum owners to peons

And, like I mentioned somewhere else, it doesn't help that lately Rentech's posts look like she typed them with her feet.
Now, there's an image for ya!

Thanks for the birthday wishes everyone!  Yes I did have a very good birthday all things considered, and far too many chocolates :D

There is no such thing as too many chocolates ;D

I'm glad you had a good day for your birthday :D

Whenever people here mention "buttocks", I keep being reminded of the book Candide by Voltaire. One of the characters is an old woman with only one buttock. The reason is because she was caught in a famine, where the people were so desperate they wanted to kill their captives for food. Instead, a pious man suggested that instead of killing whole people they should simply remove one buttock from each of them - thus, in the event they ran out of food again, there would still be another to spare ;).

There are many copies of Candide in English translation online: this is Chapter 12 (http://www.yahooey.com/pangloss/chapter-12.html), from the first link on Google. (I have no idea where my French copy is, and don't remember words like "buttock" ;) ).

ROFL ;D

That's interesting how that got misinterpreted.  This is the only time I'm going to clarify this and why I was fighting.

When you let a modder run wild and hide code inside your files without your knowlege, they can ultimately hide malicious code.  The malicious code could lead to severe game damage.  That is what I was talking about, NOT damage to your pc, although, you never know.  By allowing someone like Numenor or any other modder to do what he did, a line must be drawn.  How would any of you like to wake up one day to find half your sims were deleted?  Your game won't load right?  You play and find half your neighborhoods trashed?  Or even, everything you make isn't working correctly and you can't trace why.  This is a very real possibility when you allow one modder to go wild and deliberately hide code from other modders inside every single creator's files in the entire community.  What Numenor did was benign.  It was just some text words.  But if a line is not drawn to stop further behavior, there is no telling what could happen the next time.  And that is why I was fighting.  On top of that, I do not believe it is anyone's right to be inserting words into every single creator's files in the entire community, especially without that being clearly stated in plain words for everyone to understand, not hidden inside some BS legalease.  Either state, "I am inserting words inside your files that say I made your files." or don't do it.  I wouldn't have cared what the words said, he could have inserted an ad for McDonalds and I would still be upset about it.  What goes into a file is up to the creator of the file and no one else.  And it is not up to anyone else to force that on us.

Delphy is another matter.  He is not a creator, never has been, never will be.  And I came down on him for posing.  He cannot speak for creators since he is not one and has no knowlege in this area.  And he doesn't belong having his site logo inserted into everyone's files without their knowlege. 

I'm a freedom fighter and I was fighting for the rights of creators.  I don't really care who agrees with me or disagrees with me.  But I will bow down to no posers and I will not have my files compromised without my consent.  And anyone who really looks at the way they did it will understand how hidden it was.  It was designed so that you wouldn't see it unless you were looking for it.  That is what makes what they did so dangerous.  I do believe that was the first step before doing something far worse.  And I would hope that the creators of the community would understand this.

As far as the survey over at VS went.  I didn't even look at it.  I have no idea of what was inside of it.  All I do know is that it was for a free PS2 demo disc for TS2.  And Rentechd really is giving them away.  If she inserted other questions in the survey, I had no knowlege of that.         

Like what? Lawsuits? "Borg virus"? Are you kidding me?

Sorry, but I think this paranoid fantasy is getting a little out of control here. It's one thing to have a grudge because of a specific instance of dishonesty, but to take issue with everything a person *could* do is absurd.

Who knows Carrigon you could be correct, but since I'm not a creator of any sort I don't know. All I do know is when the thread deteriorated to personal insults, curse words and other forms of immature ranting I lost interest in trying to figure out what was correct. Sad but true, I lose all interest in a subject once the people involved start behaving in a vile and nasty manner to each other. We're supposed to be adults and handle our conflicts in a mature productive manner. What happened in that thread was the complete opposite. Hopefully the issue will be resolved at some point but it's going to take much more adult behavior than what I witnessed in that mess. I apologize if I offend but I just can't condone such deliberate unpleasantness. 

Carrigon, for what it's worth I was dismayed to see Numenor taking the path he did - it seemed a departure from the previous assumption of trust we creators have had - or at least in the Sims 1 world where many of us knew each other from.  When I first heard Quaxi's plans to facilitate this I already expressed my misgivings.

What's gone wrong here is that instead of a considered debate of the ethics on neutral ground, it has been seen as fuelled and led by someone already well known for paranoia and a long list of supposed enemies.   It was a bad move to start that on Variousimmers basically - where what could have been a productive thread was tainted by a bunch of w***ers whose messages no one could pull because they happened to be the admin or moderators!!!    Weird for instance how I who didn't swear at all got put onto semi-suspended while the people who broke the site rules are still on the staff <shrug>.   Seriously, if you want to restore your previous reputation you need to distance yourself from them.

You know, I really don't want this whole argument to spill over to this place. :(

I'll try to be as brief as possible and say that from what I know of Numenor, I'm certain he had no malicious intent in mind. To frame the decision they made to do this in a proper context, when the original CEP was created there were issues with TSR giving the proper credits and they were being kind of scheisty for a while. They even tried to throw money at the feet of Numenor and RGiles but they turned them down. Several people at MTS2 really had to push this issue and make a big stink about it for them to finally do it. I think there was a real fear at the time that TSR would take the tools that other modders make, claim them as their own and profit from them. I'm not necessarily saying the decision to insert that line is right or wrong, just what the mindset at the time may have been.

And I agree with Inge about Rennie. In my experience as well she is a paranoid who maintains this list of enemies that she plots revenge on.  ::) She's obsessed with 'beating' MTS2, whatever the hell that means. Whether you meant to or not this whole thing added fuel to her fire the way I see it.

I also think it was in poor taste to make a public spectacle about it before trying to work it out with those in question privately. Or maybe you did but obviously I hadn't heard about that if you did. I'll agree with you that Delphy is a whole 'nother issue, but in my experience Numenor and Quaxi are quite reasonable.

Carrigon

I think you need to get your facts right before shouting. Numenor and Quaxi did not insert this file into your package without you knowing, you did. You are the one that downloaded the CEP.  You are the one that ran the object workshop.  Without the CEP, you would have to do a lot more work just to get the recolour to work and I'm not even sure you know what that entails.

The MMAT file YOU put into your package was created by Numenor and RGiles, and I see no reason why they should not say so.

The way I see it a lot of the problem arose because Rentechd insisted on only giving the link to the download on Quaxi's site because she doesn't like sending people to MTS2.   That means that the people following her link didn't see the details which *did* inform us of the copyright inserts (it only started with CEP3, 1 and 2 did not have inserts).   But then again maybe it was a mistake to have the download available in multiple sites to start with for this very reason.

But Numenor might have been mindful of the fact that some poeple were banned from MTS2 when he decided to allow Quaxi to host it in parallel.  Unfortunately that perhaps considerate move backfired on him.

But you all know my views on using forums as download sites.  People might need banning from a forum on occasions, but they rarely need banning from a web page.   Why ever Numenor didn't do the really bright thing and put the file *on his own site* surrounded by the information about it where no one could miss it, I do not know.   He could also have stated on that page that he would offer support on one or two named forums, which could have included MTS2, Ambertation, and VS to cover everyone.

So this is new? Well then I guess the TSR issues had nothing to do with it then. I have no idea what prompted him to do this or what he was thinking then. Not that I care at all or have any problem with it. *shrug*

I also don't know why Numenor doesn't host it on his own page but I do think of the 2 places hosting it, it's better hosted at Quaxi's place. For one it's much easier to find as you don't have to sift through all the junk. Also as you noted people can't be banned because it's on a page and not a forum. And I think Quaxi's place is far more neutral as he hasn't pissed off nearly as many people as Delphy has. :P

I do think he should have made mention of that whole copyright thing on ambertation though, but maybe it was Quaxi who updated the page and he didn't think to mention it or Numenor didn't think to tell him to put a blurb about that up.

I think Numenor's kind of walking on shaky ground a bit by adding this so late in the game. While I personally could give a hot damn, a lot of people are really touchy about all this silly copyright nonsense. I know when they first made CEP one of their big things was they wanted one standard so there would not be conflicts. I know Danny (RGiles) at least really disliked the paysites and TSR in particular but they agreed to let them use it because they felt they had no choice. Otherwise they'd come up with their own CEP which would likely conflict with their CEP and inevitably some users would end up with both which would be a nightmare.

Adding something like new this now after all this time runs the very real risk that some people who take great offense to it for whatever reason may well go and make their own and that's something we definitely do NOT want.

Hmm this sounds  a bit paranoid to me .Im not a creator at the moment  as I am still learning how to use the modding tools .but even for a lay person like me I fail to see what  damage inserting who created the latest version of cep and the site linkage for support would do to a file. it doesnt change the parameters of the file .nor does it invalidate the modders file input. however making a big brouhaha over nothing  will invariably lead to others deciding they should be the ones to make the next version of cep and the result will be a disaster as its likely that someone elses version of cep will conflict  with the version that has been proven to work. I think even end users of cep like myself realize what a conflicting version could do to our games. we live in a world where nearly everything ever written has  a copywrite policy so why the shock over the fact that CEP has one? and inserting the words copywrite and credits to whomever in no way alters the program. anymore than the words trademark on  a McDonalds hamburger wrapper alter the taste or quality of the hamburger. this is just my opinion and .02 cents. as for the survey at VS 80 percent of the questions were all about the VS site and its administrative staff very little of it had to do with  the sims2