[KudagAxehand]

Source: Ciderhelm Again, they are running the newest version of vBulletin. There is literally zero reason for them to put a moderation queue on their posts. If they are doing it to spambots, they are morons who have no idea how their software works.

That may be the case, I cannot speak for their technical aptitude. For all I know they may not even have the queue in place any longer, You only needed to make like 5 posts or something to circumvent it to begin with.

The only reason you put things in a moderation queue is to prevent people from registering for the purpose of linking to other sites. They can say it's for spam protection, but anyone who knows the software is going to call them idiots.

If this was their reasoning then they utterly failed, and also failed to brief their moderators on their policy, because as soon as the mod received my PM, your threat guide was immediately pushed through the queue. If they didn't want it there, it would never have been, nor would many of my own posts.

How's that saying go? Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity?

The reason I didn't chime in to make a counter-point on that is that, yes, there is a rivalry between the sites. Why were we the first and longest running fansite to post news from ALL of the major sources? Not sure how things are run now, but when I was looking at PTR, TTH, and IGN, they would never repost a link to another fansite on their news unless it was in the feedback friday.

Or Laziness.

In the case of TTH and IGN, they're commercial sites, do you really expect them to promote what they no doubt view as potential competition? I never visit either site myself, but do they ever link Tankspot?

And actually, from the Guardian Alpha in a post at TabulaSpot:

Source: gary0044187 you know what was funny is two days ago one of our people over at TRVault was telling us to check this site out... As of today she is the new Site manager over there...

Not a great example of promoting us, but that's a poster we never would have had otherwise.

The same thread, Vortech of PTR signed up and posted, which is more than can be said for the majority of our visitors.

PTR doesn't usually post ANY news not directly from RGTR, especially now that they've gone to an automated feed, but the majority of "news" that might have come from TabulaSpot they might have posted, we(I) usually beat them to the punch by posting it in their forums. Unlike TabulaSpot, where you couldn't coax a conversation out of the members with your best set of torture implements, Planet TR's news page takes a backseat to their forums, and not vice-versa. If it's in their forums then it pretty much has been posted as "news", IMO.

[Lore]

Source: KudagAxehand Or Laziness. In the case of TTH and IGN, they're commercial sites, do you really expect them to promote what they no doubt view as potential competition? I never visit either site myself, but do they ever link Tankspot?

This is exactly why TR's community system is a failure.

The community does not nurture itself. At best, it ignores it. In TTH and IGN's case, it appears to suppress it. Without a place for the community to grow from, it does not grow at all.

[Ciderhelm]

Source: KudagAxehand How's that saying go? Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity?

Arguing they're stupid doesn't put them in a better light than arguing they're malicious, given that they're trying to be the official forums. Which was the point of what was being said, at least on my end.

Source: KudagAxehand In the case of TTH and IGN, they're commercial sites, do you really expect them to promote what they no doubt view as potential competition?

Again, isn't that exactly the problem with having multiple sites attempting to be official forums? Isn't this what was being said?

Source: KudagAxehand Not a great example of promoting us, but that's a poster we never would have had otherwise.

But TabulaSpot was never built as a community site, it was built as a theory site for a game which (unfortunately) required no thought whatsoever.

Source: KudagAxehand The same thread, Vortech of PTR signed up and posted, which is more than can be said for the majority of our visitors.

Read above. We weren't a community site.

Source: KudagAxehand Planet TR's news page takes a backseat to their forums, and not vice-versa. If it's in their forums then it pretty much has been posted as "news", IMO.

And this is really the issue I have.

You're defending a bad site by suggesting it could be worse, and suggesting that it at least offered something. That was never the argument being made. The argument being made was that the fractured set of communities made game deployment worse than it would have been with a central forum and fansites built outward from there.

I agree with you that it's not as bad as what Lore and Velhym were saying, sure. But I've already said that in this thread twice. If we want to take the next step and ask whether PTR is a good site or not, it's awful. You may disagree. TR's development team has gone by the book in illustrating how not to handle a community.

[Lore]

I will agree that I could easily take things a lot more seriously than they need to me. I find the subtle nuances and dynamics of community management fascinating, so it's quite possible that I am simply judging something that is merely suboptimal to be worse than it actually is in practice.

[KudagAxehand]

Source: Ciderhelm Read above. We weren't a community site.

Only because nobody joined our forums to make it one. What community exactly am I managing here =oP
Is TankSpot not a Warrior Community, a Tanking Community site? How was TabulaSpot to be any different? A niche community is still a community.

You're defending a bad site by suggesting it could be worse, and suggesting that it at least offered something. That was never the argument being made. The argument being made was that the fractured set of communities made game deployment worse than it would have been with a central forum and fansites built outward from there.

No, I was never arguing that having no official forums was a good thing, I was saying that the light you painted PTR and relations with other fansites(TTH and IGN not included, fansite does not include commercial enterprises in my book) in a false light. Fractured as in not united under one banner, yes. Fractured as in at eachothers throats, no, but the latter seemed the implication to me of many things that were said. Yes NCSoft made a poor decision in not having official forums, but there's no need to blow things out of proportion and make unwarranted (IMO) accusations of wrongdoing about people who just liked the game enough to set up some forums and talk about it.

Lets see what was said:
-Bitter Rivalry between fansites
-Planet TR would frequently ban users linking to other fansites
-What little community there was became hostile towards the other segments of the community
-fansites in competition, very vicious towards eachother

To the best of my knowledge, the above is UTTERLY FALSE. I challenge anyone to show evidence of it. Especially the comment about PTR banning players for linking to other fansites. Looking at you here, Lore...

These are the points I took issue with. Not that PTR isn't as informative or comprehensive or even as popular and effective as it could be were it an official forum, but that you belittled the community and their efforts to support the game the best they could DESPITE NCSofts failings.

Regardless, I think the 4 of us are the only ones with any interest in this topic whatsoever...

[Ciderhelm]

Source: KudagAxehand Only because nobody joined our forums to make it one. What community exactly am I managing here =oP Is TankSpot not a Warrior Community, a Tanking Community site? How was TabulaSpot to be any different? A niche community is still a community.

It was clearly stated that we were talking about sites trying to emulate official forums and take that role. You're correct on the semantics, but only if you pull this completely out of context.

Source: KudagAxehand Lets see what was said: -Bitter Rivalry between fansites -Planet TR would frequently ban users linking to other fansites -What little community there was became hostile towards the other segments of the community -fansites in competition, very vicious towards eachother To the best of my knowledge, the above is UTTERLY FALSE. I challenge anyone to show evidence of it. Especially the comment about PTR banning players for linking to other fansites. Looking at you here, Lore...

You say this, and I understand this, but you're directing an argument at me that is nothing to do with what I said. My argument has been separate of this, but you've been countering statements I've made by responding to statements others have.

[KudagAxehand]

Source: Ciderhelm You say this, and I understand this, but you're directing an argument at me that is nothing to do with what I said. My argument has been separate of this, but you've been countering statements I've made by responding to statements others have.

My comments are intended to be addressed at the podcast as a whole.
And if I'm not mistaken, that final statement was yours.

I responded to your comments regarding this, because YOU responded to MINE (Edit 2 in my first post). If you did not wish to engage in discussion about the statements in question...why do so? Further, if you disagreed with Lore's assessment of the community and the actions of the sites in question, why not say so?

But again, this topic is pointless, the damage is done. Discussion ended.

[Ciderhelm]

Source: KudagAxehand I responded to your comments regarding this, because YOU responded to MINE (Edit 2 in my first post). If you did not wish to engage in discussion about the statements in question...why do so? Further, if you disagreed with Lore's assessment of the community and the actions of the sites in question, why not say so?

Because I didn't know if it was correct or incorrect, and still don't. Velhym played longer than any of us.

You may not have read clearly what I had said in response to yours. Please look at it again:

Regarding Edit 12, I wasn't saying that and I disagree w/ it, but there were a lot of people in-game who were complaining about the awful and completely unnecessary moderation system PTR had in place. How many times were posts and threads w/ links simply not published because they never got around to moderating them? (I know it happened at least once just with me, and you had mentioned it was an issue)

Then:

I agree with you that it's not as bad as what Lore and Velhym were saying, sure. But I've already said that in this thread twice. If we want to take the next step and ask whether PTR is a good site or not, it's awful. You may disagree. TR's development team has gone by the book in illustrating how not to handle a community.

You said you took issue with separate points, and I agreed with you, but you continued to argue several things that were unrelated to your point, such as the thread moderation. That's what I disagreed with, and still do.

When I read your responses, you're quick to get in and defend various aspects of PTR, and that's fine. It's just that half of what you're arguing has less to do with the podcast than with people who don't like that single website of four major ones (PTR, IGN, TTH, Gangrel).

If we've all trashed PTR, it's because we thought that it -- like the rest of the sites -- were bad. That's why we didn't post there. But we're still three separate people who made separate points, and to be clear again, I agree that the statement on the issue you brought up was incorrect regarding active banning.

[Rabidwombat]

I just want to chime in here since I played TR for about 2 weeks before leaving. I agree with the overall tone of the pod cast and assessment of TR's community (or lack thereof).

It was fun to just run around and shoot stuff for a while, but that soon grew old. While searching for intelligent ways to spend my talent points and clone credits, I quickly became frustrated. I know and trust Cider & Co. so I automatically came to TabulaSpot first (they were the ones that introduced me to the game anyway), but the theorycraft presented was too much for me at the time. I browsed some of the other forum sites (I don't even remember which ones how) and found small tidbits of information here and there, but none of the sites earned my trust or love.

While playing, I never found a solid goal to work towards. Leveling is the journey (and should be enjoyed), but there should be a reason to make that journey. As far as I could tell, a reason did not exist. Crafting was a joke, there was no end-game instances, and I am not that big into PvP. Hell, I never even managed to find an instance group. Was I even playing an MMO?

It's not all bad though. The game introduces some interesting concepts and makes steps in the right direction. Control points and the hybrid fps/rpg control style both piqued my interest. If the developers stepped in right now, reworked the community and added visible, interesting, and desirable goals to the game, then it could still be saved. I will continue to check in on it because I know much can change in one month, 6 months or a year, but I am not holding my breath.

[Kazeyonoma]

Sooo... good call on me not buying TR? ;x