3173 réponses à ce sujet

[OdanUrr]

I'm a bit disappointed that ignoring us seems to be their actual strategy. Shame.

[Commander Rpg]

I'm a bit disappointed that ignoring us seems to be their actual strategy. Shame.

I've seen NDAs made for the stupidest things, and this is one of them.

If EA (Bioware has lost its power long ago, it's just an anonymous branch now) wants to shut down the social network, it has only to say it.

 

Anyway I'm sure their lawyers are well paid, that's why the announcer of these changes is still keeping the mouth shut.  Losing a job or paying a high fine can be excellent deterrents to freewheeling speech.

[LPPrince]

Over two weeks now, effects still felt pretty damned strongly.

[Commander Rpg]

Don't mind me, I'm just laughing at "Cuntandra Shiturn".

 

Another BSN celebrity?

It's actually a deformation of the nickname "Cassandra Saturn", the highest leveled troll and nuisance I've seen in OT.

[Fidite Nemini]

*still waiting for BioWare response*

 

Really, I'm content if BioWare just came out and said how it is. No sweet icing, no PR or marketing coating, just the plain, brutal truth:

"We seek to reduce overhead so our limited moderators have to cover less forum sections. We won't employ new moderators due to financial constraints and have ruled out the possibility of unpaid community moderators. Offtopic is not coming back."

 

Might be cultural difference because I'm German and we're seemingly infamous for our brutal honesty and directness, but I'd really welcome it if people just cut with all the PR/marketing sugarcoating and just say the stuff they mean in a concise and precise fashion.

 

I may not like the answer, but (and this seems to be another distinctly German thing, though feel free to correct me if I'm wrong) if I couldn't deal with a negative response, I wouldn't bloody ask for a response in the first place. Hit me with your cold, hard truth, I can take it. I may not like it, but it sure beats having to contend with vague, wishy-washy PR/marketing BS and an uncomfortable truth is preferable to a comfortable lie.

[N7M]

Not knowing you? I'm sure he'll live.

Gossip. 

[N7M]

 vague justifications is one of the things that draws me back here.

 

 

Are you referring to the alleged banned users who skirt their bans by opening new accounts, then use their established social connections in OT to reinsert themselves in the forum? The ones Puddi claims to know about. Puddi could be lying but the accusation certainly isn't vague. Many vocal protesters of the OT closure have suggested banning problem users as the means to achieve a healthier forum.  Banning won't work if an active group within the OT community is working against the moderation. This alone is justification enough to close OT, if a large enough portion of OT users help with skirting bans. 

[MrFob]

Toxicity again? As I said three times in this thread already, compared to an internet average this board is not very toxic at all. I have seen much worse on the likes of reddit and FB, which BioWare seems to like better as avenues of communication. And I don't even follow those networks at all, just read occasional stuff when it gets linked

 

And look at the sections they closed/merged? Are you saying the modding sections, fan fiction sections and RPG sections needed closure because of toxicity as well? Because I never saw moderators in there, nor were there any needed. It was just people, chatting friendly and constructively discussing topics that were relevant to BW games. The people there were some of the most active, long term and devoted fans of the games but now, these sections - which kept the discussions lively because they kept things sorted for whatever people were interested in (not mention convenient) - are gone and everything is mangled together in one big section. How does that make life better for everyone?

 

And as far as OT is concerned, it was also one of the more benign section of the forums, when compared to any of the game sections (as long as they are active). If banned users reappear, it's not an OT problem. If users violate the rules, ban them. If banned users reappear and violate the rules again, ban them again. It's that simple.

All you need for that are vigilant and involved moderators, which could come without cost from the community. This board already works pretty well (apart from these changes right here) even with very lackluster moderation. It could be a great place - off topic included - if anyone in charge would just care enough to instigate some very simple measures.

[Fidite Nemini]

This whole discussion around that overused term comes purely from the fact that no one knows why some of those decisions were made and the reasoning given is basic PR/marketing jargon, which basically amounts to nothing but being pretty words (let alone the literal intepretation making little sense).

 

The truth is no one has any idea why this happened, BioWare didn't give any understandable reasons and as such, wild speculation commenced.

 

And as the saying goes: things left to their own devices tend to go from bad to worse.

 

If BioWare doesn't want to pay enough moderators to work on a large forum and has no trust in unpaid community mods, hence needs to restructure the forum to make it easier to handle for its limited staff, then they should just go out and say it. Or if they just want to phase out their forum completely and switch to Facebook/Twitter/Reddit or whatever, say so, close the forum and be done with it.

 

There's nothing to be had from just letting people speculate. A blunt answer some people don't like is still better than no answer at all.

[Reezus Christ]

Gossip. 

Is that what that is?

 

"Yo Fade, you ever see that guy before?"

 

"Nah."

 

"Oh."

 

*End scene*

[bEVEsthda]

Are you referring to the alleged banned users who skirt their bans by opening new accounts, then use their established social connections in OT to reinsert themselves in the forum? The ones Puddi claims to know about. Puddi could be lying but the accusation certainly isn't vague. Many vocal protesters of the OT closure have suggested banning problem users as the means to achieve a healthier forum.  Banning won't work if an active group within the OT community is working against the moderation. This alone is justification enough to close OT, if a large enough portion of OT users help with skirting bans. 

 

Yes, banning will still work. And no, it's not justification enough to close OT.

 

But why are you so keen on building up a justification for closing OT? There are a lot of unconvincing posts from you, all on the same theme. One could almost suspect you're trying to give an image, built from only a few undistinctive and insignificant details, an illusion of substance, by giving it a lot of presence.

It's an old technique of course. Do you happen to have a background in marketing/advertising?

[Big Magnet]

Am I the only one who thinks this LonelyBook dude is an intern at Bioware office trying to employ some kind of rudimentary damage control? 

 

 

PS: Not only that but it's the second person I've seen defending with tooth and nail Bioware's decision like it's the greatest thing since the invention of Nutella, who also misteriously became more active right when the mods vanished, and both never appear at the same time... hmmmmm most curious... 

[TheRealJayDee]

Might be cultural difference because I'm German and we're seemingly infamous for our brutal honesty and directness, but I'd really welcome it if people just cut with all the PR/marketing sugarcoating and just say the stuff they mean in a concise and precise fashion.

 

I may not like the answer, but (and this seems to be another distinctly German thing, though feel free to correct me if I'm wrong) if I couldn't deal with a negative response, I wouldn't bloody ask for a response in the first place. Hit me with your cold, hard truth, I can take it. I may not like it, but it sure beats having to contend with vague, wishy-washy PR/marketing BS and an uncomfortable truth is preferable to a comfortable lie.

 

Never thought about it possibly being a German thing, but yeah, this!

 

Please just ****** tell me how things are. And if those things happen to be unpleasant they will be just as unpleasant if you try to put a positive spin on them or just don't say anything. If things suck I will be disgruntled, but in that case that was always going to happen.

 

With those pathetic evasive and/or sugarcoating approaches however you also achieve to make it feel like you actively disrespect me as customer and try to insult my intelligence. Which will burn through my goodwill and general positivity way faster than any bad news on their own could have possibly managed to do.

 

I kind of gave up on Bioware in this regard during the ME3 crisis, but the destruction of Off-Topic without as much as a heads-up and with almost no communication afterwards is still an impressive move, even from my jaded perspective.

[N7M]

Yes, banning will still work. And no, it's not justification enough to close OT.
 
But why are you so keen on building up a justification for closing OT? There are a lot of unconvincing posts from you, all on the same theme. One could almost suspect you're trying to give an image, built from only a few undistinctive and insignificant details, an illusion of substance, by giving it a lot of presence.
It's an old technique of course. Do you happen to have a background in marketing/advertising?

How could banning work if subverted with the help of users?

why are you so keen on building up a justification for closing OT?

To exhume the reasons for the closure, if any, and give OT a chance to be reinstated with the problems removed. If, such was the cause and a case be made. 

[Fidite Nemini]

How could banning work if subverted with the help of users?

 

Community mods?

 

It may be a challenge for uninvolved moderators to locate smurfs, but a community moderator who is familiar with the social structures of a subsection could easily find those if they plain reconnect with other users.

And smurfs who reconnect but are subtle enough as to not draw attention obviously likewise don't violate the ToS (as that would draw attention, obviously), so there's comparatively little harm done if those aren't sniffed out, from a plain practical point of view.

 

There's a good reason most large communities employ such community mods and it's not just because it's a voluntary position the company doesn't have to pay for (though they usually get some perks to keep them motivated, for example guaranteed alpha/beta test spots, maybe even a free version of the newest game).

 

 

And the concept of community mods has been brought up several times in this thread already. BioWare used to have those and technically speaking some are even still around (though I never saw them in action for quite some while), so IF staff limitations is a problem regarding moderation, that can be easily rectified. There's a couple of users on this board that would make for good mods and I could recommend two straight from the top of my head.

 

 

Am I the only one who thinks this LonelyBook dude is an intern at Bioware office trying to employ some kind of rudimentary damage control? 

 

 

PS: Not only that but it's the second person I've seen defending with tooth and nail Bioware's decision like it's the greatest thing since the invention of Nutella, who also misteriously became more active right when the mods vanished, and both never appear at the same time... hmmmmm most curious... 

 

Unnecessary ad hominem AND ergo decedo.

 

If you, like me, don't agree with specific points, then argue them if you feel like dicsussing, or if you don't intend to invest the effort, ignore it.

[Commander Rpg]

How could banning work if subverted with the help of users?

Dude, you can't be serious! Just the simplest moderator has all the tools to quell any riot in the section administered by him.

If that's not enough, there are the global moderators, who oversee the entire board.

Not enough again? Two or three community admins have all the granted privileges and tools to kickban forever, in the infinite loop of the internet sadness, any user so stupid to threaten those in the position of power.

 

You either are intellectually dishonest, defending the indefensible for whatever reason, or you reason very very poorly in comparison to others. The first supposition is more serious than the second.

Come on, my 13-14 years old cousin would have understood the matter 80 pages ago, and he still goes to middle school because he failed once.

[BioWareMod02]

Hi everyone. Let's keep it civil in here. Thank you.

[LPPrince]

Hi everyone. Let's keep it civil in here. Thank you.

 

I take it there's about a 0% chance of you potentially pitching into the conversation regarding Off Topic's removal, forum moderation, and things of that nature, right?

 

Just asking since you're here and I figure it couldn't hurt.

[OdanUrr]

I take it there's about a 0% chance of you potentially pitching into the conversation regarding Off Topic's removal, forum moderation, and things of that nature, right?

 

Just asking since you're here and I figure it couldn't hurt.

 

 

I'm using it everywhere nowadays.

[Eternal Phoenix]

Out of all of the sub-forums they could have closed, they chose the Off-Topic. The elitist Neverwinter Nights 2 sub forums are still open! Hell the entire sub-forums for all of Bioware's legacy games are still open. Strange excuse "we only want Bioware products discussed here" but I guess it's their forums so they can do what they want.

 

It's been fun though and I can only applaud the mods for not being banhammer crazy when it came to resolving disputes, yes they handed out bans but nothing ridiculous like other forums where they'll ban you for several months or a year for one single post. I like to think they understood our crazy sense of humour.

[MegaIllusiveMan]

I can vouch for Lonely Book in the old off-topic days.

 

I don't know what you people gain by name-calling, really. He just expressed his opinion on the matter (and it is received negatively because AFAIK, he's the 2nd poster in 111 pages of Thread to agree with Bio's Decision in closing the OT boards)

 

So, keep it civil, otherwise, we're gonna lose reason on having a civil discussion with Bioware about the matter.

 

Also, enough of the "Toxic"... We're not. Only because we do name-callings and such? Hell, those do happen in real life too. And in many cases, that person forgets about it and drop the subject. 

And plus, this is the internet. Everywhere you'll go, you'll find trolls. And those trolls in here are represented by a veeeery low quantity of Users you would find in Off-Topic. 

 

Anyone can say what they want behind a monitor. So that's where Moderators come. Ban those people, don't lose control everytime someone calls you a "sucker" (and blah blah) because it happens, it happened and it will happen. There is no way to avoid it. See, you're just looking for the minority... Many of us here support Bioware and stand strong for the company and their upcoming games; But when ONE in, say, ONE HUNDRED Users say innapropriate things, all of those 100 users are toxic.

[LPPrince]

I don't see why anyone would agree with closing Off Topic. It just pisses people off, or saddens them, or agitates them, or whatever else. I know because I've communicated with plenty who feel this way. I can't imagine why anyone would be happy about it;its not like Off Topic was the Character and Romance section that had crazy infighting.

[MrFob]

Hmmm, this makes me wonder how Conal got 8 likes for the OP.

[Big Magnet]

Hmmm, this makes me wonder how Conal got 8 likes for the OP.

I'm surprised he didn't get more. Usually people automatically like any post made by whoever has a "Bioware" under his/her avatar, be it an important message or a poem about a left shoe. 

[EarthboundNess]

I checked up on here again earlier on my mobile. As I'm following the thread, I got hit with 120-something notifications.

 

I thought, 'Oh hey, that's a lot of activity. Surely that means there's been an official response. Right?'

 

 

I was admittedly rather drunk at the time.

 

Which hopefully justifies me thinking such foolishness.