SCS forum troubles

[Andy_GTI]

As much as i like the mod you lot have made, i have to disagree on this. Mods should have been open source from the beginning and not locked themselves. Of course it will hurt your pride when scumbags use your hard work, but people have been doing that for ages and scumbags rarely improve anything. The best thing would be to not care and just continue what made you passionate about this project. Also there are a lot of upsides to have it open source.

All you do is loose time and energy on something not relevant. Promods is the best ETS 2 mod out there and no copycat will change that. Don't fight it, embrace it.

+1, this is the best mod available for the game bar none, I wouldn't worry about the low life's trying to improve it without permission, it's never going to happen.

[MandelSoft]

From a person like you Scul I expected better. Your are acting like I child.
Grow up!
I'm out.

And you guys are calling us names and violate the rules you've set yourself. That doesn't gain you respect either...

Seriously, people on the SCS forums call us "elitist modders" in a negative sense. As if we say that our mod is the only way. However, we expressed our worries about the unlocker tool and that the attitude to stop piracy isn't there, but implicitly (and sometimes explicitly) encouraged, which in turn increases the distrust between mod creators and other members (especially the ones who use this tool). This could have been toned down long ago by locking the whole discussion thread earlier and tell both sides to calm down. Instead, the flame war went on and even the moderators added more coal on the fire, instead of, you know, make the discussion more moderate. I've tried to come to a middle ground, a compromise, something to end the flame war, but my efforts have been turned down and burried under loads of hateful comments.

Within the past few weeks, I've seen moderators and users alike breach rule 1.2, 1.3, 1.4 and 1.5 of the SCS website:

[1.2] Respect each other even when you have differing opinions. Insulting and personal attacks are strictly forbidden.
[1.3] Do NOT harass, bully or stalk anyone. No matter what their history has been on these forums or elsewhere, treat them neutrally and respectfully.
[1.4] Trolling, flaming, flame baiting, accusing or other nefarious posts are not allowed. There's a fine line between joking and trolling/flaming/flame baiting, make sure you consider how your joke can be perceived.
[1.5] Remember that SCS Software, the admins and the moderators are all users of these forums. Treat them all with the same respect as any other user.

Rule 1.2: Several members were expression their worries about the tool. They get called names by other members, and even some moderators. Which led the "defending members" to call names too. This is why rule 1.2 is there, because if one starts, everyone else will follow. That this rule has not been enforced completely blows my mind.
Rule 1.3: Members were ridiculed based upon their standpoint and sneered away with sarcasm. This is never good.
Rule 1.4: The Unlocker tool is a flame bait and Sniper (the creator of the tool) knows it. Yet, the moderators still allowed this to happen and took very long to step in to tone down the discussion.
Rule 1.5: I don't know what falls under your definition of respect, but I've seen pretty low standards the past few days at the SCS forums that were accepted (see points above).

If you won't follow your own rules, why should we follow the rules then? Because you have the power and we haven't? That smells like an abuse of your position, that your position gives you the privelige to disobey your own rules, something that I've never seen on other websites. Personal wrath, clique formation, downplaying people who don't agree with you and blatant censorship seems to be commonplace at the SCS forums. You may call use elitists, but you show elitist characteristics of your own too.

I really felt under attack at the SCS forums and knowing that there was no-one to stop these attacks, that made me scared and frustrated. And therefore, I decided not to be part of that community anymore.

(By the way, it was not a smart move to delete the ProMods thread before setting an ultimatum; you had driven us in a position where we had nothing to lose.)

Bottom line: this whole divide and toxic discussion could've easily prevented if the moderators on the SCS forum stepped in much earlier to calm down both parties. But the opposite happened.

[M4rkus]

I haven't followed the conflict very much but my general impression is that both sides acted a bit immature. My impression is that the way the SCS forums are moderated is sometimes not very helpful to a constructive discussion. This is what seemed to happen here as well. But don't forget, the moderators are not really SCS staff and thus do not represent the company. But to decide whether to allow or not an unlocking tool is certainly SCS' policy. One should take into account that they used to be very liberal towards their community, e. g. official support for modding, Blender tools and even when it comes to moderation of blog comments or people pirating their games. And it seems that they stay liberal, also with the tools other people provide. And surely, you can ask SCS to remove a mod from their page, but if they don't want to, it's their policy at last.

The other thing is what forum moderators do at the SCS forums. I mean, banning Scul and removing the Promods topic is quite exaggerated in my opinion. But on the other hand, Promods tends to be rather vocal about their needs – and employs some quick-temperated minds, too

There's no winner in a debate like this. But both sides might win, if they cooperate. I don't think, it's a good idea to fuel the conflict again, something which both sides did. Hopefully, this doesn't interfere cooperation with SCS when developing the mod further.

[XZV]

Lol SCS Forums, full of dumb ***holes

[Volleybal4life]

XZV, please don't fuel the conflict with such not useful replies...

[XZV]

With SCS quality of moderating the forum, They should be moderating a landfill

[Space4K]

@XZV The funniest comment I've read in awhile. :')

Can't you take it higher? To actual SCS staff or you will let it be? Did ScuL work for SCS?

[joealker]

Oh my dear Lord

Y'all need to take a step back here.

SCS does not condone piracy.

Need that a little bigger?

SCS does not condone piracy.

What SCS have no problem with is the use of a perfectly innocent tool to repair broken ZIP file headers such as the method used to 'lock' mods. To be perfectly honest, you are hacking the game more than the people who use the tool, as you are forcing the game to accept broken zip archives.

ScuL was banned from the forums for multiple forum rule breaches, such as an offensive avatar which was untrue and directed insults towards SCS, as well as insulting the moderating team.

There is a topic here: http://forum.scssoft.com/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=26518

It is our SCS Forum rules. We expect people to abide by the rules. Just as you at ProMods expect people to follow your forum rules, as quite rightly you are entitled to do.

ScuL was banned for breaches of rules:

[1.2] Respect each other even when you have differing opinions. Insulting and personal attacks are strictly forbidden.
[1.5] Remember that SCS Software, the admins and the moderators are all users of these forums. Treat them all with the same respect as any other user.

And probably a few others.

He then proceeded to break rule: [2.1] Only one forum account per person is allowed. Any duplicates found will lead to moderator/administrator action on both. by creating a new account under the name of ProMods.

As for your blog post, it breaks the law on defamation in the Netherlands. Why the Netherlands? Because this site is registered there. You cannot post unsubstantiated shit about a company and expect to get away with it. I don't know what SCS are going to do about it if anything but they genuinely are entitled to sue you.

Stop getting your fanboys to back you up, ScuL and face the facts that what you did is wrong and that you have behaved inappropriately.

To be honest, if I was part of ProMods I would be ashamed to have you on the team. But I'm not.

[Nico]

I don't want to say much about the discussion and never did. I always advised everyone to keep out of it but there is only so much one man can do.

I do understand the policy SCS has to condone such software. But if you do so why is software that locks mods not condoned. Someone needs to take a good look on the policy's there again. I'm not against an open policy but please keep it open in both ways.

Again I don't want to mix into this. IMO naming and shaming someone in public is not the way you should treat people. I get ScuL's frustration but now this very innocent topic is getting all the attention it doesn't need. I have no idea why the SCS moderation team has such an hatred against us and I have no idea why we think that we can change their minds about their policy's.

Right now, the only thing I want is to get this stupid discussion sorted out behind closed doors. Something that should have never gotten out the doors and this big.

That's my say on this. I'm not really in the mood to keep arguing about sometimes that has barely any relevance into how we operate at all.

[MandelSoft]

With the agreement of the rest of the team, the blog post has been removed, and the related Facebook link has been removed as well.

I think it's a signal for both parties to calm down, myself included. I've been upset last night and this morning about, but it's not going to help any of us. We need to have a proper talk about this before another storm is being released...