Survey on VS

[witch]

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.

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.

[Brynne]

Professor VonBall to the rescue!

[Bangelnuts]

9

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.

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.

I 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

[Brynne]

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!

[Inge]

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

[Kyna]

There is no such thing as too many chocolates

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

[baratron]

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, from the first link on Google. (I have no idea where my French copy is, and don't remember words like "buttock" ).

[Bangelnuts]

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!

ROFL

[Carrigon]

Motoki: But isn't Carrigon the one who thinks CEP can damage your boot sector?   

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.         

[dizzy]

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.

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.

[cabelle]

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. 

[Inge]

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.

[Motoki]

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.

[crammyboy]

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.

[Inge]

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.

[Motoki]

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).

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.

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.

[Bangelnuts]

Motoki: But isn't Carrigon the one who thinks CEP can damage your boot sector?   

, 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 

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.
      

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