> But, in my opinion, he did contribute. He contributed other ideas that
> may have been beneficial to PoV-Ray. I have no knowledge of the
> 'Monte-Carlo' method as I'm not a programmer, but I sincerely believe that
> Paris was being genuine in his post, (although, yes, he could have done it
> in a different way - but that's individualism and character for you!)  ;)
>
>  If WE can't at least listen to what others have to say, then what's the
> purpose of these groups? Do you not know that the best method is to actually
> ignore a troll? Not reply? But this wouldn't have happened would it. If
> 'you' ignored him, you would then be faced with 'us' answering and
> speculating on his theories without any intervention from yourselves. And
> that just wouldn't do, would it.
>
>    There's some *very* clever and good-thinking people in these groups, and
> I for one would rather let 'them' tear apart a troll than have someone
> official climb aboard. Can we not govern our own groups? Take some pressure
> off you guys? I'm pretty sure we could.
>
>   Lastly, you never know, PoV-Ray, as good and great as it is now, might be
> so much better than those commercial packages in the near future with the
> way WE, the users, the people who 'you' want to use the program, would like
> it. (...But we've got to hear what other people have to say first).
>
>  Who's in the driving seat then? Us.
>
>    ~Steve~

As a moderator of a large though unrelated forum elsewhere on the net I do
have some opinions on this, and at the risk of getting my throat slashed
just for sticking my neck out, as I did last time I posted to this group, I
figured I'd share.  The trouble with what you state, Steve, is the same
trouble that inflicts internet fora across a wide spectrum of hobbies and
interest groups.  That is that no matter how otherwise intelligent and
polite your members are they are also incredibly passionate for a pretty
left-field subject.  In the case of my board it is a particular
high-fidelity military flight simulator; in this case, a free renderer.
People with a minority interest (and I don't mean that in any way
deprecatingly since I share this group's interest in POV and high-end
graphics) tend to be very defensive over their particular field.  I have
seen some extensive and uncalled-for flame-wars between the communities
associated with competing flight sims, thankfully not on our forum, and it
is ugly to watch and tricky to deal with satisfactorily as a moderator.
Further, I do not believe that the response received by Paris from members
and moderators alike was necessary.

I believe that Paris has been somewhat mistreated by all here.  His post,
whether it was ill-advised or poorly-stated, was never welcome.  I made a
similar post, comparing POV's texturing to that used in commercial
packages, and was roundly slagged for it.  (The assumption seemed to be
that if a person suggests something that could be improved, rather than
consider the suggestion, people assume that the user doesn't know what
they're doing and that POV in fact can NOT be improved.  That is patently
false.)  I felt insulted for one, but worse, I was disappointed in how
other members responded.  It seems to me that when someone posts in error
or in ignorance, as I consider to be Paris' case, it should be the
responsibility of the other members to set them right.  That doesn't mean
calling them a troll or, worse, deleting their contribution.  Returning to
the forum of which I am staff, we have very particular policies in this
regard, those being essentially simply stated: "No Personal Attacks."  In
several years we have only banned one single member, and that was for an
unrelated incident.  We have never had to go further than a polite warning
in response to flaming, trolling, or any other unwelcome behaviour.  Paris'
contribution here (at least the part of it which was not deleted before I
could read it) would not be taken as trolling by myself as a moderator, and
I would not expect our members to respond in anything other than a
courteous fashion, even if it were only to point out the inaccuracies in
his post.  To produce one of my finer bits of gnomic rambling: "There's
nothing wrong with being wrong, but being rude is rude."  Sorry. ;)

Examining the use of Monte-Carlo methods in raytracing.  I don't exactly
know what implementation Paris was getting at as I am by no means an expert
on the inner workings of POV, though I am well acquainted with Monte-Carlo
methods in physics models.  The fact that Paris knows enough about these
matters to discuss them at all seems to indicate that he has an interest in
this field beyond trolling.  Sure, he may be incorrect in his assessment of
the application of a new algorithm, but why is that insulting to anyone?
This is the mentality that seems to believe that the question is stupid,
not the answer.  Well that's a mixed-up way of having things and nobody
would ever learn anything.

I must say that I have been somewhat disquieted by the way this whole thing
has been handled and, for what it's worth, I disagree with the management's
delete-and-forget policy.  In my experience that sort of thing always
causes more trouble that it's worth.  Note that this thread has gone on
much longer than it ever warranted simply because of the bickering of staff
and members over a post which could just as easily have been replied to and
consigned to the obscurity of 'next 50 messages...'

L
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