Night of the Long Knives?

[rdonj]

Originally Posted by Foodstamp

Bad timing seeing how they just released a preview of the dominions RPG mechanics:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ

Who's 12 now?

[militarist]

I was not on a irc channel when Sombre explained what happened, and for me it's hard to imagine that sombre was punished for what he thought. It looks for me that he was punished for what he said. There is always a difference between these 2. From my understanding - he just had a conflict with some inexperienced admin. And then another, more experienced admin, who probably is higher in hierarchy, made a decision to save face of organization in eyes of all admins, and not demotivate them by letting Sombre ignore them. Nobody likes to be ignored, and even less like to hear something like what sombre told. But this move of administration smells like Chinese style of governance - they feel they should sacrifice 1 person to keep admins happy and the system unharmed. There is a big difference between China and the other world. And since we are not employees of Shrapnel, and internet is associated with the word freedom and pluralism, what administration does can be understood but it really hurts. And if administration pays so much affords to develop modders and players community, it would be smart to consider such people as Sombre more as investors, who have voice, rather then employees who can be just fired from forum. It's your business, and you can legal right to o whatever you want, but if you want us to feel as a community, let us be this community. Otherwise many of us will have huge issues with own integrity, and that's not really good for anyone.

Shrapnel is not only a forum, it's a niche social network and it's value is in it's members.

Anyway, I would like to thank you, Shrapnel, for parental attention. I appreciate your affords and resources you spend on game and community. But are we really so little children that we deserve such kinds of punishment and control ? Or criminals? I would really understand if Sombre have shown some public disrespect to Shrapnel. But banning for Private messages exchange with one admin, whose input can be much lower then Sombre's? That's hard to understand.

[Foodstamp]

Originally Posted by militarist

I was not on a irc channel when Sombre explained what happened, and for me it's hard to imagine that sombre was punished for what he thought. It looks for me that he was punished for what he said. There is always a difference between these 2. From my understanding - he just had a conflict with some inexperienced admin. And then another, more experienced admin, who probably is higher in hierarchy, made a decision to save face of organization in eyes of all admins, and not demotivate them by letting Sombre ignore them. Nobody likes to be ignored, and even less like to hear something like what sombre told. But this move of administration smells like Chinese style of governance - they feel they should sacrifice 1 person to keep admins happy and the system unharmed. There is a big difference between China and the other world. And since we are not employees of Shrapnel, and internet is associated with the word freedom and pluralism, what administration does can be understood but it really hurts. And if administration pays so much affords to develop modders and players community, it would be smart to consider such people as Sombre more as investors, who have voice, rather then employees who can be just fired from forum. It's your business, and you can legal right to o whatever you want, but if you want us to feel as a community, let us be this community. Otherwise many of us will have huge issues with own integrity, and that's not really good for anyone.

Shrapnel is not only a forum, it's a niche social network and it's value is in it's members.

Anyway, I would like to thank you, Shrapnel, for parental attention. I appreciate your affords and resources you spend on game and community. But are we really so little children that we deserve such kinds of punishment and control ? Or criminals? I would really understand if Sombre have shown some public disrespect to Shrapnel. But banning for Private messages exchange with one admin, whose input can be much lower then Sombre's? That's hard to understand.

You were able to deduce all that from what someone told you in IRC? That the morale of the admins was in jeopardy so Sombre had to be made into a martyr?

Sombre made mods, people like mods. Sombre was rude to people, including new players and forum users, people don't like that. Shrapnel is probably breaking even between people he attracted (I doubt he attracted anyone, retain is probably a better word) through mods and people he ran off by being rude. His mods were cool, and it appealed to a lot of people, especially forum vets, but his attitude was a detriment to the community, especially new players, who are just as important customers as any of us.

[Soyweiser]

Originally Posted by Foodstamp

Sombre was rude to people, including new players and forum users, people don't like that.

I kinda disagree there, watching the drama can be very much fun

"Game forums. Come for the game, stay for the drama."

And lets not overreact. Sombre wasn't always an pain in the backside.

[Foodstamp]

Originally Posted by Soyweiser

I kinda disagree there, watching the drama can be very much fun

"Game forums. Come for the game, stay for the drama."

And lets not overreact. Sombre wasn't always an pain in the backside.

I agree the drama can be fun to watch, I am as guilty as anyone when it comes to enjoying that. I blame it on my MMORPG trash talk days . It's one of the reasons I responded in this thread, people get so worked up about the silliest things, and then they become easy pickings.

[militarist]

"
You were able to deduce all that from what someone told you in IRC? That the morale of the admins was in jeopardy so Sombre had to be made into a martyr?

Sombre made mods, people like mods. Sombre was rude to people, including new players and forum users, people don't like that. Shrapnel is probably breaking even between people he attracted (I doubt he attracted anyone, retain is probably a better word) through mods and people he ran off by being rude. His mods were cool, and it appealed to a lot of people, especially forum vets, but his attitude was a detriment to the community, especially new players, who are just as important customers as any of us.[/quote]

My feeling were hurt by a mix of several reasons which, maybe wouldn't happen in case on not being a mis. But this mix is poisioning.

1. Shrapnel didn't explains why he did it. It's a Shrapnel's right, but still it hurts.
2. It's a community, not a Shrapnel's blog, so some some level of democracy is expected, regardless of those forum rules most of us don't even read, because we expect them to be just usual, reasonable, and based on an common sense.
3. I hate political correctness, as thouse who demend it are rarely the same people who contribute. From my life experience, politically correct people (I mean in extreme way, like demanding from Shrapnel to ban the offender) and those who really do something are very rarely the same person.
4. Even If I was not so much against political correctness -if someone was publicly offended - that's bad. And for public offense. There should be punishment. But if it was private - the offended have a great opputrinity to save his mood next time by avoiding games in which Somber plays with his friends. And Shrapnel could just ignore it. It's PRIVATE. I don't know if it was private or not.but..see point 1.

[Graeme Dice]

Originally Posted by Foodstamp

Sombre made mods, people like mods. Sombre was rude to people, including new players and forum users, people don't like that.

He was a lot less rude than Septimius Severus, who is the user who actually caused the altercation by misrepresenting Sombre's words.

[Foodstamp]

Originally Posted by Graeme Dice

He was a lot less rude than Septimius Severus, who is the user who actually caused the altercation by misrepresenting Sombre's words.

I don't remember Septimius, and for the record, I never reported Sombre for anything.

[militarist]

And one more moment I'd like to mention. If you gave him "-10" points for something, from the point of view of the "feeling of is right" of the majority, Sombre definitely deserves +1000 points for his community supporting affords. And though Shrapnel doesn't formally appreciate modding, it would be wise to do it at least informally. everybody would understand if you banned somebody who did not invest any time into the game, and just ignored Sombre's bad mood or his awkward expression of his though. I start to have feeling that Sombre was banned EXACTLY because he invested so much. Because his words were treated as a show of arrogance from the person who doesn't take the world in an adequate way. To give a good example to all other Dom's dinosaurs, with a message "we watch you more then others". But who really have shown arrogance in this case? And if Sombre, who is our friend and part of our heart as he is part of commmunity, said something awkward which could be understood (quite subjective though) in a way that can be treated (also subjective) offencive way, why just not to ignore him several times, just to see if he really because inadequate destructing monster , whose existence threatens to the community, sales plans of our initiative to advertise the game?

Do you really beleave that thouse who are here, on this forum - we still play Doms because the game is great? No. We really appritiate the game, but many of us would not play it SP. And in MP good game partners and friends, and a feeling of community is a necessity. And he is our friend.

[Trumanator]

Well you see, shrapnel has refused to publish the reasons behind Sombre's banning, so naturally we're forced to assume that what we have heard from him is true.

Oh, and you do realize you can post Tim Brooks, instead of just thanking your tools.