Ahhhhhhh yea, you do have a point!

Thank you all for that, I thought someone was havin a really bad day, but now I know this mood you describe has presisted for some time.
You guys have helped me so much, and I wish to thank you all. I know my question are not as well phrased as they might be, but I really want to learn.

Best Wishes,
Marty

Marty . .you keep asking, and we'll keep trying to answer. Don't worry Pal - your turn will come - I promise yah!

I owe MOST of my success with Vegas to this Forum - MEANING the people on it.

Grazie

I'm with ya' Grazie - I have learned a heck of a lot from this board. I usually stop by twice a day to read and end up learning new things every day. I also have to give some credit to Spot & Garys educational materials!

Agree whole heartedly. This the place learn - after all the header says it all - Vegas Video. I log on daily because I want to know more about Vegas Video.
I am not famillier with garry's aids but Spot's book has certainly improved my knowlesge of Vegas.

I wish it would stop. I come here today and can see that it's already starting up again. Apparently, someone thinks that Sony needs him to be the board police? Seems to me that if Sony had a problem with someones post, they would take action. They don't need any of us playing board police and telling others what is and/or isn't appropriate. I would never start an argument with someone if I thought their post was not appropriate. I would let the board monitors deal with it.

This place will continue to get worse - with more sarcasm and more attacks unless the Sony mods do something about it. If this continues I'll be deleting this bookmark from my list and hanging out at any number of other places where people actually act their age.

Cheers,

GM

The sad truth is, if this misbehavior continues, Sony will probably shut down the forum altogether. And we'll have, primarily, one individual to thank for that.

I keep begging people to use the Ignore This User function. It makes life here nearly perfect. And it's such a simple thing to do!

Gonzoman, you're invited to join us at the DMN or the DVInfo.net forums, where you'll never, ever see this sort of thing. The main perpetrators of the constant strife here aren't allowed to post at DMN, and if they were to post even one thing on the DVInfo.net site like they post here, they'd be banned there, too.
Sony doesn't have a full time moderator for these boards, and they shouldn't have to. We've come very, very close to losing these forums based on the behavior of a few, because Sony has legal exposure when these forums become filled with vitriol and ugliness. It's a non-revenue driven site for Sony, so what do they gain from having it when it's like this? Nothing at all. It only serves to make them look bad. Because they ARE a corporate forum, they're required to put up with some of this, whereas a privately owned forum like the DMN and DVInfo.net, or DVXUser.com doesn't have to put up with it and they won't. So, you're welcome to visit over there and see how it all goes. Yes, there are ads on some of the sites/most of the sites, but without corporate sponsorship, someone has to pay for the bandwidth. I find it a small price to pay to avoid the noise that has been worsening here in the past year. Everyone here seems to be walking on eggshells, trying to avoid the trigger words that the button pushers look for. The problem with "Ignore this User" is that it also cancels out any constructive or interesting (or rebuttal) posts to a post created by the troublemakers.
It would indeed be nice if we could all just "get along" but there are those that revel in their inability to "get along."

"Ignore This User" - Hmmmm, never tried it but I'm going to impliment that filter right now.

Thanks for the headsup!

Yes, sure, why not?

I think the threat of threads being locked really helps. I know it stopped me from responding to a tirade.

Under threat, I can get along or I can shut up. No problem.

Rob Mack

Ignore this user isn't effective unless it blocks all the responses as well. It's just too tempting after reading all the responses.

Rob Mack

Do you think that Sony "views" all our "Ignore This User Lists"? - Now that's a thought! If we all avail ourselves of this Ignore option, then there is something of a mandate being proposed.

Discuss . . ..

I maybe be Grazie but I aint Crazy! - I think ?

Grazie

Seems like crazy thing to me that Sony would shut down the forum, rather than get rid of the Blatantly obvious trouble makers - and it's not like they never give any good info, but they are absolutely not making anywhere near enough constructive comments as they are Forum debilitating ones. Anyway - I will not name names, and you can put whoever's names in there, but the fact remains that it seems like Sony would be sinking the ship to get rid of the rats. (my own euphamism - not bad for just having made it up :-)

Dave

Dave, the problem is clear, as shown in your "Y or N" thread. There are, and always will be, people who simply cannot or will not follow the rules. Unfortunate as it is, these are the individuals that are usually responsible for "sinking the ship," causing everyone to suffer.

Grazie, you wrote:

"Do you think that Sony "views" all our "Ignore This User Lists"? - Now that's a thought! If we all avail ourselves of this Ignore option, then there is something of a mandate being proposed."

That is an interesting thought, isn't it. Given the many forum changes recently, it seems like it wouldn't be too difficult to have a separate page with the "Top 10" Ignored people.

I like it! Sort of like online shunning, eh?

Pierre

DMN and dvinfo are fantastic. I spend less and less time here because of them -- only dop in occasionally to check and see if Sony's released something new I don't know about, or to get the occasional Vegas specific question answered. Otherwise, DSE and BJ_M are over on DMN -- what more could you want? :D

- jim

Threads like this are an invitation for those responsible for these flare-ups to:
A) Point fingers as if they are not involved.
I haven't locked this thread because it hasn't gotten grossly out of hand, but I will lock this thread if it continues down its most obvious progression. Take note that every thread of this nature has gotten ugly because of the aforementioned behaviors.

We have this same problem in on-line gaming. For team based games, there are always people who would ruin the game by killing their own team members deliberately. Microsoft found a great solution to this with their Xbox-Live games. Games like Halo 2 allow you to boot a player if they are on your team and they attack you. No more problem. You attack a teammate; that teammate can band you from the game.

I realize that it’s easier for a game to determine you’ve been attacked than a forum, but perhaps Sony should use the Ignore this User feature to ban users. Say, if more that 12 people ignore someone, they are banded. This way no one person can wrongfully ban another but the user community would be able to police itself when enough people feel a user is disruptive enough to be ignored. I picked 12 because that’s how many people sit on a trial jury in the US.

I think this is a viable solution. Perhaps members with less than 3 months membership aren’t eligible to vote for a ban to keep someone from making 12 bogus accounts strictly for the purpose of banning someone. Alternately, there could be a separate option to vote for banishment. Locking votes to registered Vegas serial numbers could also be a basis for a valid vote. (again, to keep people from making bogus votes) It can be a self-policing forum if Sony wants it and then Sony is not booting anyone so no one can complain that Sony banned them.

~jr

Matt, your comments, totally justified, begs the question: "Would Sony be willing to resolve this issue once and for all by removing the offenders and if not, why?"

I can only speak for myself, but I think many of us can't help but wonder why things have been allowed to continue as they have.

Excellent suggestion, John!

> I think many of us can't help but wonder why things have been allowed to continue as they have

I imagine that people who get banded can sue Sony for mistreatment. Doesn’t matter if its justified or not, law suits will prevail. (Hey, if you can sue McDonalds for serving a hot cup of coffee, you can sue anyone for anything!)

That’s why I suggested self-policed. Then Sony is not liable (of course, I’m not lawyer so I cannot say this for sure). They might be asked to investigate the banning but they did not ban anyone and so cannot be held accountable.

I don’t expect anyone to be banned. What I expect will happen is people will think twice before being disruptive to the forum because their actions are being judged by their peers. It is human nature to be nice to the people you are held accountable to.

~jr

I had a chatter/forum member threaten to report me to the FBI and the FCC because i was violating his 1st ammendment rights for deleting a few of his more vicious posts. Apparently he had a history of coming into Christian/family oriented chats purposefully to cause as much problems as possible and get them shut down. I checked around and indeed a couple of other nice small Christian chats had closed down rather than face his threats. Very very sad.

I didn't bother listening to him. For one thing, every single "law" that he quoted couldn't be found anywhere, so he was obviously making it up. For another, the FCC does not regulate the internet, so they didn't care in the slightest about his complaints, even if he did actually contact them. Thirdly, he was chatting in a private forum and the 1st ammendment only applies to public forums. For a forth, he was a Canadian citizen. Last i checked, Canada doesn't have a 1st ammendment guaranteeing the right to free speech. *shrug*

What i finally did was set up a function in the software that allowed him to see his own postings, but no one else did anymore. After people stopped responding to him he finally disappeared. Haven't heard a thing from him (or the FBI or the FCC) in 3 years.

I guess my point is, problems are usually problems because of the response they get. Don't respond and the problem usually goes away on it's own.