The Joys of Overzealous Moderators - Page 15

Executor · #1 July 5th, 2012, 11:59 PM

That's my general feeling as well. Buy hey, we all know Shrapnel is in for all or nothing when it comes to these things.

Fantomen · #2 July 6th, 2012, 06:50 AM

I wouldn't want any person banned ever, if it was up to me.

What I would require of Chrispedersen, Gandalf and other people who use alt accounts, is to be honest about it. Do I have a personal history with Chrispedersen? I've played with him and found him a very dishonest and generally frustrating player, but all that I can accept, it's only the part where he creates an alt account to avoid standing up for himself, then keeps acting like a douche, then won't fess up when he's exposed, that I think is really not ok.

What Stagger lee points out in his post is that Gandalf still pretends like he wasn't wikd thots, which was proven, a correct use of "contrite" would require a confession, no? Again, I don't care that he made alt accounts to fake flaming himself, I mean that's actually pretty funny and could be a good joke all around, but it requires that you stand up for what you do.

But the bottom line of all this is the hypocrisy in banning some of the most genuinely contributing members of the community, just because they don't bother to hide their less flattering sides. It's the inability and laziness in not actually bothering to see what's really there. I don't want anyone banned, it's a retarded system, but if you're gonna use it at least use it somewhat responsibly instead of actively harming the community.

Anaconda · #3 July 6th, 2012, 07:08 AM

Just noted that Shrapnel removed their randomly appearing Eat Electric Death -banner ad from the loop of the banner ads at the top of the site after this ruckus started. It is, say, 4 years since the game was unofficially abandoned? Are they waking up?

But last night you could still pick it up from the Gamers Front...

parone · #4 July 6th, 2012, 07:16 AM

remmember, shrapnel doesn't really know or care what goes on here. they don't know the members. don't know who contributes what, who's a decent lass or lad, or who is a total d-bag.

they have what? 20 forums? while we all like dominions and have friends within the community(like callahan), they just throw it on a server and classify it "game support". so it isn't that surprising they might get it wrong now and then.

Executor · #5 July 6th, 2012, 07:56 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by parone

remmember, shrapnel doesn't really know or care what goes on here. they don't know the members. don't know who contributes what, who's a decent lass or lad, or who is a total d-bag.

And this is the heart of the problem. Shrapnel doesn't seem to realize this affects them, and not in a small way either. And this is also a problem which could have been easily solved with little to no effort from their part.
How they run their forums directly impacts their sales. If they run it badly (which I think they do), don't care about their members, threat them with disrespect, generally don't bother at all with anything and even manage to split the forum in half like is the case with Dominions, than those members will be less inclined to purchase more Shrapnel games and recommend Shrapnel games to others. Further more, the more livelier the forum is the longer said game will last, meaning, more people will eventually buy the game, more people will get involved in projects, be interested in a sequels perhaps, which that same company might publish, etc. Shrapnel doesn't really care about any of that so it's their own problem they are losing business.

A simple solution to this would have been to appoint several very active and appreciated members to supervise the forum they are active in, and leave those mods to handle internal matters regarding those forums. Help new members, organize new projects, intervene in situations like this where two members were pointlessly banned, etc. I'm sure many member would have been glad to help (people like Soy, WL, Frozen, Maer...) and those people would actually be able to promote harmony on the forums and help the company as well.
Is that really that hard to do? And yet imagine how much better this forum would be, how much more people would be here, how many more people would actively contribute and participate on the forums, and how many more people would actually buy this game?

So I can't really accept anything in defense of Shrapnel since it's their own incompetence that's the cause of all these problems.

jimbojones1971 · #6 July 7th, 2012, 09:13 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by parone

remmember, shrapnel doesn't really know or care what goes on here. they don't know the members. don't know who contributes what, who's a decent lass or lad, or who is a total d-bag.

they have what? 20 forums? while we all like dominions and have friends within the community(like callahan), they just throw it on a server and classify it "game support". so it isn't that surprising they might get it wrong now and then.

I might be wrong, but it seems to me that almost all of the other forums are effectively museum pieces - not much if any posting ever. In fact, at a guess I'd say at least 80% of the forum posts happen in the Dom3 subforum.

Its going out on a limb, but I wouldn't be at all surprised to find that most of the income also comes from Dom3 now.

parone · #7 July 6th, 2012, 08:03 AM

i was not really defending shrapnel. i was just pointing out why i think they made the wrong call here. many good points/suggestions have been brought up, but they are only applicable if someone is paying attention.

Anaconda · #8 July 6th, 2012, 08:13 AM

I was wrong, it is still up :/

Soyweiser · #9 July 6th, 2012, 09:10 AM

regarding the competence of shrapnel. The whole buying frontend could also use a huge makeover. The defaults are bad, and you have to perform a huge amount of clicks before you can buy something. This is very bad for business. Just improving that site would probably increase their conversion rate a lot. (Funny thing, for games that have multiple OS version, mac is chosen first. No auto-detection takes places. (Shrapnel, either pick windows as default (lets be honest, most games will be sold for windows) or get the browser version and make an educated guess.

I already pointed this stuff out before. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/showp...68&postcount=2

*crickets*

momfreeek · #10 July 6th, 2012, 01:52 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Fantomen

Calling them out for their multiple accounts is to show the hypocrisy in banning other major contributors thoughtlessly. If we can overlook the faults of some, and we should, then we could also forgive the faults of Calahan and Sombre.

Different cases of breaking different rules by different people were treated differently. The difference seems to be that shrapnel value contrition over contributions. I agree this is not good for the health of the community but its not hypocrisy.

If you have something to say in Calahan's defence its best not surrounded by an argument that ignores everything shrapnel say and mostly involves attacking someone else.