Free Speech

[J Maverick 16]

Ok let me say that I have absolutely no idea what happened and what's going on since I didn't cared about this thread nor I noticed anything on the main forum as I only care about my business both here and here but surely some insane stuff happened to let some people go away or timed bans or I have no f* idea of anything.

So, my question is: What the hell happened and are we all getting crazy around here/there/wherever?
Honestly, I don't recognize anymore the FG world recently, we are all caring about pointless statements instead of caring about more important things for the FG community. Too much politics I'd say.

Please ignore this post, I just felt like I had to say something after all, because I woke up this morning and I read on Slack some things which I'd never ever imagined to see.
Everything is driving the wrong way, really...
I don't even now if I still want to stay in the Fg world, apart from flying... and I repeat again that I don't know a shhh* of what happened; just random ideas coming through my brain right now.
Regards, Mav

[jwocky]

@Swamp: See, that is the problem if you try not to ban anybody and if you ask the community to speak up, people stay silent ... because once there is big chaos then, AFTER things go harsh, people come and know everything, Swamp, I tell you EVERYTHING. And they rant and rant about everything you do wrong and you surely can do things only wrong, never right. Because the community stay silent when it's time to speak and gets loud afterwards.

[jwocky]

@Val: ONE plane ... 500 hours ... I wish, I would have had even 500 hours for a single plane. But I love it. However, since I have more than 60 planes and thousands and thousands of hours on my back, you failed to teach me about "sharing", I'm afraid. And as much as I appreciate the naive idea about ownerships in the Internet, this forum runs on a domain registered to me. I installed it, I ran it for years now, I own it. Which admittedly is part of the problem, so later more about that. But the fact is, I own it and used it to give everybody a home for free when it was needed. However, if I act as owner and use those buttons, I am attacked and when I refuse to do so, I am attacked as well. So, it ends up with something nasty here: the owner is effectively the one who has neither the freedom of speech nor the freedom of action, which is something, that bothers me a bit. You were not here when it started. Maybe it would help if you talked to some who were, before you come to premature conclusions.

@Vincent: You decided, according to your emails, to leave. Which is your good right. So is returning. NOT in anybody's rights is blackmailing me in the form "I want this or I go." It leads inevitably to me letting you go. Sorry, I wish, you would have waited till I got a chance to explain things, but well, you were angry and thus, you needed to blame someone when your blackmailing attempt failed. Too bad.

@Bomber: First of all, you should know, some people broke some lances for you, people I value even I am sometimes not as much able to express that appreciation as much as I would like. But you have a fucking big problem with any form of authority and the only way to heal you from that I can figure is to make you familiar with the other side of authority. So, stay, but I take up Israel's idea and make you serve as a mod for (almost) six months (I noted the 24th of June as date because I get always remembered of that date whether I want or not ). So, the ball is in your court now, take it or leave it.

@Lydiot: Here goes my badass reputation, but I honestly don't know what to do. I don't want to ban anybody. However, if things go on as they were, I have no choice. Sooo, how about we make another attempt at decent human behavior? If that doesn't work, I can still ban you

@KB7: What you wrote about "dedicated trolls" scared me, and not only in reference with Lydiot. I am still not sure whether I shall see things as that hopeless.

@David: Just as a reminder, there is nothing to forgive, there is something to LEARN. For those who read this and don't get the reference, be assured, David will get it.

@Israel: We stepped together in the crap with FGMEMBERS, we stuck with it when this all started about till we were up to our lower lips, when really just a very few came here and most of those who are today want to teach us how to run things were back then still playing both sides against the middle to make maximum political profit. Having said that: Your wording SUCKS! The rest we can discuss ... but the wording ... duuuuh! You know, what you wanted to achieve you would have probably achieved easier and with less fuzz by "Peter, grab a coffee and see whether you can reconsider this or that." I asked the community (which, contrary to some weird beliefs floating around here also includes mods and admins) several times to speak up. You all have the right to speak up. So, Israel, you did, even the wording REALLY sucks!

@Josh: Sorry all the "drama" made you run, but remember: If a community is worth to live in it, maybe it is also worth to speak up for it BEFORE things go too bad.

So, after I gave everybody at least a clue, what is happening now?

- Israel, David and Cain will be restored as admins. They will run the day-by-day business. Which also means, we have to figure out how they can get access to domains and web-hosting.

- Vincent, as he asked for in emails, will be NOT restored as mod

- Bomber, as soon as he tells me whether the takes his sentence or not, will be established as mod (and dear admins, keep an eye on him till he gets a feeling for the job)

- Lydiot, nothing happens right now to you. I try not to go for your throat, you try not to get on my nerves and we see that we cool down.


Soo, this is all nice and ... but here are some things that will actually change:


1.) I will pull back out of the daily business and probably for a while, my posts will be rather limited to cases in which my technical help is needed (I haven't forgotten about Gabriel's FDM for example). Admittedly, I also want to use more time to play on an actual plane again. I put work in backgrounds, concepts, source codes, a lot of invisible stuff, I just want to tinker on a plane again. Maybe two? And now, with the USA Tour coming to an end, I finally don't have a deadline before the next three come, so I can actually play around with stuff, I had to ignore in the past, like for example textures and 3D and such.

2.) I did lately a lot of work learning about 3D engines, weather, a lot of different things that didn't boil down fast to things to "share". Now, for the moment, I leave it to your fantasy why I did that. You know, things like 3D engines and multi-threading, script interpreters, oop interpreter-concepts, real-time-server-solutions ... a lot of boring stuff. Now, at this point, some people here recognize some of the keywords and some don't. Those who don't, don't be worried, you will find your place to participate if you wish so. For those who do ... don't be scared, we are not there yet. For now, bottom line is, I still have to put more time into it and my outside position allows me to do that. Even if then someone may says "I just did x hours on a plane, you are not in sharing, are you?" or something like that.

3.) While I will be less visible, I will be around. Get me right here, if a situation like this comes ever up again, I will be the one who decides to ban - or not to ban! The decision as the responsibility is mine and mine alone. Regardless, what some naive people tell you about the Internet, that is so with owning a forum. I have for the years past succeeded in creating a space of free speech, despite attempts to break it. Lots of attempts. I think, I was not that bad at that job and for sure, I won't stand for breaking it now. Now, I am not always the wisest man around ... so, to all of you, if you have to say something, speak up. Try to do it the nice way, please, fecal name calling causes in people my age high blood pressure and very bad mood. But nevertheless do it. Because freedom works only if people speak up for it. And well, I like to believe I listen. Oh wait, I was just convinced not to kick some rears out of here ... so people, please don't make me regret that. Bottom line, I am around, I have the big fat buttons, I am here and watching, be it good or bad. Maybe Israel, David and Cain are always on the nice side, always willing to cut slack beyond reason ... if someone drives it over the top, well, you don't want to pull me out of my dragon lair, would you? If I get forced to give up on my freedom of speech so that others can have it, you don't want to piss me additionally off by calling each others "hooligans" and "crazies" and "assholes" and what not. Try to behave!

4.) I will however be more visible in some other things. We have to do a lot of work and we need some of it better organized. To be competitive with other flightsims, we need to get first an overview, that will be the first goal. I will try to recruit some help on the forum to get this overview (watch out for posts). But we can't just run behind and dream of bigger things, then bigger things will not happen. So, this is where I place for now some more focus.

Now, read this, understand this, accept this or not. Honestly, you can say something about it or not, this is how it will go now!


J.

[valery]

@Jwocky: All right Jwocky, congratulation and thank you, wise conclusion.

I installed it, I ran it for years now, I own it

Definitively not, I'm affraid. Simply remember that this forum, I mean the content of this forum without which it would make no sense - whether you own the dns+web or not - is not yours. It is ours. It's a fact. Everybody here can delete its own posts, or simply ask you to do so. Whether legaly or ethically, you must delete its posts. So, this forum is actually ours, not yours. You're "simply" (sorry for the word) the administator and the owner of the domain. No more, no less.

Some idea in order to improve the way this forum work:
1) Perhaps, if you like the idea of free speech and sharing, could you attach the GPL to the content of the forum ? (perhaps already done ?)
2) It could be a nice idea to provide everybody beyond a certain time the moderator status. So, this way, we could avoid some misunderstanding and annoyance like this one.

No more blabla.
Good luck to you and everybody here, my thoughts to those that were injured here,

Val;

[jwocky]

Well, actually, (since forum owners can be legally responsible for things posted on their forums in many US states and several countries in Germany) your ownership rights are limited. I am allowed and in some cases (illegal content) required to change or delete your content. I am also, in all US states and all Western Europe, allowed to make copies of all the content without your consensus as a technical measure.
Furthermore, the forum is legally an entity of its own. "Our" actually doesn't exist legally. The whole of all members in not a legal entity. While the database that stores the forum, the web space, the domain and all in it are actually legal entities. Which means, I own the forum and all technical provisions under it, you own only ownership on content you created, not on content other users created. This ownership is however limited by the fact, that you posted the content on a public forum. Technically at this moment, since nothing else is defined, you posts became public domain.
The situation is different on a website with explicit copyright notes, I guess, you wrongfully refer to some of those provisions?

[valery]

Ok dude, it was a tease. As I said, thank you and good luck.
-|

[jwocky]

@Val: Sorry, I react a little bit "hairy" when people start legalese. You have probably no idea how many people actually tried already with that kind of "invented" legal hooks tried to stop this here. Over there, at Curtis' forum are some specialists who sometimes try to add one file to an aircraft in order to claim license rights on the whole, I had already a dance with someone who claimed actually "ownership rights" on a plane Israel and me made and more of those stories. Sorry, I overreacted, but that is such an iffy subject.

[IAHM-COL]

- Bomber, as soon as he tells me whether the takes his sentence or not, will be established as mod (and dear admins, keep an eye on him till he gets a feeling for the job)

Thanks J.

Now, Bomber you said, before:

I suggest however that I accept a 6 month tenure-ship, after which the community can offer up the name of someone else to go head to head against and vote me out.... If by a fecking miracle I'm voted to do the role for another 6 months I'll do so.... BUT once that time has done I will not be eligible for re-election until another 6 months has past. This community has to take some responsiblity with the battern being past.

Now I think these are reasonable suggestions.... if you don't accept them I'll ban myself for the period of my one month punishment...

We are taking you from your word. Let J knows if he is switching your color green.
We talked to Vincent. He is staying as Moderator too.

More discussions happen now in the background how will we from now on have our moderation team and admin things like that, but for now I really hope you're accepting the 6 month tenure-ship.

I'd be shocked to see you taking a self-impossed one month leave.

[bomber]

I would appreciate it if I was allowed another account .... keeping it in the aircraft theme let's say I gain my 'wings' and thus a new account ==bomber==... make this account a moderator.

I will continue to post under the bomber username (blue) hopefully never posting publically on my moderator account (green)...

But I want to make it quite clear to everyone just what role I am acting as when I post.... an ordinary user with the same rights as everyone else or in my official capacity.

I will log onto to my moderator account diligently to ensure I'm up to date with goings on and requests..

I'm not interested in seeing my name in green just for the sake of it.

Simon.

I'm not against authority.... I'm against abuse of the position even if it's unintentional.

[IAHM-COL]

I'm afraid that is not quite possible. You can have as many accounts as you want. Example Falcon has like 3 accounts in this board. No rule against that. I'll get the green shirt only to the account named bomber. But the reason I say that is not quite possible is because the man does not change who he ultimately is by swapping the shirts.

Example if FALCON posts as Deadpool or as falcon, we always get to read: yeah! that's falcon talking!

I know what you fear because I live with a red shirt. But that's exactly part of the punishment here. Someone needs to put that freaking green shirt on and the rest of us, knowing that someone HAS to do it, the best we can do is cutting that person some slack.

increased power, increased responsibilities, increased questionability.
And the admin team can only sit behind you in support of your choices.

I am glad you are already living the sentiments you have and will have on that green shirt.