Kiriu - The comment that actually set me off was "she acts like a 4 year old who doesn't like to share her toys with anyone else", which you didn't say, so technically you didn't make me angry. (I'd say I wasn't angry at all, but I'm not a very good liar.) I've also helped myself to her items in the booty, but only because it's stuff she's decided to share with the community (as opposed to a select few personal friends). As for the other stuff, if she wants to say "THEY'RE MINE, you can't have them!", she's perfectly entitled to that.

Feverish - Okay, yes, the graphics card analogy is a little extreme. (I was originally going to say that it's like getting upset because a digital artist you like won't take a commission from you, even though they have from other people, but I didn't want to get into the whole copyright thing because that's really beside the point.) But while it's over-the-top, I think it's still relevant. If you were going to be out of town for a week, nowhere near your computer, random-neighbour-from-down-the-street would still be completely unjustified in being mad at you for not letting him borrow your stuff.

keirra - You may not think sharing her sims is all that big of a deal, but she clearly does. Writing is a deeply personal thing, and writers have a tendency to get attached to tools that they use for creating. Is it completely neurotic? Probably. That doesn't change the fact that those particular clusters of pixels mean a lot more to her than they do to most people, and because of that I think it's disrespectful to continue to share the files she didn't want out there in the first place. (Copies created by other people are a different matter, more along the lines of fan art.)


I'm sure I'm being irrationally over-sensitive about this whole thing, but what can you do? :wink:

Normally I lurk for more than a couple of days before posting, and I generally make sure that I have a few posts under my belt before saying something like this, but... I stumbled across PMBD a few days ago, and while I totally agree with the mission statement, and with nearly all of what I've read here in the forum, this particular thread makes my stomach churn.

It started out fairly innocently, I suppose, but it seems to have evolved into something that I'm apparently not able to quietly accept. Let me start off by saying that I read Deception Pass, and I completely understand the desire to get your hands on Aikea Guinea's sims. I'd personally love to have a little James clone running around my neighbourhoods, but it would never, ever cross my mind to demand that she make him available to download. Ask her, sure; only it seems she's already been asked and has answered 'no', so what would be the point?

Admittedly, I'm new here, but it seems that this issue is far removed from what we're supposed to be trying to do. It's one thing to ensure that available content is available for everyone; it's quite another to get up in arms because content you want isn't available at all. That's like getting upset because your neighbour down the street, whom you barely know, won't let you borrow their swanky new graphics card for a few hours, or let you read their copy of a book you want to read. They're under no obligation to share those things with anyone, and neither is Aikea. Unfortunately for her, she has allowed a few friends (or former friends) to use a few of these sims with the result that some of them have been released to the masses. Since EA has made it pretty clear that only they own any Sims-related custom content, all she can do is ask us not to use them and hope that we'll comply; it's one of the drawbacks of sharing digital information.

I personally think the fact that those files are being linked to here is bad enough - it has nothing to do with PMBD's mandate as I understand it, and things like that can be a real blemish on a community, especially one that's a little bit controversial to begin with. However, I freely admit that the reputation of this site is none of my concern. What really sticks in my craw is the hypocrisy of the last couple of posts. Making suggestions (even tongue-in-cheek ones) about trying to get buddy-buddy with Aikea or her friends in an effort to weasel something out of her, and then going on to make comments about how immature you feel she's acting - I'm sorry, but how old are you? Because that's the sort of behaviour I expect to see in, well, twelve-year-olds.

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I apologize if this post has broken any forum rules that I'm not aware of (I looked, but couldn't find any), and I'm kind of sorry that my first impression here is that of a loudmouth bitch, but I'm not going to apologize for speaking my mind.