I’m just trying to interpret the rules according to the letter (rather than the spirit?) 
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I just want clarification as to what is spam, can i link to node-red forum or an interesting topic on amazon alexa.
I understand that it would be bad form to link to the selling page of a competitor, but what about a article that has interest for all.
If i accidently link to a site Ezlo consider spam do i get a warning, or do i just get the 1000 year ban?
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Hi,
Like AK I am not in any way working for or related to Ezlo. The only reason I think the Ezlo bridge is a good idea because nearly all my plugins run on openLuup so the Vera’s can do zwave only. I think the Ezlo devices could have better zwave then Vera, but at the same time it will take a long time before it will have the functions I need (i.e. the origin is selfish). So the bridge makes sense for me and others are free to use it or not. I think it will provide a path to slowly migrate from Vera to Ezlo that many of us are looking for, or a way to keep using that ‘old’ plugin critical for you but no longer maintained.
I strongly object against banning contributors to this forum as long as they are not using offensive or discriminatory langue. A company like Ezlo should be mature enough to allow critical voices and references to competing products. We do not need this forum to find them, so why would it matter?
Cheers Rene
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Might have been a language barrier from my side.
I wss not saying you guys work for ezlo, that was clear, I was just saying that by your good work and intentions you might be indirectly helping a company that doesn’t really seem to appreciate it.
Anyway, it was more of a philosophical point.
I always wondered if Vera woudn’t have died years ago if plugins weren’t written by others.
I wouldn’t have bought it without PLEG, it was what made it work for me.
Anyway, i don’t want to go outside the topic, just wanted to clarify, your Vera work is highly appreciated guys.
I would not know what I would do without Reactor!
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I would of left Vera many years ago if it wasn’t for PLEG a 3rd party logic engine plugin.
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A ban for spam or linking without multiple warnings would be a draconian response that I would view as a reprehensible breach. I don’t know if @catman received warnings prior, but I think he’s smart enough to heed such warnings for the mutual benefit of his ongoing contribution here, so I have my (admittedly uninformed) opinion/suspicions about how this went down. And I’m beyond disappointed, not that that matters at all.
Particularly these days, where tensions are horribly high all over the world, driven by fear of both the known and the unknown, the dangers present and the possible, we must all work extra hard at taking a breath before we act. For those of us here in the US, open communication and the full freedom to communicate ideas both agreed and disagreed, at one time fundamental to our culture, has given way to mindless screaming and an anonymous cancel culture punishing “wrong think.” The sudden bans on Twitter, Facebook and other platforms of dissenting voices may momentarily placate angry mobs deaf to ideas outside their narrative, but serve only to widen the divide, embitter contributors, and perhaps worst, force the bad ideas into the dark, musty corners where they breed and spread, rather than into sunlight where they are exposed and die in a flash of reason. All of this creates even more demand to apply more moderation and reason into every interaction; regardless of warnings, and I think this ban fails at that.
And if this event is indicative of the kind of future we can expect from eZLO, it does not support the outward opinions of upcoming product we are being served. If the products are as great as we are being told, they will stand up to scrutiny of any kind. They will go toe-to-toe fearlessly with any competitor now or in the future. They will take criticism from customers (and developers) as opportunities to make their products even stronger, not fall back on TOS and banish the (hopefully) hundreds of thousands or millions of voices that will tell them honestly and enthusiastically what it takes to make their product great. I mean really, customers pay you to tell you how to make your products better. Actions like this never reflect positively on the company in any way, or on the products. Yes, there can be troublesome users who create real problems, but these forums have a long history of comparing and discussing the merits and failures of other products (linked), so this seems a recent change in enforcement, if not in terms. Regardless, I think a ban for something that minor reflects poorly on both product and company. For a developer faced with the substantial task of total rewrites of 15 plugins for a completely new, largely undocumented and untested platform, that’s an uncomfortable position to be put in.
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I don’t know what Catman has meant to have done? I’ve never seen him post “spam”.
In fact Catman from what I have seen him post was a helpful forum member giving advice and tips to other users.
Spam is information or links that are off topic, not relavent to the thread discussion.
I have removed some links off this forum myself when it’s blatantly obvious some one has posted a dubious looking link.
However I fail to see if the conversion is on topic, even if we are talking about other Home Automation hubs how that is Spam?
links for Viagra is spam links to phishing sites is spam, information about a Nigerian prince offering some get rich scheme is spam.
Direct links to a competitors sales page is probably not what you should be linking too. However only this week I mentioned other hubs to someone Fibaro HC3, Smartthings and Hubitat, so was that spam?
It’s rediculous banning members who have contributed greatly to the forum and the collective knowledge base.
I dont recall these issues on the old forum with people getting banned.
Yes if some one is a persistent trouble maker and has had all his warnings and not listened and has made serious breaches of the forum rules then they should go.
But all this makes me nervous who is next to get banned for very little reason?
I admit I don’t know what went on with Catman but I am surprised he has been banned.
Might have to look at his recent posts see what may have happened?
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he was banned for the following reason:
He was advocating people to move away from Vera and inviting them to join another forum by posting those links.
I think maybe the larger question is why would people advocate to go elsewhere in the first place.
(as I sit here with Alexa telling me "the hub XYZ is connected to is not responding)
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How many times did he do this and did Ezlo give him any warnings?
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So is it a one strike and you are out and banned?
Or was it persistent behaviour?
Are users given warnings first?
I have never linked to other competitors forums but I think most of us here have talked about other hubs out there on the market place at one time or another.
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You cannot constructively critique anything without making comparisons, so mentioning competing products is inevitable.
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Persistent behaviour
many public warnings before.
In his last post he did write something to the affect of : I know i am crossing the line etc…so he knew he was in breach of the forum rules and he intentionally went ahead.
I agree, we welcome anyone comparing our products to competitors. Thats not a problem.
That was out of the blue… Catman has been very helpful to the community and the one time he “broke” the forum rules he was booted? I say “broke” because like many others have mentioned, you’re going to naturally draw comparisons to competitors by links etc. There’s been plenty of time’s where others users (including) myself have talked about competitors and possibly moving over, if that’s the case ban us all. It’s users like Catman that keep this forum a helpful place for other users and Ezlo. There aren’t many more of us day-to-day forums users left, and to be honesty I feel like any day I could be banned for some poorly interpreted rule. Just remember even if one user is banned, the amount of times that one user could’ve helped dozens of others is now gone. I don’t need any clarification from anyone on what happened because I am always on the forums reading almost every post, and I’ve seen Catmans post and all he has posted were helpful things and was always kind as well.
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I don’t like this vague public warning. If i mess up can i have an official Private PM? so i know for sure i have a strike.
Edit/ A reminder
A Miracle on 34th Street
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He knew he was Treading on ice when he posted it…he said so himself…with a link to a forum that rafael and himself setup…So they are using our forums to drive traffic to their own forums by trying to inject links in our forums (wasn’t the first time this happened!) (here is the post below)
A simple removal of link and a warning would have been the option. Then if he did it again a ban.
I think he was frustrated with the outages causing issues and poor WAF.
catman is a member of that forum, he does not run it or any of the hardware. I don’t believe he was trying to drive traffic there, he was simply giving people an option.
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Don’t know what their procedures are? but if it’s not currently happening, a clear formal warning to a user via private message about “unacceptable” behaviour on the forum.
3 strikes / warnings for the same type of offence and your out, seems fair.
My 2 cents.
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The funny part is that you’ve created that forum Melih, when you silenced Rafale for… whatever reason you’ve “found” then.
That forum is a direct result of your actions.
And now the users that built this community (i am not one of them, see above people that actually matter) simply ask you to be fair and don’t ban them for interpretable reasons without a heads up.
Are you able to commit to that? It’s a yes/no question, if you don’t mind.
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Forum rules are set out clearly and we are very fair. We only ban spammers and persistent repeat offenders.