This is the issue with the community, I'm trying to put things behind all of us and work towards the greater good but once again another topic has descended into arguments.
The reason I left this site is purely this, I felt like there was too much tension, I didnt make another site, I didn't get an army of keyboard warriors, I literally just moved.
This whole model theft has been blown way out of proportion, yeah there were some things raf used without my knowledge but they were never stolen, if you'll actually check all of our readme a have always credited Mikey he's actually a nice guy who is easy to level with, hell after all of this he still spoke to me and we sorted things out. The problem now lies with members uninformed carrying on this saga.
I don't really care what you do, I just knew the itchboy before all of this, that was so eager to help others and didn't care about anything else, now it just seems like you've changed and you've even started hindering all the people you once helped.
Yeah reskins aren't the best, but so what? If someone wants to make a mod that someone else will enjoy too who cares how complex it is? That's just where egos come into it and a community run by egos will fall apart pretty quick.
Anyway thanks for dragging up the whole model thing once again it's always fun. I know there's too many minds that are already made up so this entire post is pretty much in vain, but you all really need to start rebuilding the community if it's going to survive.
Since my name has been thrown into this mix yet again I will go ahead and state my peace on this issue and hopefully it'll end here with it.
What I have noticed is that much of the tension that occurs here as of recent has came in the form of persons from the other english site roaming their way here with the explicit purposes of stirring the pot so to speak. I know this because sadly for me, I've had to address it several times in recent weeks, which ultimately is not beneficial to the community and any potential "healing" that can take place. Perhaps if people exercised the concept of "can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all" things would be more amicable. For your part dyson, you are not one of those that seems to intend to stir the pot, others on the other hand have done just that in the process. People have their own agendas and I can tell you from long experience, many of them do not share the well-being of the community in mind.
To me with our issues that we encountered, the issues could have been addressed in a much more discreet manner (which would have suited everyone in the end I believe), unfortunately you made choices to make the issue quite public which propagated much of the tensions that are currently going on in this community. While I cannot say you were aware of what Raf did do or did not do, he or someone else did ultimately take from my mod without permission and did so in a deceptive manner at best. I can say from what I was shown that it was in fact not a minor issue from my view, there were many models directly taken from my mod and altered to attempt to conceal where they originated, to me that is a pretty big deal considering the time I did put into those projects. That being said, had we not had a previous misunderstanding which Hoppah addressed on my behalf stating very clearly and in concise terms that the content had to be removed it probably would not have been such a big deal to me either.
Unfortunately, Hoopah did make it clear that the content from my NYC mod would have to be removed and Raf stated it would be removed per the request, but failed to actually follow through on his word does make what he did in fact a theft, not a misunderstanding. Your culpability in the whole scenario as to how much you were aware of, as well as any potential part you had in the issues was debatable at best, especially considering that you yourself do not model, so chances are you never saw the wireframes to see they were in fact carbon copies of mine. As such the only reason you had to have involvement was because of the fact you are the steward of those mods, which unfortunately makes you accountable to rectifying the situation we had. You were not banned, nor actually warned as a result of any of this, nor should you have been given that there is no definitive tie to you and being directly responsible for the theft of that content. Ultimately Raf should have owned up to that issue, it was taken on his good faith and his word that he resolved the problems the previous go-round we had, which he ultimately did not actually follow through on in the least. That is what ultimately offended me more than anything, had it have been the first time we had any issues, it would not have bothered me as badly, but having the same issue crop up again when Raf assured it would be addressed was quite offensive and to be made into a villain when I in fact wronged in the first place was totally insane to me. Perhaps you were a victim as well dyson, but that would be something to take up with Raf regarding, since he is the one who quite honestly lied to me as much as you.
I gave a fairly simple resolution to you, of which you can partake on either one of them to consider our situation resolved. The first being to remove all the offending content that was not from the LA mod but in fact came from the NYC mod, or alternatively to credit the materials from the NYC mod separately and with the caveat to contact me for permission to use it. If either of those steps are taken we would be perfectly fine and life would go on for my part in the crediting nightmare. The content from LA I always let be out there just for ease of the fact that Hoop made the LA mod open to use by anyone, so that content is allowed to be used, NYC I did not make it free to use but simply required asking permission from me to use it, which most the time I permit.
Reskin mods do have their place in this community, they work as a great stop-gap between the new content created, as that takes a ton of time to do, especially when you have your life outside of this community to take into account. Most of us have to work or goto school, on top of other personal obligations which limit our modding-time quite a bit. Reskins work great to fill those voids between such steps forward in the format of new content, as well as giving new modders a venue to try to wade into the modding process. To me though I have to be honest in that I miss the days when such reskin mods were classified as "sub-mods" of the original modification which they largely worked off of, since back then it was much clearer how much someone was actually responsible for vs how much was from the original people. The problems we've had alot lately ultimately result from lax crediting processes by a good number of the modders in general, thus making it much harder for the reskinners to have proper accounting of the credits and who did what.
As an original content creator I can honestly say that for the most part what I find offensive more than anything is how people on both sides seem iron-willed to create the extremes of both sides of this argument instead of trying to see one another's perspectives and trying to find some understanding and more importantly respect for one another. Fact is, the reskinners who wish to use the content out there would not have new content without the original guys taking the time to make it in the first place, the game would get very stale very fast as a result. No matter how many times you respray a model, if it's unchanged it's still the exact same model as the one you've already seen countless times before. To follow the wishes of these guys who are taking the time to make such content that you have access to because they do invest that time. For some it's as simple as crediting them, for others they have more strict caveats, but if you want to release it for the public, you really should be following whatever these people deem. If you don't want to have to worry about such hassles, the catch is that you'd do your project in private and could not distribute it... It's really that simple.
That being said though, original creators have to be willing to give a little bit in letting people use their stuff to start out. We all started somewhere, and for most it was modifying other's works to learn the ropes, be it in this game or another game for most of us it's how we learned as well. So there has to be some give to let people use the stuff to help them start their modding futures, that is one thing that several years ago made it quite trying to start out in modding this game. A few years ago you did not have the luxury of so much content to source to kitbash together to make your own reskin mod, back then there was far less content and most of it was totally unavailable. Now you have it out there with for the most part reasonable considerations to the original authors required to use them. Please if you want to use other's stuff, including mine, take the time to credit them, and if they don't explicitly say "feel free to use it" ask them if you can use it in a project you intend to release. It's a common courtesy and something quite honestly that has been forgotten and taken advantage of far too often in recent times.
Perhaps just perhaps if people were a little less extreme a bit more understanding of everyone things would calm down, but as I've said before many out there have their own vendettas and agendas they feel the need to pursue and are using such a time as this to their full exploitation. What is really sad is that we as a community cannot see this conduct and clip it out. If the community wants to be a community, healing starts from within, learn to be more understanding and ultimately more respectful, that goes for everyone out there... If everyone wants to be egotistical and selfish, then there is no point in calling it a community at all, Original creators need to be willing to help new guys start out, reskinners/new guys need to be willing to respect the guys who make the content they themselves want to use.. If we can manage to get there perhaps the whole credit/permissions bs will calm down, if people continue to be unwilling to give and just want to take, then extremism will persist.
