DonationCoder.com Forum

Main Area and Open Discussion => General Software Discussion => Topic started by: clean on November 13, 2012, 11:22 AM

Title: Two classes of membership here?
Post by: clean on November 13, 2012, 11:22 AM: 40hz, I kindly ask you if you could you comment on this site's policy / background or refer me to a page detailing these? As one of those posters who's done thousands of posts here, you might be best apt to inform me, and I'm sure many not-yet posters here ask themselves some of my questions, too, so clarification would certainly be welcomed by some people.

- Some people with many posts here often express very strong opinions and get away with it, they ain't banned and not even reprimanded - so it seems they have the "right" to do so

- I jumped in here, some days ago, not because of virtual kvm's, all the less so because of a given offering, but bec of another thread which treated censorship on bits, and MANY people here had been very astonished by this - this was TOO MUCH for me to not speak out, so I related my censorship history with bits, tongue-in-cheek, but the real reason was my having been TOTALLY CENSORED HERE: Some time ago, under another avatar, I had dared to make some posts where I had related bad experiences with software, and instead of triggering other posts on these subjects - perhaps with better experiences than mine -, I got deleted my posts within minutes, AND got my "account" deleted, i.e. no further posting possible, without getting the slightest explanation, which would have perfectly been possible since I had given my real mail account (which is certainly not the case with this current account that will probably be deleted within minutes from my clicking on the "Post" button.

- At the time, I had been totally surprised by that move, since I had thought to write about subjects of not too remote interest, and since I had not in any way been agressive, cynical or something in this order; on the other hand, this current "censorship at bits" thread here had made me laugh out loud, since people who do heavy censorship themselves shouldn't complain about them being censored elsewhere, right?

- You speak about "mouser" - who is "mouser", did he ever gave his name, or is anonymity important to him? I suppose he's the creator of this forum, right? Allow for another question: Why is he considered "God" or similar, here? Has he done exceptional things? Get me right, please, I'm not suggesting he didn't, I'm just in total absence of knowledge, so I'm asking.

- Then, is he funding this forum? It seems that for the financing of the servers, this forum relies upon public funding, by donations, so there might not be any (more) funding by "mouser", or is there? So here again, I haven't been successful in getting why "mouser" is considered "above it all", instead of this forum being sort of a democratic one.

- When I see the kind of speak of the "very frequent posters" here, addressing newcomers or "infrequent posters", I see sort of condescension and patronizing and which does NOT seem to be related to the respective content of the respective postings of either side, but simply to a "rule" or something that the former would have the "better rights" as the latter ones - of course, I don't discover this phenomenon in any thread and any exchange of posts, but it appears rather often and much more frequently than being coincidental or unintentionally.

- So what's going on here? What is the reason behind "unworthy" contributors here being treated like schoolboys were fifty years ago in civilised countries, especially in view of the fact that, as said, "regular" posters, the "masters" here, are allowed LOTS of "strong opinioning", so there does NOT seem to be a general rule of utmost complacency and attenuation, etc. that'd apply to everyone, far from that?

- What is the general idea behind this allowing to freely discuss things for a minority here when for everybody else, it's permanent self-censorship in order to avoid reprimands or even kick-out?

- This being a discussion forum with lots of participation, it seems to me that the questions I ask here are of some relevance, since for many a potential poster to such a forum, it's a question of adhering to such rules that need some explanation, or to shut up to begin with. There are many countries in this world where people ain't equal, and much worse, but for a forum where you'd instinctively presume equality among the participants, this blatant non-equality in the treatment different classes of participants are granting each other, mutually, seems astonishing and worthwile a little more info about the underlying reasons for all this than you can get by simple observation, hence my request to get some background to all this.

- Is there a chance go get this, or will the censor act first?
Title: Re: Two classes of membership here?
Post by: mouser on November 13, 2012, 11:35 AM: Some time ago, under another avatar, I had dared to make some posts where I had related bad experiences with software, and instead of triggering other posts on these subjects - perhaps with better experiences than mine -, I got deleted my posts within minutes, AND got my "account" deleted, i.e. no further posting possible, without getting the slightest explanation, which would have perfectly been possible since I had given my real mail account

In the 7 years we have been online, I don't think we have ever deleted anyone's account for any other reason than them spamming advertising. That's something we are pretty proud of around here.

Could you message me and let me know when this was supposed to have happened and some idea of what you were meant to have posted about and what username it was? I will try to find the deleted posts and see what this is about.

When discussions start to go off the rails or become personal attacks we occasionally step in and try to get people to get back on topic or stop arguing politics or religion, and sometimes in the worst of cases lock the thread or move it to the public "Basement" forum section, and we occasionally edit a post to remove personal information like phone numbers, but we've never deleted posts just because we didn't like them.

It's always possible something happened by mistake or an over-eager moderator got you, or that your posts were incorrectly assumed to be spam.. but please do shed some light on what exactly was deleted.

As for me, my personal information is available on any site that shows registrar information for the domain, or on our About Us (https://www.donationcoder.com/About/index.html) page.

I'm the one who started the forum, and I tend to be the one who makes "final" decisions if/when they are needed -- but they almost never are -- we tend to have very consistent agreement here among the users and the moderators about having a very light touch on the forum, except when it comes to spammers.

A note about different "classes" of membership.. You'll see under username labels that we actually do make a few different kinds of distinctions between users -- mostly between those who have donated to support the site and those that have not. But we try very hard to treat everyone equally here. If people are treated differently it's inevitably in two different ways: First, we have higher expectations of long-time members who have made lots of posts to treat newcomers with respect and to act in a way that reflects well upon the site, and try to cut more slack to new people who don't know the informal etiquette of the site. And second, it's inevitable that brand new members are scrutinized a bit more carefully for being spammers; the internet is filled with spammers and we delete a dozen accounts every day from bots that sign up just to spam the site -- that's the nature of the internet and it's part of what we have to do to keep the place clean.
Title: Re: Two classes of membership here?
Post by: cmpm on November 13, 2012, 11:43 AM: lol....too funny, clean
even I know his name

unless $ is not related to the software on site, then it would not be "public funding"?
'above it all' hm... yeah he's in charge, it's his site, but more below it all
supporting the prime directive...lol
Title: Re: Two classes of membership here?
Post by: tomos on November 13, 2012, 11:44 AM: hi clean,
good questions.
You make a lot of presumtions there though.

Brief-ish response (dont have enough time to go into too much depth): I think many of your questions are really for the forums moderators to answer.

Normally, the only stuff that is censored here is spam. OTOH there are quite a few moderators and on occasion they may get carried away.
There's certainly no "heavy censorship" here.

Some of your questions relate to individuals imo - if you or anyone else are treated in a patronising manner by an individual or individuals - that doesnt seem to me to be the responsibility of moderators, I dont think at any rate :-\
I know a vibe can get going in a forum where people might act similarly, I guess you could call it a collective thing. I havent noticed it here that much, occasionally all right.

Normally if I have a problem with someone, or something they said (and it's off-topic), I'll try and sort it out by PM (with some people that might be a waste of time. Judgement call). I guess everyone has their own way of approaching things.

I know you were involved in a thread lately where a lot of people (me included) reacted very strongly/over-reacted - that was because there has been a history with that topic there of what could only be called shouting matches - where nobody wins and everyone gets sick and tired of it.

LOL, again, I'd say there is always a group thing, but you are projecting some comments made by some individuals on the whole group or whole forum - I'm talking about your comments [about] mouser.
Mouser founded the site, his software is the main software here (bigger apps). I dont really have anything else to say there - I respect him a lot, he's no fan of censorship either ;-)

[posted without reading the other comments]
Title: Re: Two classes of membership here?
Post by: Renegade on November 13, 2012, 11:46 AM: Well, tl;dr, but skimmed...

I think one of the problems is seeing a first post. There's a natural assumption that someone is spamming. It happens quite often. I can't count the number of times I've reported spam to moderators - usually fashion and shoe spam.

Just brush it off and jump into the fun~! :D

So, welcome to the party~! ;D
Title: Re: Two classes of membership here?
Post by: worstje on November 13, 2012, 11:59 AM: So, I'm about as frequent a visitor and poster as one can get with the attention span of a kitte--- oooh, it's a ball of yarn! :)

Anyhow. My two cents as a long time, but pretty irregular participater, are as follows: this is a wonderful place, and to me it has that feel of that pub you drop in on every so often that you know most people by face, but that I simply don't get further than their first name with. They throw rounds of beer, I consume, and occasionally I throw a round for them. Could I do more, 'leech' less? Probably; but we all participate in a way we are comfortable in.

Fights are something that rarely happen here. I think the biggest thing that has happened surrounded the entire Circledock fiasco a few years back, and that was mostly due to members protecting eachothers rights and server costs getting a bit on the high side, so the maintainer of that simply went his own way. It wasn't pretty, but it was civil regardless.

Now, as for you.. I obviously know very little about you. You've got five posts, but I'll guess that this is a temporary account. However, everything you write has me grasping for straws. How can you not know the mouserer? Half the free-but-donations-are-very-welcome software on here is his work, amongst which are fan favorites like Desktop Coral, FARR, Screenshot Captor and more. He has his own forum section, posts daily, and probably has his grubby paws on every topic that pops up.

Finally, for as far censorship goes, I've seen it happen only once. And that was because the subject was simply getting too heated, and it left lingering attitudes of resentment that shone through in other discussions, leaving a fair number of users uneasy frequenting.

I don't know what got you in such a corner where DonationCoder seems like such a boogeyman, and I truly hope it isn't warranted. From what I have seen, it isn't, but I am not you and cannot say if you are overreacting, or whether you have a very valid point. :)

I hope mouser & litter will be able to put your fears to rest. :)
Title: Re: Two classes of membership here?
Post by: 40hz on November 13, 2012, 12:06 PM: @clean - I'm replying primarily to show I'm not ignoring you. But as us noted I'm Mouser's post above, this sort of question should always be directed to either him (as your host) or the moderators. Me being a known blabbermouth here doesn't make me qualified to speak on behalf of the site. I will however back up everything Mouser has said above. The people responsible for bringing DoCo to us rule with a very light touch. There have probably been more complaints about them not intervening in things than the other way around.

If you got bopped for something you've posted - or think you have - send a personal message to Mouser and he'll explain what happened. Sometimes (rarely) something glitches and a post goes missing. It hasn't happened in a good long while, but the chance is always there.

In other cases a post may get a minor edit for reasons mentioned above. But I have yet to see something deleted purely because somebody disagreed with what's been posted. I've gone pretty over the top a few times and all that happened me receiving some messages - from mostly other members - asking if I was ok since what I had said was so out of character for me as far as they were concerned. I was not banned nor were my comments censored in any way. And once I remembered these people are my friend (in the truest sense of the word) I realized I was reading too much into the spat I mostly got myself into that time.

It happens. Even to people with thousands if posts. Because we're all human.

So please, touch bases with Mouser and get you concerns addressed. You will not find a better, more considerate, or open community anywhere on the web. Abd we all benefit frim every member, whether they post infrequently - or probably a bit too much - like me! And you can take that on the word of somebody who was operating online BBS communities long before there was a public Internet.

Best - and excuse any typos. I'm doing this on a bloody iPhone on a moving train right now. ;D
Title: Re: Two classes of membership here?
Post by: Renegade on November 13, 2012, 12:14 PM: Best - and excuse any typos. I'm doing this on a bloody iPhone on a moving train right now. ;D
-40hz (November 13, 2012, 12:06 PM)

Holy Mother! I have a hard enough time on my chiclet Mac keyboard, a harder time on my Galaxy Tab keyboard, a virtually impossible time on my tab virtual keyboard, and cannot imagine typing a post like that on a phone... :'(

But definitely a good post.

FWIW - I've been "spanked" a few times for stepping out of line. Meh... I'll just blame it on the vodka or whatever. :D For this post, I'll blame it on a bit of honesty, and a bottle or 2 of fine Australian wine! :D

40's right - you'll have fun here.

As for mouser -- I didn't figure out who he was immediately. I knew Zaine first. Long story. The future is more interesting. :)

BTW - I'm feeling a bit dirty here... :P
Title: Re: Two classes of membership here?
Post by: cmpm on November 13, 2012, 12:24 PM: by the way, public funding?
who isn't?
unless you are printing it in your basement

fwiw I have donated very little
and currently at about 50 cents a program.
I think.
Even less if I figure in the things I've found, listening.
Title: Re: Two classes of membership here?
Post by: AndyM on November 13, 2012, 12:52 PM: clean -

It's been an hour and a half since your post.

It's still here but your apology isn't.
Title: Re: Two classes of membership here?
Post by: mouser on November 13, 2012, 12:55 PM: Apology is not needed, but do message me with details of what you think was deleted so I can look into it.
Title: Re: Two classes of membership here?
Post by: 40hz on November 13, 2012, 01:02 PM: Just an addendum regarding Mouser technically having "more say" than others...

While he does (as registered site owner) have "more say" in theory, in practice he leads by example and stays out of things far more than the average member. If he is anything, he is more "first among equals," out of personal preference, than he is your standard web-demigod or father figure. And I have yet to see him "pull rank" on anybody here for any reason. Not even in one instance where I really wished he had. What can I say? We each have our own management style.

Although there is a management hierarchy here (like everywhere else that has two or more people) it's a pretty invisible beast. I think Mouser has founded a new school of management where you manage, not by managing, but by asking people to act politely and become involved. Which is actually a pretty good definition of "friendship" when you think about it.

So if Mouser actually does have "more say" (and he does in fact) it's primarily because everybody here would be more than happy to give the last word to him. Not because we're all gushy-girly hero worshipers. (Many, if not most of us, have far too much ego and "attitude" to ever be real joiners or followers.) So if this community defers to Mouser, it's mainly because he has earned the respect of this community by respecting it himself. That's not an accomplishment too many site owners can claim. We all get treated like intelligent grownups here. And we, in turn (mostly) act that way.

This is hard thing for people coming from other forums to understand sometimes. When I first came here I was surprised by the absence of moderation or official agendas in the forum. I kept waiting to discover what the catch was. Especially since I'm a non-coder hanging out on what is "officially" (insofar as anything around here ever is 'official') a coder site. But I'm very happy to say that at no time has my admittedly negligable degree of knowledge and experience creating programs ever had any effect on the welcome I received, or the responses I've gotten. Yes... It's hard to believe, but these people really are that nice, and this place really is that cool.

We're also not publicly funded. We're supported by members who voluntarily make a contribution. That makes us as privately funded as it gets. And that's an important distinction since it makes DoCo a voluntary association of people. We're here because we want to be here - and are wanted. Even me.
:)
Title: Re: Two classes of membership here?
Post by: AndyM on November 13, 2012, 01:07 PM: Apology is not needed, but do message me with details of what you think was deleted so I can look into it.
-mouser (November 13, 2012, 12:55 PM)
You're a class act mouser, no surprise to anyone who's paid even a little attention.

But this caught me on a cranky day, so one last snipe and then I'll go back in my hole. I note that you've received no reply to your offer to resolve the problem.
Title: Re: Two classes of membership here?
Post by: 40hz on November 13, 2012, 01:17 PM: ^give the OP some time and benefit of the doubt to read all the "litanies" that just got posted.

I'm sure it was a simple misunderstanding that will get worked out. I have high hopes clean will become a valued and regular visitor. I also give him/her credit for airing his/her concerns rather than just packing up and going elsewhere. That takes character as well, and it's one more reason why I hope to see him/her stay with us.
Title: Re: Two classes of membership here?
Post by: app103 on November 13, 2012, 01:51 PM: - Some people with many posts here often express very strong opinions and get away with it, they ain't banned and not even reprimanded - so it seems they have the "right" to do so
-clean (November 13, 2012, 11:22 AM)

Everyone has a right to their opinions, even strong ones. As long as you express yourself with respect and refrain from making personal attacks, nobody will think badly of you merely for having an opinion. If you do engage in personal attacks, we will let you know you are being out of line, but not by deleting your posts. Deleting and banning is strictly reserved for spammers.

- I jumped in here, some days ago, not because of virtual kvm's, all the less so because of a given offering, but bec of another thread which treated censorship on bits, and MANY people here had been very astonished by this - this was TOO MUCH for me to not speak out, so I related my censorship history with bits, tongue-in-cheek, but the real reason was my having been TOTALLY CENSORED HERE: Some time ago, under another avatar, I had dared to make some posts where I had related bad experiences with software, and instead of triggering other posts on these subjects - perhaps with better experiences than mine -, I got deleted my posts within minutes, AND got my "account" deleted, i.e. no further posting possible, without getting the slightest explanation, which would have perfectly been possible since I had given my real mail account (which is certainly not the case with this current account that will probably be deleted within minutes from my clicking on the "Post" button.

If your posts have been deleted and your account banned, then it is most likely you posted something that a moderator thought was spam. If the moderator was mistaken, the simple solution is to contact mouser and give him the info he asked for, and he will look into it.

- At the time, I had been totally surprised by that move, since I had thought to write about subjects of not too remote interest, and since I had not in any way been agressive, cynical or something in this order; on the other hand, this current "censorship at bits" thread here had made me laugh out loud, since people who do heavy censorship themselves shouldn't complain about them being censored elsewhere, right?

There is no censorship here. If there was, I would not be here. I would be among the first to leave. Mouser's views on censorship pretty much match my own, which is one of the reasons why I am very comfortable here. I know I can speak my mind freely and there is no risk of having my posts deleted. If it had been otherwise, I wouldn't have invested my time here, making the number of posts that I have over the years.

- You speak about "mouser" - who is "mouser", did he ever gave his name, or is anonymity important to him? I suppose he's the creator of this forum, right? Allow for another question: Why is he considered "God" or similar, here? Has he done exceptional things? Get me right, please, I'm not suggesting he didn't, I'm just in total absence of knowledge, so I'm asking.

Mouser is the site founder, it's first software author, site administrator, and the captain at the wheel of the community, steering it through fair weather and the storms. He has earned our trust, our respect, and our love... many times over.

- Then, is he funding this forum? It seems that for the financing of the servers, this forum relies upon public funding, by donations, so there might not be any (more) funding by "mouser", or is there? So here again, I haven't been successful in getting why "mouser" is considered "above it all", instead of this forum being sort of a democratic one.

He started this site with his initial investment, out of his own pocket, and funded it himself until it became established and self supporting. Today, we fund it. And by we, I am referring to the members, both seen and unseen, that have considered this site, our software, and our community something worth supporting, that have generously opened their pockets and made a contribution to ensure that we can continue doing what we do here.

- When I see the kind of speak of the "very frequent posters" here, addressing newcomers or "infrequent posters", I see sort of condescension and patronizing and which does NOT seem to be related to the respective content of the respective postings of either side, but simply to a "rule" or something that the former would have the "better rights" as the latter ones - of course, I don't discover this phenomenon in any thread and any exchange of posts, but it appears rather often and much more frequently than being coincidental or unintentionally.

This isn't something I have noticed. I am not saying that your observations are incorrect, it's just that I am not aware of it happening. There might be a certain amount of distrust to new members, especially ones that drag up very old threads, and post links to another site as their first post. The community will tend to look at them as possible spammers and might behave a bit less than throwing their arms open and hugging them to death.

- So what's going on here? What is the reason behind "unworthy" contributors here being treated like schoolboys were fifty years ago in civilised countries, especially in view of the fact that, as said, "regular" posters, the "masters" here, are allowed LOTS of "strong opinioning", so there does NOT seem to be a general rule of utmost complacency and attenuation, etc. that'd apply to everyone, far from that?

As I stated before, strong opinions are welcome, from anyone and everyone, regardless of how long they have been a member here.

- What is the general idea behind this allowing to freely discuss things for a minority here when for everybody else, it's permanent self-censorship in order to avoid reprimands or even kick-out?

There is no fear of being kicked out unless you are a spammer. As far as being reprimanded, it might happen in the case of a heated discussion that mouser will step in and make a post reminding us to be nice to each other and not make personal attacks, or he may send someone a private message to discuss a post one has made that might not be suitable. He will express his opinions and discuss things fairly with you. You may or may not see eye to eye on an issue. But he won't ban you or delete your posts over it.

- This being a discussion forum with lots of participation, it seems to me that the questions I ask here are of some relevance, since for many a potential poster to such a forum, it's a question of adhering to such rules that need some explanation, or to shut up to begin with. There are many countries in this world where people ain't equal, and much worse, but for a forum where you'd instinctively presume equality among the participants, this blatant non-equality in the treatment different classes of participants are granting each other, mutually, seems astonishing and worthwile a little more info about the underlying reasons for all this than you can get by simple observation, hence my request to get some background to all this.

You have every right in the world to voice your concerns and ask for clarification if there is something you do not understand. Our community prides itself in being respectful of other's opinions and allowing all participants to have their say. We are all equals here, more equal here than we would be considered elsewhere. We enjoy helping each other and answering each other's questions, including yours.

- Is there a chance go get this, or will the censor act first?

There is no censor here.

^give the OP some time and benefit of the doubt to read all the "litanies" that just got posted.

I'm sure it was a simple misunderstanding that will get worked out. I have high hopes clean will become a valued and regular visitor. I also give him/her credit for airing his/her concerns rather than just packing up and going elsewhere. That takes character as well, and it's one more reason why I hope to see him/her stay with us.
-40hz (November 13, 2012, 01:17 PM)

I agree. :Thmbsup:
Title: Re: Two classes of membership here?
Post by: mouser on November 13, 2012, 02:00 PM: What app said. :up:

However.. A word on censorship. I will add that in the 7 years we've been in operation we haven't had to confront any really truly hard censorship decisions. That's in part because we are still pretty small and in part because of the nature of and reasonableness of the community. It's always possible that we will find ourselves in a situation in the future where someone insists on repeatedly posting stuff that is completely off-topic and disruptive and offensive to the community, which we feel we can't in good conscience even leave in the Basement area. It's hard to imagine that happening in anything but a direct attempt to test our limits, but you never know.

We *do* have general rules about content -- we try to avoid political and religious discussions and we've talked at long length about why (-- and the issue of censorship came up at that time), and we insist people are respectful of each other.

Now that we have the Basement (https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?board=311.0) area, we have a place we can move threads that cross that line without removing them. But I do think it's worth "admitting" that we have some informal amorphous community standards here, and if posters start trampling on those we do try to nudge things back into our lane. Some people might consider that censorship..

My view is something like this: People have the right here to say things that upset and offend you. People have the right to complain and criticize our site here without fear of their posts being deleted, and no user should fear reprisals or attacks for voicing their opinions. The only time I start to feel like intervention is needed is when people are arguing back and forth ad nausea and just trying to get the last word in.
Title: Re: Two classes of membership here?
Post by: AndyM on November 13, 2012, 04:19 PM: ^give the OP some time and benefit of the doubt to read all the "litanies" that just got posted.
-40hz (November 13, 2012, 01:17 PM)

Fair enough, good point.
Title: Re: Two classes of membership here?
Post by: Tinman57 on November 13, 2012, 06:36 PM: @Clean, being the new guy you may or may not know, but if you need to ask questions (or complain) about another member, it would be in your best interest to send a personal message (PM) instead of airing your laundry for everyone to see. It works out better for you that way.

BTW, mouser really is a nice guy. I have never heard of anyone having anything negative to say about him. Not only that, he has written some excellent software and only ask for donations. I have personally donated to his cause 5 times now, and you should also consider donating. Check out Mousers software, I'm pretty sure you'll find something that will tickle your fancy. ;)
Title: Re: Two classes of membership here?
Post by: Paul Keith on November 13, 2012, 09:58 PM: I have no idea but I would extend it beyond what TinMan is saying.

Because of who mouser is, he has developed a community where laundry airing is more helpful rather than troublesome as would normally happen.

This is because

1) the community is more united at clearing things up rather than looking to "lure" someone to be moderated as this is the true "no need for PR/mouser praising" fruit that has been cultivated in this forum.

and

2) the community's version of censorship (if any exist) here leads to more discussion and clarification until users get tired of listening to each other so a topic such as this gets more users going into inquisitive and detailed personal views about why they are doubtful that a certain censorship happen almost to the point of making us all seem like mouser nuthuggers than objective users willing to simply help you because we're all used to giving our "heart" to any subject thanks to how mouser and the mods handle the forum that we don't see you as another victim by the internet ghetto but a particular specific individual user who has somehow been legitimately ran over by a person whom we sincerely believed may have just ran over you without seeing you and all the posters replying here are willing to immediately clear things up not only for the forum rep's benefit but to legitimately be able to leave no stone unturned in helping you resolve such a serious matter even when you try to be vague.
Title: Re: Two classes of membership here?
Post by: Daleus on November 14, 2012, 06:45 AM: I am a constant lurker, rare commenter and I don't believe I have ever contributed a cent to this site or it's authors, despite using several of their programs. (Geez, I really *should* fix that and Friday past *was* payday). I mention this only to illustrate what a noncontributing member I am and how in most communities, that would put me on the least favourable member list.

I have asked for advice for both personal and professional issues and have always received honest answers and friendly treatment.

Normally, I would not comment on a thread like this, as more know ledgable and even minded community members have already said all that is required. However, (and I've said it before) this is the friendliest on line community I have ever had the pleasure of being a part of, in the 20 plus years I have been using the Internet. I wouldn't come back if it were otherwise. As a small part of it, I feel obligated to come to it's defense.

Unlike, many other on line communities I will not try to shout you down, tell you to go away in a rude manner, nor will I name you various pieces of anatomy. I notice no one else has either. Instead, I too encourage you to follow the advice given and to contact mouser with your specifics so that the matter can be cleared up.

Furthermore, when you *do* contact mouser and this is all settled, I look forward to you joining our community, joining in the conversation and contributing in anyway that you feel capable of.

Dale Poole

PS I sign with my real name and not my alias so that you may understand that I stand behind my words and behind the people who form this community.
Title: Re: Two classes of membership here?
Post by: mouser on November 14, 2012, 07:42 AM: Thank you for such a nice post, Daleus :-*
Title: Re: Two classes of membership here?
Post by: JoTo on November 14, 2012, 08:18 AM: Errrrm....mouser our god? WTF?

I thought in all these 6,5 years i'm a member of DonationCoder that mouser is only our WORKHORSE and SERVANT! ;D ;D ;D

I say this and i'm sure my account will not be deleted or the post is censored. ;D

OOPS! Why has mouser now kick/banned me from the DonationCoder IRC-Channel. CRAP! ;D

Greetings
JoTo (a.k.a. the forum clown *LOL*)
Title: Re: Two classes of membership here?
Post by: mouser on November 14, 2012, 08:33 AM: [ You are not allowed to view attachments ]

>:( do not poke at servants or gods ;D
Title: Re: Two classes of membership here?
Post by: Curt on November 14, 2012, 08:52 AM: I don't trust the OP's motive to be clean, he is just trying a new angle to continue his fight against Bartels Media.

By the way, clean, your post on Bits du Jour, the one that was 'censored', it was most likely deleted because it was way too long.
Title: Re: Two classes of membership here?
Post by: 40hz on November 14, 2012, 09:28 AM: I don't trust the OP's motive to be clean, he is just trying a new angle to continue his fight against Bartels Media.
-Curt (November 14, 2012, 08:52 AM)

I prefer to give the OP the benefit of the doubt since I'm a firm believer in "Innocent until proven guilty" as well as giving everyone enough rope to either climb to the mountaintop - or hang themselves with. ;)

By the way, clean, your post on Bits du Jour, the one that was 'censored', it was most likely deleted because it was way too long.

That does seem to be the main reason why posts get deleted there. If they ramble, go too far OT, or start getting repetitious, they tend to disappear. Also, if they're excessively negative, or devolve into what could be considered a personal attack, they'll also likely get removed. I don't consider that to be censorship per se. When writing a software review, Joe Friday's iconic "Just the facts, Ma'am" is pretty much the rule in most places.
Title: Re: Two classes of membership here?
Post by: TaoPhoenix on November 14, 2012, 09:45 AM: That does seem to be the main reason why posts get deleted there. If they ramble, go too far OT, or start getting repetitious, they tend to disappear.
-40hz (November 14, 2012, 09:28 AM)

That bothers me a little, I can see how the "inflammatory" posts could get modded out, but "rambling, and getting repetitious" starts to get a little close to the slippery slope for my taste. Because I bet rambling repetitious posts in *praise* of something probably stay, and only the critical ones disappear, right?
Title: Re: Two classes of membership here?
Post by: 40hz on November 14, 2012, 10:05 AM: @Tao - Couldn't say. Im not an advocate for BDJ. I have bought stuff through them I was generally happy with however. But that was also my characterization of their posting policies - not the official word of BDJ.
Title: Re: Two classes of membership here?
Post by: TaoPhoenix on November 14, 2012, 10:36 AM: @Tao - Couldn't say. Im not an advocate for BDJ. I have bought stuff through them I was generally happy with however. But that was also my characterization of their posting policies - not the official word of BDJ.

-40hz (November 14, 2012, 10:05 AM)

Unfortunately, see the five threads of Being Safe and Acta...., I distrust Official Words lately. "They" hire wordsmiths good at spinning "Fridge Logic", when in the end it is your post that is only rambling etc that gets deleted.

Fridge Logic - term comes from TvTropes (Warning, site known to induce lots of clicks!)
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main.FridgeLogic

Slashdot used to have a legendary policy of "almost no deletetions ever" (The Church of Scientology got them once in an infamous incident.) But just last year they introduced a "Flag comment" button, which was almost ludicrous, since they had purposely spent fifteen years where the First Post (or second) was a known troll post.

So just to delete an entire post "because it rambles" bothers me, if true and proven. That sounds too close to those other threads of "rights being removed". Aka "Let's delete it if it's not Astroturf/Groupthink".
Edit: Excuse me while I spend the obligatory 15 minutes getting lost in TvTropes. :)
Title: Re: Two classes of membership here?
Post by: superboyac on November 14, 2012, 11:12 AM: Now that it's been pointed out, I'm glad that I'm in the upper class in at least one area of my life! So what are we, one-percenters? Do i get to tax the donationcredits of non-exclusive members?
Title: Re: Two classes of membership here?
Post by: Contro on November 14, 2012, 11:28 AM: 40hz, I kindly ask you if you could you comment on this site's policy / background or refer me to a page detailing these? As one of those posters who's done thousands of posts here, you might be best apt to inform me, and I'm sure many not-yet posters here ask themselves some of my questions, too, so clarification would certainly be welcomed by some people.

- Some people with many posts here often express very strong opinions and get away with it, they ain't banned and not even reprimanded - so it seems they have the "right" to do so

- I jumped in here, some days ago, not because of virtual kvm's, all the less so because of a given offering, but bec of another thread which treated censorship on bits, and MANY people here had been very astonished by this - this was TOO MUCH for me to not speak out, so I related my censorship history with bits, tongue-in-cheek, but the real reason was my having been TOTALLY CENSORED HERE: Some time ago, under another avatar, I had dared to make some posts where I had related bad experiences with software, and instead of triggering other posts on these subjects - perhaps with better experiences than mine -, I got deleted my posts within minutes, AND got my "account" deleted, i.e. no further posting possible, without getting the slightest explanation, which would have perfectly been possible since I had given my real mail account (which is certainly not the case with this current account that will probably be deleted within minutes from my clicking on the "Post" button.

- At the time, I had been totally surprised by that move, since I had thought to write about subjects of not too remote interest, and since I had not in any way been agressive, cynical or something in this order; on the other hand, this current "censorship at bits" thread here had made me laugh out loud, since people who do heavy censorship themselves shouldn't complain about them being censored elsewhere, right?

- You speak about "mouser" - who is "mouser", did he ever gave his name, or is anonymity important to him? I suppose he's the creator of this forum, right? Allow for another question: Why is he considered "God" or similar, here? Has he done exceptional things? Get me right, please, I'm not suggesting he didn't, I'm just in total absence of knowledge, so I'm asking.

- Then, is he funding this forum? It seems that for the financing of the servers, this forum relies upon public funding, by donations, so there might not be any (more) funding by "mouser", or is there? So here again, I haven't been successful in getting why "mouser" is considered "above it all", instead of this forum being sort of a democratic one.

- When I see the kind of speak of the "very frequent posters" here, addressing newcomers or "infrequent posters", I see sort of condescension and patronizing and which does NOT seem to be related to the respective content of the respective postings of either side, but simply to a "rule" or something that the former would have the "better rights" as the latter ones - of course, I don't discover this phenomenon in any thread and any exchange of posts, but it appears rather often and much more frequently than being coincidental or unintentionally.

- So what's going on here? What is the reason behind "unworthy" contributors here being treated like schoolboys were fifty years ago in civilised countries, especially in view of the fact that, as said, "regular" posters, the "masters" here, are allowed LOTS of "strong opinioning", so there does NOT seem to be a general rule of utmost complacency and attenuation, etc. that'd apply to everyone, far from that?

- What is the general idea behind this allowing to freely discuss things for a minority here when for everybody else, it's permanent self-censorship in order to avoid reprimands or even kick-out?

- This being a discussion forum with lots of participation, it seems to me that the questions I ask here are of some relevance, since for many a potential poster to such a forum, it's a question of adhering to such rules that need some explanation, or to shut up to begin with. There are many countries in this world where people ain't equal, and much worse, but for a forum where you'd instinctively presume equality among the participants, this blatant non-equality in the treatment different classes of participants are granting each other, mutually, seems astonishing and worthwile a little more info about the underlying reasons for all this than you can get by simple observation, hence my request to get some background to all this.

- Is there a chance go get this, or will the censor act first?

-clean (November 13, 2012, 11:22 AM)

First in my native language . Primero en mi lenguaje nativo.
Then automatic translation and I will revise.
Luego ya traduciré al inglés para no equivocarme.

Donationcoder, en su género de software de desarrollo, creatividad y diseño es uno de los pocos foros que ofrece ayuda en "code snack" o códigos ejemplo sencillos.

Hay otros foros por ahí soporíferos, insoportables, que ni ayudan y que además descalifican al que sabe menos. Al que no es programador, al que simplemente arrrastra sus traumas y pide ayuda. En donation coder se ayuda incluso si no tienes dinero. Incluso en momentos tan difíciles para los programadores. Y en Donation Coder, esto es una opinión particular, están los mejores programadores del mundo.

A veces me ha dado vergüenza ajena recibir ayuda en un foro donde no coopero económicamente, porque a lo largo de los años he recibido mucha ayuda.

Esta mañana tuve cita con mi psicólogo. Con mi psicólogo sí. Soy humano. Pido ayuda. Y le comentaba que quizá muy pronto pueda superar mis traumas con windows xp, y pasar a focalizar otros temas, otras cosas. si lo supero será en buena parte por foros como DonationCoder y su gente.

Yo no puedo decir otra cosa que me he sentido bien tratado aquí.

Y mira que visito foros. También tengo que decir que no es el único foro que me ha tratado bien. Y esto es consecuencia de que internet está poblado de buena gente.

En español soy asiduo de fermul.com. Con fernando muñoz me llevo muy bien y a veces se me saltan las lágrimas cuando me encuentro con la gente.

DonationCoder no es diferente en este aspecto. Creo que tienen mucha paciencia conmigo. Con mis boberías. Con mis consultas recursivas e insistentes de persona con dudas.

Y la verdad es que lo agradezco.

Es curioso que sea en foros como Donation Coder donde surgen este tipo de temas de reconocimiento, de utilidad, de finalidad manifiesta.

Donation Coder no se oculta precisamente en este sentido. La via de la donación está abierta. Yo que soy enemigo de los bancos, enemigo de las fórmulas corporativas de gran poder, enemigo del Bill Patas aunque tenga que usar su sistema operativo, reconozco que las cosas en nuestro mundo cuestan dinero.

Soy de los que se aprovechan de un trabajo como el que hace Mouser. Chapó por Mouser. Soy de los que no pago ni aporto un duro en Donation Coder.
No soy un miembro de apoyo, no colaboro en nada en concreto, y sin embargo no he notado un trato diferencial importante.

Nadie me ha negado su ayuda. Y son muchos ya en donation coder los que me la han prestado.

Nadie me ha escachado bajo su pie o tratado preferentemente mal.

Yo la verdad, me siento bien en donation coder.

*****************

Please. Translate the above declarations with your favourite translator.
The web , the entire internet is plenty of automation. but this time I prefer talk with my heart.

:-*
Title: Re: Two classes of membership here?
Post by: superboyac on November 14, 2012, 12:27 PM: Very nice, contro.
Title: Re: Two classes of membership here?
Post by: tomos on November 14, 2012, 01:47 PM: @Contro,
nice to get your perspective in your native language ;)
Title: Re: Two classes of membership here?
Post by: Curt on November 14, 2012, 03:17 PM: @Contro, nice reading ♥
I hope your psychologist can help you with your XP trauma. hehe ("LOL").
Title: Re: Two classes of membership here?
Post by: cranioscopical on November 14, 2012, 07:08 PM: Two classes? Of course!

There is me… and everybody else.
Title: Re: Two classes of membership here?
Post by: cmpm on November 15, 2012, 12:29 AM: from "about" DonationCoder.com

The programmers at DonationCoder.com are dedicated to providing professional quality software and professional quality support. We take seriously the need to solicit donations, and the need to distribute donations to the people who contribute to the website, whether in the form of software, support, or editorial content.

I see this working in it's dynamics constantly here.
We all invest a bit of ourselves, with our thoughts, input, or finances,
each as important as the other, separate or combined.
The donations here are not limited, and are treated with respect.
As your donation is, clean.
Title: Re: Two classes of membership here?
Post by: TaoPhoenix on November 15, 2012, 11:16 AM: I don't trust the OP's motive to be clean, he is just trying a new angle to continue his fight against Bartels Media.

By the way, clean, your post on Bits du Jour, the one that was 'censored', it was most likely deleted because it was way too long.
-Curt (November 14, 2012, 08:52 AM)

I'm starting to second this. I checked his last posts; they are all sorta on a theme. It's not clear why he thinks DC is censoring him too. I have a minor peeve when someone posts a "reactionary" post and then never replies again to the some thirty responses he gets.
Title: Re: Two classes of membership here?
Post by: mouser on November 15, 2012, 11:19 AM: Just fyi -- haven't received any message or follow up from clean.
Title: Re: Two classes of membership here?
Post by: 40hz on November 15, 2012, 12:16 PM: @Mouser - That was probably to be expected.

But at least you and everybody else here did what we could to say we disagreed with his/her impression and give our reasons why. We also repeatedly asked that clean remain a member with no hard feelings on anybody's part.

"So it goes."

It's now out of our hands. Next (if any) move belongs to clean.

Onward! :Thmbsup:
Title: Re: Two classes of membership here?
Post by: cranioscopical on November 15, 2012, 04:31 PM: Just fyi -- haven't received any message or follow up from clean.
-mouser (November 15, 2012, 11:19 AM)
Watch this space for word from Squeaky!
Title: Re: Two classes of membership here?
Post by: Target on November 15, 2012, 04:37 PM: Watch this space for word from Squeaky!
-cranioscopical (November 15, 2012, 04:31 PM)

isn't that you?
Title: Re: Two classes of membership here?
Post by: Shades on November 15, 2012, 04:45 PM: Nope, cranioscopical only shines when spitting...
Title: Re: Two classes of membership here?
Post by: mwb1100 on November 15, 2012, 05:12 PM: It's not clear why he thinks DC is censoring him too.
-TaoPhoenix (November 15, 2012, 11:16 AM)

It was because he was asked to 'drop it' when posting another response to Bartels. I don't have a clue who clean is (apparently some other DCer's do) but maybe he isn't familiar with how tired the rest of us are with the little Bartels flame wars that flare up at slightest provocation.
Title: Re: Two classes of membership here?
Post by: 40hz on November 15, 2012, 06:19 PM: ^I sent a PM explaining that just in case.

But I somehow suspect clean wasn't completely unaware of this prior to posting. ;)
Title: Re: Two classes of membership here?
Post by: PhilB66 on November 15, 2012, 06:39 PM: ^I sent a PM explaining that just in case.
-40hz (November 15, 2012, 06:19 PM)

Hmmm, waste of time, maybe?

I had given my real mail account (which is certainly not the case with this current account that will probably be deleted within minutes from my clicking on the "Post" button.
-clean (November 13, 2012, 11:22 AM)
(Emphasis mine)
Title: Re: Two classes of membership here?
Post by: 40hz on November 15, 2012, 06:44 PM: Hmmm, waste of time, maybe?
-PhilB66 (November 15, 2012, 06:39 PM)

Never! ;D `

(see my previous (https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=32861.msg306641#msg306641) post)
Title: Re: Two classes of membership here?
Post by: clean on November 17, 2012, 11:17 AM: Quote from: Renegade on November 15, 2012, 07:45:23 PM
"So far, I'm quite happy with Synergy."
Already considered to donate for their work?

Spot on, Bartels, so no wonder they immediately closed the thread.

And there's so much dumbness here, it's a real pity that any time something deliberately illogical but oh so funny comes about (from Bartels here, not Gunnar but Michael, goo school, no irony, I appreciate a lot!), they invariably come with their menaces of throwing out. But I think there's a deeper reason: 90 p.c. (ok, let's make it 85, and I've always savoured many of 40hz' posts I must say, among some others') of what you can read here is a little bit dumb, so there might be a bit of envy playing a role.

Anyway, this total mix-up of "donations" for the functioning of a forum - outrageous: some even ask you to "donate" for your posts / account being deleted! -, "donations" for some obscure sw that obviously doesn't find its way into a real market - not worth even let's say 8 bucks apiece? -, and then, even asking for "donations" for unwanted sw, in order to twice "donate" for the right of express yourself in a forum, is not only chaotic and de-focused, but profoundly unhealthy as a business scheme. What do they call it, "voodoo marketing". "Original" but not in a pleasant way.

Oh my, mankind without lotsa denial, that seems to be unimaginable, even among people proud of their logic. (Religious belief is a similar flaw in many otherwise intelligent people, then - oops, no politics here!)

So they don't but have to close down this thread, too.
Title: Re: Two classes of membership here?
Post by: joiwind on November 17, 2012, 12:09 PM: ^ ;D ;D ;D
Title: Re: Two classes of membership here?
Post by: 40hz on November 17, 2012, 12:10 PM: @clean - glad you enjoyed some of my posts (assuming you were being sincere) but you've sort of lost me with what you're saying in the above. And possibly you've missed out on some of what's being said.

Here's how I see what's going down here...

You irked more than a few people by implying that there were different levels of membership when there are not. I'm not sure where you got that impression, but people responded because that runs counter the experience of virtually everybody (I say virtually because not every member registered on this site responded) at DoCo.

Regarding BartlesMedia, there seems to be some ongoing feud running on the web between people on either side of whatever issues are involved. Some of them have surfaced in DoCo forums at various times. We've all heard from both parties and our conclusion is that for whatever reason it's going on, DoCo's forum is not an appropriate venue for slugging it out in. Many of us here are frankly quite tired of hearing it. Especially since it occasionally reemerges despite repeated requests it be taken elsewhere. So if you aren't one of the parties involved in that apparently ongoing spat, I'm sorry that you might have felt jumped on about some your comments. Suffice to say it's not a good topic for discussion here. And whenever it comes up most of us start gritting our teeth waiting for that nonsense to start up once again.

Please understand we're not an advocacy group or a consumer affairs council - or really much of anything else beyond being a group of friends having a conversation. And much like any group of friends, there's just some topics we don't feel like constantly revisiting. And there's only so many times you can politely say "that's not my problem" or "I really don't want to get involved with this" before the tone of voice starts getting a little sharper. So if you stepped into that unawares try not to take it as a direct rebuke. In this case, people are reacting far more to the topic than they are to you. It happens. And many of us have inadvertently pushed hot buttons around here now and then.

But that's always a risk when you come in cold to any established community. Until you've been around long enough to get the lay of the land there's always the chance you'll innocently bump into something that sometimes sets people off or dredges up a bad memory. If it is innocent, just make note of it and move past it. Especially here, where memories for annoyances tend to be very short if the annoyance was a one-time thing.

Beyond this, there really isn't much else I can say. Hope this helps clarify a few things. And if I failed - well...it wouldn't be the first time. At least I tried.
:)

And btw - welcome back! I was afraid we might not see you again. And that would have been a real shame. :)
Title: Re: Two classes of membership here?
Post by: wraith808 on November 17, 2012, 12:33 PM: And... I'm not sure it was mouser that closed the thread. That seems... unlike him. And I don't really see a reason to close it, as it did serve a use. Sometimes people get fed up and overzealous. I think this was a case of that...
Title: Re: Two classes of membership here?
Post by: 40hz on November 17, 2012, 12:46 PM: ^Agree w/wraith on that one. Wouldn't be surprised to see the lock removed before long.
Title: Re: Two classes of membership here?
Post by: Josh on November 17, 2012, 12:54 PM: ^Agree w/wraith on that one. Wouldn't be surprised to see the lock removed before long.
-40hz (November 17, 2012, 12:46 PM)

Removed
Title: Re: Two classes of membership here?
Post by: cmpm on November 17, 2012, 12:57 PM: lol, good one Josh!
Title: Re: Two classes of membership here?
Post by: cmpm on November 17, 2012, 12:58 PM: I know you meant the 'lock', but I took it 2 ways.
Title: Re: Two classes of membership here?
Post by: clean on November 17, 2012, 01:07 PM: That's what the lapdogs are for: nice senior cop, bad sub-cops: the work is done, and that's what counts.

No irony, 40hz is one of the posters here who make this forum a lot less dull than it would be without him, I've seen this all the year long I've followed this forum.

Sorry for repeating myself in the second paragraph or so, above, the field for entering your post has been a nightmare one year ago, it's a nightmare today. (And it reverts to the upper part of your text so you don't see what you're writing. So whenever you don't write elsewhere, then do the pasting here...)

Steve Jobs said, "I'm an a...", in full letters, and he was proud of it. So, I think I owe my being kicked out here to some words with asterisks, in spite of my explanations, when a simple deletion of the incriminated paragraph in one of my posts would have be largely sufficient. (And at the time, I made a note I was kicked out by a certain mouser, but perhaps I just presumed so.)

Both of my problems, btw, are resolved, the first one by extensive use of AHK, the second one by the two-screen setup I detailed in the other thread. As these posts from November 2011 confirm, yes, I consider sw, and I consider treatment of users. Have a look at the forum policy (you must accept before entering the forum) at the Directory "Opus" forum. Isn't it illogical to pretend your sw is the best of its kind, and then not allow any mentioning of competition sw's, when it should be of much interest rather often to discuss the respective realization of a feature in similar sw? (x2, XY and SC all permit this kind of discussion, and I own a paid license for any of those - not for DO, and that's not a coincidence: If you allow sw developers to treat you like s*** - delete the paragraph here -, they will never cease to do so, hence the interest of buying 3 competing products instead of just 1. And then, DO ist not THAT splendid, e.g. compare processing of metadata in x2 and DO.)

Citations are 1:1, with typos and all:

https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=28852.new

Better Mouse Drivers? Mouse Driver Tweaks? Shift-Click, Control-Click, Scope...
« on: Today at 05:35:11 AM »

Hello everybody,

I

For more than 20 years now, I've been using mice, from Logitech, and I'm profoundly unhappy with them, because of driver limitations. Once, I bought a Microsoft mouse, just for having a change to try the driver, since no information whatsoever was given, neither by Microsoft nor within the web in general, as to the possibilities of its driver, except if you installed the driver, AND a physical MS mouse; the MS mouse had been advertized as "programmable" which was a big lie at least at that time; perhaps they amended the driver in the meantime, but then, I would have to buy another MS mouse to find out...

"Programmable" with Logitech means, at this time - please correct me if I'm wrong, I own an old Logitech mouse, and an old Logitech driver consequently - that you can 1) assign many Windows commands to the mouse buttons (one button, one such command, that is), and 2) assign "any" key combination to these buttons (one key combination to any of these buttons, e.g. 3 key combinations to 3 different buttons, but no sequences of such commands on any such button).

"Programmable" with Microsoft meant, at the time, only alternative 1) above, without alternative 2), meaning that you didn't have the slightest chance to assign a macro, within an external macro program, to a key combination, and then trigger that combination with a MS mouse mouseclick, as has indeed been possible with Logitech mice.

Thus, "programmable" with Logitech means "can trigger macros at least", whilst "programmable" (that was indeed their advertizing at the time) with Microsoft meant "can't even trigger a simple key of your choice, let alone trigger external macros, we're simply lying to you". (Has this changed, in the meantime?)

II

What I've been searching for, for more than 20 years now, without ever finding it, is, as the title indicates, the possibility to assign a shift-click, and / or a control-click, to a mouse button, on any mouse out there.

Shift-Click / Control-Click: I'm not one-handed, but there are one-handed people needing this feature; I would need it for selecting several graphics elements in programs like Freehand, etc., while my other hand lies on a print-out of what I see on my screen, progressively reaching out for the elements there, in order to indicate "done" for my decision if those elements are to be included in the selection or not, and depending on my hand-written notes on that print-out; since I need my second hand for pressing the shift key manually, I lose focus on my print-out again and again, having to do a lot of visual switching back and forth between print-out and screen, just for checking if things to be done have been done already or not yet: It's a continual pain in the youknowwhere - younger people with better short-term memory could perhaps do without that feature, with less incredible fuss than the lack of it causes me.

Control-Click: Even for the general public, this feature would come extremely handy, since we all know that in the MS Internet Explorer (at least, and I suppose, other browsers do the same or likewise?) a click upon a link replaces the currently displayed web page (or whatever), whilst a control-click opens that page within an additional tab: We all know how extremely handy such a function is, and to not have to use your two hands for such a simple command you need 100 times each day would be extremely handy for everyone. (BTW, it would be far more logical since it's a mouse command, and why then, your principal hand working with the mouse, your secondary hand must touch the keyboard then? It's when both of your hands are on the keyboard that such needs of keyboard use are logical, not when you're "away from the keyboard" for a moment or more.)

Shift-Control-Click: Even better would then be the possibility to COMBINE such additional keys, since, in IE8, etc., that click would open the clicked-on link within a new tab, but without your current tab leaving focus: Perfect for doing several links in a row in a given web page, without succombing to the "lost in hyperspace" phenomenon or having to switch back and forth after each link clicking.

III

Many a macro prog allows for scope-based, individual execution of a macro, which means that you can assign a key combination to a (Logitech - what about MS now ?) mouse, let's say control-F12, whilst in the macro prog, you assign one macro to control-F12 if the caption of the focus window contains the name of application a, whilst the same control-F12 (triggered both times by the same key pressing and / or by the same mouse button pressing), within application b, would trigger another macro - this works like a charm if you've got the right macro program and a mouse allowing for assigning key combinations to a mouse button.

But then, this does NOT work for assigning such a key combination (or a Windows command) to a mouse button, with scope any (other) applications, whilst in ONE application only, the scope of that mouse button would be to send a shift-click (or some other "special" click), because for such a behavior, you'd need to have this different, scope-wise behavior within the mouse driver yet, not within your macro prog only.

The importance of such scope-driven alternatives within the mouse driver would be, assign a special mouse-click to a given mouse button, but for within a special program only, whilst that mouse button, by this special assignment, will not to be "sacrified" for every other prog - most "good" mice (handling-wise) just don't have more than 5 buttons (or more than 5 easily reachable buttons if ever), so there's a need to have all these buttons available for important commands in all of your progs.

Hence:

Please comment on the different aspects enumerated here, please, and especially on the problem to obtain shift-/control-clicks with ONE mouse click, by native implementation into a mouse driver of any mouse, or by an existing tweak of such a mouse driver - or if there's the possibility to do such a tweak, by programming a little add-on, for some driver (whilst some native drivers could allow for such tweaking, while with others, that might be impossible or far too complicated to realize; when I've just mentioned Logitech and MS here, that's because I know these mice and their (in the case of MS, old) drivers; I'm in no way bound to these if there are possibilities for mice of other brands.)

https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=18160.25

Hello everyone,

We're November 2011 now, and I've just tried this product, and I'm not pleased with it.

My observations (please comment):

- Normally, windows got 3 buttons, AWM adds FOUR others, making it 7, which is unnecessary and ugly also on big windows, not speaking of tiny dialog / message windows that also get the additional 4 - this is UNACCEPTABLE. Since somebody here said, "the group button is enough for me", is that to say that when trying, I missed a function to preset that not 4, but only 1 additional button is added to every window? (If you want additional functionality, shortkeys are fine, no need whatsoever for 4 additional buttons forced upon you.)

- Somebody here said that "on opening", windows can trigger many pre-defined actions. Well, we need to specify and clarify here: They distinguish between first opening, and then, disappearing / reappearing. For first opening, there's a whole catalog of possible actions to trigger indeed, very fine, but for any disappearance / reappearance, possible actions are extremely limited to the point of making all this virtually useless. When you start your programs, you can do a lot of actions yourself, manually, no big need to have AWM do these actions for you, but it's afterwards, when programs run, for hours, days, that on opening and minimizing windows again and again, actions triggered by this would be more than handy.

- I dared asking them, kindly, about this distinction between very first opening of windows where a lot of triggering is possible, and further opening / closing of windows (= minimizing, resizing of windows) where almost nothing is possible, and they DID NOT ANSWER me. I call this the "a**ho** factor - not to designate people but their behavior -, developers being responsive or not to INDIVIDUAL communications - quite evident that they are "responsive" in a public forum like this one -, and this "a**ho** factor with Actual products seem to be 100 p.c., as I see it for now; it goes without saying that for any profeessional use, a prog with such a high a**ho** factor is useless even if it's better than this product is at this very moment.

- What about the memory leak discussed above? This product has got a "mirror" function, and such, and I had thought for a moment that would make it suitable to be used in a security cameras environment (where dedicated progs cost a fortune), but with that memory leak (and WITHOUT the above-mentioned functions: trigger actions when windows pop up, after their initial very first opening), that idea is not to be brought into practice, unfortunately.

- To my knowledge, this product does NOT offer any VARIANTS of opening for a given window? Let me explain: Most of my windows, I'd like them to open just normal, full size (which is not "maximized" but simply full-screen, with borders); but for SOME, I really need a window manager, hence my search for one. And what I want for this group of windows, I want to have a CHOICE: Normal behavior = normal, full size, AND alternatively, some other size so that a specific additional prog can take the remaining desktop real estate, and I want to have shortkeys to display those windows in their normal state, or in reduzed-size state... or better explained, I need shortkeys not for their display, but for their current state setting:

- One of my own macros (= external to AWM) would trigger the display of a given window in normal state (by sending the shortkey for setting the window's display setting to normal, then by sending the shortkey for displaying the window).

- Another one of my own macros would then send the shortkey for setting the window's ALTERNATIVE display state (= let's say to "leftbound, 2/3 of the screen's width"), send a similar shortkey to set the setting of a second window to alternative display state (= in this example, to "rightbound, 1/3 of screen's width"), and finally "open" BOTH applications (= display those alternative displays of both windows by activating both applications both running in the background = in minimized state). As you can see here, I don't want to do AWM all this, I just want it to store alternative display states for given windows, that then could be accessed by external macros / scripts; as far as I know, all this is NOT possible at this moment. (And the "always on top" option for given windows, available in almost every such window manager, is far too primitive to be of any use as such, since most of the time, this "on top" you don't want it to be "always", but in combination with specific other windows only. Which is all to say that such programs, especially when the cost 50 dollars, should NOT only give presets once-and-for-all, but should make available FLEXIBLE settings that can be accessed upon request whenever you need them.)

- So I de-installed the software, and got one of these "bye, would you leave your comment please" web redirection screens that become more and more common nowadays, but with that difference mentioned by somebody else here: They offer a discount then, which is to say that they say: "We acknowlege that our prog is too expensive, so would you take it for something less, then?" - had it not been for the 4 additional (mandatory???) buttons it adds to every and even the tiniest window (people complained about that in 2008, now 2011 is quite over - anything new on this, then that I might have missed?), I might even had said ok to that offer:

- So if you want this product for less, install the trial, de-install it... and get... not 50 p.c. off like some years ago, but 30 p.c. off, which makes it something like 33 dollars instead of 50 (I must say that I did not encounter such offer, on de-installing software, yet, and marketing-wise, it's very clever imo: I know some other progs that simply don't offer the value for their price, but at a lesser one, they'd become interesting again!)
Title: Re: Two classes of membership here?
Post by: mouser on November 17, 2012, 01:37 PM: Couple of points:

I'm finding it hard to follow much of what you are saying ~~and I can't say I get the warmest feeling from the posts you have made recently~~,

BUT:

As I understand it, you have now posted the content of 2 messages of yours that were deleted.

And I do see that the account you used to post those two messages above was in fact banned by a moderator in November 2011 because they concluded your account was spamming, when looking at your posts it seems to me that they were not spam.

I can kind of see why the moderator may have thought you were spamming -- you signed up and then made 2 giant posts within 2 hours of each other. Your account was not banned because of the content of your posts, it was banned because we were over eager in thinking you were a spammer.

From looking at the posts it seems clear you were not spamming and your account should not have been banned.

I apologize for that. It should not have happened.

I wish we had been made aware of the problem at the time as we would have removed the ban right away.

I can understand why having that account banned with no explanation would have given you a bad feeling about our site, and a feeling that we were trying to censor your posts. Especially if you took a long time writing those long posts (ironically the length of those two posts was no doubt part of what made the moderator suspect it was spam).

Please do feel free to re-post those 2 posts that were deleted.

Again let me encourage you and anyone else who feels they were incorrectly labeled a spammer to contact me about it. Realize that we deleted dozens of spammers a day whose only purpose is to post advertising on this forum. Often such spammers are obvious, but sometimes they employ tricks that we have adapted to and implemented special alerts to catch. But we're not infallible, and there's always the possibility that we have jumped the gun. Perhaps one thing we can put in place now is a message to those whose accounts have been banned with clearer info on who to contact if they feel they were wrongly banned.
Title: Re: Two classes of membership here?
Post by: 40hz on November 17, 2012, 02:03 PM: @Mouser - FWIW, some places with auto-spammer systems I'm familiar with have have introduced a semi-obligatory "come say hello and tell us a little bit about yourself" first post request - and require some non-privacy invading info in the user profile be filled in. Supposedly this goes a very long way towards intercepting many of the more clever bots and spammers we're seeing.

People who don't introduce themselves first get watched fairly closely (and occasionally moderated) for their first several posts. People who don't put meaningful answers in the very few required profile spaces get e-mailed back and reminded to do so to gain posting privileges. Usually a spammer or bot won't provide a real e-mail address.
Title: Re: Two classes of membership here?
Post by: mouser on November 17, 2012, 02:07 PM: I think with the new system we have in place, which alerts us when people change their profiles or edit posts to include spam, we have a pretty good way to spot spammers, and I'd rather not add additional hurdles for new posters to jump through.

This was simply a case where a moderator jumped the gun and should have more carefully read the posts and given the benefit of the doubt to the poster. With our new alert system it's not a big deal if we don't catch a potential spammer right away so we can afford to be less trigger-happy.

I think the better solution is as I said earlier, a clear notice to users whose accounts have been banned about what has happened and a way to contact us if we are wrong. Many of us, if we found ourselves suddenly banned for spamming a forum that we didn't spam on, would contact the forum and say "wtf?!!!!" but I can understand that some people would just walk away angry. We can't guarantee that premature banning will never happen again, but we can make it much easier for people to contact us in such a case.
Title: Re: Two classes of membership here?
Post by: wraith808 on November 17, 2012, 02:39 PM: That's what the lapdogs are for: nice senior cop, bad sub-cops: the work is done, and that's what counts.
-clean (November 17, 2012, 01:07 PM)

Actually... not. I actually totally agree with a lot of the bad sub-cops and think that certain things should be regulated. In every case (not just a few that come to light because of dissenters), Mouser chimes in on the side of let it slide, no matter what happens. That's why everyone jumped in on mouser's side- no matter if you agree or disagree on his policies, etc., he won't censor nor jump in, except in the case of spam, and won't even really defend, other than the most passive of ways. People that lead by example like that, and don't take offense tend to garner support as they don't cross the line even to defend themselves.

Sorry if your experience has made you assume otherwise, but he's very much always been the voice of reason. I've found myself on the other side of some of his opinions, and found myself less for that- mostly because in the end, reason used well is more than a match for any sort of righteous indignation.
Title: Re: Two classes of membership here?
Post by: cmpm on November 17, 2012, 03:29 PM: Well, I think there is a little responsibility on the banned poster to make it right too.
If the person wants to make it right.
The administrator's email is easy enough to find.
Title: Re: Two classes of membership here?
Post by: Renegade on November 17, 2012, 10:25 PM: My very first post here could well have been considered spam if I had not written it like I did.

https://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=896.0

Hello Zaine (and all),

First, just to be clear, my name is Ryan Smyth and I'm the ALTools Evangelist at ESTsoft. But maybe ALVangelist sounds better~! :o I also maintain the ALTools English web site at http://www.altools.net (and a lot of other things too).

...
-Renegade (September 13, 2005, 12:45 AM)

(Just FYI - I no longer work for ESTsoft.)

First posts are always touchy simply because there are so many spammers out there trying to game the system. They really ruin it for people.
Title: Re: Two classes of membership here?
Post by: vrgrrl on November 17, 2012, 10:31 PM: I don't know...yours sounds pretty reasonable to me! Well, written, etc.
Title: Re: Two classes of membership here?
Post by: Paul Keith on November 18, 2012, 12:25 AM: That's what the lapdogs are for: nice senior cop, bad sub-cops: the work is done, and that's what counts.
-clean (November 17, 2012, 01:07 PM)

Actually... not. I actually totally agree with a lot of the bad sub-cops and think that certain things should be regulated. In every case (not just a few that come to light because of dissenters), Mouser chimes in on the side of let it slide, no matter what happens. That's why everyone jumped in on mouser's side- no matter if you agree or disagree on his policies, etc., he won't censor nor jump in, except in the case of spam, and won't even really defend, other than the most passive of ways. People that lead by example like that, and don't take offense tend to garner support as they don't cross the line even to defend themselves.

Sorry if your experience has made you assume otherwise, but he's very much always been the voice of reason. I've found myself on the other side of some of his opinions, and found myself less for that- mostly because in the end, reason used well is more than a match for any sort of righteous indignation.
-wraith808 (November 17, 2012, 02:39 PM)

Can't blame him. It's common in the internet and if he felt passionate about his posts being removed, even more so.

I think one thing to keep in mind for the future is the idea two posts hurts more than one.

Everyone keeps bringing up first post but someone who was banned for their 1st post is more likely to be pissed and contact mouser or leave forever with no comment.

Someone who has one of their post enter circulation and then get banned after their 2nd post would much more likelier feel corruption/censorship was afoot.

I think another flaw with this being a public topic is that it can cross the line between explaining the situation and defending the admin as more personality enters the thread.

It's not like we're acting any better.

Without getting into specifics (of details I don't know of)

The whole established community is typical of a sub-cop behaviour and it's typical of many forums. There used to be a time when this card isn't pulled here/and there were less mouser defenders. We let mouser do his job and we share our personal stake. Nowadays, we're more groupthinky but then we don't get enough troubles to really be a "we" but anyone who sees us saying something nice about mouser is likely to think that we're a "we" since they don't have any idea of who the troublesome posters are. They have to rely on certain established usernames they follow until they actually post.

The only position we're slightly above of is that we don't gangbang on users but that still doesn't change the times we may make a joke inside a topic where the thread maker may be feeling the strains of serious drama.

Equally, mouser is not really as reasonable as many of us are depicting him with our words. This is typical behaviour for forum admins:

can't say I get the warmest feeling from the posts you have made recently

It's a common boss admin power statement and mouser's not above this.

The only difference is that mouser is really a reasonable admin who can admit his mistakes and is willing to converse with us beyond the normal levels of reasonable admin. That doesn't change the reality that any newcomer who hears words like this wouldn't immediately expect forum admin corruption or at least expect that only forum sycophants can get away with saying anything controversial.

It doesn't mean mouser should never use these words nor was he wrong/I'm morally against him stating these words. It's just the bare reality, we're not a 100% rational forum community. This is still one of the best forums out there and mouser is a reason for that but we're not a group of people that is above hypocrisy such as the Bartelsmedia statement may have applied back when DC didn't have a The Basement section but not anymore or the idea of group of friends when many of us argue within our community all the time and it was these heated arguments that made us respect mouser's way of being an admin. Not the fact that we're posters that are similar to many forums where we get along because we always share the same ideas or we're smart enough to avoid being banned everytime we say something controversial. Even the first post rule, the mere suggestion of it, shows given a chance we'd rather abide by the same hypocritical and irrational idea of raising a rule as events were forecoming rather than let this situation play out and only after do we establish a rule in order to avoid making the victim sound like it's their fault for being dumb at not being a rule/forum veteran when they first signed up.
Title: Re: Two classes of membership here?
Post by: 40hz on November 18, 2012, 01:14 AM: @PaulKeith - quick question. Did you read this entire thread and the one that this one emerged out of?
Title: Re: Two classes of membership here?
Post by: worstje on November 18, 2012, 02:25 AM: Equally, mouser is not really as reasonable as many of us are depicting him with our words. This is typical behaviour for forum admins:

can't say I get the warmest feeling from the posts you have made recently

It's a common boss admin power statement and mouser's not above this.

...

It doesn't mean mouser should never use these words nor was he wrong/I'm morally against him stating these words. It's just the bare reality, we're not a 100% rational forum community.

...
-Paul Keith (November 18, 2012, 12:25 AM)

(Bolding courtesey of me, so I can keep PaulKeith's words in context rather than focus on one snippet that serves my point. Snipping the rest though; it's too long a post! ;D)

So, PaulKeith, after reading that I am somewhat puzzled. On one hand, you are against mouser speaking out with his thoughts and impressions, which imo are as valid as anyone elses, simply because he is an admin and is easily misunderstood as him throwing his 'weight' around. On the other hand, you praise him for speaking along with all of us, in-depth and taking the time to involve himself as opposed to a more hands-off style of moderating and administering a forum. There is no perfect solution for something like this, and I don't think there ever will be either.

I myself have not read any of the other relevant topics, so I do not know who this 'clean' is on his normal account, nor do I need or want to know. However, from what I have seen, the negativity in this thread has not come from mouser or the moderators, but rather from the tone set at the beginning where all kinds of bad things are implied and suggested, thus basically putting mouser in a position where he either bows his head in apology, or slams down the hammer of the law and is called the not-so-benevolent dictator. (The apology happened, for those too lazy to read back.)

Or in other words: in my eyes, the way this topic started blocked off any kind of civilized discussion, pushing it towards the extremes of either defending or attacking, apologizing or punishing. Likewise, there are those who should have tried to avoid the 'protect mouser' mindset that PaulKeith referred to; it just reinforces the appearance of an established order that keeps newer members out. Neither 'side' contributed to having a discussion we can be proud of to have on this board. To summarize: politics season is over, and we can go back to normal now. :tellme:

We are all civilized people. Let's respect one another as fellow people, and discuss matters like equals. Because that is where our strength, both as humans as well as the Donationcoder community, lies. If we can't do that, haven't we failed the purpose of this forum? (In which case I wish that there'd be some hope left for humanity as a whole still... :))
Title: Re: Two classes of membership here?
Post by: Paul Keith on November 18, 2012, 06:25 AM: @PaulKeith - quick question. Did you read this entire thread and the one that this one emerged out of?

-40hz (November 18, 2012, 01:14 AM)

I read this entire thread but am unsure of which thread emerged out of this thread so probably not.

I think worstje demonstrated that either is unnecessary and it can be confined into a general statement.

As for the puzzling aspect: it can be easily distinguished into, I'm not overtly praising nor overtly against what mouser is doing. Doing so would be counter to my statement that if there's any notable moral merit to why clean is reacting with the lap dog statement, it would be because we are not above the general characteristics of what a forum is and the general characteristics of most forum are bad: new comers who don't know group rules if not blamed outright are being told to excuse their emotions because these are the so and so limits of forums, mods/admins not only throwing their weight around and inserting bias between admitted mistakes/calls for decorum on both sides, calls for brotherhood in cases where there might be a singular enemy found but then individual as individual when the idea of a group is no longer beneficial to establish a defense against newcomers.

Essentially we're the same breed as most forums. Just a milder and less biased extreme that at times can forget that and step closer to the average forum attitude expressed in most forums across the internet. As a consequence, certain new comers who find themselves receiving that treatment can easily assume we're no better than the forums and we can't blame them since they don't have much experience or information to serve as reference for mouser's attitude/ our experiences/beliefs with mouser. It doesn't even matter if it turns out this time the poster was a troll or this time the poster was extremely rude or this time it's some other exception to the rule. The principle of the statement remains true that any new comer exposed to a hint of a nice senior cop-bad subcop can't be blamed for calling out an observation whose hints are common all across forums.
Title: Re: Two classes of membership here?
Post by: 40hz on November 18, 2012, 07:34 AM: The principle of the statement remains true that any new comer exposed to a hint of a nice senior cop-bad subcop can't be blamed for calling out an observation whose hints are common all across forums.
-Paul Keith (November 18, 2012, 06:25 AM)

Assuming there are such "cops."

I've seen very little administration or moderation here beyond an occasional mild reminder to not get personal and stay on topic.

If individual members take issue with something, there's not much to be said except: "That's life." When annoyed by something, some people feel hurt, some walk away, and some push back. That's pretty much the way human society works when dealing with personal conflict. Something most people eventually realize and subsequently moderate their behaviors in recognition of. And DoCo, being part of human society, is no exception.

I'm very much in favor of extending every courtesy to a newcomer and granting them the benefit of the doubt. However, I also expect people to reciprocate when that happens - and be willing to accept that a similar courtesy requirement exists on their side. And said reciprocal courtesy includes such things as accepting an apology when one is offered for a mistake made in the past - and allowing bygones to be bygones. To not do so is rude. As is continuing to try to get the last word in on something when the rest of the community has already moved on to more worthwhile topics.

So if it's true that it isn't all about us, it's also true it shouldn't be all about any individual either.

I guess I'm old fashioned enough to still believe that groups have rights, even if that belief does fly in the face of our current obsession with focusing almost exclusively on "exceptions," "entitlements," and "individual needs."

Which is probably why I go out of my way not to be "in charge of things" most times.

I'm a dinosaur. ;)
:)
Title: Re: Two classes of membership here?
Post by: wraith808 on November 18, 2012, 08:07 AM: ^ Well said! :Thmbsup:
Title: Re: Two classes of membership here?
Post by: mouser on November 18, 2012, 09:50 AM: Perhaps the thing we are most guilty of on this forum is beating meta discussions to death ;D
Can we begin to wind this one down now?
Title: Re: Two classes of membership here?
Post by: 40hz on November 18, 2012, 10:34 AM: ^I'm out. 8)
Title: Re: Two classes of membership here?
Post by: vrgrrl on November 18, 2012, 01:30 PM: Hear hear Mouser! :Thmbsup:
Title: Re: Two classes of membership here?
Post by: Paul Keith on November 18, 2012, 07:23 PM: I was never here and there are always cops just as there are always cups. :P
Title: Re: Two classes of membership here?
Post by: Renegade on November 18, 2012, 11:57 PM: I was never here and there are always cops just as there are always cups. :P
-Paul Keith (November 18, 2012, 07:23 PM)

Hahahah~!

O U! :P
Title: Re: Two classes of membership here?
Post by: Nudel on November 24, 2012, 02:31 PM: Have a look at the forum policy (you must accept before entering the forum) at the Directory "Opus" forum. Isn't it illogical to pretend your sw is the best of its kind, and then not allow any mentioning of competition sw's, when it should be of much interest rather often to discuss the respective realization of a feature in similar sw? (x2, XY and SC all permit this kind of discussion, and I own a paid license for any of those - not for DO, and that's not a coincidence: If you allow sw developers to treat you like s*** - delete the paragraph here -, they will never cease to do so, hence the interest of buying 3 competing products instead of just 1. And then, DO ist not THAT splendid, e.g. compare processing of metadata in x2 and DO.)
-clean (November 17, 2012, 01:07 PM)

I'm the Opus forum admin these days, and I take issue with this.

Here is the wording of the relevant part of our forum rules (which have not changed recently):

These forums are not for the discussion of other companies' products unless they are directly related to the usage of Directory Opus. You may post about products which other users will find useful in concert with Directory Opus (e.g. tools suitable for integration into Opus toolbar buttons). You may post about products you are having problems using alongside Directory Opus (e.g. if you need help figuring out how to make Opus and another program talk to each other). Most other mentions of third-party products will be considered off-topic and unacceptable.

The forums have a "Coffeeshop" area where rules are more relaxed and off-topic discussions are allowed provided they are not spam, abusive, illegal, etc.

That rule is there so that people don't post questions about using Windows or Photoshop or whatever to our forum. They are there because people do it a lot, even with the rule there. (I imagine many people don't read the rules.)

People ask questions about general Windows usage and completely unrelated software on our forum because -- and they've said this themselves -- we tend to be better at answering questions than the support for the other software they were asking about.

I'm not saying we're better than the support for all other software, but we do engage with our users and spent a lot of time trying to help them. Some software authors don't even have support forums. Some have forums where posting is about as useful as firing your message into a black hole. (Ever had Microsoft or Adobe care that you're found a bug in their software, let alone actually fix it, let alone within several years of the report? We don't solve every problem, but some companies don't solve any problem, at least if you're Joe Public. So people sometimes come to us for those problems as well.)

People get used to us answering their questions and helping them, and forget that we are not a general "help you do anything with your computer" support forum. We sometimes answer those threads in our spare time but we obviously don't have the resources to do it all the time and for free, and we'd rather people went to whoever makes the software they bought to get support for it, rather than provide free support for someone else's software while whoever wrote it takes the money and ignores their users.

People can, and do, mention competing products on our forum. Where it's relevant we are fine with that. Where it's not relevant, and just someone having a cheap dig at us, it can be annoying. -- e.g. People fixate on a pet feature and say "program A does this so why doesn't Opus?" when that has little relationship to whether or not the feature is a good idea or a sensible use of our limited resources, and when there are a larger set of true statements of the form "Opus does this so why doesn't program A?" -- Even then, we don't generally do or say anything unless someone does it repeatedly and is basically trolling us and our forum.

And, as it says in the rules, we have an area where people can talk about more or less anything they want (as long as it's legal and decent).

We run a tech-support forum for Directory Opus, and the rule is just there to make it clear it isn't a tech-support forum for anything else.
Title: Re: Two classes of membership here?
Post by: clean on November 24, 2012, 09:19 PM: Wiener, you left out the punitions part, where paying customers can be cut off from any help if they dare say something not finding your approval, e.g. praise a competing product or criticise yours.

Oh yeah, people coming to you with their Photoshop problems, I almost wet my pants. No sir, you simply apply all means at your disposal to hide the ugly fact that your product isn't superior to those you can buy combined without reaching the price of yours alone: x2, XY, SC. Do as you like, but don't take us for debrained imbeciles swallowing your claim (to put it in a friendly way instead of speaking plain English) you're afraid of simpletons mistaking you for an information bureau. That would be too insulting, Wiener.

(Sorry for the edit but the figure "swallowing" instead of "taking" was absolutely mandatory here.)
Title: Re: Two classes of membership here?
Post by: mouser on November 24, 2012, 09:47 PM: Ok, I think that's enough of the negative insults, etc. It's off topic and it's not appropriate for this forum. Move on guys.