I was blocked from a channel because the mod mistook my username for that of the person (s)he was actually trying to block. Even after I pointed out this error my account remained blocked, because too much effort I guess.
I knew it was you. Itās sad you let your personal feelings affect how I interact with others. But no worries, I am in transition of moving away from SketchUp. The environment surrounding it is hostile and clickish, almost cultish. There is no dissent or contrary opinions allowed. Itās also sad one employee can determine how users who are paying for a service have access to all the services offered by a software company. I will be filing a complaint with Trimble regarding your personal beef with me. Itās funny, I interacted with thousands of SketchUp users and customers of my design-build company with no complaints but you alone can block me from the SketchUp YouTube channel. I have no desire now to take part so enjoy that small amount of power you wield, lol
Ummā¦ I have no personal issue with you. I donāt think we have ever met! I am part of a team that monitors and moderates comments both here and on our social channels. When people are posting comments that are insulting or off topic, they get set aside (moderated). Your comments were, if I recall correctly, telling us to change software policy on videos that had nothing to do with what you were posting about. You continued to post, despite being asked to stay on topic, so our team agreed you should be put in time out.
Again, there is not ābeefā between us that i know of (if you dislike me for some reason, I cannot do anything about that) and I think most users here would agree that I am a pretty easy guy to get along with. I am, however, protective of our community and do my best to keep everyone focused and getting along.
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Iām always curious what Power and Control people think comes with spending your spare time answering peoples questions and solving problems.
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Not even froufrou architects? Sometimes when you consistently have a bad experience in web forums, the problem just might not be the forum and those who run it. I wish you the best Tony!
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Maybe that is the problemā¦ itās me. Here I am spending my Sunday morning on the forum, trying to h take part in the communityā¦ maybe we need a moderator who straight up does not care at all about what actually happensā¦
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I am sure you will fan a rage against me. I am currently trying to see how I can delete my profile but it appears you have it so people have to stay so the rabid forum members can hang around and bully as seen in the post.
Nobody is bullying you Tony. If you donāt recall my reference just search your past posts as āartisan Tonyā. Itās pretty clear.
Nope! I am not a fan of rage in any state. Rage has no place on our forum, YouTube page, or company. Nor does bullying.
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I am a long time sketchup user and usually protest a lot in this forum. That, and throwing in feature requests once in a while, is actually the main reason I am here. I feel both respected and appreciated by Trimble.
I occasionally help a fellow or two, but it wouldnt be needed as thereās always someone else willing to do that.
This is a sharing and friendly community.
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I donāt know if itās you, or youāre just the messenger. Nor do I know anything about Tonyās beef. But this thread did catch my attention because I had comments wrongly removed in the forum which you indicated were āoff topicā despite the fact I was responding directly to a Trimble policy matter posted by an SU team member. How can my question about a policy brought up by a team member in THAT thread be off topic? If I was off topic then so was the team memberās post to which I responded.
Not sure why you would make that bet. Based on my personal experience and those shared by others, this is not unusualāwhich is how it goes with moderated social media. What I object to is when itās a stealth removal not acknowledging it was ever there, and not even sending any notice to the member. Not sure why some posts indicate hidden or deleted, and othersāas in my caseājust disappear. As for the OP, did he get any notice or indication heās in ātimeoutā?
Moderation is a good thing and necessary. But there should also be transparency with the member when posts are removed, blocked, or hidden. Thatās just common courtesy. Itās incredibly confusing and dehumanizing to be muted, erased, or removed without any notice or explanation.
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Itās been happening for as long as the Internet. Even in the earliest days, long before the WWW, it was a constant tug of war between people who wanted to be able to say anything, no matter how inflammatory and those who wanted iron fist control of the narrative at any cost. Finding the balance was very difficult, and nobody ever got it right all the time.
There are commercial forums that delete anything unless itās fawningly positive about them and their product. There are forums that exist solely for the purpose of badmouthing someone or something, and any voices of reason are instantly banned.
So far Iāve had two messages deleted here. One was my very first and I posted it in the wrong place, so mea culpa. The other was an innocuous five word tongue-in-cheek post that was deemed āoff-topicā despite it being in a thread that was itself bordering on the farcical. Lifeās a crapshoot. 
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Were you notified? Thatās my biggest concern.
Yep. Itās also interesting that you can type crapshoot but ā ā ā ā (c-r-a-p) is bleeped out. I know they have different meanings, but it just reminded of a recent post where I wrote āoh c-r-a-p!ā This implied to readers that I used a four letter swear word which made me look bad. Seems a little puritanical to me.
I think that some moderators or members are to strict with some off topic flagged posts, maybe some posts could be way off topic or disrespectful but most flagged posts Iāve seen before being flagged and also posts that Iāve written that were flagged, had either content related to the topic or some harmless/useful content. There are also post that are way off topic but arenāt flagged. There must be either equality very strictness with all the members, or, the best option for me, relax a bit with this off topic Shutzstaffel.
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Maybe thereās an issue with people moderating forums that arenāt their native language, and not grasping some subtle cultural issue. (I donāt know if thatās the case here.)
Also, I suspect the mods receive complaints from other, highly regarded forum members and so act on them without really delving into possible bad faith motives.
Again, not saying itās the case here, but it happens a lot in other forums, where self-appointed gatekeepers abuse the moderation system to slap down any ādisrespectfulā (ie non obsequious) hoi polloi.
āThis riff-raff dares to refuse to bow before my greatness, therefore I shall have him silenced!ā
Welcome to the Internet!
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Iāll just offer a blanket note on censorship for anyone commenting during a livestreamā¦ the following are what are likely to get you blocked/blacklisted:
- Spam (repeatedly posting something, anything, without regard to the ongoing community or chat)
- Blatantly Off-Topic ā¦ and not letting it go.
- Promoting anything - your idea, your product, someone elseās product, etc
- Rudeness - if youāre being a jerk to anyone, other commenters, the livestream team, SketchUp (the product or team)
- Seeking support - technical, emotional, pitchforks and ignoring any attempt to redirect the issue to the appropriate channel
Iāve seen some of any of the above topics and it wasnāt enough to get many droppedā¦ unless they refused to let it go, which brings us back to the original bullet point, spamming.
(Iām responding after only getting halfway through this thread and didnāt see the escalation in the past 23 hrs, so Iāve genericād up my response.)
Regarding the forum moderation (which some of the above applies to) I want to just offer a bit of how moderation works on this platform (Discourse). The community is the primary driver. I personally donāt spend any time scouring threads looking for things to moderate and only take action if something is egregious. Community members will flag something based on the criteria and if others start to flag it as well then it is removedā¦ all without any response from the team. You will get a notification when things are removed, but its an automatic response based on the criteria that was flagged.
The team members using the forum are honestly all doing so for their own interest, they like SketchUp, they like the community, theyāre interacting for the same reason the rest of the community is here. We donāt have anyone whose job is āModerate the Forumā and only actively watch someone who is proving to have a history of bad behavior.
Edit: This is the same for Sages, nobody can run around with a chip on their shoulder and ban or persecute community members.
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There werenāt any technical issues, but I guess weāve resolved that this issue predates Fridayās stream.
As far as Aaron responding to comments you donāt see, we are seeing comments from YouTube, Facebook and LinkedIn in our feed (though LinkedIn canāt see written replies, itās wonky.)
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The blacking out of certain offensive words is built into the Discourse platform that hosts this forum. What is puzzling to me is its idiosyncratic choices of what to allow vs redact. Iāve seen the f word come through but, as you experienced, the much less offensive c word gets bleeped. I vaguely recall that when this issue was raised some years ago the Trimble moderators said it was set by Discourse and there was nothing they could do.
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The blacking out of certain offensive words is built into the Discourse platform that hosts this forum. What is puzzling to me is its idiosyncratic choices of what to allow vs redact.
Have you seen the stupendous Brit comedy, Hot Fuzz?
Offensive words have been strategically redacted in this YouTube clip, but not in the movie. 
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This is the one, counter intuitive aspect of the forum software too me. As a matter of semantics, I would think that āFlagā would mean āCall to the attention of someone with the power to decide what action to takeā rather than give the power to just anyone or any group to cancel someone. Not saying itās wrong, just a little surprising.
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