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Zenn
Sorcerer
Group: Members
Posts: 290
Joined: Apr 18, 2007
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#81 id:11305 Posted Aug 26, 2008, 12:12 am
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DavidHaley said:Eh, I guess so.  Well, I'm curious to hear if/when you have something in particular in mind...
I've been saying specific steps that need to be taken for the past .. 3 pages? 
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David Haley
Wizard
Group: Members
Posts: 6,874
Joined: Jun 30, 2007
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#83 id:11307 Posted Aug 26, 2008, 12:22 am
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Indeed you have, Zenn, but so has most everybody here. Perhaps you can give some very precise examples regarding Kayle's issues?
EDIT:
Kayle, I was hoping for something more along the lines of how we could move forward, as opposed to knowing when you think we've moved forward.
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Last edited Aug 26, 2008, 12:24 am by David Haley
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Kayle
Wizard
Group: Members
Posts: 1,165
Joined: Nov 27, 2006
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#84 id:11308 Posted Aug 26, 2008, 12:45 am
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Oh, in that regard, I'm not really all that sure yet. Something needs done, but I'm just not certain of what yet. In that regard...
I blame GNU for all our problems!
Man I feel better already.
[Edit:] Boy, I guess this whole const thing is frustrating me more than I thought...
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Last edited Aug 26, 2008, 12:47 am by Kayle
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zortek
Fledgling
Group: Members
Posts: 1
Joined: Aug 15, 2008
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#85 id:11309 Posted Aug 26, 2008, 1:01 am
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Community Leadership -- Leadership is the operative word.
Administrators and community moderators should rarely (if ever) be vocal and should never justify defending community interests. It is a defacto standard that an act of administration is an act in the best interests of the community. The vision, mission, goals, and the health of the community rest in the hands of the Community Leadership.
NOTE: This is different from cult-of-personality entertainers, who must maintain the loyalty or a tight grip on their followers and cater to special interests. One must understand the difference and the social dynamics as they ebb and flow. Who then is really in charge?
http://www.sitepoint.com/article/super-moderator-guide
Same story...different stage...different actors.
Zortek, a.k.a.
Rich Wermske
Edited by kiasyn to make link work, bbcode parser messed up somewhere.
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Last edited Aug 26, 2008, 1:07 am by kiasyn
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Guest
Unregistered
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#87 id:11317 Posted Aug 26, 2008, 2:25 am
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Hades_Kane said:If you are truly going to step out of the MUDing community this time for good, then I genuinely hope you find a group of people that you feel appreciates your talents and that you don't feel is simply out to get you or wants you around to use you as a punching bag. Good luck with all of your future endeavors, but like I said, as far as you are concerned, I'm done.
Ever stop to consider that the reason I feel the way I do about all this is because despite all efforts all I ever get back is grief and attacks? That no matter how something gets handled the same people come back with nothing but complaints about how it was handled? I find it extremely difficult to understand why this concept seems to make no sense to otherwise sensible people.
I have a nasty ability to be able to distill out what's being said. Most of the time it's right on the money based on past experience. I honestly can't see this as any different. If had predicted ahead of time where this thread would go, I'd probably have been exactly right, but at this point all I have now is hindsight. Hindsight which tells me I should have locked it early on and simply dealt with the abusive emails and PMs doing that generates. Or perhaps locked 3 more threads that would rise up to take its place.
If the past bothers you all so much, stop readin now, because I'm going to use it as an explanation. And keep in mind, if we don't learn from the past, we are doomed to repeat it. I don't bring this up as a continuation of a grudge or as hatred for anyone or whatever you may think.
I seem to recall a similar development over at TMS when Lasher took over the site. Synozeer was a laid back admin, much like Icculus. No active involvement in the day to day. No real concern for flamewars, trolling, nasty people, etc. People complained bitterly about it. Arguments flared up. Synozeer got sick of it and sold the site. So Lasher decided he wanted to clean things up. Starting with reigning in the crap that was being posted. Stopping flamewars and personal attacks. Deleting posts, and whole topics where needed. It sparked a thread not unlike this one where someone called into question the new policies that had been enacted. I was there. Lasher explained himself. One certain individual decided it was his entitled right to openly question administrative policy regardless of the number of warnings he received about it. It raged on for at least 4 pages, and I more or less took the side of the moderators attempting to point out where said individual was going wrong and how it had only one outcome. That outcome was reached soon after.
Said individual embarked on a crusade not long after that to smear Lasher's name through the mud. He took to posting pictures making fun of the whole thing. Running around bragging about it and in general trying to make himself seem like the good guy for battling the evil authoritarian monster. Lasher was either unaware of all this or didn't care to respond to it. But either way, the outcome is the same. Lasher got on with it and left such rot where rot belongs. I have great respect for him and wish that I had the kind of restraint and patience he has. It's another one of those hindsight things. TMS's policies have not changed. Posts continued to get edited and deleted. Threads were either locked or purged. Some other people vowed never to return, cursing Lasher's name as a stubborn pig-headed idiot. In looking over the content there now, I'm fairly sure his decision to stick to his guns worked out and the site is much better off for it. They've got a thriving community with good posts and very few if any incidents. Everyone there seems much happier for it now that the troublemakers have either been removed or self-deported.
That's all I wanted here. To nip the flamewars and personal attacks in the bud. Perhaps I overreacted. I tend to think not. At this point I have little doubt that this thread should have been locked and that I should have stuck to my guns. But I let myself get fooled into thinking that "let it ride, see how it turns out, maybe it'll be ok" would work. I don't think it has. This thread here turned into exactly what I feared it would. Tempers have flared. People are once again mad at each other, and at me, and I've done nothing to help that situation at all. It's going to sound hollow and self serving at this point but I would not have begun taking more aggressive action if I didn't care about trying to salvage what's left of this site's usefulness. There's a hell of a lot of potential here left to be tapped and as others have seen, this is probably one of the few places left that's got a fighting chance to try and turn things around other than smaller niche sites. If the hobby or community or whatever it is people want to call it is to survive, fragmenting it into small isolated niches is not how it should be done.
In specific response to HK on the finding another community thing, I sort of already have. It's part of why I had a somewhat renewed interest in trying to straighten things out here. At this point in time, it is a very friendly and helpful group with lots of wonderful contributors breathing new life into things and making the game do stuff nobody thought possible just 6 months ago. I've managed to make a place for myself there and have gained quite a bit of respect among many. Mostly for my ability to crawl in and debug just about anything that comes along.
I joined near the tail end of a massive campaign launched by the company's forum liaison and their senior moderation staff to excise a problem they had with the same kind of troublemakers, many of whom joined with one purpose: to cause as much grief and damage as possible. It led to a massive number of contributors isolating themselves on their own sites and scaling back on their public releases. From what I can gather it #### near destroyed any interest in modding for the game. As I'm sure everyone is aware, commercial gaming is very fast paced and the slightest hiccup that causes a loss of interest is devastating. It's even more of an issue with modding those games since the modders all do it for free and don't even own copyright on most of their work due to licensing. the policies they enacted there would make what I did here seem like a book club debate gone wrong. Posts are actively deleted. Not edited. Moderators have sharp tongues that make mine look like jelly. Threads get locked so often you'd think they have nothing else to do. But in the months or so I've been there, I've noticed it's helping and helping a lot. And you know what? Honest debate still happens. Constructive criticism still takes place. People fight. There are disagreements. But step out of line, and you get a warning. Step out of line again and you'll get suspended for two weeks. Step out of line a 3rd time, done. Banned. No exceptions. Some offenses warrant insta-bans. Others just insta-suspensions. Some members have even been simply expunged from the system. Moderation action is NOT questioned publicly. Doing so gets you banned without another word. That hasn't stopped people from trying, and it hasn't stopped them from posting giant rants about nazis and censorship on their blogs and whatnot. They have literally hundreds of posts a day, if not an hour, to monitor. Obviously they can't be everywhere all the time so they do rely in part on users to report questionable posts. In just the short amount of time I've been there this has led to a clear understanding of what is accepted and what's not. Honestly, if they have posted rules I've not even read them. But I can tell just from common courtesy and common sense what would get me in trouble there. I lurked long enough to get a feel for how things worked and fit right in when I finally chimed in for the first time. I've found this to be more or less standard form on every forum outside the mudding community btw, so it's not just commercial gaming houses that do this.
Now then. To those of you who have shown your support despite my rather blunt nature, I thank you. I know it's not easy when I'm acting like an ass half the time.
For those of you who don't want to see me drop my admin position, I'll leave reinstating that in the hands of Davion and Kiasyn to decide. But I think that if they want me back they should do so with the understanding that performing moderator actions isn't something I want a part of anymore. I'm a much happier person on the back end of things, out of the line of fire. I do think the site needs to bring on at least a couple of forum moderators whose only function would be to deal with thread edits, locks, deletes, etc. and recommending further action that requires an admin to step in such as restricting someone's access or banning them outright.
And for everyone, I apologize for being a #### lately. Especially to Hades, who did indeed try and meet me half way. I simply blew it there and I'm sorry for that.
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The_Fury
Sorcerer
Group: Banned
Posts: 485
Joined: Jun 1, 2008
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#89 id:11334 Posted Aug 26, 2008, 5:14 am
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Samson said:
Now then. To those of you who have shown your support despite my rather blunt nature, I thank you. I know it's not easy when I'm acting like an ass half the time.
For those of you who don't want to see me drop my admin position, I'll leave reinstating that in the hands of Davion and Kiasyn to decide. But I think that if they want me back they should do so with the understanding that performing moderator actions isn't something I want a part of anymore. I'm a much happier person on the back end of things, out of the line of fire. I do think the site needs to bring on at least a couple of forum moderators whose only function would be to deal with thread edits, locks, deletes, etc. and recommending further action that requires an admin to step in such as restricting someone's access or banning them outright.
And for everyone, I apologize for being a #### lately. Especially to Hades, who did indeed try and meet me half way. I simply blew it there and I'm sorry for that.
Wow, I did not think that HK epic post would have been topped (and yes i have read every word, when i could have been taking a shower with my wife hehe,), but these are words I would have never of expected to ever hear from Samson. Thank you Samson, that is the type of attitude that will heal rifts and bring unity and I am very glad to see you have taken the plunge. I can tell you from experience that it is hard, but it is well worth it as it resonates throughout your whole life, I know it has in me.
@HK, I dont know where you found the patience to reply to all the various points that have been made and I have no idea how to respond, but I will say, that you made a number of points that have changed how I view a number of different things or have brought clarity to others. Thank you.
I would have liked to add much more, but i have a paper due in the morning and need to spend time working on it rather than discussing this. Someone mentioned how do we move forward from here, I think this is the next important question we need to face, but maybe that can wait for another 60 seconds, or we can wait for HK to publish a sequel. HAHA.
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......................... bMUD: Custom server written in Ruby.
The Oriental Dojo Mud
The_Fury: Coder and Designer.
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Vladaar
Conjurer
Group: Members
Posts: 193
Joined: May 17, 2006
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#90 id:11335 Posted Aug 26, 2008, 5:19 am
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This is probably not going to get a good response, but I also think part of the problem is too many
coders are out there releasing piles of code and codebases. Do not get me wrong I have greatly
benefited from many releases over the years. However, when it gets so easy for anyone to make
a out of the box type mud, why work for someone else.
What we need to do is come up with a way to get people to realize that while yes you can start
your own game with little to no coding experience, that the failure rate is extremely high unless
you have strong support. Starting a mud is not a one man type of activity, though probably many
of us here did start it as one man or one woman.
I had more posted here, but removed it as it gave me an idea I am exploring.
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Last edited Aug 26, 2008, 5:28 am by Vladaar
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