Forum behavior

Eric, awesome post, I'm going to take a tiny bit of time to respond (edit this post... now edited).

1. Bannings were intentional for good reasons (even if those banned don't think they are). We have offered every person banned recently (all of four people) to come back if they wish.
2. If you are worried about being banned, they you are not someone who would be banned. Trust me when I say the worst offenders do not apologize for their actions, or think about their professionalism. If you can say it in a room full of coworkers, then it is ok to say here.
3. You have been helping, I see that, and greatly appreciate it. With the pot stirrers mostly gone, I hope good people can take over here. I'll be a part of that.
4. Keep asking any questions you want (especially if I missed anything), it's why I left this thread open. I'll answer anything that doesn't infringe on the privacy of others (even though it is not their right, what they do in public is public information).


thanks again.

Brian,

I appreciate you taking the time to respond and here's the thing from where I sit as a semi involved observer.

1. Yes you, and by you I mean the forum admins, have every right to ban people to police the content of the forum and no I didn't witness all of what was done to earn those bannings but it seems to me to have come in a very sudden and heavy handed manner. From what I have seen heard from other discussions there was little done that hasn't happened numerous other times and not resulted in bannings merely removal of the offending posts so the suddenness of what happened does come as something of a surprise to the community at large. There have been banning for repeated violations of the TOS, mainly as I remember in the posting of questionable pictures but from what I know never for content of messages along the lines of what I have been able to figure out was posted. Also it appears that some of those things that were done recently were overturned which suggests at least some sort of tacit admission that it was a little heavy handed.
2. All of that said why shouldn't we be worried about being banned? I have and will again say things here and elsewhere that are critical of the software and the forum and the people on the forum. As to the software at least, there are legitimate gripes to the way things are handled for the users from the standpoint of Hexagon. You started this thread with a discription of how to handle bugs in the software and those are the proper channels yes, but the fact of the matter is that some of the things that happen in these releases should never see the light of day let alone have to be diagnosed and dealt with by the users. Those things are legitimate problems that we all have with the software. This job is hard enough and I don't know about the other users but the industry paradigm that I keep running into is that CMM results can only be trusted so far and we have to prove ourselves beyond what should be reasonably necessary. We as the users don't need to add faulty software to the list of problems that we deal with. More so than the software problems we deal with my biggest frustration is a majority of my peers. I would venture to say that most of the people operating these machines have no business being anywhere near them due to lack of experience and training. Many of them will never know just how much they don't know and yes at times they get bashed, especially when they come to us, the unpaid forum members, demanding that we do their jobs and then not liking how we handle it. Not all of the people on here are like that and most of the people on here who offer the most help do know what they are doing but those people are a small number of all of the people who are on this site and they are the ones that are being driven away. I don't claim to be any kind of expert in the software but I know enough to get my job done and I for one am offended by the way some of the people who come to this site demanding help act. I'm not sure what passes for pot stirring in your book but honestly from where I sit I can't say that I have seen much of that from the people who were banned. At least not much that wasn't legitimate in my opinion, but again I haven't seen everything.

Like I have said I haven't seen much of why things were done, only the aftermath of what's been done, but I have to say that the response to the user base very much feels like a [waves hand]These are not the droids you are looking for[/waves hand] moment and that's not really pleasing from the point of view of this user. This is the place that users come to learn from the experience of people actually using the software because the training that most users get is woefully inadequate for actually doing the job. The people with that experience are the ones who are turned off by the way things look and nothing I have seen yet makes me feel any easier about being a part of this community.

I have to agree with a statement John made in his question to Admin thread

In my opinion, you owe an explanation to the membership that have helped grow this community.

I would even take it one step further and not say helped grow this community but are the entirety of this community because with the exception of fits and gasps here and there there is a very small percentage of what goes on here that Hexagon appears to contribute to other than giving us this space. Almost all of what gets done on here is done by non-Hexagon employees. I know that it's just our opinion as the members of the community and not probably shared by the forum admin but I feel pretty safe speaking for most of us in that's the way we feel.

Eric, awesome post, I'm going to take a tiny bit of time to respond (edit this post... now edited).

1. Bannings were intentional for good reasons (even if those banned don't think they are). We have offered every person banned recently (all of four people) to come back if they wish.
2. If you are worried about being banned, they you are not someone who would be banned. Trust me when I say the worst offenders do not apologize for their actions, or think about their professionalism. If you can say it in a room full of coworkers, then it is ok to say here.
3. You have been helping, I see that, and greatly appreciate it. With the pot stirrers mostly gone, I hope good people can take over here. I'll be a part of that.
4. Keep asking any questions you want (especially if I missed anything), it's why I left this thread open. I'll answer anything that doesn't infringe on the privacy of others (even though it is not their right, what they do in public is public information).


thanks again.

Brian,

I appreciate you taking the time to respond and here's the thing from where I sit as a semi involved observer.

1. Yes you, and by you I mean the forum admins, have every right to ban people to police the content of the forum and no I didn't witness all of what was done to earn those bannings but it seems to me to have come in a very sudden and heavy handed manner. From what I have seen heard from other discussions there was little done that hasn't happened numerous other times and not resulted in bannings merely removal of the offending posts so the suddenness of what happened does come as something of a surprise to the community at large. There have been banning for repeated violations of the TOS, mainly as I remember in the posting of questionable pictures but from what I know never for content of messages along the lines of what I have been able to figure out was posted. Also it appears that some of those things that were done recently were overturned which suggests at least some sort of tacit admission that it was a little heavy handed.
2. All of that said why shouldn't we be worried about being banned? I have and will again say things here and elsewhere that are critical of the software and the forum and the people on the forum. As to the software at least, there are legitimate gripes to the way things are handled for the users from the standpoint of Hexagon. You started this thread with a discription of how to handle bugs in the software and those are the proper channels yes, but the fact of the matter is that some of the things that happen in these releases should never see the light of day let alone have to be diagnosed and dealt with by the users. Those things are legitimate problems that we all have with the software. This job is hard enough and I don't know about the other users but the industry paradigm that I keep running into is that CMM results can only be trusted so far and we have to prove ourselves beyond what should be reasonably necessary. We as the users don't need to add faulty software to the list of problems that we deal with. More so than the software problems we deal with my biggest frustration is a majority of my peers. I would venture to say that most of the people operating these machines have no business being anywhere near them due to lack of experience and training. Many of them will never know just how much they don't know and yes at times they get bashed, especially when they come to us, the unpaid forum members, demanding that we do their jobs and then not liking how we handle it. Not all of the people on here are like that and most of the people on here who offer the most help do know what they are doing but those people are a small number of all of the people who are on this site and they are the ones that are being driven away. I don't claim to be any kind of expert in the software but I know enough to get my job done and I for one am offended by the way some of the people who come to this site demanding help act. I'm not sure what passes for pot stirring in your book but honestly from where I sit I can't say that I have seen much of that from the people who were banned. At least not much that wasn't legitimate in my opinion, but again I haven't seen everything.

Like I have said I haven't seen much of why things were done, only the aftermath of what's been done, but I have to say that the response to the user base very much feels like a [waves hand]These are not the droids you are looking for[/waves hand] moment and that's not really pleasing from the point of view of this user. This is the place that users come to learn from the experience of people actually using the software because the training that most users get is woefully inadequate for actually doing the job. The people with that experience are the ones who are turned off by the way things look and nothing I have seen yet makes me feel any easier about being a part of this community.

I have to agree with a statement John made in his question to Admin thread

In my opinion, you owe an explanation to the membership that have helped grow this community.

I would even take it one step further and not say helped grow this community but are the entirety of this community because with the exception of fits and gasps here and there there is a very small percentage of what goes on here that Hexagon appears to contribute to other than giving us this space. Almost all of what gets done on here is done by non-Hexagon employees. I know that it's just our opinion as the members of the community and not probably shared by the forum admin but I feel pretty safe speaking for most of us in that's the way we feel.