Important member banned

[CarltonTroisi]

This was an important member who helped keep the lights on, beta-tested countless missions, gave advice and assistance to many, co-authored as well as authored his own missions.

 

You cannot have a healthy, active mod without industrious members. This guy was a pillar of the community.

 

I'm hoping it's only temporary. You have a guy who's given countless hours of his time over many years, and the thanks he gets is a ban? So, it's got to be temporary right?

 

I've been watching, also. Some heavy-handed adjustments to older missions for bugfixing. Some wanton use of templates. Really? That justifies exile of an important content creator? Of an industrious workhorse? For real?

[STiFU]

Everybody sees the value of Bikerdude and respects what he has achieved and done for us. That's why the team held back on going down this route for so damn long. What you maybe don't see right now is that many valued members already left the mod because of drama with BD. There are also numerous people who have expressed concerns that their released assets might get plagiarised etc. This must not happen in our community. So, this is actually an effort to prevent more harm to the team and the community.

 

I am honestly really sad to see BD go, but I also fear that him staying might cause more harm in the long run.

[Springheel]

(For those who have no idea what this is regarding, this happened)

 

 

That justifies exile of an important content creator? Of an industrious workhorse? For real?

 

 

This issue with Bikerdude has been going on for years, first behind the scenes and then in public. Don't assume you know the whole story if you've only seen public posts about it, or read Bikerdude's version of the events.

 

We almost never ban anyone in this community, so don't think we took this action lightly.

[Kurshok]

Hey, Springheel, I don't mean to butt in to this conversation, but what are the future plans for the Dark Mod? Will we see an official storyline series? New monsters and steambeasts? What's the future hold?

[chakkman]

You know what's the biggest tragedy about this? That so few people who still make missions for this mod have to fight against each other. I can see why Bikerdude was a controversial figure, but, man... this is a real shame, especially as it also involved a member who has never created a single map for this mod. I just hope that someone will join the community who is as big as a workhorse as Bikerdude was.

[New Horizon]

I've been watching, also. Some heavy-handed adjustments to older missions for bugfixing. Some wanton use of templates. Really? That justifies exile of an important content creator? Of an industrious workhorse? For real?

What about all the equally talented content creators we have lost over the past few years? Not a tear shed for them? The situation with Biker has been getting worse and worse. He is a talented mapper but he is certainly not the person holding the mod together. There are a handful of humble people quietly working hard behind the scenes, rarely making a peep in regard to seeking recognition. Biker has been spoken to so many times, and I have long been one to defend him and suggest patience, giving him chance after chance. This time was the last straw for me. Whatever personal issues Biker has, he needs to solve them on his own. His behavior has cost us far too many talented mappers.

 

Biker had asked us to Ban him in the past, as if he felt he couldn't control himself, we chose not to at that point. We don't normally ban anyone. Today was the day though. It had to happen.

 

Enough is enough.

[Kurshok]

I really hope this isn't a sign of bad portents of the new year. The Dark Mod is one of the final legacies currently for the Thief series. If this causes some sort of negative domino effect that destroys the community, I don't know how to get other Thief fans together and rally around Eidos Montreal to make a remake of the original Dark Project, Metal Age, and Deadly Shadows.

[duzenko]

NM

[Guest]

especially as it also involved a member who has never created a single map for this mod

 

You keep repeating this, but being a mapper or not isn't a major factor here. There are mappers, coders, and modelers who were angered, or stopped posting on the forums / left the mod completely. The list includes SirTaffsalot, SteveL, AirshipBallet, Goldwell, Melan, Springheel (both in the past and lately, due to my intervention). And, as of today, also Spoonman, who just found out two of his maps were modified without consent.

 

This is indeed a sad situation, but it's also really hard to have a healthy environment, and share our work safely with all that's been going on lately.

[jaxa]

Anyone who left because of BD going to rejoin the community now? Or is the damage permanent?

[Boiler's_hiss]

It might not be exactly the right thing to post here now, but the situation of modification/copying without permission made me recall and look into origination of Bikerdudes's the Gatehouse FM.
Here is description/readme of the original map.

Evilartist should at least be credited on FM page/ingame downloader as author of the Gatehouse.

Edit: I'm sorry to bother everyone else due to my inadvertence, I didn't remember to check there.

Edited January 2, 2019 by Boiler's_hiss

[Guest]

Isn't TDM Gatehouse using the map layout from this?

 

The original map readme is clear on this: "Please, do not copy my map into any of your mods or map packs. Do not
use it as a base for new maps, either. Please make your own work."

 

Edit: TDM readme states the permission has been given.

Edited January 1, 2019 by Judith

[Epifire]

Anyone who left because of BD going to rejoin the community now? Or is the damage permanent?

 

Only time will tell I suppose. It had been sort of a mistrust/worry among friends I'd spoken too and that kind of thing isn't earned back in an instant. People have to be shown their work has some protection here, so this is the first logical step to achieving that.

[Xarg]

You have a guy who's given countless hours of his time over many years, and the thanks he gets is a ban?

No, I'm pretty sure the thanks he got for his countless hours were near universal praise from the membership for his work, and constant helpful attitude.

 

I've been watching, also. Some heavy-handed adjustments to older missions for bugfixing. Some wanton use of templates. Really? That justifies exile of an important content creator? Of an industrious workhorse? For real?

 

 

If you've really "been watching" you'll know the things he's being punished for. "Heavy handed adjustment for bug fixing" = remodeling significant parts of a map that weren't considered buggy? Or even altering a map that permission wasn't given for and inventing entirely in his own head that permission was even given? "Really?"? How heavy this hand must be!

"Wanton use of templates" is the same as copying whole-cloth from other missions and doubling-down when confronted on it? "For real?"? I don't think you've been watching all that closely at all. That or you think everyone else is a liar?

[kano]

Really sad to see this community starting to tear itself apart. Also impressed that you managed to produce such a quality game without it happening in the process! That said, I for one really like Bikerdude. My experience with him is that he's nothing but a friendly and helpful guy. It would be cool if you could post some of this internal drama publicly, so that more of us could read what has been going on and decide for ourselves how we really feel about stuff like this. Unless he's, like, actively sabotaging the project or doing nothing but causing trouble, a ban is pretty extreme IMO.

[New Horizon]

Really sad to see this community starting to tear itself apart. Also impressed that you managed to produce such a quality game without it happening in the process! That said, I for one really like Bikerdude. My experience with him is that he's nothing but a friendly and helpful guy. It would be cool if you could post some of this internal drama publicly, so that more of us could read what has been going on and decide for ourselves how we really feel about stuff like this. Unless he's, like, actively sabotaging the project or doing nothing but causing trouble, a ban is pretty extreme IMO.

 

The community is far from tearing itself apart and I don't think it's appropriate to post private drama publicly. It's bad enough that so much has spilled over into the public forums already.

 

I and others have posted that this has been going on for a few years now. We have lost many talented creators because of this. We gave Biker so many chances to learn and change his ways, but every time the same stuff just kept happening. It's NOT right.

 

Whether he is actively sabotaging anything is irrelevant at this point. He needs to sort himself out. We gave him numerous chances to course correct and he didn't. His actions have caused unnecessary drama with a number of content creators and been very destructive. At one point when he had admin privileges on the forum, he deleted a bunch of stuff and created a huge headache for the other admins who had to repair the forum.

 

As I mentioned above, Biker himself had requested that we ban him in the past...I guess because he didn't trust himself not to cross lines...but we refused because that's not normally how we do things. We've finally reached the point where it was clear he wasn't going to change. Life goes on folks. Given the years of chances he has been given to correct his behavior, this ban isn't extreme at all...not in the slightest. It's not like this was a flip decision.

[kano]

So, all the posts he made to the forums have been nuked. Will his missions be nuked from the archives as well? (If TDM was a modern mainstream game and you decided to nuke his missions, they would also be deleted from my HDD automatically, but thankfully that can't happen!)

[Kurshok]

So, all the posts he made to the forums have been nuked. Will his missions be nuked from the archives as well? (If TDM was a modern mainstream game and you decided to nuke his missions, they would also be deleted from my HDD automatically, but thankfully that can't happen!)

I don't think missions should be deleted unless they're full of horrific troll-y stuff, like usage of real-world racist memes or explicit pornography like a bunch of creepy furry stuff, or an entire mission that was made to simply screw with another creator, like accusing someone of being a zoophile or pedo.

[kano]

If the team doesn't do it, he might demand it. Like Eric Cartman said on South Park, "screw you guys, I'm goin' home!"

 

I don't think Bikerdude would do that though; demand that they be pulled I mean. It would just hurt the fans of the mod and not actually accomplish anything. But some people do/will react this way out of anger if you exile them from a project, be it for justified reasons or not.

Edited January 2, 2019 by kano

[New Horizon]

So, all the posts he made to the forums have been nuked.

Where are you getting the idea that his posts have been nuked? That would destroy the flow of many threads and render them useless.

[kano]

I thought that was how the forums worked; if you get banned, all your posts get deleted too. In my previous life I asked Springheel to ban me because I wanted a new identity and I wanted to delete all my posts. But I guess it doesn't really work that way, my bad.

[Sotha]

I get a deep feeling of deja vu.

 

Smooth operation is everyone's responsibility. It is tough decision, but sometimes it just has go so that partial liabilities are reduced so that the entirety can function better.

 

Proceed as normal.

[Dragofer]

What isn't clear to me at all is how this could escalate. After all, only a select few have access to the TDM mission repository for uploading mission updates. If for example Goldwell started making his own versions of missions and replaced the official versions unwarranted, misusing his access rights, then surely all that would be needed would be to revoke his access to the mission repository and revert to the original version.

 

In cases where a license by the author was given to make an update, I think it'd be reasonable to ask that the author inspects the updated version before consenting to its uploading to the official server. All the work has after all already been done for him.

 

If it's a case where assistance is given during mapping, then the author should implement the ideas that he likes and leave aside the others. This was my experience during collaboration with bikerdude: we are after all 2 different people with each their own style of mapping, so it's clear that on some parts we would diverge, while on others the mission would reap the benefits from having 2 creative minds at work. I can however see problems with this kind of creative process if one author is a newbie while the other is a veteran, as the veteran might then end up taking a perhaps too great influence on development.

 

 

So based on what I've gleaned from public discussion, it would seem like a simple case, but clearly there's more to this drawn-out discussion. Why is there drama about unauthorised updates when those can just be undone or prevented?

[nbohr1more]

What isn't clear to me at all is how this could escalate. After all, only a select few have access to the TDM mission repository for uploading mission updates. If for example Goldwell started making his own versions of missions and replaced the official versions unwarranted, misusing his access rights, then surely all that would be needed would be to revoke his access to the mission repository and revert to the original version.

 

In cases where a license by the author was given to make an update, I think it'd be reasonable to ask that the author inspects the updated version before consenting to its uploading to the official server. All the work has after all already been done for him.

 

If it's a case where assistance is given during mapping, then the author should implement the ideas that he likes and leave aside the others. This was my experience during collaboration with bikerdude: we are after all 2 different people with each their own style of mapping, so it's clear that on some parts we would diverge, while on others the mission would reap the benefits from having 2 creative minds at work. I can however see problems with this kind of creative process if one author is a newbie while the other is a veteran, as the veteran might then end up taking a perhaps too great influence on development.

 

 

So based on what I've gleaned from public discussion, it would seem like a simple case, but clearly there's more to this drawn-out discussion. Why is there drama about unauthorised updates when those can just be undone or prevented?

EXACTLY!!!

 

Neither you nor Spooks had any problem with Bikerdude because you knew the limits of his usefulness and neatly drew the line for him.

 

Anyone sane who watched Bikers forum comments would never have given him any FM administration or backend privileges in the first place.

 

Once the obvious abuse of those privileges were shown he should've had them revoked IMMEDIATELY.

 

Everything after the privilege revoking is silly blather.

 

Mission authors can work with him knowing the caveats of that situation and if any problems arise the MODS can be contacted.

 

Yet everyone is acting like BIker is a Team Member who still wields some authority here.

 

He's already been downgraded and anything he does is independent of the project.

 

If Biker takes work from someone else's mission and incorporates it into a new mappers mission then it's up to the new mapper

 

to do what Spooks and Dragofer so easily did. JUST. SAY. NO!!!

 

How hard is that?

 

"No biker. I cant use these contributions. Thanks anyway."

 

Worth all this drama?

 

Fuck no.

[Bienie]

Thank you for posting this. All of this drama has somehow flown under my radar (aside from the "Cleaning up the Neighborhood" part). My first instinct was to rush to Bikerdude's defense, due to my own interactions with him being 100% positive. But reading the thread Springheel linked to it became clear that Bikerdude has repeatedly overstepped bounds that put him at odds with many other prominent members of the community. Considering that he himself realizes he has a problem, perhaps the ban is what is best not only for the community, but for Bikerdude himself. It may be that he needed to hit rock bottom (as in getting banned) in order to sort out his shortcomings when it comes to respecting other people's creative works. It is still conceivable that Bikerdude, after an extended break and introspection, can return and once again be a productive and helpful member of the community. Even if that is not the case, I do hope that this, along with an updated set of community rules, can convince some of the members who have left due to Bikerdude's behavior to return.