183 replies to this topic

[Alistair Winter]

DAYLEET, on 17 July 2016 - 10:26 AM, said:

We already live without a community manager or any kind of PGI employees, lets see how it goes without mods.

Not true.

Tina posted in the GD forum last week (and I haven't seen her post anything in ages, so you can imagine my surprise).

She said people shouldn't post with alt accounts, because it's against the rules.

Sooo.... yep. That was some good stuff.

[Mechwarrior1441491]

SO what if someone decides their old account is their alt account and can't post with it due to being banned? It's all about perspective. Perhaps their new account is their main.

I've had this name taken away unjustly without the ability to change it. Their enforcement is fairly arbitrary to the point of outright lies at times. Usually against those who are passionate and vocal about the game and butt heads with PGI. Yes men seems to be the way to go to avoid fall out.

Edited by Mechwarrior1441491, 17 July 2016 - 12:08 PM.

[Elizander]

I think they just mean no artificially boosting your point via alt accounts or pretending to be a one-man angry mob.

[Mechwarrior1441491]

oh, fair enough. People do that? Interesting.

[Pat Kell]

Guys, I see a lot of people here that seem amazed that PGI (if they in fact did this) got rid of some of these Mods and that just shocks me. Mods are supposed to remain neutral and only make sure posts are not going to get the company sued. View them as a less powerful HR department. These mods were advocating ideas, moving posts they didn't agree with and honest being incredibly rude and disrespectful to people in the forums. I was quite honestly shocked that it took PGI so long to make this move.

Being a moderator is a thankless job and you have to be able to do it with a smile. If you can't do that, MWO can and SHOULD find someone who can. Look some of you guys are just rude mean downright nasty people sometimes to PGI and the mods but that doesn't matter. The moment the mod starts pointing things out like this in public and starts responding in kind, his/her time is over, that's it.

I don't have near as many posts as a lot of you guys in here but I have been talked to in private once for posting foul language. This moderator did things the right way and I respected him for it. This was the only time any of my posts have caused an issue until recently when one of our threads on the long tom was moved to jettisoned communications or whatever because

"Topic being moved to Jettisoned Communications as its OP and allot of the Post are Sour,
for Everyone willing to Constructively Contribute to Change in Faction Play and to LongToms,
Please Post your Thoughts and Ideas in the Faction Play Sub forums, Thank You"

This is an absolutely unacceptable way of dealing with a post. If something in the thread was against some forum rule, fine deal with it in private but this mod moved the post, called "allot" of it's contributors sour and suggested that we weren't being constructive. I have seen 2 different mods acting this way recently and it appears that both of them are now no longer mods and this is the right thing to do. Stop blaming PGI for everything, this was the mods fault. Doesn't matter if they were doing it for free, that doesn't mean that PGI has to sit back and watch as these mods even further damage their name. This one is on the mods, pure and simple.

Edited by Pat Kell, 17 July 2016 - 12:15 PM.

[C E Dwyer]

Bishop Steiner, on 17 July 2016 - 10:47 AM, said:

I'm not arguing or denying that. But if your social justice warrior at work consistently oversteps or ignore his employers rules and policies, they are still within their right to let him go.

I actually had conversations with Derek when he first took three position, about my concern he was going put himself in an untenable position. I'm sad I was right. But PGI had been crystal clear the last few months that they neither need, not want our input.

last Sentence really is the bottom line, these boards at pointless, using them is also pointless, other than to argue between ourselves, and waste our lives

Edit

The only real choice we have is to deal with the Crap P.G.I throw at us, and call a game, or leave.

either way venting on these boards just causes drama and bad feeling between ourselves.

Edited by Cathy, 17 July 2016 - 12:25 PM.

[Alistair Winter]

Elizander, on 17 July 2016 - 12:09 PM, said:

I think they just mean no artificially boosting your point via alt accounts or pretending to be a one-man angry mob.

Yeah, I get that it's a rule. However... being an absent community manager and coming back only to point out an obscure part of the CoC about alt accounts, it's kind of a bad look. The mood on the forum is really bad right now, it's probably one of the worst periods in MWO history in terms of discontent. Maybe a close second or third behind IGP-gate in 2013? You've even got Bishop starting riots (I'm exaggerating), and the community seems to have lost two volunteer moderators. The mood is tense.

So to come back at this hour and point out some minor rule that people are breaking is just really weird timing. It reminds me of 2014, 2015 when there were no Town Halls, no Twitter, no real direct communication between the devs and the community. And all of a sudden, while people are upset with this silent treatment, Russ or Paul post in a thread in the GD forum just to say "Actually, the Atlas S-variant is a loyalty mech, so you can't buy it for C-bills." And everyone is like.... "What? You logged on to post... that!?"

Edited by Alistair Winter, 17 July 2016 - 12:30 PM.

[Mudhutwarrior]

You know its bad when the White Knights have left too.

[Deathlike]

I don't think Derek did anything wrong necessarily, but I can understand why he was let go in the sense being too partial to the "inmates" around here would be a bad thing.

Andi on the other hand... I don't think was a good choice. I don't think he's a bad person - his personality isn't conducive to being a good moderator (he's not a bad guy - more naive than anything when it comes to being a moderator).


Still, this shows a lot about PGI than anything. Most of the moderators that we have now are pro-PGI guys - that is, they will say "there is nothing wrong with PGI" and you know that's a whole bit of baloney.

What Derek did however is say, "I think there is something wrong too, and I'll see what I can do"... well...you know what you can do - do nothing - the status quo. That is the real message.


I have more respect for Derek than any of the other mods here, and while he did fall on the sword, he did he thought was best for the community... which is more that can be said for our community manager. Remember that the community managers that preceded her were no different... and some obviously worse than what we have now - but no less useful or impactful for the needs of the community.


So, good luck Derek... you tried, and that's better than the bulk of people that aren't up to the task.

[Baulven]

See here is my perspective. While he may have violated the letter I don't think he violated the spirit of anything that was expected of him as both mods wanted to find ways for more interaction not less. Other than the little bit of salt it was by no means a terrible online game thread by any definition. Yes in theory you can call them HR but seriously unless they are ******* paying them you shouldn't expect them to kowtow to the company line. Ultimately they are still volunteers that are doing a thankless job for free.

But then if I expected thought out intelligent action from PGI I would probably have an anurism. Like I stated in threads before every time I consider opening my wallet they do some other completely assanine thing that snaps it closed. Once HBS game comes I doubt I will play much mwo, since I play this for the battletech logo not for generic robot shooty game 386.

Edited by Baulven, 17 July 2016 - 12:53 PM.

[CMDR Sunset Shimmer]

I see the green name down there. Zoeff.

Welcome to moderating, welcome to the hellhole, and welcome to the vitrol PGI has engendered over the past few years... and yet another notch in their everlasting belt.

Good luck.

[Bishop Steiner]

CMDR Sunset Shimmer, on 17 July 2016 - 12:51 PM, said:

I see the green name down there. Zoeff.

Welcome to moderating, welcome to the hellhole, and welcome to the vitrol PGI has engendered over the past few years... and yet another notch in their everlasting belt.

Good luck.

Isn't Z0eff a dev?

[Jackal Noble]

Pat Kell, on 17 July 2016 - 12:11 PM, said:

Guys, I see a lot of people here that seem amazed that PGI (if they in fact did this) got rid of some of these Mods and that just shocks me. Mods are supposed to remain neutral and only make sure posts are not going to get the company sued. View them as a less powerful HR department. These mods were advocating ideas, moving posts they didn't agree with and honest being incredibly rude and disrespectful to people in the forums. I was quite honestly shocked that it took PGI so long to make this move.

Being a moderator is a thankless job and you have to be able to do it with a smile. If you can't do that, MWO can and SHOULD find someone who can. Look some of you guys are just rude mean downright nasty people sometimes to PGI and the mods but that doesn't matter. The moment the mod starts pointing things out like this in public and starts responding in kind, his/her time is over, that's it.

I don't have near as many posts as a lot of you guys in here but I have been talked to in private once for posting foul language. This moderator did things the right way and I respected him for it. This was the only time any of my posts have caused an issue until recently when one of our threads on the long tom was moved to jettisoned communications or whatever because

"Topic being moved to Jettisoned Communications as its OP and allot of the Post are Sour,
for Everyone willing to Constructively Contribute to Change in Faction Play and to LongToms,
Please Post your Thoughts and Ideas in the Faction Play Sub forums, Thank You"

This is an absolutely unacceptable way of dealing with a post. If something in the thread was against some forum rule, fine deal with it in private but this mod moved the post, called "allot" of it's contributors sour and suggested that we weren't being constructive. I have seen 2 different mods acting this way recently and it appears that both of them are now no longer mods and this is the right thing to do. Stop blaming PGI for everything, this was the mods fault. Doesn't matter if they were doing it for free, that doesn't mean that PGI has to sit back and watch as these mods even further damage their name. This one is on the mods, pure and simple.

Volunteer Mods dude. They took up the mantle out of what they thought would be contribution to the community.Don't go waving the Standards of HR /moderating flag. That's just dumb.
That was the closest thing to effective "volunteer" moderating PGI will get. Pure and simple, after no real endgame explanation or any real communication for that matter (IE unless it's an emergency bandaid) ever from PGI, they maybe became understandably disgruntled. I know I would without any of the devs backing me up.

[Brain Cancer]

Procurator Derek, on 17 July 2016 - 09:15 AM, said:

Exactly. You can't do anything like that. I take full responsibility for the punishment i received.

I'm just going to be done with the forums. Too much drama, too many problems, and so on and so forth.

Like meteorol said, positioned myself wrong.

After going all out on Reddit + this, you were a done deal. Good effort. Hang out on Outreach with the rest of the Islanders.

cazidin, on 17 July 2016 - 10:18 AM, said:

Maybe not. However I think we deserve an official response from either Tina or Russ and, if Derek IS gone? Then we need somebody who engages us on the forums and addresses our grievances. Again. Don't send them hate Tweets but this is a very wrong direction. This is another Mini-Map incident.

Tina's response likely already happened to the one person that matters in this via PM. Mod hires and fires are about as internal a matter as it gets unless what he did was to a customer. Sounds like the Twitter thing got the same "you went too far" as some of Andi's briefly there stickies on GD prior to his degreening.

[Koniving]

Tarl Cabot, on 17 July 2016 - 08:35 AM, said:

I wonder if Russ is having to do all of his own dirty work today?

Probably not.

[cazidin]

Brain Cancer, on 17 July 2016 - 01:21 PM, said:

After going all out on Reddit + this, you were a done deal. Good effort. Hang out on Outreach with the rest of the Islanders.



Tina's response likely already happened to the one person that matters in this via PM. Mod hires and fires are about as internal a matter as it gets unless what he did was to a customer. Sounds like the Twitter thing got the same "you went too far" as some of Andi's briefly there stickies on GD prior to his degreening.

What'd he say/do on Reddit?

[Y E O N N E]

Alistair Winter, on 17 July 2016 - 11:59 AM, said:

Not true.

Tina posted in the GD forum last week (and I haven't seen her post anything in ages, so you can imagine my surprise).

She said people shouldn't post with alt accounts, because it's against the rules.

Sooo.... yep. That was some good stuff.

Okay, so she's got the management part down. Now we need to work on getting the community in there.

[Brain Cancer]

cazidin, on 17 July 2016 - 01:28 PM, said:

What'd he say/do on Reddit?

Someone got permabanned, posted it on Reddit, Derek went off on them. Not sure if people with mod status on the forums here are held to a higher standard.

[Deathlike]

Brain Cancer, on 17 July 2016 - 01:52 PM, said:

Someone got permabanned, posted it on Reddit, Derek went off on them. Not sure if people with mod status on the forums here are held to a higher standard.

In theory, they should.

If you give people the power to have control... like the police, you have to have control of your own responsibilities and not abuse your power.

It's naturally tricky.

[Mechwarrior Buddah]

Bishop Steiner, on 17 July 2016 - 08:17 AM, said:

Anyone check "off topic"?

Not sure General Discussion was the right section for it....

more like kaekaetoa or jetcom id guess. Back where all the rest of the dissent goes XD

Brain Cancer, on 17 July 2016 - 01:21 PM, said:

After going all out on Reddit + this, you were a done deal. Good effort. Hang out on Outreach with the rest of the Islanders.

Since when? Outreach used to be the last of the whitest of knights

and did they delete it? I dont see any such thread on either side

Edited by Mechwarrior Buddah, 17 July 2016 - 02:31 PM.