Heavy Handed Moderation

You guys need to be earning support for your new product right now and shutting people down for making comparisons to other products is not the way to do it.

I've learned a lot from the Nuke Vs. Fusion discussion as well as many other similar discussions. And I'm disappointed to see such a totalitarian approach being taken here. It strikes me as showing weakness and insecurity on part of Blackmagic.

Why do you fear comparison? If the comparison looks bad make the product better. But essentially telling people to shut up, and forcefully dictating what they're allowed to say is not going to make you any friends.

I know if I were a Nuke user considering jumping ship to use the much more affordable Fusion, that thread would be quite important to me in regard to making that decision.

I love BMD and what they've done with the cameras, and now Fusion. I'm very excited about the future possibilities. But the hard line moderation thing makes me feel somewhat threatened, and uncomfortable with BMD.

Don't be a bully. Your customers and prospective customers should feel like you are on their side.

[Tony Rivera]

We do not have a problem with the comparisons but as these are our forums, we would rather have the focus be our products and support for them. When comparisons start like this, people tend to get heated and arguments flair up which we would rather avoid. There are other open forums where these discussions can be held and I'm sure will be.

There's quite a spirited debate going on over at The Foundry's Modo community forums. What I find quite interesting is that, while the acquisition of Fusion by Blackmagic triggered discussions of Fusion and comparisons with Nuke, the level of interest was relatively low and the discussions were not heavily partisan until the free Fusion announcement. At that point, the floodgates opened and people have been really getting into it, both pro-Fusion and pro-Nuke as well as many less urgently fanboi participants.

That has to be taken as a clear sign of a great marketing success by Blackmagic.

Well honestly regardless of what you say your motivations are you are coming across as very insecure and even fearful of comparison, and that's not a good thing. You even hid this topic from sight by moving it into some obscure place, I thought you deleted it until I searched the forum. If there was no validity to what I'm saying I don't believe you would have felt the need to do that.

Personally I consider your locking of the Nuke comparison thread insulting, even though I wasn't even part of the discussion I was enjoying it externally. It is important to me as a customer (as well as most others for that matter) to see how the product is different from the competition. Good or bad you need to learn to embrace that rather that attempt to shut it down for fear of what *might or might not happen as a result. The fact is that it was a fairly civil discussion free from fighting at the time you locked it. And when you say you are shutting it down because it *might turn into a flame war you are just playing Minority Report, and last time I checked BMD specialized in production tools for film and video, not time machines and psychic powers. Also that movie is generally considered "dystopian" last time I checked... Is that really what you want this forum to be? a dystopian authoritarian dictatorship?

Like it or not the comparisons won't go away. Your totalitarian attitude amounts to not much more than tail chasing. And it makes your company look petty (no pun intended) and childish.

Also when you say "these are OUR forums" it becomes clear that the "us" in question does not include the customer. Which means you see this as a dictatorship and not a community. That separation is very condescending and discouraging in deed.

Also to ad insult to injury you are very quick to react negatively by locking and moving threads, yet when people report bugs or problems or request help you either ignore them or are very slow to respond or even acknowledge an issue.

As I said before. I love what the company has done. I love the products and I'm excited by the possibilities. But you guys are famous for outright sucking at PR. You desperately need to learn a few things about people.

It really depresses me to think that over the past few years I've been repeatedly excited about Blackmagic. And just when I think to myself "I really love this company" I have some kind of discouraging and or insulting interaction with one of the employees.

But I guess it's true that you get what you pay for. Maybe I should move my company to Nuke after all? Might be worth it for the customer support...

There's quite a spirited debate going on over at The Foundry's Modo community forums. What I find quite interesting is that, while the acquisition of Fusion by Blackmagic triggered discussions of Fusion and comparisons with Nuke, the level of interest was relatively low and the discussions were not heavily partisan until the free Fusion announcement. At that point, the floodgates opened and people have been really getting into it, both pro-Fusion and pro-Nuke as well as many less urgently fanboi participants.

That has to be taken as a clear sign of a great marketing success by Blackmagic.

Are the moderators over there trying desperately to stomp out all discussion of Fusion? Probably not... The Foundry is a lot of things, but petty and insecure? they don't strike me as the kind to show that kind of weakness... But they probably have a PR department that knows it's not a good idea to insult your customers and try and wrap their mouths with virtual duct tape.

I think is a new territory also for the moderators, I explained in another post why is important to get the discussion going.

Never before for BM an acquisition and release had a direct competitor like NUKE and anybody that look at fusion will invariably do some comparisons. So, also for them is understanding where the limit lie.....