I think we can agree that I like to be an agreeable person. But now I am upset.

 

Last week @@Unleashed2k you closed a topic and deleted posts in the following thread.

 

http://customsforge.com/topic/32465-customsforge-merch-shop-is-open-for-business/

 

I understand the need for any self-respecting forum to be governed by a set of principles and that unconstructive criticism or being a jackass can warrant a user's posts being deleted for the greater good and a thread closed.

 

Being off-topic is, at worst, a reason to migrate posts to a new thread, but it is quite a matter of opinion that the posts were off-topic. Additionally I believe commenters were respectful.

 

Let me be clear, as a proud and constructive member of CustomsForge I can say the following without impaired judgement, that if I see any more non-malicious and well-intentioned posts deleted by you or your board of directors, I will refrain from donating to this site in perpetuity.

 

People give this site the most precious thing that they've got: their limited free time and thoughtfulness. These things need to be respected.

 

Didn't this site begin on the principle of non-deletion?

 

If I were GTLO especially I would be quite upset that his eloquent, diplomatic and thoughtful post was deleted.

 

Rant over. Please close this thread at your earliest convenience, seriously, as I am not one to want to start trouble of a spate of dissent. If 7 days later I am still angry, I realize I had to say something. Even if someone agrees with me don't hit the Like button please, since I'd prefer not to stir things up and solicit any us versus them sentiment. You guys still rock in my book!

 

All this doesn't change that I like this site and it's members and that I have tremendous respect for you Unleashed.

 

Sincerely,

Berneer

You have my full support, Berneer.

 

Whenever posts are considered to be deleted,

there should at least be a procedure to give the author a chance to moderate his comment, or to remove it himself.

There should also be a time to get rid of a warning point, after a year or so.

 

I could not read these comments, so I consider myself censored,

and I don't like that at all in a community based on cooperation and solidarity.

I admit, it keeps me from donating, I'm very sensitive on the subject of free speech in an environment of mutual respect.

 

We all know its a main issue to keep a site polite, and Unleashed2K has done a great job.

Thank you @@Berneer , for your kind words and tireless contributions to this community.



 

For the record I never delete any posts, they are still there hidden ready to be restored at anytime.

Also one of our in house rules is to never delete posts, but hide them if needed. 

But this is five days after the fact, why bring it up now? Why not PM me about the issue?
I've restored the posts for transparency. Today is my day off from work so I'm going to relax but please note we do not delete posts.

EDIT: We only delete posts if it breaks the rules of the website such as piracy, hate speech, etc, otherwise it is hidden.

(Moved hidden topics to it's own topic: http://customsforge.com/topic/32927-merch-discussion/)

Thanks for restoring the content of that topic.

I see nothing wrong when someone running the shop gets paid, service is done and its not much different to paying the service of running the servers, or software tools.

 

However, and I don't want to debate, it's hard to believe in the social help argument, when someone owns 120 steam games.

 

And 3 month ago I PM Unleashed2k about the vanished topic of "4 non Blondes : what's up" but haven't got an answer, yet.

Paying the server costs is in my opinion different from merchandising.

I personally don't think that CF is a brand - it's a fan site for customs and there's probably a problem. The customs are shared without any commerical interest for educational purpose under the fair use rule.

 

To avoid copyright or trademark conflicts -

Be Non-Commercial: This is an element of the unspoken rule, but try to be completely non-commercial with your works, no selling copies, no sponsorships, no advertisements.

 

If you add a shop to a site you can't separate it from everything else of the website and say "I'm selling only the website name and everything else is not related to it".

This has been corrected and there's maybe no problem to add the revenue to monthly costs.

 

Steam games are sometimes on sale - 120 games are not necessarily 50$+ games and no indicator if you're rich or not.

 

Hiding a post is for the members without any priviledged rights the same as deleting them - they can't read it and the difference is only technically. I agree that posts in the category of the Edit sentence are deleted without asking.

 

However, and I don't want to debate, it's hard to believe in the social help argument, when someone owns 120 steam games.

 

And 3 month ago I PM Unleashed2k about the vanished topic of "4 non Blondes : what's up" but haven't got an answer, yet.

 

Owning games doesn't really say anything about how much money you have. 

I have over a 1000 games on steam and around 600 of them I got via cheap humble bundles :).

 

I've looked into the matter of that song and I can't find a lot about it. The record is still somewhere in our database. We are gonna investigate what happened with it, but I cannot promise you that we find anything that would explain it.

Thanks for restoring the content of that topic.

I see nothing wrong when someone running the shop gets paid, service is done and its not much different to paying the service of running the servers, or software tools.

 

However, and I don't want to debate, it's hard to believe in the social help argument, when someone owns 120 steam games.

 

And 3 month ago I PM Unleashed2k about the vanished topic of "4 non Blondes : what's up" but haven't got an answer, yet.

I get tons of PM's, sometimes I miss a lot due to my busy schedule.

From what it looks like the user requested their account to be deleted. (If we banned him, we wouldn't of deleted his account).

 

Also most of her games were gifted by friends or purchased on sale at humble bumble for example.

 

Via the adoption rules I'll give you permission to take over the CDLC and release it as your own.

Please download it then reupload it. Report the old post once yours is up and we will delete it.

 

http://customsforge.com/page/customsforge_rs_2014_cdlc.html/_/pc-enabled-rs-2014-cdlc/whats-up-r169

On the subject of hiding posts and the like. 

Imagine you think of something really cool to do. You announce it and expect people are going to like it just as much as you do. Only in response you'll get 10ish comments on the legality of it and other complaints. 
At one point you'll just be like: "whatever I'm done with this." and close/delete/hide the topic/posts.

Sometimes dealing with a big community can be quite frustrating and it'll feel like every announcement you make to better the site and things is only being met with complaints. All of us who run the site are volunteers, we do this because we want to give the community a fun place to hang out, talk, heck maybe even wear a shirt with the sites logo on it. We all have our own lives with sometimes shitty days and then we still have to deal with you guys /jk ;)

If we sometimes come off as rude or forget to do something, pm's for example, just remember that we also have our own lives and sometimes you just catch one of us in a bad moment, sometimes we make errors we are also humans :)
We've been running this site for almost 3 years now and I'm quite proud of what we've build up here. Not only the staff, but also all the other people here in the community. 

I hope that this explains why we sometimes do what we do. 

On the subject of hiding posts and the like. 

 

We all have our own lives with sometimes shitty days and then we still have to deal with you guys /jk ;)

 

If we sometimes come off as rude or forget to do something, pm's for example, just remember that we also have our own lives and sometimes you just catch one of us in a bad moment, sometimes we make errors we are also humans :)

 

I hope that this explains why we sometimes do what we do. 

 

I understand we should forgive you, for what you sometimes do.

But please, forgive us too, when we have a bad day.

I'm still carrying that warning point since 2014, which I see ever time, and it has become rather annoying.

Imagine you think of something really cool to do. You announce it and expect people are going to like it just as much as you do. Only in response you'll get 10ish comments on the legality of it and other complaints. 

At one point you'll just be like: "whatever I'm done with this." and close/delete/hide the topic/posts.

 

The board has a rule not to monetize customs - the name of the board is CustomsForge. We all agree that copyright exists and we have an interest not to stretch it - any commercialisation without permission is a step in the wrong direction.

The discussion was in a civilized manner and nobody wrote bashing posts (otherwise add a warning point - I'm not error free and I'll accept it) - there were arguments why it may be worth rethinking this idea. This is how democracy works and if people disagree give them arguments or convince them, but deleting their posts or closing the thread because they don't agree or dislike something isn't an appropriate answer.

 

I know that there's a lot of volunteer work and I wrote in a pm about it. If somebody donates as an appreciation to the people working on a board for free or developing software I don't think that anybody would have a problem with it.

 

I understand we should forgive you, for what you sometimes do.

But please, forgive us too, when we have a bad day.

I'm still carrying that warning point since 2014, which I see ever time, and it has become rather annoying.

 

I'll look into pruning older warning points :) I'm sure there is an option for that somewhere.

 

Edit: Well, had to do it by hand. All pre 2016 warning points have been pruned.

 

 

The discussion was in a civilized manner and nobody wrote bashing posts (otherwise add a warning point - I'm not error free and I'll accept it) - there were arguments why it may be worth rethinking this idea. This is how democracy works and if people disagree give them arguments or convince them, but deleting their posts or closing the thread because they don't agree or dislike something isn't an appropriate answer.

 

 

I'm not saying that it wasn't a civilized discussion. But sometimes even that can just hit you the wrong way at the wrong time :)

 

Looks like it's a happy end for everbody :)