I agree. I’m just another member of the forum and that is exactly why I started doing videos and posting them on my YouTube Channel for all the new people to learn by seeing how I do it. I remember how hard it was when I first started.
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Oh I agree he will be missed. even I have enjoyed his company here. I am just trying to express that every action has consequences and that this one has them as well.
If you want to keep assets, then make sure that your assets are kept. turn them out or show them that they are not needed or wanted then accept that they may not stay.
********* Slightly off topic *********
I began in the early days of X-carve and the forum was, indeed “wild and woolly”. A group of individuals formed a culture that was friendly, a bit abusive, and somewhat bawdy. Not exactly your picture perfect business environment, but I looked forward to reading the posts first thing each morning and last thing at night.
It was a wonderful and very productive time and I miss the people and the forum as it was. I am sorry for the abuses that occurred.
That forum is dead and will never return.
Most likely the new forum will be helpful and provide newcomers valuable information, just as the previous forum did, but it will be in a dry and somewhat lifeless form. Much more appropriate to business use, but not nearly as much fun.
Most of those that made the early forum what it was are now doing other things, or maybe “background” forum users and I miss their presence as I will miss @RobertCanning’s contributions to that time.
Such changes are appropriate as Inventables moves from the hobby world to the business world.
I wish them well.
I suppose that I also am becoming a “backgrounder” as the Inventables forum is not much of a draw anymore.
************ Back on topic ***********
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So sad Larry.
You have been one of the most helpful people to me.
And always in a professional manner.
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I think it is necessary for the forum that users do not have the right to ask that all of their posts be deleted. While I sympathize with a user who feels the host has wronged them and they want to take their marbles and go home, Inventables has to protect itself against the damage that this would cause. Posts and replies are not in a vacuum, so if you pull your posts then you also lose the context of all posts that reference or reply to it. Imagine if certain very high profile posters here deleted everything they’ve posted. Even worse imagine if any of them approached Inventables and said “pay me or I delete my posts”?
The terms of service must include a nonexclusive license to keep the content posted here, but do so in a way that avoids the mistakes if companies like Makerbot/Thingiverse which were perceived as taking ownership of others intellectual property.
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I feel that an important issue that has been raised here, and by recent events, is what it means to make a contribution to the Inventables community. The context for my comments hereafter are that Robert Canning is angry because he felt some in the forums were abusing him and now he has left and wants to take every contribution he ever made with him. How Inventables decides to address Robert’s particular case is their call because the forums belong to Inventables and because Robert posted freely and of his own will to the forums with no claim of copyright or any expectation of return for his contributions. But Robert’s case raises a general concern that really ought to be addressed in whatever plan is developed to revitalize the forums for future use by the community. That concern is, of course, how, in the future, to prevent forum users from walking away and taking all their contributions with them.
To the best of my knowledge, NO forum or discussion group anywhere has ever allowed users/members to take all their “cookies”; all of their posts or whatever; with them when they leave. The reason for that, given the volatility of most online forums, is precisely because of the damage and loss to their communities that would occur regularly if they allowed it. If information of value to a community is continually allowed to be drained away as members come and go, then how can that community ever come to be considered as a reliable source of information?
If users don’t have confidence that information which was available to them yesterday will be available to them tomorrow, then they are simply going to look elsewhere for more consistently reliable sources of information. And as more and more of them do that, the community dies.
All of that said, what I think Inventables needs to do is establish a policy - based on the “Creative Commons” model - that makes it clear to forum users, up-front, that they are granting a perpetual, non-exclusive copyright license to Inventables for any information they share in the forums.
This is precisely how things work when I write an article for a newspaper, magazine, etc. As the creator of the article, I still own it and the copyright to it. But for publishing my work (usually, but not always, in exchange for payment) the newspaper gets a nonexclusive right to use it and reproduce it in the future.
That would work for Inventables I think.
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Just my .02 on who my votes would be for to make good moderators - just off the top of my head based on many posts/replies I have seen, and how they always seem to be pretty even keeled and helpful, from the following:
@PhilJohnson
@JustinBusby
@LarryM
@AngusMcleod
@RobertCanning (sadly leaving us)
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I didn’t mean to say that the terms currently include this, but they must be changed to do so - a business cannot be expected to take the kind of hit that not having this could cause.
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I’m no lawyer too but I don’t think I ever heard of a forum deleting all content from a certain user when he/she decides to leave. And it would surprise me if he could legally enforce it. Idk I’ve not seen this situation before… Anyhow, I think it’s kind of petty to have all your stuff deleted. The internet sticks. We all know that. Just move on if that’s what you want to do. IRL you can’t take back lost time and effort either.
No disrespect intended to anyone who wants to leave. To each his/her own I guess.
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@StevePrior: I agree wholeheartedly about the TOS. And beyond the hit that Inventables might take, there’s also the simple matter of community that, “the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few or the one”.
As have a couple of mine. I wondered what was happening…
Better than the alternative I suppose. I would however have suggested keeping the userid unique “Anonymous1234” so that at least the posts by that individual be distinct from others. Or else Anonymous could be perceived as having wildly different levels of quality.
I’m going to add my small 2 cents, this probably isn’t the correct thread for it but from what I mainly see on the forum, when a new user asks a question most of the time they get sarcasm, before some one directs them to the search function. when I was a new X-carve user that happened to me a few times , what some people don’t realize is even in 2018 not everyone is familiar with forums and how they work, I had never been a member of, or used a forum until I purchased my X-carve, even though I have been in the I.T. field for 20plus years. new users don’t always understand or appreciate the harsh sarcasm that most of the seasoned users have grown used too. I find that if folks don’t agree with or like a post they comment negatively or act rude. My mother taught me a long time ago if you don’t have anything nice to say then don’t say anything at all. There is users on the forum that don’t mind “politely” directing people to the answers they seek.
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I’m a newbie.
I’d like to see a glossary. I try to search, but don’t always know the correct terms to use.
Also, a quick guide to any available shortcut keys. I found “shift+control+d” by accident while searching for something else.
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Stack exchange is pretty fantastic about moderating their stuff. My wife is a moderator on one of their sites. They don’t screw around over there.
Sometimes I think they get a bit too heavy handed with the ban-hammer, but If you want to see a well moderated (and behaved) community, stack exchange is a great example.
regards,
Ken
I disagree. He gives rights to his post as soon as he posts it. He doesn’t own the site.
Also, if people’s posts just get deleted there’s a lot of threads and conversations that will make zero sense. disassociation is better than deletion. Just make them “anonymous”, or “deleteduser349857394”
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You could be right. Looked for some legal-ese here on inventables’ site that I assumed was there when creating an account almost everywhere. You don’t explicitly agree to anything either way when creating an account here.
I figured they’d want to protect valuable content in the forums from people saying: “Nah. I want my stuff gone.”
-Ken
Projects: Shapeoko CNC Router, Rigid, Accurate, Reliable, and Affordable
coaster
http://shapeoko.github.io/Docs/firstjob.html
box
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First I want to thank @RonSabourin and @JeremySimmons for advocating for this discussion. I really appreciate the way you two brought this to the group.
I am really impressed by all the different ideas and suggestions. I will admit that I was a bit surprised by the diversity of the ideas and opinions expressed are here.
I don’t want to make a snap decision. There is a lot here to take in and process. Also if we do switch the software, build a wiki, or enlist community moderators that isn’t going to happen overnight.
What I can say for sure is there are going to be short term and long term changes coming.
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That’s why I stay in trouble with my wife all the time!!
Sorry, really some good stuff going on here.
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