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Answering Questions

acraigacraig PlaneShift DeveloperMember Posts: 13
in Planeshift

After reading some of the threads here there seems to be a lot of different views and a lot of assumptions ( some right, some wrong ).  So, as a developer,  I want to try to answer any questions you might have.   ( Yes, I've signed up today but hey have to start somewhere. )

I am probably wading into a bit of a firestorm but hey, I need something to do while I wait for rebuilds

 

 

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Comments

  • TriMoonTriMoon Member UncommonPosts: 57

    I wish you goodluck while entering this dungeon.

    If you want something todo in a positive way for your project, i suggest you remove your current moderator neko....

    I was planning on joining your development team after getting a feel of how the game currently is, but his behavior has shut my door to this project...
    Perhaps you wont want other possible developers to run away in a similar way...

    Well thats all for now, 3M

  • acraigacraig PlaneShift DeveloperMember Posts: 13

    Again I would hope that prospective team members would be able to see the game as a whole and judge it by that and not an incident on the forums.   The forums is such a small part of the game.  Anyways, I will try to pay more attention to the forums in the regard.

  • TriMoonTriMoon Member UncommonPosts: 57

    For any project in development, the forum is the face towards the public.
    In such a stage it is a VITAL part of your project, not just a small part....

    If your PR staff scares-off visitors, or even scold them, you can as well close your doors because none will be able or want to pass the door to a "perhaps" better room...

    Simple logic:
    If you cant control your own staff, who says anything else you do will be worth to spend time in?

    Im sorry to say, but i wont give this project a third thought until i hear changes in forum from players via other places on internet...

    Well thats all for now, 3M

  • acraigacraig PlaneShift DeveloperMember Posts: 13

    Originally posted by TriMoon


    For any project in development, the forum is the face towards the public.

    In such a stage it is a VITAL part of your project, not just a small part....
    If your PR staff scares-off visitors, or even scold them, you can as well close your doors because none will be able or want to pass the door to a "perhaps" better room...
    Simple logic:

    If you cant control your own staff, who says anything else you do will be worth to spend time in?
    Im sorry to say, but i wont give this project a third thought until i hear changes in forum from players via other places on internet...
       Finding effective people to deal with the public is a difficult task indeed.  We have tried various times to build a PR department but it turns out mostly to be people with very little skills.   We are in the process of trying to rebuild that area.

    It is rather hard to control people that I have never met in person and we can only try to do our best.   If there is a continuing trend we will take steps.

    I am a bit taken back that you would paint the entire project with such a wide brush.  The Blizzard forums are constantly bashing the Community Managers, the developers, the admins, anybody and everybody :) but I don't think what they did was a waste of time (though some hate WoW).

    Maybe later when the game is more full featured the forums will take a more minor role and people will enjoy the game for what it is and not what people say about it.

     

     

  • pstruthpstruth Member Posts: 233

    Originally posted by acraig


    Again I would hope that prospective team members would be able to see the game as a whole and judge it by that and not an incident on the forums.   The forums is such a small part of the game.  Anyways, I will try to pay more attention to the forums in the regard.
    If one is to judge the game as a whole, then the forums are a critical part of making that judgement. The forums are not a small part of the game since they're one of the game's primary sources of community building. The forums are also the main way that players get to know the devs. So I think the forums are very much important and it's wrong to tell people to ignore what goes on there.
  • acraigacraig PlaneShift DeveloperMember Posts: 13

    Originally posted by pstruth


     
    Originally posted by acraig


    Again I would hope that prospective team members would be able to see the game as a whole and judge it by that and not an incident on the forums.   The forums is such a small part of the game.  Anyways, I will try to pay more attention to the forums in the regard.
    If one is to judge the game as a whole, then the forums are a critical part of making that judgement. The forums are not a small part of the game since they're one of the game's primary sources of community building. The forums are also the main way that players get to know the devs. So I think the forums are very much important and it's wrong to tell people to ignore what goes on there.

     

    That is true, but I never said to ignore them. I was saying don't discount the entire process because of them.   Trying to police a community is a difficult job and people are doing their best.  No matter what happens people are going to be upset at something or other.  Trying to be all things to all people is not the solution either.  It's a learning experience for everybody involved.

  • pstruthpstruth Member Posts: 233

    Originally posted by acraig


     
    That is true, but I never said to ignore them. I was saying don't discount the entire process because of them.   Trying to police a community is a difficult job and people are doing their best.  No matter what happens people are going to be upset at something or other.  Trying to be all things to all people is not the solution either.  It's a learning experience for everybody involved.
    What a bunch of cop-outs. This isn't about policing a community. This isn't about "trying to be all things to all people". This isn't about noobs who are hellbent on finding something to get upset at. What this is about is treating people with common decency.

    You're right about one thing though: Some people have a lot to learn.

  • acraigacraig PlaneShift DeveloperMember Posts: 13

    I think in the majority of cases this is happening.  I'd like to think we are all learning how this process works.   For example, people complain that we are too strict while others take issue with the fact we let some stuff go.   Somewhere in between there is hopefully the majority that we serve.   For every complaint I have about one person I can find another that complements.  

    I've always tried to treat people with respect whether they deserve it or not.  However, everybody has their own personalities and it's not up to me to force them to behave a particular way. 

    I've checked the forums and I don't see your username there so I cannot review your posting history. 

     

  • TuxideTuxide Member UncommonPosts: 213

    Talad promotes uncivil behavior.

  • TuxideTuxide Member UncommonPosts: 213

    Talad promotes uncivil behavior.

  • acraigacraig PlaneShift DeveloperMember Posts: 13
    Originally posted by Tuxide


    acraig: Now I have a question for you, and I also first played this game five years ago. I would ask you personally on Freenode, but my Master classes are keeping me too busy to be on there continuously.
    In a conversation on the Freenode channel #ryzom.org, Talad stated (around line 25 [22:53:16]) that there are three directors to PlaneShift (himself, you of course, and Vengeance) and that—under the assumption that I am interpreting this correctly—in decision making, it takes only two votes out of three to make important decisions for the game. If I've read this correctly, can you elaborate on this please?
    Also, my specific reason for asking about this is that Vengeance hasn't made any commits to PlaneShift since August. First off, what the hell did you do to him? And second, what does this mean to Atomic Blue and PlaneShift, if anything?



    The voting stuff was to proect PlaneShift from heading into a direction that we didn't agree with.  Things like changing the licensing or moving towards a comerical project.  In order to make sure somebody just didn't wake up one day and make these sorts of decisions.

     

    We are looking at adding to the board of directors and there has been some initial discussions about adding another active member.

  • acraigacraig PlaneShift DeveloperMember Posts: 13
    Originally posted by pstruth


    I don't see why I should give him benefit of the doubt. What was his point in making this comment?
    Originally posted by acraig


    I've checked the forums and I don't see your username there so I cannot review your posting history. 

    He's either trying to discredit me personally, which is a personal attack, or he's making some sort of threat. Whatever the case may be, I see no reason why his comment should be taken "in good faith".

    And before you ask, I have no motivation to reveal my Planeshift identity to you. You wouldn't find anything you could use against me, but I have no desire to make myself a target for harassment.

    Well, I was trying to understand what your situation was and see if I could learn from it.  I am not sure how reading your posts qualifies as a threat or personal attack.  

  • maveric007maveric007 Member UncommonPosts: 160
    Originally posted by TriMoon


    I wish you goodluck while entering this dungeon.
    If you want something todo in a positive way for your project, i suggest you remove your current moderator neko....
    I was planning on joining your development team after getting a feel of how the game currently is, but his behavior has shut my door to this project...

    Perhaps you wont want other possible developers to run away in a similar way...

    This has been my number 1 problem with planeshift ever since I have found it years ago. This has never changed and never gotten any better. If anything its only gotten worse over the years. You should in reality fire all your mods and start with a fresh crew.

  • acraigacraig PlaneShift DeveloperMember Posts: 13

    The only issue with that is it will be the same issues no matter who the moderators are.   Our last ( and best moderator ) gave up because of the constant harrassing they got from a few particular people.  

    I agree that we do need to do some work in this area though to develop a more 'visible' set of forum rules to make sure that both moderators and posters follow them. 

  • maveric007maveric007 Member UncommonPosts: 160

    You can find good forum moderators. 99% of the time its your standard posting people. However its not the users who post 9billion threads or ones who ask to become mods. Those are dead giveaways that they will not do the correct job needed to be done. Just image if it were the case that ps gets so much bad feedback just because of bad mods... "hmmm  imagine that"

  • acraigacraig PlaneShift DeveloperMember Posts: 13

    Heh yeah the "How do I become a moderator?" guys are the last on the list :).

  • maveric007maveric007 Member UncommonPosts: 160

    Ya I hear that. Thats always a really bad sign haha. They should have unleashed you earlier. You are so much more reasonable then talad and tux (gets aggressive allot).

  • TriMoonTriMoon Member UncommonPosts: 57

    Originally posted by acraig
    I think in the majority of cases this is happening. I'd like to think we are all learning how this process works. For example, people complain that we are too strict while others take issue with the fact we let some stuff go. Somewhere in between there is hopefully the majority that we serve. For every complaint I have about one person I can find another that complements.
    I've always tried to treat people with respect whether they deserve it or not. However, everybody has their own personalities and it's not up to me to force them to behave a particular way.
    1st off all: You are wrong that its not up to you to force people to behave in a particular way when it comes to your staff.
    Giving your staff strict guide lines/rules/laws is entirely up to you (plural).

    flowing global terms like 'cant please everyone all the time' is just useless and not contributing to any solutions towards your problem.

    Here are some steps off my hat for you to follow in order to clean your mess:

    1. Acknowledge you have a big issue with how your moderators act.
    2. Fire the bad ones, all if needed. (I only came across neko so i cant advice on the rest.)
    3. Look at other forum's rules, to learn what rules are needed and used, and extract some for your own forum.
    4. Restrict deleting threads and moving threads out of public eyes to admins only.
    5. Open the possibility for anyone to complain about moderator actions in a public way, that way bad mods will be highlighted by the community as soon as is needed.
    6. Introduce forum +/-karma that is able to be adjusted by all members, this will highlight sensible people as possible moderators for feature by the community itself.

    If you follow these steps im sure your project will be looked upon by outsiders in a more positive way.

    On the other hand if you don't want/like/can follow these steps. then don't be surprised that the internet community frowns upon your project the way i, for example, do.

    Even in real life there are laws and possibilities to sue misbehavior of law enforcement departments.
    In other words change your forum's/project's dictatorship into a democracy :)

    Well thats all for now, 3M

  • acraigacraig PlaneShift DeveloperMember Posts: 13

    I've started a thread in our moderator forum to develop the official list of moderator rules so hopefully that will help fix some of the issues.   That should include a process for people to appeal decisions.  I am not sure about the public debate about Moderators since that again can lead to abuse and just pointless flaming back and forth. I have found that sometimes people are looking for a fight and sometimes causes things to break down.   If there is a set a rules people can appeal but I would rather that appeal go to admins instead of public opinion. 

    One of the issues with #6 it's open up to abuse and 'karma whoring"  or trading.  I believe our forums does support it but I've seen various incarnations on various other forums where it's horribly abused.

    I am not so sure on the dictatorship vs democracy issue ( of course that's easy to say when you are in the dictatorship role :) ).

     

     

     

  • pstruthpstruth Member Posts: 233

    Planeshift's forum is constantly losing moderators and getting new ones. You have to ask yourself: Why is this happening? What is it about the culture there that is causing this to happen? Other forums don't have this problem, so why do we?

  • acraigacraig PlaneShift DeveloperMember Posts: 13

    We've had 3 main moderators.  One left because they had their own projects they wanted to work on, another left because found the job too stressful and was taking a fair amount of abuse.  Currently on our third 'global' moderator so  I don't really consider that 'constantly'.   I've seen many forums change moderators as the situation changes.  

    It's hard to force anybody to stay in a volunteer position if it starts becoming more like work or they feel like they are not getting anything out of it.

     

     

  • pstruthpstruth Member Posts: 233

    There have been way, way more than three moderators.  If you have moderator powers, and you use them on a consistent basis, then you're a moderator.

  • acraigacraig PlaneShift DeveloperMember Posts: 13

    Ah ok, I thought you referring to the main global moderator that does most of the heavy lifting and gets most of the complaints. 

    Most of the other moderators are team members that specialize in a particular area.   In a few cases there have been people picked from the community that have demonstrated ability in that particular forum ( for example the Mac forum).  Yes, we've gone through a few  though not too many, our forum is not so large we need a stable of moderators.

    Again, they've lost interest or moved on to other things or just don't want to do it any more.   To me that's fine since that's part of what the project is,  people have an 'itch' they want to scratch and after that they are done.  As stated above we look to the community to find people that can be good moderators but mostly for specific forums.

     

  • TuxideTuxide Member UncommonPosts: 213

    Talad promotes uncivil behavior.

  • pstruthpstruth Member Posts: 233

     

    Originally posted by Tuxide


     

    Originally posted by maveric007

    Ya I hear that. Thats always a really bad sign haha. They should have unleashed you earlier. You are so much more reasonable then talad and tux (gets aggressive allot).

     

    Hahaha, don't know why you put me in the same boat as them :-) I am neither a PlaneShift developer or a moderator, and I've never been a member of any PlaneShift team. Although I've been asked multiple times to join their dev team, I am too damn busy to do so.

    I was once asked to apply to the team as well. I'm not sure it means very much.:)

    I think maveric007 is grouping you with those who, to put it in basic terms, defend Planeshift against criticism.

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