In this case it's more like 'it's not how you say it, but who says it'. Let me tell you, "that guy" did more than just posting these few pictures. To name a few examples, there were pictures of Dodgeboy's Interceptor which has been converted without permission, there were pictures of hubcaps and bumpers, both were unique models that had been recognized by their creators.

 

The majority of the community won't understand what it means to create a mod, in these case even models like whole vehicles. Don't think the allegations had no reason.

 

I'm not trying defend deco's or JokerMods' actions, I'm trying to let you understand them and what happend before. I actually don't even care about this case in particular, I don't want a specific member to look completely innocent, although he is not.

 

Which rules have been broken? The issue were the public accusations, yet that's what's happening in this thread here as well, but carried out by staff. Your guidelines state "abusing, teasing, demeaning, 'flaming' or 'trolling'" are forbidden, yet these words purely depend on interpretation. You don't even call them rules but guidelines. Unlike rules, guidelines usually aren't even mandatory.

I do understand that you don't want people to break the rules that aren't clearly written down, but I want you to understand that your rules were unrightful in many people's eyes. LCPDFR wants to be a modding website and therefore needs to protect modders against thieves. You're speaking about "some" gallery images, but if one single person keeps posting models obviously belonging to other authors, it is provoking and staff should take action.

 

As I said before, I've talked to quite a few of the people involved. I do agree with you that nothing changed. I know at least three people who tried to help you improve your rules and tell you what's their issue with the pictures, yet, as far as I know, every advise has been blocked, since you didn't want to cause any unverifiable suspicions. I've already had this discussion with Sam, I don't need to repeat it.

 

What do you expect people to do, if they get warnings for their comments and get told staff is thinking about a better idea? They obviously won't like the fact nothing changes for months. As I've said before, many modders left LCPDFR.com and went to other websites. They don't care about getting more warnings because they don't use that page anyways.

Of course you can always say that they violated the rules and should just go somewhere else. Then they're called childish because they simply follow that advise.

You can try to make your community fit your rules and ban every third member, or you make your rules fit your community.

 

>We aren't doing anything?

 

Regarding rules and guidelines, it's clearly defined exactly what a "guideline" is here:

 

A rule or instruction that shows or tells how something should be done

 

 

 

Your behaviour illustrates the problems we face, there's absolutely no respect for us as staff, our rules or other members. We reached out some of the modders last month, just over 30 days ago (the staff section post was created "4 weeks ago", we hardly had much time to do antyhing back then, LCPDFR 1.0 was just around the corner and we had several flame wars started by modders.

The suggestions we got varied, however the scope was everything from "banning mods from the gallery" to "setting up a theft investigation team", some openly advocated for public accusations.

 

The accusations carried on, it escalated to some making derogatory remarks at us. One user responded to a final PM warning with a post where we were called "faggots" for enforcing the rules, another sent me a private message with the title "you fail" with several abusive remarks about my person in it. There has been similar public posts on other sites.

 

We started all this just over a month ago, how do you expect us to work on finding a way to deal with the issue in a resonable and sane manner in the same month that LCPDFR 1.0 came out, with Christmas and with several arguments happening every day.

 

You modders aren't the victims here, we haven't ignored you, we haven't taken harsh action at you guys, one one of you received a 12 month suspension for repeatedly calling people out, he received several PM's, a number of warnings, was put on mod queue, given temporary bans and even had his posting rights removed (which prompted the "faggots" PM I mentioned)

 

We're not going to implement anything that severely restricts all but the few modders that so readily jump to the guns when they see an image they don't like in the gallery.

 

 

I think we've been more than fair with the modders.

When you upload something to a public domain like this for free, you can't get mad when it gets spread around and used elsewhere. Modders have no copyright claims when they upload their content to a public domain. It's almost impossible to credit every single little thing used when the person who remade the thing you're using didn't credit the original person and it just snowballs. Modders need to get off their high horse and realize they are not gods they just content creators.

Your behaviour illustrates the problems we face, there's absolutely no respect for us as staff, our rules or other members.

 

When you upload something to a public domain like this for free, you can't get mad when it gets spread around and used elsewhere. Modders have no copyright claims when they upload their content to a public domain. It's almost impossible to credit every single little thing used when the person who remade the thing you're using didn't credit the original person and it just snowballs. Modders need to get off their high horse and realize they are not gods they just content creators.

I don't agree with this. Although modders usually don't have copyright on their work if it's a vehicle model (as its a derivative work of an already copyrighted work), we do enforce credits and protecting against claimed stolen content.

Thank you for your highly contributive statement here, Kevin. I'm glad you've chimed in with your view. Examples like this pretty much show to our members what we're talking about. I think it's called a prime example.

At least I don't have to do much to show the stupidity that some people have 'round here.

When you upload something to a public domain like this for free, you can't get mad when it gets spread around and used elsewhere. Modders have no copyright claims when they upload their content to a public domain. It's almost impossible to credit every single little thing used when the person who remade the thing you're using didn't credit the original person and it just snowballs. Modders need to get off their high horse and realize they are not gods they just content creators.

There's a difference between forgetting somebody or intentionally ripping models or using people's work with permission.

But to make you happy, you might want to know that this is why Kevin, EVI and I stopped releasing.

 

>We aren't doing anything?

That's not even close to the topic of this debate.

 

Regarding rules and guidelines, it's clearly defined exactly what a "guideline" is here:

Exactly, "should" be done, not must be done. That's the difference between rules and guidelines. No need for quibbling though.

 

The accusations carried on, it escalated to some making derogatory remarks at us. One user responded to a final PM warning with a post where we were called "faggots" for enforcing the rules, another sent me a private message with the title "you fail" with several abusive remarks about my person in it. There has been similar public posts on other sites.

Yes, I know. That happend some time after the whole problem started growing.

 

We started all this just over a month ago, how do you expect us to work on finding a way to deal with the issue in a resonable and sane manner in the same month that LCPDFR 1.0 came out, with Christmas and with several arguments happening every day.

Using the LCPDFR mod as an excuse for the whole staff being tied up with business makes me believe LCPDFR.com is no modding website, but a mod website.

 

You modders aren't the victims here, we haven't ignored you, we haven't taken harsh action at you guys, one one of you received a 12 month suspension for repeatedly calling people out, he received several PM's, a number of warnings, was put on mod queue, given temporary bans and even had his posting rights removed (which prompted the "faggots" PM I mentioned)

As I mentionied, I know about the suspensions and PMs. Also, as I said as well, that already happend at the peak of the situation.

 

We're not going to implement anything that severely restricts all but the few modders that so readily jump to the guns when they see an image they don't like in the gallery.

You don't need to, you could have simply asked the author of the picture about a better picture of the vehicle's polygons and it would have been clear. But as I said in another post, you don't want to suspect anybody without having a completely obvious proof. I guess in real life, with police working that way, no criminal could be arrested.

 

Your behaviour illustrates the problems we face, there's absolutely no respect for us as staff, our rules or other members.

I'm sorry, but this sentence is just confirming my point of view. No criticsm or advise is wanted. Although I'm trying to stay calm and polite and give you advise, you're criticising me personally. Although I don't plan on start insulting, I'm definitly not going to restrain my honest opinion now anymore, as you might have noticed.

 

I think we've been more than fair with the modders.

You think so, the modders don't. That's why they're gone.

I can see a couple of points illustrated by CJ24 that has been made that could be sound improvements to the website in this regard. Primarily, the inclusion of additional staff of which may or may not have a direct focus on various modding related issues. They would be impartial, directly handle all those accusations addressed to that topic, and moderate the issue appropriately. Not only would you have a staff dedicated and responding to those issues with haste, it would allow for the remaining staff members to focus on the community aspect of the website in order to improve the overall quality and assist other users in various locations. I just feel the response time and reflective frustration experienced with modders will never be a perfectly solved solution. In my limited time working with KevinDV and CJ24 at their previous hosting site, they had a very strict monitoring of all their modification efforts, and dealt with all claims of theft with impartial view and rendered moderation without prejudice. 

Additionally, I agree that the 'guidelines' needs to be solidified into rules. While the guidelines are a start, they're not strict and difficult to enforce, allowing for extreme interpretation. Translating these into 'rules' or relatable terms allows for strict and appropriate punishment to all involved. Clarification in this manner will only improve the situation a great deal. Identifying the description of what theft or appearance of theft is on this website and the punishment, in black and white to those who violate it could deter some un-allowed activity.

As I mentioned, there isn't a perfect solution to be had, and there will always be issues. But, in credence to your efforts and the rest of LCPDFR, if the staff takes that extra amount of focused effort to those authors who donate time and energy to bring additional life to your script that you've worked so hard on, it'll foster an improved community driven by competition of quality of modifications. As an end result of which, all can only benefit. (Unless, KevinDV is really serious about that Riot Shield thing. That doesn't appear to be enjoyable at all.)

I can see a couple of points illustrated by CJ24 that has been made that could be sound improvements to the website in this regard. Primarily, the inclusion of additional staff of which may or may not have a direct focus on various modding related issues. They would be impartial, directly handle all those accusations addressed to that topic, and moderate the issue appropriately. Not only would you have a staff dedicated and responding to those issues with haste, it would allow for the remaining staff members to focus on the community aspect of the website in order to improve the overall quality and assist other users in various locations. I just feel the response time and reflective frustration experienced with modders will never be a perfectly solved solution. In my limited time working with KevinDV and CJ24 at their previous hosting site, they had a very strict monitoring of all their modification efforts, and dealt with all claims of theft with impartial view and rendered moderation without prejudice. 

Additionally, I agree that the 'guidelines' needs to be solidified into rules. While the guidelines are a start, they're not strict and difficult to enforce, allowing for extreme interpretation. Translating these into 'rules' or relatable terms allows for strict and appropriate punishment to all involved. Clarification in this manner will only improve the situation a great deal. Identifying the description of what theft or appearance of theft is on this website and the punishment, in black and white to those who violate it could deter some un-allowed activity.

As I mentioned, there isn't a perfect solution to be had, and there will always be issues. But, in credence to your efforts and the rest of LCPDFR, if the staff takes that extra amount of focused effort to those authors who donate time and energy to bring additional life to your script that you've worked so hard on, it'll foster an improved community driven by competition of quality of modifications. As an end result of which, all can only benefit. (Unless, KevinDV is really serious about that Riot Shield thing. That doesn't appear to be enjoyable at all.)

 

 

We'll have new rules that are leave much less room for interpretation that are also updated to reflect the emphasis on modding in general on the site. They'll be implemented along with the new forum and download section structures this Weekend, we still need to plan the final details so we'll update once we can.

I would personally be happy to volunteer my time to serve on a "theft review committee" and review claims of mod theft; if that's what it takes to stop all this pointless fighting and help reduce or eliminate the shockingly high amount of theft. I've been in the GTA world for about 3 years now and since the beginning I've been shocked at how much drama occurs. It needs to stop, and it seems like most of it originates from the "theft" situations that occur.

 

While people who release content may not have a legal copyright over it or the ability to actually take someone to court for the theft of their material or ideas, there's a basic ethical obligation we have as human beings not to use someone else's work or ideas without credit or permission. As I said earlier, anyone who doesn't understand the basic ethical obligations of intellectual property and original ideas / creations doesn't deserve to be a part of a law enforcement based community in my opinion.

It's a round-about way of dealing with the issue if I'm honest. We can address theft, gallery issues and other issues by making the rules and sanctions less ambiguous.

 

By the numbers, theft isn't a problem, we've had 263 reports in over three years that contains the words "credits", "stolen" and "theft" (keep in mind that theft is used in some sections and are counted).

 

The problem concerns the gallery, specifically what is allowed and what is not allowed in the gallery. One fairly straight-forward option would be to prohibit car mods that aren't released or shown in a Work In Progress thread on LCPDFR.

I personally don't think that it is a fair thing for us to do, why should we prohibit you because you're not using mods that are hosted on our site?

 

We could do that, it's a feasible way for us to enforce anti-theft policies in the gallery. It's restrictive, cumbersome and will undoubtedly give us a lot more work.

 

The problem concerns the gallery, specifically what is allowed and what is not allowed in the gallery. One fairly straight-forward option would be to prohibit car mods that aren't released or shown in a Work In Progress thread on LCPDFR.

I personally don't think that it is a fair thing for us to do, why should we prohibit you because you're not using mods that are hosted on our site?

 

 

But you already cant do this. Because when someone links to something that is hosted on another website, you black list the entire website from lcpdfr. So you can say that its "unfair" but we already know that it wont work. then admins have already black listed on site because people linked to it in the gallery, so yes it IS unfair, but most of us have come to expect it here

But you already cant do this. Because when someone links to something that is hosted on another website, you black list the entire website from lcpdfr. So you can say that its "unfair" but we already know that it wont work. then admins have already black listed on site because people linked to it in the gallery, so yes it IS unfair, but most of us have come to expect it here

A lot of our users link to GTAPoliceMods, GTA4-Mods, GTAForums and their own sites, so this is untrue. One site is permenantly blocked right now for numerous violations of our Advertising guidelines.

GTAPoliceMods is the largest GTA police community site after ours, so if we were really wanting to "black list" other sites for no reason, we'd probably block ones which get traffic.

But nobody at GTAPoliceMods actively tries to push their site here or purposefully advertise it.

A lot of our users link to GTAPoliceMods, GTA4-Mods, GTAForums and their own sites, so this is untrue.

 

So im just imagining the fact that you cant link to lcpdmods? 

 

No Im not, because as soon as i post this your website will remove even the word of the website that i am referencing. You basically just said that you are targeting one site specifically. Point made

There's a difference between forgetting somebody or intentionally ripping models or using people's work with permission.

But to make you happy, you might want to know that this is why Kevin, EVI and I stopped releasing.

 

That's not even close to the topic of this debate.

 

Exactly, "should" be done, not must be done. That's the difference between rules and guidelines. No need for quibbling though.

 

Yes, I know. That happend some time after the whole problem started growing.

 

Using the LCPDFR mod as an excuse for the whole staff being tied up with business makes me believe LCPDFR.com is no modding website, but a mod website.

 

As I mentionied, I know about the suspensions and PMs. Also, as I said as well, that already happend at the peak of the situation.

 

You don't need to, you could have simply asked the author of the picture about a better picture of the vehicle's polygons and it would have been clear. But as I said in another post, you don't want to suspect anybody without having a completely obvious proof. I guess in real life, with police working that way, no criminal could be arrested.

 

I'm sorry, but this sentence is just confirming my point of view. No criticsm or advise is wanted. Although I'm trying to stay calm and polite and give you advise, you're criticising me personally. Although I don't plan on start insulting, I'm definitly not going to restrain my honest opinion now anymore, as you might have noticed.

 

You think so, the modders don't. That's why they're gone.

 

I did not intend to attack you, but there are certain inaccuracies in your statement and I don't agree with the tone. It looks to us like there's more to the departure of certain modders, the complaints we got, some public, from the modders concerned lack of exposure of their mods on the site as the site grew and more modders joined the site.

 

The other side to this is that we haven't been approached by anyone about the issue, the only times we heard about theft was when the public accusations went around, we weren't PM'ed or contacted on Steam/Skype etc, about the issues.

 

One modder mentioned in a PM conversation I had with him that theft accusations are used as a weapon:

 

Although public shaming isn't always a good thing, to some extent it works and is extremely effective in ridding thieves from the community as it allows the public to see who is illegitimate. If nobody does anything about thieves that continuously taunt modders, then obviously a handful of guys within the community will lose patience and take the matter into their own hands.

 

 

 

We all agree that mod theft is bad, I don't think that it is right to talk about us as people who who don't, however we are not going to remove content and apply sanctions based on claims that cannot be verified. We also want everyone to abide by the same rules, which, with some people (you aren't one of them) are not interested in doing.

 

We can debate the rules, which we have done with a selection of modders and we can do it again. However it's not acceptable to disregard the rules because you disagree with them.

It's a round-about way of dealing with the issue if I'm honest. We can address theft, gallery issues and other issues by making the rules and sanctions less ambiguous.

 

By the numbers, theft isn't a problem, we've had 263 reports in over three years that contains the words "credits", "stolen" and "theft" (keep in mind that theft is used in some sections and are counted)...

 

 

I will certainly agree that having a set of clear and easily identifiable rules is the first step to solving most problems like this. There is a big difference between what people "shouldn't" do, and what they "can't" do.

 

While theft itself may not be a large problem, it certainly does seem to generate the most drama, and with good reason. People work hard on their projects, whether it be something like LCPDFR, a vehicle model, a community, or anything else, and it's easy to become upset when that idea or material is stolen, as I'm sure most everyone here understands.

 

At the same time, one of the points that Sam was making in his original post is that these issues are too often not reported at all and simply left to dissolve into an immature verbal argument in the comments section. It's been stressed repeatedly that any issues or suspicions should be reported to the staff here to deal with. I was simply saying that if in the future any type of specific theft review committee were created, I would personally be happy to volunteer and serve.

Edited January 21, 201412 yr by johnclark1102

In this case it's more like 'it's not how you say it, but who says it'. Let me tell you, "that guy" did more than just posting these few pictures. To name a few examples, there were pictures of Dodgeboy's Interceptor which has been converted without permission, there were pictures of hubcaps and bumpers, both were unique models that had been recognized by their creators.

No one was sanctioned "harshly" for actions that occurred before the public announcement made by Sam. And of the image in question relating to deco and JokerMods, as well as previous accusations against the provoker the past week (I did not say months), all of the mods were available publicly and were shown with only texture changes, but accusations of theft still ran wild. I'm sure you recognize your car with a texture change on the wheel in this picture:

http://www.lcpdfr.com/gallery/image/27328-oh-lord-jesus-its-a-fahr/

 

Using the LCPDFR mod as an excuse for the whole staff being tied up with business makes me believe LCPDFR.com is no modding website, but a mod website.

Do you expect Sam and LMS to bug test by themselves? There were over 500 bugs and improvements reported, after it was thoroughly tested by as many available testers as possible over 6 months. While 7 of the 8 testers were on the Community Team, that's because most of the testers have been inactive for years. And even with our best efforts, while still trying to maintain order on the site that was made more difficult by the issues Sam already addressed, there were still bugs none of us had a clue about.

So im just imagining the fact that you cant link to lcpdmods? 

 

No Im not, because as soon as i post this your website will remove even the word of the website that i am referencing. You basically just said that you are targeting one site specifically. Point made

 

You forgot this part:

 

One site is permenantly blocked right now for numerous violations of our Advertising guidelines.

GTAPoliceMods is the largest GTA police community site after ours, so if we were really wanting to "black list" other sites for no reason, we'd probably block ones which get traffic.

But nobody at GTAPoliceMods actively tries to push their site here or purposefully advertise it.

 

No one was sanctioned "harshly" for actions that occurred before the public announcement made by Sam. And of the image in question relating to deco and JokerMods, as well as previous accusations against the provoker the past week (I did not say months), all of the mods were available publicly and were shown with only texture changes, but accusations of theft still ran wild. I'm sure you recognize your car with a texture change on the wheel in this picture:

http://www.lcpdfr.com/gallery/image/27328-oh-lord-jesus-its-a-fahr/

 

Do you expect Sam and LMS to bug test by themselves? There were over 500 bugs and improvements reported, after it was thoroughly tested by as many available testers as possible over 6 months. While 7 of the 8 testers were on the Community Team, that's because most of the testers have been inactive for years. And even with our best efforts, while still trying to maintain order on the site that was made more difficult by the issues Sam already addressed, there were still bugs none of us had a clue about.

 

You forgot this part:

 I did not forget it, he modified his post after i posted mine

 I did not forget it, he modified his post after i posted mine

And it has been repeatedly told to you and others in various private messages that using this site for the sole purpose of an advertisement tool for your own website is not allowed, but it has been repeatedly ignored. People who post their work on other sites have been able to comply with this without issue.

You could also argue that a minority of users feel as if they "need" to "rip" the car models if they want to be on the "forefront" of modding in our community, the only unlocked new-gen cop car is a Charger, both the PIU and PIS from Ford as well as the Caprice is kept under lock-and-key by those few that have them.

"Their"(the "rippers"/"thieves") resoning could be that all they want the means to make nice police cars for other people, but they're "limited" to Crown Vics, Impalas and Tahoes and a "hand-full of lights" when "everyone else" are releasing Caprices, PIS's/PIU's and Chargers with "the latest" or "best" lights on them, why should they work on "sub-par" mods knowing that they'll "never" get access to the "hot" models?

 

I'm not justifying ripping or theft, nor am I saying they're right or that we're allowing,encouraging or endorsing it. Sure, there's a lot more dev resources out there now, but you are still very limited as a modder unless you can acquire "good" car and equipment models via the ethically correct way if you don't want to model, say a "correct" Whelen Liberty oredSig Valor.

The new-gen cop cars are tightly guarded by those who has access to them, as it lighting equipment. Modders has actively discouraged other modders from uploading development resources and told the same if they do upload some.

 

That's assuming that you don't accidentally cross paths with another modder, you're on our own if someone brands you as a thief. One of the modders we contacted ran into trouble with a model with a skin given to him by another user, unfortunately that skin used parts of third skin without permission, the rumours soon started to flow along with snarky comments about theft.

This user was lucky to have been a part of the modding community for a while and had several released mods before that incident, but it still shows how quickly attitudes change if someone sees something they thing are odd.

 

 

Again, we're no justifying theft, ripping or any kind of unauthorized used of content. It's not my opinion or any of the CT members opinion, however we do try and look at things from every angle.

 

People get pretty ridiculous about "their" stuff. I see people who take a totalitarian view on content control almost as much of a detriment to their respective communities as the "unapologetic thieves" they're so worried about. Sharing is how a community grows, not by the masses pleading for their lords to throw a pittance down from on high.