Why did you retroactively censor my review?

[TommyTomahawk]

So, I log on after two weeks of inactivity, and I'm greeted with this lovely message:

"Your review for Guides Import genesis 8 character(only morph) to vam(with pictures) was deleted. Reason: Review was deleted because your complaints are outside the scope of the original guide. Please be more courteous to other members in the future, especially those who are willing to contribute free guides and resources to the community."

My crime: posting a 4-star review. Apparently, awarding 4 stars out of 5 - 80% - is considered an "insult" around these parts. Interesting. Who runs this site, Stalin? Applause and 5/5 scores are mandatory?

Context: I wrote a review on the Guide called "Import genesis 8 character" (he added "only morph" to the title later, after he made sure I got censored). I wrote that it was a good guide (hence the 4 stars, if I wanted to troll I'd award 0 or 1), but that I was disappointed there was no guide included for also transferring the textures of DAZ characters. I then had a discussion with the writer of the guide (donkilluminati) in PMs, and at the end he said he'd add to the title a disclaimer saying the guide was for morphs only, not textures. By that time however, my review had already been removed on grounds that it was "complaints are outside the scope of the original guide". Uh, that's only true after your title retcon. And my review wasn't just "complaints", it was mostly praise. I gave the guy a 4/5.

 

[SPQR]

My crime: posting a 4-star review. Apparently, awarding 4 stars out of 5 - 80% - is considered an "insult" around these parts. Interesting. Who runs this site, Stalin? Applause and 5/5 scores are mandatory?

Your crime was abusing the review system to force a creator to do something extra that You want. Nobody cares what you're disappointed for not being included. I might be disappointed that they did not add funny cat photos in their guide. But it would be stupid to punish the creator for making what they made instead of something random I imagined.

While to you it might seem a small thing, I encourage you to start sharing things and see it for yourself. Waste tens of hours of your time, put it for free on the hub. Once you'll get greeted by people that do what you did, downvote you for stupid reasons, you'll maybe understand.

For example, people that downvoted my plugins for silly reasons:
- disappointed that the DEMO scene of my random dances didn't have like a DJ and it was clear I was never invited to the cool parties like the reviewer
- disappointed that my OCULUS haptics plugin is not working on htc vive
- disappointed that the biggest vam creator vamx doesn't have something like Alive too
- disappointed that my AEDoll movement system doesn't also have the upcoming vam2 pin-point system
- and more, these are just my favorites

My knee-jerk reaction to all of them always was that I'll never share a thing for free ever again.
I actually just recently started sharing free plugins again, and someone downvoted it and said it's not even a plugin. Sent me straight back to I'll never share anything for free ever again mode. The only point of sharing things for the community is the community. If what you get is people being weird, why bother?

Personal feelings aside, the best case scenario for everyone here, including you, is that creators make and share things.
There are other ways for you to express your opinions and make requests. Dissuading creators from sharing I'm sure it's not something you want neither..

You should be thankful to the mods for having what you want (more content) at interest and the rules to protect it. They could be weird and say to whoever reported it that they're inflammatory and that that particular review is a precious flower they have to protect at all cost

 

[TommyTomahawk]

"Your crime was abusing the review system to force a creator to do something extra that You want."

I did no such thing. Giving someone a glowing 4-star rating + positive commentary is "abusive" in your eyes? Seems like a "you-problem" not a "me-problem". Grow a spine. You are not entitled to 5 stars.

"Nobody cares what you're disappointed for not being included. I might be disappointed that they did not add funny cat photos in their guide."

Complete apples and oranges. The review promised, at the time (before he changed the title), how to import a character from DAZ to VAM. Mate, I'm a hobbyist 3D artist like many of you, and I know a "character" is morphs + textures. You can't just randomly swap out the textures on a character and pretend it's fine. The character I wanted to import was custom-made by an talented sculptor/texturer who handpainted the texture set for me. They are important. Every 3D artist knows this, don't play dumb by comparing it with "funny cat photos". It just shows your intellectual dishonesty.

"But it would be stupid to punish the creator for making what they made instead of something random I imagined."

I punished no one. I awarded a very positive score (again, if I wanted to troll or "punish, I would award 0 or 1 star - not 4), and expressed slight disappointment that there was no way to import textures. Oh no, the humanity!

"While to you it might seem a small thing, I encourage you to start sharing things and see it for yourself. Waste tens of hours of your time, put it for free on the hub. Once you'll get greeted by people that do what you did, downvote you for stupid reasons, you'll maybe understand."

Again, awarding someone 4/5 isn't "downvoting", unless you're very, very fragile. And I'm glad you bring it up! I happen to run 2 DeviantArt pages and 2 Pixiv pages. I have been doing do for over 7 years now. I am very used to receiving thousands of views and yet no one bothering to hit "like" or "favorite", or when finally someone does comment; it's a demand for the next work (that they expect me to do for them for free, of course). I spend days on one render and usually get literally zilch in return. Don't whine to me about getting a 4/5 rating. You got -a- rating? A (very) positive one, even? You should be kissing my feet! Your fragility is astonishing.

"There are other ways for you to express your opinions and make requests."

Other ways of expressing my opinions, besides expressing my opinions? What shall I use, Morse code? Telepathy? Or does that also hurt his feewings, somehow?

"Dissuading creators from sharing I'm sure it's not something you want neither..."

If this particular creator is "dissuaded" from creating by a single 4-star review, then the problem is his fragility, not my review. That's my view on it and I'll stand by it.

 

[keycode]

...some centuries ago I wrote a short review about a (free) scene, a scene technically totally messed, a scene play(but how?)-and-forget and I had been censored too (after some weeks or some months). Welcome to the hub free opinions censorship
ps: I was a lot more negative than you... but still I think I should act like I did... for what is worth

 

[SPQR]

You shouldn't have an existential crisis over mods doing their jobs. It's by all means a beautiful phenomenon that we should all sit back and admire.

I have been doing do for over 7 years now.
Giving someone a glowing 4-star rating
You got -a- rating? A (very) positive one, even? You should be kissing my feet!

I think that you've been doing do for too long.
Free content is a gift. You thinking that you're entitled to it or that creators owe you something is delusional.

I noticed your lack of empathy to process my point. Here it is explained again in bulletpoint form:

• when you see 99 things rated as 5 stars and one as 3 stars, you think "that one clearly has problems"
• when you rate something below the average of what things are rated, you're downvoting it. You're pushing it down below just about everything else, no? If people will look for it they might not find it because it's at the bottom, or skip it if they find it. No?
• there's a neverending list of things that are not part of any given resource. Downvoting a resource for not having something that you want is silly

It has nothing to do with mods, Stalin, censorship, Orwell, your obsession with fragility, that you've been doing degenerate art for 7 years and the Vienna academy said no. That's all "your-mental-health" problems, not hub problems

You could've DM'd or posted in Discussion and let the creator know that you want help with x.
You chose to downvote him and drag his resource down just to ask for something extra from him...

...some centuries ago I wrote a short review about a (free) scene, a scene technically totally messed, a scene play(but how?)-and-forget and I had been censored too (after some weeks or some months). Welcome to the hub free opinions censorship
ps: I was a lot more negative than you... but still I think I should act like I did... for what is worth

So a dude tried to share something for free with us... Maybe it was his first upload... He messed up something...
And you jumped in there saying a lot of negative things and marking his asset as trash basically, for making a mistake (if that was even the case, maybe you just didn't understand how to run it which was a possiblity), making it kind of pointless for him to update it and fix it. lol

I had something like that happen too. I posted a model for free, I was in a hurry and forgot to add a file.
Less than 5 minutes later this dude already downvotes it because things like that stand out to someone like him (unlike his models faces)

He could have just told me like a normal person and I would have fixed it in 10 seconds.
But because of him in particular being weird and annoying I just left it like that and never bothered.

That happens at a large scale with many creators abandoning things, others not even bothering, seeing that it's a toxic place to share things and a waste of time for people they don't even like. I mean look at these:

I have on alive :

or this @costars guy downvoting even before trying it and admitting it, and even being that much of a dickhead to ask me for help inside the downvote:

or on my tool to help people with controllers problems:

or I just made a free tool to help people with old PCs, he doesn't even understand what it does. It's not as good as givemefps but for a lot of people it would be better because it has some extra features and it's as simple to use as possible. But because of this weirdo @kvarus many will never find it

So if there's a conspiracy I'm clearly not part of it and if anything I should be the one mad at the mods.
But I'm telling you dudes that you're wrong. It's simple imo:
- people try to make and share things with us, waste their time to help people
- some go out of their way to be dickheads and ruin things for everybody

The goal of the review system is to help creators. It's not to punish creators, ask for help, demand things, put voodoo curses on them, etc

 

[SPQR]

I realized just now that for a lot of people the problem might be that they don't understand that ratings average out.
Some probably think they add up. Maybe having them stack up would work better. The way it is now is arguably not going too well.
Doing that would:
- help people with special rating system not have to adapt to reality and keep their own system
- prevent punishment reviews, because even 1 star reviews would help that creator stack up more make-believe points
- add more variety to the ratings

 

[keycode]

... Maybe it was his first upload... He messed up something...
And you jumped in there saying a lot of negative things and marking his asset as trash basically, for making a mistake (if that was even the case, maybe you just didn't understand how to run it which was a possiblity), making it kind of pointless for him to update it and fix it. lol

I had something like that happen too. I posted a model for free, I was in a hurry and forgot to add a file etc

if you explain why you were choosing our glorious SPQR as nickname, than I will say that I am agree with some parts in your statement, at least on some elements about the netiquette or some puritan-moral points of view ... did you love so much that "Gladiator" movie? (you are not the only one and Rome is my... capital)

 

[keycode]

just imagine an alternative dream-dimension in wich all vamusers are technically (very) well rich of 3d digital art experience, people with a lot of time to waste trying to understand after they download and try to play a trash-scene, a plugin, a .dll that was messing their (also precious?) time and beloved installed stuff...

sometimes those people they even try to correct patreonized or non-patreonized creators mistakes... probably in that lucky planet there is no need for moderators to delete critics in a forum
ps: and yes, I understand (I really think so) that moderators they have a heavy task when they have to clean expressed opinions in a forum, trying to keep the forum itself free from flames posts and violent content. What I like less is when a 3d artisan is posting stuff he did not even try to test to understand if his trash-masterpiece merits or not to be called a (working?) scene, plugin, etc.

post post post scriptum: be kind with me, I am since always a fan of your alive plugin

 

[TommyTomahawk]

"I think that you've been doing do (?) for too long."

Elaborate? In English?

"Free content is a gift. You thinking that you're entitled to it or that creators owe you something is delusional."

Never said I was entitled to the content. You are once again trying to put words in my mouth. You, however, seem to think creators are instantly entitled to 5 stars. I make art for free. Been doing so for years. I don't expect positive reviews, and I don't throw a tantrum or expect mods to take down people's comments when I receive bad reactions. That's all you. You're the one in favor of "deleting critics in a forum" (previous post by keycode).

"I noticed your lack of empathy to process my point. Here it is explained again in bulletpoint form..."

Nothing says "empathy" like systematically strawmanning someone in bullet point format.

"It has nothing to do with mods, Stalin, censorship, Orwell, your obsession with fragility, that you've been doing degenerate art for 7 years and the Vienna academy said no. That's all "your-mental-health" problems, not hub problems..."

So here, you, the side of "empathy", are calling me (all in one sentence!):
- a Nazi (one of those Nazis famous for advocating for free speech, I'm sure)
- a degenerate (my brother in Christ, you're a VAM user)
- accused me of being mentally ill (both a slur against me, and against people suffering from actual mental illness
So much empathy on display!

"You could've DM'd..."

I did. We had an entire ongoing conversation, but I'm sure you're going to ignore that and pretend it didn't happen. I have the receipts, though.

"You chose to downvote him and drag his resource down..."

I fundamentally disagree with your definition of "downvoting" and "dragging it down". I'm not a part of a hivemind. I will score an item what I want to score it, not what everybody else is scoring it.

 

[SPQR]

Never said I was entitled to the content. You are once again trying to put words in my mouth. You, however, seem to think creators are instantly entitled to 5 stars. I make art for free. Been doing so for years. I don't expect positive reviews, and I don't throw a tantrum or expect mods to take down people's comments when I receive bad reactions. That's all you. You're the one in favor of "deleting critics in a forum" (previous post by keycode).

You misunderstood my point still. Here it is in table form:

review of the work, giving a score based on how good the work is in the context of VAM hub (or your inner-world if you lack empathy)	breaking the rules, asking for extra stuff and dragging down a creator in the process because you want to vent at someone...

accused me of being mentally ill (both a slur against me, and against people suffering from actual mental illness

That's not something you "accuse" people of... And mental health is something everyone has. It has its ups and down based on various factors, such as stress, intoxication, tiredness, sudden decrease in mental sharpness due to do diet etc. You were very mad at mods and talking about how they're tyrants, now you're very mad at me and talking about how I insult the mentally ill. Maybe you're exaggerating a bit?

I fundamentally disagree with your definition of "downvoting" and "dragging it down". I'm not a part of a hivemind. I will score an item what I want to score it, not what everybody else is scoring it.

You fundamentally disagree with facts... You pressed a button, the asset went down. Is it not a downvote? But I get it that it's difficult to process it like that. Nobody is telling you how to score things. But your reason for downvoting that was outside the scope.
"I downvote you because you didn't do x" is silly. By that logic, I could go and 1 star everything on the site and give as reason that they don't have something extra... Do you really not see the problem with doing that?

, I am since always a fan of your alive plugin

Thank you very much!

did you love so much that "Gladiator" movie? (you are not the only one and Rome is my... capital)

not a bad movie for an american blockbuster! I don't remember why I picked it tbh, I wasn't planning on staying, it was a bit random.

 

[keycode]

[QUOTE="SPQR, post:

not a bad movie for an american blockbuster! I don't remember why I picked it tbh, I wasn't planning on staying, it was a bit random.
[/QUOTE]
... The soundtrack, the actors and the story were not so standard-hollymovie (for once, not on the typical narrative of abused arguments), impressive, very good movie.

 

[SPQR]

... The soundtrack, the actors and the story were not so standard-hollymovie (for once, not on the typical narrative of abused arguments), impressive, very good movie.

2 next year will be much better, I can feel it

 

[AshAuryn]

So, I log on after two weeks of inactivity, and I'm greeted with this lovely message:

"Your review for Guides Import genesis 8 character(only morph) to vam(with pictures) was deleted. Reason: Review was deleted because your complaints are outside the scope of the original guide. Please be more courteous to other members in the future, especially those who are willing to contribute free guides and resources to the community."

My crime: posting a 4-star review. Apparently, awarding 4 stars out of 5 - 80% - is considered an "insult" around these parts. Interesting. Who runs this site, Stalin? Applause and 5/5 scores are mandatory?

Context: I wrote a review on the Guide called "Import genesis 8 character" (he added "only morph" to the title later, after he made sure I got censored). I wrote that it was a good guide (hence the 4 stars, if I wanted to troll I'd award 0 or 1), but that I was disappointed there was no guide included for also transferring the textures of DAZ characters. I then had a discussion with the writer of the guide (donkilluminati) in PMs, and at the end he said he'd add to the title a disclaimer saying the guide was for morphs only, not textures. By that time however, my review had already been removed on grounds that it was "complaints are outside the scope of the original guide". Uh, that's only true after your title retcon. And my review wasn't just "complaints", it was mostly praise. I gave the guy a 4/5.

Apologies for responding to this late as I have been busy with upgrades to the Hub and did not see this thread.

In the future, please contact the moderation team directly for questions like this, as this is not what "Hub Feedback" was intended for.

To answer your question:

When you leave a review, you should see this dialogue:

Now, there are some misleading statements in your original post.

"My crime: posting a 4 star review"

There was no crime. You were not issued a warning. And it had nothing to do with the stars. It had to do with the above "Reviews which are not constructive may be removed without notice" and "Reviews are not intended for asking questions about a resource".

"I wrote that it was a good guide" "My review wasn't just complaints, it was mostly praise"

No, you did not, and no, it most certainly wasn't praise.
Your review was not constructive or positive, but instead was written as an admonishment of the creator of the guide:

What's the point of just importing the shape of a character if I can't also import her textures? Surely you know 90% of a character's look is the textures. You can't just slap some other texture set on the character and still have it be the same person... What if I want my VAM character to look -exactly- like in DAZ (minus Iray, obviously)?

Rather than leaving this "review", you could have contacted the creator or posted in the discussion thread something like "How do I import the character including the textures?" or "Can you include in your guide how to include the textures in the import?" Which are questions, meaning they also are not appropriate for a review.

---

A more appropriate review might have been something like "Nice guide. I noticed that it doesn't explain how to also import the textures so I'm hoping we see that in a future version of this guide. Otherwise, 4 stars!"

Instead, you chose to shame the creator of the free guide for not including the specific parts of the process that you were interested in. Hence: "your complaints are outside the scope of the original guide. Please be more courteous to other members in the future".

The creator did not need to add a disclaimer to the guide. The misunderstanding was yours alone. The guide was obviously not intended for what you were looking for, and the creator was, in my opinion, overly accommodating in catering to you by adding the disclaimer.

Normally, this would all be much more appropriate to discuss in a private conversation after contacting the moderation team about this issue. However, when a member publicly calls out a moderator action, then I am willing to discuss the matter publicly. Please understand this means that the public will receive an objective version of the facts minus your misleading statements in the original post. I might go so far as to say this thread qualifies as trolling the moderation team, but we will not issue a warning in this case since it has been a month since the original post.

 

[AshAuryn]

We are locking this thread since OP's question has been answered.