Is SOE corporate strategy being applied to our beloved forums?

Khuzarrz

Don't worry Taera, I'm not going to suggest you're working for SOE or any such nonsense (fact is, we all know that you're working for Funcom anyway). I would however suggest you're acting as if you work for them with the new policy regarding religion, politics and ethics.

 

Despite the retraction (which we're all very grateful for) from the original policy, the new policy could still be used in exactly the same effect, or, on the flipside, it might have no more effect than the original moderation rules. This of course depends highly upon just how the moderators interpret it, but I won't dare to stipulate on that subject.

 

More important in my opinion, is what the new rules were formulated based upon. To me, it seems that the new policy seems to be based upon the complaints of people who do not frequent the off-topic section. It seems that the complaints of 'They were all nasty to me *boo hoo*', 'They said my preacher was a lier *boo hoo*', 'Someone called Richard Dawkins a fag *boo hoo*' could only come from someone who was not a regular on this board, because anyone who does frequent this board knows fullwell that the debate here is real debate, in that it has real emotion and real conviction behind it.

 

Following such complaints, I think it's likely that a decision was taken to implement a policy that would stop such complaints arriving, and supposedly therefore allow the community to grow more. Such a decision was clearly (in my opinion) misguided and thoughtless. I'd like to draw a comparision (as the astute amoungst us will have guessed, from the title) with SOE's total mishandling of Star Wars: Galaxies way back when. I'd assume that the vast majority of us here are familiar in one way or another with what SOE did: polled everyone CANCELLING their subscription (similar to leaving a forum, perhaps) as to why they didn't like the game. They totally disregarded their existing playerbase, somehow making the logical leap that by conforming their game to the desires of the people who don't play the game, that those people would rejoin their playerbase, and they'd also keep their original playerbase. The gamble didn't pay off, and they lost the majority of their players, turning most servers into virtual ghost towns. It truly seems to me as if mmorpg.com are close to making the same catastrophic error with regards to the OT board.

 

Most of us, I can quite confidently state, are here if not primarily, then in part for the political, religious and ethical debate that has been maintained here daily for the entirety of my membership here, and long since before. Stopping this debate seems pointless: We'll be left with posts about the best free mmorpg, Paris Hilton's latest conviction, and cookies.

 

So to move on from my criticism of this latest policy move by the administration (;) political joke anyone?) I'd like to make a couple of suggestions that might resolve the issue in a way that might convince those of us seriously considering abandoning the forum altogether (and those who've already done so) to come back to mmorpg.com as we'd all like to deep down.

 

First is the most obvious suggestion really. Put a warning in the description of the forum. "Debate will occur here, and your feelings will not be spared" or such like (maybe something a bit less threatening :P ).

Second, create a religion, politics, ethics, and all other weird and wonderful things (that aren't to do with sport, Paris Hilton, cookies, or whatever else I mentioned) forum, with a strict disclaimer that debate will occur, feelings will be hurt, opinions will be attacked, and sides will be taken. By all means, moderate this forum (I know a number of us would be happy to volunteer to do just that if necessary) such that attacks on people aren't made, but don't remove attacks on opinions: that's the whole point of argument.

Third, kind of a middleground between the two, inspired by another forum I visit from time to time. There they have some posts that people may not wish to see because of feelings they may provoke, but other people will have no problem with them and will be able to answer the poster's concerns. Rather than delete said posts because people may be hurt/offended, posters are required to 'label' their posts. Quite simply by writing *triggering* *offensive* or whatever at the start of the post title. Why can't we have *Political* *Religious* or *May cause offense* as disclaimers to avoid people joining topics with ambiguous titles that they do not like the content of?

 

It's my firm belief that the political, religious and ethical debate here is the best of any community I've visited. The diversity of people brought to the forums by their true topic (mmorpgs) leaves us with some brilliant, multi-cultural, multi-religious, multi-just-about-everything opinions. We've had Unitarian Universalist teachers, Right-wing bikers, Religious Zealots of all shape and size, ninjas, Dawkins-wannabes, Quantum Physicists, communist conspiracy theorists, ex-catholic satanic transexuals, teenage gamers, etc etc etc. All with drastically different points of view, and all engaging in healthy debate here. That wouldn't be found on a forum just for political and religious debate - there you'd just get the people who go out of their way to engage in that debate. Having the debate here brings those of us with casual beliefs/ideals into the debate (and in a lot of cases, my own included, gives us great incite into the beliefs of others).

 

Sorry some of the grammar is shocking, my use of commas is abysmal, and my paragraphs are hardly coherent really, and thanks for your patience in reading this. I really hope something rectifies this situation soon.

JelloB2000

There are two stickies for discussing moderation, feel free to use any of them.