Forum behavior

Guys, I’ve been watching with interest and quietly for some time since I was alerted to some recent issues.

Since then I’ve seen many people helping, and being constructive, thank you, you know who you are.

However I’ve seen a small minority posting:

1. Pornography and NSFW posts
2. Admin – baiting
3. Rants, with no purpose other than to incite
4. Ridicule bordering on bullying

Are we going to let a couple of people ruin this for everyone? We put this forum here for us all to discuss the software, to help each other, not for a few people to commandeer for the personal entertainment. There are other places to put NSFW posts and rants, we should be professional on this forum.

We have to protect new users from abuse. We have to enforce the rules for everyone. Criticism is allowed and encouraged (prefer constructive criticism), but flagrant violation of the rules, and bullying of anyone cannot be tolerated. I have been a staunch defender of our open forum for years. Other OEM forums are closed, or non-existent, what does that say about the freedom that is offered here? Let’s respect our privileges or risk them being taken away.

If you want to respond to my plea for professionalism with some remarks about how the software has let you down, has personally screwed you out of house and home, mugged you and your brother, whatever, please don’t. The forum is for discussion, not for logging bugs. If you feel so strongly about the software (which is good), please try to actually do something constructive about the issue through official channels. Here is how.

1. First contact technical support, and report the problem. 800-343-7933. This works, I have followed many customers through the system. YES, I believe like all technical support that it is far from perfect, but at least start here so you can get your call logged and have something to whine to me about. If you don’t like to call, use this form: http://hexagonmetrology.us/contact-us.
2. If you do not receive the timely response you desire, call your sales representative. They will help.
3. If all these fail for a specific issue you have, PM me telling me what happened in technical support, who your sales rep is, and if you entered a contact request. I will follow up with each and make sure the system is working for you and for everyone. Allow me time, I do have a day job, and I'm just one person.
4. If after all that, you still don't like the response you are getting, fill out the customer survey here with your experiences: http://hexagonmetrology.us/contact-us/customer-satisfaction-survey . It is logged and reviewed.

Thanks for your professionalism in advance, please help me make this a better place.

Parents

Brian Gudauskas over 13 years ago

1. Yes you, and by you I mean the forum admins, have every right to ban people to police the content of the forum
- Yes, the right AND the responsibility.

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.
- If you didn't witness, how do you know they were heavy? Or sudden? I personally won't pass judgment on it, we all need to move on. Complain about what's happening today, not what happened in the past, it's all that's worth talking about.

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.
- Don't believe everything you hear. Also, first posts are removed, then temporary bannings, then permanent bannings. You don't see everything that goes on because admin cleans it up. The board is a privilege (for me too being an employee of Hexagon), not a right. Therefore it can be taken away at any time if we abuse it.

2. All of that said why shouldn't we be worried about being banned?
- Because you've seen plenty of criticism go on even after bannings, and those members are still here. If you saw some of the things that were posted, you would agree. But I won't stoop to satisfying anyone's morbid curiosity, administration is our responsibility and we take it seriously.

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.
- Please do so if you feel it, just be constructive. If all you bring here is criticism and don't help others, and don't offer solutions, then you have nothing to offer (Not you Eric BTW). If you have nothing to offer the board, we reserve the right to delete posts, and ban you from the forum. It's that simple.

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.
- Exactly. You have not seen everything, because it was removed. If you don't know what pot stirring is, you are not one. Those who do, know.

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 think the desire to find out the gory details of why people were banned is the same need that people have to stop on a highway to look at an accident. It's not cool in my book. Sorry.

Hope that helps, thanks for the post.
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Brian Gudauskas over 13 years ago

1. Yes you, and by you I mean the forum admins, have every right to ban people to police the content of the forum
- Yes, the right AND the responsibility.

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.
- If you didn't witness, how do you know they were heavy? Or sudden? I personally won't pass judgment on it, we all need to move on. Complain about what's happening today, not what happened in the past, it's all that's worth talking about.

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.
- Don't believe everything you hear. Also, first posts are removed, then temporary bannings, then permanent bannings. You don't see everything that goes on because admin cleans it up. The board is a privilege (for me too being an employee of Hexagon), not a right. Therefore it can be taken away at any time if we abuse it.

2. All of that said why shouldn't we be worried about being banned?
- Because you've seen plenty of criticism go on even after bannings, and those members are still here. If you saw some of the things that were posted, you would agree. But I won't stoop to satisfying anyone's morbid curiosity, administration is our responsibility and we take it seriously.

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.
- Please do so if you feel it, just be constructive. If all you bring here is criticism and don't help others, and don't offer solutions, then you have nothing to offer (Not you Eric BTW). If you have nothing to offer the board, we reserve the right to delete posts, and ban you from the forum. It's that simple.

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.
- Exactly. You have not seen everything, because it was removed. If you don't know what pot stirring is, you are not one. Those who do, know.

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 think the desire to find out the gory details of why people were banned is the same need that people have to stop on a highway to look at an accident. It's not cool in my book. Sorry.

Hope that helps, thanks for the post.
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