I’d say it’s bad policy. As a moderator myself on another forum, numbers don’t make something right. People can gang up. A human should evaluate.
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This absolutely did not happen for me. I scoured my account messages, my emails, my spam–no notice of any kind. Evidently, (and this was suggested by either a sage or a team member) some there have the power to simply delete with no notice or trace. The overall picture I’m getting is that the human aspect of SU moderation is a loose patchwork of vague policies and inconsistent procedures.
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My apologies. You will get a notification when something is flagged or if it is removed due to a flag. We (SketchUp) do have the ability to remove posts or threads on a case by case basis. These cases, when not a message from a community member, can also be when we’re contacted by some department within SketchUp or Trimble. In your case, and I’m only guessing as I wasn’t the one to remove it, it was talking about billing or pricing practices which may have gotten a flag from legal or a higher up.
Similarly, if someone posts direct contact information, or spam or piracy, we may remove these before they can be flagged.
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I confirm. I know a case where one of the wise men called the user an idiot and then AAron “sweeped” by deleting half the thread!
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Some time ago I pointed at a recent change in the forum software behaviour. Flagged posts, at least to me, seem to become immediately locked and unviewable - to me it is impossible to view what is inside to see whether adding my flag would be justifiable. Previously the posts had a “view blocked content” link in them before they were totally removed.
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OK, but regardless of the reason, why shouldn’t all removals get a notification? In the circumstances you describe, a team member takes the time to intervene and remove a post–one which has NOT necessarily been flagged by the community–and that removal doesn’t warrant a notification as a courtesy to the member? Are such removals even monitored or authorized internally?
I’m not going to debate the reasons for removal at this point–that’s secondary. But I’m having trouble wrapping my ahead around why removed comments flagged by the community get a notification, but stealth removals by staff don’t? You guys are deflecting this whole “process” by either saying ‘it was flagged by the community, not our fault’ , it’s an automated action, can’t do anything about it’ or ‘yeah, staff here can remove stuff at will–probably because of “legal”’. This sounds like no process at all, and worse yet, a thoughtless disregard for your customers.
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Aaron pointed out that the other feeds comments won’t appear in my YT feed. It may well be that the comments appear ok in the overlay.
I belong to several other forums for my other interests. When posts that don’t meet the rules occur, they are simply removed. The only time people receive a notice is when they find themselves banned.
To me, it should be pretty simple to understand…play nice, respect each other and the forum in general. You know, all those key things we were all taught in kindergarten.
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Yes, that’s the way it ought to be, but this is real life and social media and stuff rarely works like that.
That’s condescending. Many have been removed for questionable reasons, and not necessarily because we weren’t playing “nice”. But that’s beside the point, I don’t buy your premise that it’s either common or proper in a forum for professionals (who have paid a lot of money to the company as customers) to be deleted without notification or explanation. It’s not that hard, and THAT is also common courtesy that should have been learned in kindergarten Golden Rule 101.
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I’ve debated whether I should chime back in here since I would rather not be involved in any sort of drama right now and I feel like I was kind of caught in the middle of this one.
First of all I think Nick Sonder has a really good point, we should all try to play nice, fighting and disrespect leads no where, especially in an online community such as this.
With regards to the rather lengthy post by Jody, laying out some of the rules of censorship, I do want to make sure my position and stance is very clear for the SketchUp community as a whole and especially for the power users of my extensions.
As many of you know I have been developing my extensions for a while now and as of 2018 they have become my full time job (kind of crazy to think that I can survive on a handful of extensions). As such, I have a very strong vested interest in promoting and discussing my plugins at every chance I get. However, I also recognize that there is a fine line here that should not be broached or should be carefully navigated.
When I get on some of the livestreams I do my best to provide valuable feedback or suggestions but I also do my best not to push or promote my extensions, or try to name drop them. There are times where I want to literally shout out that I could do the same thing with my extensions in seconds but I understand that such comments are not appropriate and sometimes the intent of the livestream is to show how to do things solely with the native tools and not with paid extensions. I do my best to keep any self promotion to a minimum in these live sessions.
I have a number of (active) threads on this forum that I discuss my extensions and their development quite extensively, and there is a lot of feedback from members of the community. I also have a number of power users, who use my extensions on a regular basis and I am very thankful for their support and their promoting of my extensions in their own social media accounts and videos. None of that goes unnoticed to me, their support is valuable and the feedback is amazing.
However I would ask that users of my extensions or those who do want to promote me do so in such a way that will abide by the rules as laid about by Jody in the post above. Realize that there may be a time and place for this promotion but also respect the venue and sensitivity of others.
I usually don’t get too involved in the commenting on livestreams lately, but occasionally, where the topic is especially interesting to me, I will become more involved. Hopefully I did not say anything out of place or too annoying in this latest livestream. The discussion on complex roofs and some of the techniques really got my gears turning and may eventually lead to an improvement in my own complex roof module.
Thank-you, Aaron for you patience with all of us, and your excellent discussion and coverage on roof modeling, and the job you do as the face of SketchUp.
Thank-you, Tony for your dedication to your craft, your expertise and your continued support.
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My apologies. I was not trying to be condescending in any way. I still stand by my point of how people should behave on a professional forum.
While my other forums are more for hobbies, they are far larger than any of these forums related to 3D software and that is the norm.
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Thank you for saying that.
Nobody disagrees with that. But that’s not the issue. It’s a matter of consistent policy towards users and SU reciprocating the same respect to members that they rightfully expect from them in their forum.
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Thank you Nathan, I think the whole thing is silly. I have been in this industry for 45 years and I remember a day when we could debate something and everyone walk away friends.
I still have not been told exactly why I was blocked except that I was discussing something off subject in the chat. These livestreams can be hours long and people tend to discuss things while mundane operations are happing in the modeling session. I would thin the host would appreciate the interest and the fact that people are wiling to sit for so long an watch a lives stream.
I am not interested in watching if I am not able to share my experiences I teach online and in real life to apprentices almost on a daily basis. I am almost complete with the book I am writing, The Artisan Philosophy and the online school that is inspired by it. I sometimes try to share this experience online when people ask me questions and sometimes that leads to topics not relevant to the livestream but I do not see how this hurts the host. I was not even given a warning. And I know this is personal or I would have been given some form of professional courtesy.
In any event, I will continue to be appreciative of your efforts. Your work makes SketchUp actually work for the industry. In an industry that requires an enormous amount of detail, the normal tools SketchUp offers, do not cover this detail but your extensions do. I can say if your extensions go away, I would go back to using AutoCAD like I did for the first 20 years of my career.
This is the last thread I will be sharing on in this forum unless I am unblocked. I will continue to stay in touch with you through email. Thanks!
Well, I unblocked you @anon13243925… I don’t know what prompted it and am not expecting anyone else to remember at this point. It didn’t happen on Friday, so whenever it happened and for what reason will likely remain a mystery.
My final comment on this, sometimes in these streaming comment threads the chat can move quickly, and hard to follow an origin of a comment or thread so it may have simply been a misunderstanding. Or it may have been getting unruly enough that there was just a handful of mute/bans to just get the room back in order. People are humans and sometimes we get confused or have bad days (on both sides of the table.) I think the main takeaway from this thread is that we are a passionate community of SketchUp enthusiasts and don’t want to be excluded from any part of that community, as long as we’re all playing with the same intentions then we’ll be fine.
@medeek you were completely in-line on Friday with your discussion and my only regret was not always having a place to interject your thoughts as Aaron was talking or working on things. I’m completely fine with folks talking about their extensions or workflow and think it adds to the community. Now, if you come in and badger and bully that your way (anyone, not medeek specifically) is better and this stream is pointless or to simple or whatever, thats no fun and you’ll likely get silenced.
Anyway, thanks for the discussion guys, hope everyone has some peace and we’ll see you in the next one. (c:
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Thanks, I don’t remember either and that was why it was kind of a shock. Because of my many years in the design-build industry, I may seem opinionated but I never mean to offend anyone. When you have been working on construction sites for 45 years, you learn to develop a thick skin but I will try to remember I am not on the construction site when I am in a live stream 
If you watch my live streams at all you will see I am a mild mannered guy and just like to have fun designing and building. Thanks again.
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