Maybe Iām misunderstanding because itās been misused in the past, but I thought that was the entire purpose of that category. What should we be posting in Released Scripts and Themes?
Does sketchfab count? Or not because itās also a 3d viewer?
Yes,youāre correct, addons are what should be posted there. This isnāt saying self promotion is bad- just that weād like to limit the formerly limitless amount of it
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This could be quite troublesome for someone who maintains multiple addons.
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Could be, thatās true 
As stayed, exceptions can be made on a case by case basis for people with good rates of community engagement, I would imagine that would be one of those cases depending on the person
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Ah, I think I understand now.
One more question:
Is it okay for me to continue sharing those gumroad links to my free project files in my nodevember projects?
- Itās directly relevant to the topic, and Iām linking directly to it, not linking to my main account and asking people to search through it
- Itās free, so Iām not promoting a paid product
- Iām interacting with the community, replying to comments, giving notes on my process, and adding breakdowns to my post
- Itās not the center of attention, itās just a side thing for those whoād like to see my entire process and tinker with it
- Nodevember is a prompt every two days so thereās no way Iām going to be able to stay strictly within the limit
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Iām going to DM you, addressing specific cases is probably better that way to avoid clutter here
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If you need specific examples, just look at #support:tutorials-tips-and-tricks. Pay attention to the avatars and number of replies. There will be a few that should quickly jump out. You can see they have little to no engagement and drive-by post their videos, sometimes multiple days in a row. If you want to go deeper, look at the activity of those posters, they donāt interact with the forums at all, except to promote their videos.
Thereās not a lot of engagement in the form of replies with that particular category in general, mostly people posting videos. Perhaps it should be displayed by thumbnail images like #artwork:animations? It would certainly make it easier to browse through quickly.
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We have a rigorous system in place for detecting and tracking self promotions
One of the addon creators who has been exceptionally helpful and active, who engages with the community to solve their workflow issues and incorporates many of this feedback, now posted that they will refrain from posting more than once a week due to the new rules. I think it is very counterproductive seeing as there really was a vibrant subcommunity around the addon. The creator barely linked to a download topic, since we all know where its at (and not to mention its free with possible donations).
Wouldnāt it be of interest to Blenderartists to give these creators a badge (e.g. like moderators or regulars get one) so they can continue doing what we all come to the forums for? I mean, just give those people a seal of approval and some gratitude will ya? The people I am referring to are far from the ones who misbehave, but they are punished/ discouraged from forum engagement as a result nowā¦
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So then whatās the point of the rules? An announcement that the non-compliant usersā posts will be moderated? If the effect now seems to be that good people are feeling restricted by them, that canāt be the intention of the rules now, can it?
This is an excellent concern that Iām not qualified to answer. Iām going to pass the mike to @bartv here that is say, this goes beyond the team of whatās already been said, and Iāve been exclusively repeating or rephrasing whatās been said here. Iām not in a position to offer interpretations, thatās definitely site owner territory
And vocal people are usually just a fraction of all the people who will read or be affected by the rules and stop or refrain from posting at all. General intention of the rule is IMO great, but itās carpet bombing approach to the problem. The other problem of this rule is already highlighted in the thread: exceptions are already discussed and allowed. Not a great policy if at the beginning it needs exceptions from it, right?
To be honest, I donāt have constructive idea how to better address the issue thoughā¦
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Iām not aware of any policies on this site that donāt have exceptions. Policy without room for exception is, to my way or thinking, 100% going to fail and fall short. Thatās just me, though.
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In all honesty, Iām not engaged in the parts of the forum where I would see a need to reinforce them. I am with you if you say thatās the case, but now the rules basically say they are at moderators discretion ( meaning: rather vague). I would assume vibrant long running threads should be exempt. New threads would be the culprit, I assume, so more heavy moderation on those should prevent long running threads from becoming a promotion thread, right?
Sure, sure, definitely keep human decision making. Itās more that if users are unsure whether or not a rule applies, theyāll refrain for the sake of caution. Unless they are the culprits themselves, I guess.
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A lot of topics in this category got thousands of replies, are we supposed to not share news about our products in our own product topics?
for example this:
or all HardOps/Machin3 topic
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How else did these addons develop to become so popular? Through user engagement. And add-on makes do need to notify their followers of critical bugfixes or of implementations of new features that they ironed out with the community in an earlier discussion.
Thatās my experience on the subject.
E: In fact I mostly use the forums for these addon topics, to keep up with development and ask/ engage with the devs. Without that, youāll be bleeding forumusers when not careful imo.
E2: So please letās finetune the rules so the policy would be enacted more naturally without the potentially negative side-effects.
This seems like a good way to think about it:
But again, I would encourage you all with concerns to hold tight and give Bart a chance to address them
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Hey folks! The only reason we do this is to reduce some abuse weāve been seeing. Obviously we need to refine our policy - donāt worry, we will update it as needed and weāll make sure the examples above will be fine.
Weāll need some time to refine this, and itās Sunday evening so Iāll get back to this later this week.
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Thatās a pretty nice way of dealing with a difficult situation. Hooray for making it!
Looking foward to how you implement it.
Some difficult stuff, Im actually interested.
Getting people to talk is hard.
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