Forums » Off-Topic

"Forum Moderator"

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Jun 10, 2003 xochiluvr link
Okay, is this "Forum Moderator" person is going to continue to pay homage to the AmbrosiaSW mods?

I need to know because if he/she is, I can delete my seperate little bookmark for these message boards. I left the Ambrosia boards over all that uber-deity stuff, and I'm not gonna put up with it here. This actually effects my decision on whether or not I will pay-to-play when the game goes commercial.

You wanna lock a thread, lock it. Give a one sentence explanation, not a two paragraph diatribe against the posters. Move along.

Side note. The anonymity is starting to bother me. Forum Moderator has no name, and as far as Guides go we're supposed to just "ignore the man man behind the curtain." This is a massively multi-PLAYER game, and the PLAYERS who are in these positions of power need to be culpable to the other PLAYERS, not just the devs. The Gestapo didn't work the first time around.
Jun 10, 2003 Forum Moderator link
Oookay. This is also a flame, but since it is directed at me, I'll leave it alone. It's an old Gestapo trick they taught us back in the 30's.
Jun 10, 2003 genka link
I've got two questions...

#1 when you say: "Okay, is this "Forum Moderator" person is going to continue to pay homage to the AmbrosiaSW mods?"
What in the world are you talking about?!

#2 when you say "You wanna lock a thread, lock it. Give a one sentence explanation, not a two paragraph diatribe against the posters. Move along."
What in the world are you talking about?!

another thing, noone really cares whether you pay-to-play or not, so don't try to use it as a threat against something which makes this community go along much smoother.
Jun 10, 2003 Forum Moderator link
I beleive he is responding to my locking and responding to a thread and post entitled "Lame Players". I felt I was explaining the action and suggesting alternative ways to express one's viewpoint that won't get one's thread locked, but it's still there under the "general" forum, so have a look and decide for yourself.
Jun 10, 2003 Renegade ++RIP++ link
wheee, I can ask :D

was my post considered to be(with a few exceptions) not constructive and invites chronic flaming).

/me hopes I was one of the exceptions, because I really don't like getting my account wiped :(

PS: this is the off topic part, I can go off topic in here :D

cheers
Jun 10, 2003 Forum Moderator link
Ren: I thought your post was constructive, and was not a flame.
Jun 10, 2003 Pyro link
Xhale, this is a hell of a lot better than the ASW forums. Ever read the thread by cheesewheelofdoom in Banter & Brawl? Look at forge's posts, and tell me that "Forum Moderator" (for lack of a better name) does anything like that. "Forum Moderator" does not lock threads arbitrarily and without a reason. On the contrary, he/she gives us a nice, long explanation on why it was done, perhaps in the hope that we will learn from our mistakes. And frankly, I like the anonymity. It protects the moderator. If someone deleted your post or something and you knew who it was, would you not be pissed?
Jun 10, 2003 Renegade ++RIP++ link
no Pyro,

I would be furious :D

but yes you are right, it protects him/her and at the same time makes the whole proces go more fluidly.

PS: thank you FM for these nice words. /me starts dancing now, and points out to everybody that Ren can make sensefull posts :D (if he wants that is ;))

cheers
Jun 10, 2003 Suicidal Lemming link
SL turns on his computer and types in forge.

forge, he has bashed a single person to the point he\she left, he bitches when people spells his name wrong (letter capitalization), he has posted how to make the funny little knot to hang people with and suggested they hanged themselves, has attacked the karma points of people who didn't like the way he acted, locked threads where people were begining to yell at him for driving people away.

After all that, he still remains a moderator!

He has karma points of 666 for a reason. He is a asshole and proud of it.

Is that who you want Forum Moderator to be? He explains in a sentance why he locked the thread! Careful what you wish for.

Oh yah, and he isn't anonymous, you know who he is when he moderates!
Jun 11, 2003 Celkan link
the 666 is a reference to the devil, and by extension to his bad-assness/assholishness Sui.
Jun 11, 2003 Suicidal Lemming link
666 is the number of the devil, i know this.
Jun 12, 2003 xochiluvr link
To be perfectly honest, a lot of you have more experience in the ASW forums than I do it seems. I wasn't thinking of forge or anyone else, as I spent the majority of my time there in only the Nova/EV forums.

I did NOT mean the reference to be quite the insult that some of you seem to feel I made. Obviously, the ASW boards are a LOT worse than I thought, and I still felt the need to leave - and not purchase a single product from ASW since.

What I saw there in mass quantities (and fear I'm seeing more and more here) are:

_ Legitimate threads being closed because (presumably) a mod doesn't like them, not because they aren't relevant.
_ Threads and posts that have little or no relevance -not- being closed or otherwise modded for some unknown reason. In particular, extreme amounts of topic drift in non-OT forums and threads.

I'm -not- implying (or discounting) mod bias, just that there doesn't seem to be a reason that some threads are left open while others are warned or closed for little/no/odd reasons.

I'm actually fairly impartial here - all signs to the contrary [g] . None of the threads either way were ones I participated in, as I recall.

There's also the fact that I think the Forum Moderator has been too... colorful (for lack of a better word) in some of his comments. Or at the very least could have shown more tact.

As a lot of you seem to know this forge person, let's use him (her?) as an example. Don't you -expect- forge to act that way? You've seen him do it quite often it seems, and after a while I imagine he's a lot like Moaning Myrtle from Harry Potter, or Eyeore from Pooh or the robot in Douglas Adams' HHGTTG books. You know how that person thinks and reacts. The value of what a person says is based largely on what you know of that person - that's a key aspect to communication.

My point is, I can't judge the value of Forum Moderator's words, because I don't know who he/she is. Perhaps I see him/her as being entirely too harsh when in fact he/she is merely exaggerating, always exaggerates, or is merely having a bad day. Perhaps because I don't who the person is behind that anonymity, I'm not giving his/her words the correct value. How can I? The comments of this forge person would have little or no value to me beyond the fact that he/she has mod powers and clearly should not. Perhaps I put too much value in the words of Forum Moderator - if his/her words had less value to me, I would be less offended by the tone I perceive. But if his/her words no longer have suffucuent value, Forum Moderator is no longer an effective forum moderator.

As you can see from other threads I've made, I actually feel that an even -stronger- hand must be taken to get these forums back into a state in which they're worth reading. However, it's the irregularity of the actions taken, the inequality I perceive in the criteria by which threads and posts are judged, and the tone of Forum Moderator's words that I question. It's too easy to perceive a bias in someone cloaked behind anonymity. Whether that bias is real or imagined, if you percieve that bias then you yourself become biased as well.

I meant my original comments to be a comparison, not an insult. I still feel my original comments are valid.

Edit: The fact that "Forum Moderator" has locked one of my topics as being a "flame" and says the same about this one proves my point. You all saw my thread and thought of this forge person and saw my words as insulting, when that was not my intention. That's EXACTLY my point, right there!!!
Jun 12, 2003 xochiluvr link
This is a spearate reply to [syn]n00b/genka.

"another thing, noone really cares whether you pay-to-play or not, so don't try to use it as a threat against something which makes this community go along much smoother."

First off, despite the fact that this is the off-topic forum, this comment really has no bearing on this discussion.

There was no threat, explicit or implied. It is a statement of fact. What I commented on DOES affect my decision to pay to continue to participate in this community. It affects whether or not I reccommend this game to people I know. The future of this game depends on it being commercially viable - duh, right? I'm fully aware that that there is no written law that states "We must make XhaLe happy." However, there is the law of supply and demand, and if you want to be the supplier, you have to give people what they demand. A while back someone posted a link to a graph comparing the user base of several MMORPGs. Viable games had roughly 250k total members, depending on how that company's accountants twisted the numbers. Between the mailing lists I run, the people I work with, people I go to school with, the boards and lists in which I participate, and friends and family, I can, on my own, sway at -least- half a percent of that 250k one way or another - and believe me when I say that I want to sway people I know TO the game. Beyond that, I doubt I'm alone in my feeling just counting the people who already play the game. I'm just more loud and obnoxious than they are.

I -want- this community to run smoothly. And peacefully. Antagonistic comments and illogical moderation does not make things smoothly or peacefully. That is precisely why I started the thread in the first place.

You basically agree with me, you just don't know it. :)
Jun 12, 2003 genka link
/me gives up...
Jun 12, 2003 HumpyThePenguin link
Is not your comments antagonistic? The moderator is doing just fine from my point of veiw. You should look at this unbiased...
tghoough I would like to now who this moderator is...
Jun 12, 2003 Forum Moderator link
The policy of the Forums is set by the developers. Any directive they give regarding the forums is followed as closely as is possible. There are many gray areas which are as yet undefined. While the devs are busy with the new version, I am doing my best to let people have their say without going too far overboard. Sometimes a thread which I find to be rather of rather dubious value starts and evolves before I see it and may mutate into something of value - I try to leave those alone. Sometimes a decent thread devolves into a rantfest - I try to lock those out. Keep in mind too that the devs sometimes fill in as guides and moderators (though they don't post with the FM account) When I get unequivocal instructions I can take unequivocal action, but in the meantime I have to do my best.

As far as knowing who the mods and guides are, how would this improve things? If I were Humpy, my actions would be forever be judged based on whoever people thought Humpy was, the Nation he played for, the users he is friendly to, etc. Not to mention the potential for harrassment he would face. This ignores the fact that Humpy might be able to be quite impartial.
Jun 12, 2003 Urza link
How about this. You are not God. You are not a Dev. You lock what we ask you to lock, not what you feel needs to be locked. What has no value to you may have some value to us. A thread might become off topic, so instead of locking that thread, you delete the off topic posts.
Jun 12, 2003 Forum Moderator link
Again, I follow the devs guidelines as best I can. Other users disagree with having their posts deleted and may feel that their posts are somewhat on topic. Many people will disagree with what you or I feel needs to be locked. It's becomming increasingly impossible to satisfy everyone. If the devs tell me "Delete ALL off-topic posts" I will do that with pleasure. Is this hostility really necessary?
Jun 12, 2003 Urza link
sorry if i sounded hostile.
Jun 25, 2003 Dagger link
SHIT! NOOOOOOOOO!
Seriously... are you forge from the ASW boards?