TextureFoundry Upgrade Project CANCELLED!

[Michael Kilderry]

Fridger, don't take any notice of what other people say when other people say that you shouldn't have your own Celestia texture website, after all, did I give up on the Lera Solar System when nobody seemed interested in my latest post about it? No! And did I make the Lera Solar System realistic because people would probably like it more if it does? No!

And if you don't want to do that, then don't. I'm not suggesting you stop all your work on Lera - I just don't "get it" is all, and I'm sure a lot of other people here don't either. If nothing else though, it's good practice for you when it comes to making textures.

All I'm saying to you is that you shouldn't just demand that people like, dislike, or even comment on your work here. You're making the system for your own enjoyment more than anything else, and as long as you enjoy it then you really don't need everyone else's opinions to validate it.

The offenders could at least put down what they have to say more politely or just follow this old saying, "If you can't say anything nice, don't say nothing at all".

Trust me, I've been a hell of a lot more polite, a lot more nice and more patient with you than Fridger would ever have been. The fact that I even comment on your work when everyone else doesn't says something. I'm trying to be constructive with you at least, and tell you where I think you're going wrong in your approach here. All Fridger would do - and has actually done with you in some cases, IIRC - would be to make sarcastic comments and put you down.

Either way, you carry on making Lera if you enjoy it. I certainly don't want to put people off doing ANYTHING here. But you do need to understand that it's not really the sort of thing that people here want to see, and so it's not really likely that you'll get much in the way of positive comment. (and you'll also note that people aren't really interested in the "backgrounds" or explanations to fictional worlds here either, because that isn't all that appropriate to these forums).

I think what we have here is a bit of a communications breakdown, I never said that you said that I should stop working on the Lera Solar System, and if you did I wouldn't listen to that anyway. To all the Evil Dr. Ganymede's out there who don't get the Lera System it is a very fictional star system which I have made up some information about, and I do consider The Lera Solar System as practice with my textures, and they just keep getting better as I make them!

Not saying that you said that I have, but I have never demanded that people make comments on my posts, I've just tried to encourage them.

You say that you have been more polite than Fridger, but he has posted me and he has been just as polite (if not more) as you have, and he has not made any sarcastic comments to my knowledge.

I like that you are posting and giving me the constructive criticism that I want, but I will continue to include backgrounds as I think they are necessary to explain the planets properly, but if I ever get my own website, I will put the worldly backgrounds there.

One last thing: When I said that people should be more polite, I wasn't talking about you personally, neither the comments I've had on my own posts, I am just talking about things I read generally in the forum.

Michael Kilderry

[HankR]

Do you want me to go on?

No.

Evil Dr, you are not able to be objective about this. Any fair-minded person who reviews the beginning of this thread will see that this specific conflict was initiated by you with the following belligerant post directed at Fridger:

In other words, you think your textures are too good to be housed on the same site as all the other riff-raff?!

And what's more, you think people are too stupid to differentiate good textures from bad?

Wow. You really need to ratchet down that ego of yours, Fridger.

Your post was inappropriate. It was an unprovoked and unnecessary personal attack.

Evidently you are on some kind of crusade against Fridger for supposed past sins. That just isn't helpful. Yes, I know there's some history here. It's history. Let it go.

I have no interest in debating here whether your annoyance with Fridger is justified. I'm sure that you feel it is. I would not expect to convince you otherwise. But more importantly, it is simply not an appropriate topic for discussion in this forum.

Please stop.

- Hank

[t00fri]

before stopping, here are my last words:
------------------------------------------
Evil Dr Ganymede,

I followed your tasteless, exaggerated and often distorted
public presentation of all my "sins" that in your view I have committed in
the more than 2.5 years of being a most active member of this
community. I must confess (now I am serious!) that this made me loose
the last bit of respect for you!

OK, you claim that there is a crowd of other forum members backing
you up and that you are just expressing what everyone else is thinking
anyway.

Yet, I could read in this thread and via PM quite a few other opinions
as well... You also drove Bob Hegwood out of this forum. He only
returned after I was begging him to do so! He still "loves you" for that...

No doubt, when I now leave this community after > 2.5 years, it is exlusively your "MERIT"!:

Since many months, you are "tracking" all my posts, lurking
around waiting whether "Bad Fridger" has again committed a
"politeness sin" (or used a bit of mathematics ), just to
start hacking on me!

Let me emphasize again that I never intend to be
impolite, yet I admit I am "straight". Perhaps it is related to the
different language habits, somehow, and the fact that my English is
good enough to be taken "by the word".

cf e.g.

Well, for me that special post above didn't look very
attacking. Nearly neutral. I remember others far more agressive.

After the present incident and lockup, there appears only one solution at hand:

++++++++++++++++++++++
Either I leave for good or you will!
+++++++++++++++++++++++

But before leaving, let me remind e.g. some of our younger members of the facts
besides my said "politeness sins":

Our "guardian of good spirits" in this forum says:

I take him to task because his behaviour damages this community.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Yet, I think that a much more adequate measure of the "health" and
"satisfaction" of this forum community resides in the amount and
liveliness of stimulated discussions on Celestia related topics!
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Well, then let's have a look what kind of respective activity will
leave with me, when I go for good:


1875 posts since March 2002, at the second "top poster" position after Selden.

102 initiated threads with 62359 visits and 1448 replies in total

and, of course, quite a bit of coding in Celestia, 45000+ earth
locations, capitals, Pluto/Charon and Titan default textures and binary orbit work (in progress) as a developer and Author of Celestia.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
My high average of 623 hits/thread over 2.5 years clearly
shows that many people like at least the style of my contributions a lot .
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

In exchange, the community will retain you, Evil Dr Ganymede, along
with your highly praised "good spirits" in the forum. Sure, you are
also a long-term member and industrious poster.

Surely, I have calculated your respective hits/thread figure as well,..., hmm... .
Perhaps you explain yourself briefly, why you think the forum needs
your contributions more than mine?

Bye Fridger


PS:

Meanwhile, he has left us in the lurch with some unfinished work in
the Binaries project (which someone must have downloaded while it was
still available, surely?). I don't know where Grant is, but is there
any chance that someone else can take up the reins and finish it? I
didn't get a chance to look at it.

Wow!

I am really surprised to read this from YOU,
after you endlessly lectured on me just a few days ago about
violations of Copyrights and IT theft (-> My Titan)!

My 200+ binary orbits in the binaries.stc file have not yet been
released into the Celestia distribution under GPL. So I still have my
personal Copyright on it. It was the result of weeks of research,
reading and coding work. Now I see you, the "guardian of the moral" here
proposing just to snatch what is left somewhere, after I blocked the download?

Not bad...

So apparently, every medal has two sides: in this case a "shiny" one and
a "....." one It becomes obvious now that the angel Copyright issue in "My Titan" just again served you as a trigger to go on hacking on me...

[danielj]

It will be a pity if the multiple stars addon was cancelled,but I will continue to use it and I think it is very nice.The multiple systems are working well

[HankR]

Fridger,

While you have every right to respond to unwarranted personal attack, it really isn't necessary for you to do so. Your uniquely valuable contributions to the Celestia community speak for themselves.

Evil Dr Ganymede's participation here is also valued. So while your desire to avoid future aggravation is understandable, I sincerely hope that you will reconsider your feeling that one or the other of you must leave the forum.

Perhaps it would possible for the two of you to mutually agree simply not to address or refer to the other in any future posts. I would hope that this solution might avoid further antagonism. Will you consider it?

Evil Dr Ganymede, can you accept this?

- Hank

[Cham]

What a mess !

Now, we have two celestians in a dead end.

I strongly suggest that the two persons just accept to shake hands, both gives the other a polite apologise for the situation, and accept to stop any new post in this thread and to stop responding to each other on any other thread. I think there is no other way now. One of them must accept to do the first move, and it will be his honor to do so.

Please, relax, and shake hands.

[Evil Dr Ganymede]

Actually, Hank, you conveniently failed to mention that Fridger's statements here is what actually started all this off here:

What matters is that lots of people are uploading their
stuff to Motherlode without even knowing remotely what
the basics of image manipulation are, let alone how to
handle layers, their many ways to overlay and all that.

Translation from Fridgerese: "I'm not putting my material in the same place as other stuff made by people who aren't as good as me" with implications of "and I'm going to insult the efforts and abilities of most of the people who have contributed to the Motherlode while I'm at it, since they clearly don't know as much as I do".

I'm sure that a lot of people who contribute to the Motherlode DO know the basics of image manipulation, how to handle layers, and all the other things. Fridger's statement is baseless, insulting, inciteful, and totally unecessary.

For many potential downloaders it therefore becomes increasingly hard to sort out quality textures there among lots of ...

Translation from Fridgerese: "People incapable of recognising a good texture when they see it."

No. People are quite capable of recognising well-made textures when they see them. Yes, it becomes more challenging to pick a favourite when there's lots of choice, but he has no right to assume that people aren't capable of doing so.

I just want to follow the opposite strategy: Things are
supposed to become /effectively/ simple on my site,
since all textures that I will offer, will be prepared with
utmost care and a substantial know-how. Thats all

Translation from Fridgerese: "Obviously nobody else takes as much care or puts as much effort into their work as I do".

He has no right to assume anything about how much effort or care everyone else puts into their work that they make available, anywhere, and he certainly has no right to implicitly denigrate it by implying that their work will not be prepared with as much care and know-how that they can put into it.

So, you tell me how a "fair-minded person" is supposed to interpret what he said there in any other way.

And no Hank, I will not agree to "just ignore him". Because if I did that then he would just continue to denigrate others' work and sneer at the newcomers and generally be his usual antisocial self.

----------

As for you, Fridger - the fact that you are petty enough to quote your contributions to the board in hits/thread, how many threads you've started, and other statistical irrelevance speaks volumes for you. It's not quantity of contributions here that count, it's quality. And while I'm not arguing that the quality of developmental contributions is high, your conversational contributions are little more than execrable.

It's not about "who's done more for Celestia" or "who deserves to be here". Again, you demonstrate your enormous ego by assuming that your position HERE on this board is judged solely on what you contribute behind the scenes to Celestia. It isn't. A discussion board is no different to reality - you're working in a community, and regardless of the quality of your work, if you can't behave like a decent human being in that community then you will be called to task on it regardless of how great you think you are.

My contributions to Celestia itself have been different in nature to yours. I've been testing out the multiple stars setup in the new version of Celestia and tracking down bugs there. I've been trying to help people who ask questions about things. I've chipped in a lot on the Physics and Astronomy board and answered a lot of questions there.

Are those contributions "better" than yours? WHO CARES?! All that matters is that I've been of use to people. All that should matter to anyone here is that they've been some use, and that they've contributed SOMETHING, no matter how small - because every little bit counts. Being a major contributor certainly should not be used as an excuse to treat people like crap. Selden and Grant and Chris have probably contributed more than you have to the development of Celestia and do they act like everyone should bow down to their astouding superiority as a result? No, they don't. It's just you. And Bob had pretty much the same attitude as you, for that matter.

I have no intention of leaving this community over this - I have never even said that I have. You're the one storming out in a huff (though apparently not, since you're still here) because you simply refuse to admit that you are not capable of dealing with people with any kind of respect, and thus you refuse to change your attitude. You're an intellectual snob of the highest order, Fridger - and that makes you incredibly obnoxious in discussions.

So don't blame me for your inadequacies and your total lack of maturity, Fridger. And don't blame me for "forcing you out".


As for your binaries file - well, there was a link to it (now dead) in that thread when you said it was cancelled. I'd presumed that you'd made it public already and then pulled it when you threw your tantrum, and so I assumed it was already out there. I'm not an IP thief, and I find it contemptible that you should try to accuse me of that in a cheap dig on your way out. Either way, you don't own the rights to Binaries in general, and someone else can start or continue the project.

Again though - you show a total lack of maturity. You'd rather pull the files and let Grant down, let Chris down, let the other developers down, and let this whole community down... for what? All because you can't accept that you do not know how to deal with people? Because you're shown up for your atrocious behaviour on the discussion boards? How very, very cowardly and petty of you.

So if you are actually leaving (funny, I thought you'd left ages ago. What are you still doing here?), then as far as I'm concerned good riddance to you.


Oh, and Cham - it doesn't work like that, as I have already told you. I sure as hell see no reason to apologise to Fridger - particularly since I have done nothing wrong. Plus, that would only massage his already enormous ego. He would think that he could continue to be his usual obnoxious self, because anyone calling him on his behaviour would just ultimately end up apologising for it, purely for the sake of keeping the peace. Well, I'm not in the business of apologising when other peoples' behaviour is the issue.

As far as I'm concerned there are two ways Fridger can get out of this - either :

- he can stop making threats and just leave the boards, in which case it is 100% certain that this place will undoubtedly become a much more pleasant place to be as a result. So we may lose a developer, but gaps can be filled and Celestia will continue.

- he can genuinely and sincerely apologise for his behaviour and more importantly CHANGE his behaviour, by treating people here - especially newcomers - with more respect, by not putting other peoples' efforts down all the time, by not thinking he's so damn superior to everyone else, and by changing the tone of his posts. This would be ideal, but I strongly doubt that there's any possibility that this would happen, and even if it did it probably wouldn't last for long anyway. He's been called on his behaviour for over two years here, and he hasn't changed a bit in all that time.

[Cham]

Dr Evil Ganymedde,

IMHO, you failed.

It is you which are writing pages and pages of critics. By the size of all your posts, you seems to have a real problem here. You continually put gasoline on the fire. The situation is caused by you with all your replies.

Yes, I may be putting gasoline too, but I had to say it.

[Cormoran]

I will admit, I am disappointed.

I had felt when I joined this forum that I was in a place where likeminded people gathered to discuss things of interest to me. I felt it to be civilised, even restful. A Haven of knowledge that I had been seeking for many years (albeit with very little chance of understanding all of it).

My opinion has changed. While many of the factors that brought me here and kept me here remain, some do not. Its not peaceful anymore. Its not all about the stars and planets anymore. As any community grows, the less it can function by consensus, as a benevolent anarchy, if you will. The self-regulating aspects of the community become too weak to manage the behaviour of the whole. This is what has happened here, I feel.

And therefore I am forced to make another suggestion (unless its already written down somewhere), since my comments regarding moderation seem to have resulted in even more rage (not pointed at me, thank goodness). We need rules. Simple, common-sense rules:

1/ If you write a post in open forum, it should be polite and relevant.

2/ If you wish to complain about a post, discuss it in PM, initially with the poster, and then with the Moderator if necessary.

3/ If you wish to complain about a poster, the same applies.

4/ The Management have the right to lock down or delete any thread that breaches these rules, or the account of anyone who breaches these rules.



I would be the first to admit that Fridger irritates the living daylights out of me. His postings can be extremely acidic, even when replying to the most inoffensive of messages. At first I was able to put it down to a problem of translation. However, his eloquent use of the english language (which I admire, being monolingual myself), disproves that hypothesis. My only conclusion was and is that he is angry about something he loves being corrupted from what he see's as its original purpose by the influx of newbies like me. I would add to that statement that Fridger has never made a personal attack on me, or my postings, and thus I have no personal axe to grind here.

Fridger, as far as I am concerned, constantly violates the politeness rule. Unfortunately, so do the others who respond to his impoliteness, and a vicious circle has developed. Some time ago, as has been stated, 'Braindead' Bob snapped at another poster who he seemed to think wasn't trying to actually understand the program and how it worked, and again the circle of attack and counter-attack developed, forcing a similar situation to the one we are in now.

My overall opinion:

Everyone is valuable to this community. No-One is indispensible. If someone.... anyone... is consistently impolite, acidic, irate, condescending etc, they get booted out.

Fridger has a lot to offer us. We shouldn't run him out. Conversely, he should not be allowed to run anyone else out. None of us have that right, except Chris. We seem to have forgotten something. This isn't a democracy.

I can suggest until I am blue in the face, but it won't make any difference...
Its up to the combatants to back away from where this is taking us. For all our sakes, drop the knives, step back, turn away, and politely ignore each other.

I'm done.

Jon

(also known in more frivalous times as Cormoran)

[Evil Dr Ganymede]

I've made my points enough here. If people still disagree or refuse to see my points, then fine. I've got better things to do with my time than argue with everyone. I have already apologised for hammering the point home so much, but I am not responsible for and I cannot apologise for Fridger's behaviour. If you can't see how antagonistic his posts can be, then you either give him a vast amount more slack than any "fair minded" person would, or you're not reading his posts.

If more active moderation is required, then so be it. I'd be glad to see it, to be honest. A "report post" button would be nice so that people could instantly report a post to the Moderator and let them deal with it - but for that to be any use we must have rules and the Mods must be strict in enforcing them and willing to do so. Troublemakers more likely to listen to a Guy In Charge rather than Another Random User, especially if the Guy In Charge threatens them with the boot if they don't start behaving or if they repeat their behaviour.

Meanwhile I'm going to go back to playing around with multiple systems...

[Harry]

I for one found Fridger's "Monsterlode" comment not very encouraging - I and many others have put a lot of work into that site, more work than most people here are aware of, and therefore to me such a comment is disrespectful. I too have contributed quite a lot to Celestia in various ways (feel free to look e.g. at the CVS logs if you need numbers), and while it may not have been rocket science I still expect others to respect this.

Probably (hopefully) this wasn't Fridger's intention, and I can deal with this just fine. But others can't, his posts can be problematic, and I understood Evil Dr. Ganymede's posts as an attempt at pointing out to Fridger how people actually read his posts. It's unfortunate that this got ouf of hand this way.

Harald

[t00fri]

Evil Dr Ganymede,

quite many PM's keep coming in from people stating their support and disagreement with all the aggression against me in your on-going one-man show above.

What should I tell them? To leave with me? Or how do you like it? How do these people fit into your plot?

Along these lines, I keep asking myself, who entitles you to speak on behalf of the entire "Forum"? To accuse me in the worst style, while what you deliver in your monologues above is far below any standards of decency?

How can it be that I have to read in your posts, how my carefully phrased posts about Motherlode are to be translated into a most aggressive wording ("Fridgerese") that I have never written?

Have I ever expanded about what I think about your intellectual abilities? No.

But I have to read continuously how immature I am, about my "huge ego", my impoliteness, my inability to deal with people, the low quality of my contributions to the boards etc.

Think about it, just for one minute, please!

Bye Fridger

PS:

Harry: I am really sorry about the "Monsterlode". That was definitely misplaced and basically unintentional.

[Cormoran]

Fridger,

I have no doubts that Evil Dr. Ganymede has received one or two posts in support of his own stance (I myself sent him one, I know, before it get REALLY venomous over the last 20 hours or so).

However, he has now stepped away.

You've made your views known. So has he.

Every time I've posted on this thread, I've asked myself 'how will people react to this?' I'm quite careful about ANY post I make, on any subject, primarily to ensure I don't look too much like a neanderthal.

I refer the community to my post regarding the need for rules of conduct.

And to Fridger I say:

You're a very talented man. Perhaps you should point a small element of the intellect behind that talent, in the direction of considering how other people react to your posts. I know you're capable of polite and useful discourse. But you are also capable of at best annoying and at worst seriously upsetting people with the way you act. Many people who would under better circumstances be extremely interested in the techniques you use to create your textures may be scared off by you. The talents you have could have a much wider audience if your only nicer to people.

Or don't we deserve that level of respect?

Cormoran

[DaveMc]

I usually don't jump into threads like this which have gotten personal, totally off topic, and seem to be going nowhere.

I'll just stick to the facts: Fridger you are an enormous asset to the Celestia program and community. There are now almost 1800 members of this forum plus countless others who no doubt use it but aren't registered. Please don't cancel your upgrade project, which benefits thousands, because of the conflicts between a few.

My dime's worth.......

Dave

[Guest]

Fridger,

It really isn't necessary for you to defend yourself further, as everything you're saying is obvious. There's no need to belabor the point. Your irritation is understandable, but please give the Evil Dr a break here.

Evil Dr Ganymede,

Please don't feel you have to respond to Fridger's essentially rhetorical questions. It won't be helpful. As you said, you've made your points enough here, and we've all got better things to do.

And Fridger,

Please tell your supporters you've decided to stay, and they should too.

Cormoran,

I know you're just trying to be helpful, but Fridger really doesn't need any more lectures about how he should try to be nicer. Some people find Fridger's directness disconcerting, but that's just the way he is. Sure, it takes some getting used to (as I can personally attest), but it's honestly not that difficult. A little tolerance is all that's needed here.

- Hank

[Cham]

Okay, can we lock this thread now ?

Is it finished ? Flame down ? Cool wind ? Everybody got his beer ?

[brunetto_64]

ok for a beer.....and if all you coming in italy , I pay at everybody a beer!!!
peace guys...

[Evil Dr Ganymede]

I know you're just trying to be helpful, but Fridger really doesn't need any more lectures about how he should try to be nicer. Some people find Fridger's directness disconcerting, but that's just the way he is. Sure, it takes some getting used to (as I can personally attest), but it's honestly not that difficult. A little tolerance is all that's needed here.

I know I said I wouldn't say anything more here, I'm not saying this to fan flames or anything and I would PM you with this but I can't since you're a Guest - but I just find it curious that you basically say "we should just put up with Fridger, because that's how he is", but while you acknowledge that he is 'direct' (I'd call it "tactless" myself. If he was 'direct' he wouldn't resort to sarcasm and thinly-veiled comments) you don't even remotely imply that Fridger should learn to change his behaviour because his 'directness' is causing problems.

So I ask - why should others be expected to change here in order to smooth things over, but not Fridger? You acknowledge that his behaviour causes problems, yet you expect everyone else to just put up with it?