How so?

I used to be administrator of a very popular forum. I wasnt too active in the beginning, but i could sense a graal like obession among some people. Things were getting out of hand so i appointed a supermoderator, ("peace~angel" was her name, why yes, what a coinkydink) she was a lawyer from california, and due to the utter ilegality of what my board advertised, i thought it would be a good idea to have her on the team.

Unbeknownst by me, peace~angel was not well liked, but i had seen her break up fights and other things, write FAQs and the most active admin at the time would probably sticky them. However the amount of complaints recieved was almost unbearable, but about a month later things settled down, except for one or two people who continuously spammed about her, but under my lack of judgement they werent banned. Later they too settled down, and everything went back to normal.. or so i thought. One particular user decided to build a trojan flooding network and ddosed the board, just because peace~angel was a supermod and the board suffered several hacks due to our out of date software. When the board came back up i decided to stick it all into admin access only so i could read the threads about peace angel in peace, there were a number of chat logs, and people complaining about her constantly, i checked the logs of the board and some of the threads she moved into the threadbin were relevant and she was just doing it out of spite for the people who posted them. I put the forum under normal mode and removed peace~angel's modship, (untill one of my co-administrators added her back, at which point i went awol and only went back if someone emailed me about a problem). The board however is now down, two new administrators who hosted the IRC channel decided to kill the board and take off, at which point the funder gave up and stopped re-registering the domain name, and stopped paying the hosts.

My point is that there were dire consequences when i ignored problems, it got better for a while then it got MUCH worse. Unixmad needs to stop ignoring problems, and act on them HIMSELF instead of getting somebody else to sort it for him. Unpaid volunteers arent the way to go, there needs to be someone totally impartial to graal, and this forum, otherwise there will ALLWAYs be this complaining crap.

In this case I disagree with your assessment, to bring in an outsider who knows nothing about the game also doesn't know any of the problems with it and why sometimes people do what they do, even if it is illegal on the Board. The biggest problem is that most on here will not accept Graal as a Commercial game and still try to treat it as a "Free Game". In my opinion Stephane carried the "free marketing " of Graal on too long because the players got spoiled by it and should have from the very start let all players know that the day would come that it could no longer be free. What Stephane did was nothing more than a good Business move by offering Graal for free for a time to build a player base, then introducing the P2P portion of the marketing strategy.

There is a marketing strategy to this game and a time frame in which they want things to be done now and for the future. Now as to the Forums they are here for the players to discuss issues of the Game and suggestions for the game, this is the main function of the Forums. It is not here for personal flame wars and people who want to complain about every little thing. In order to accomplish a well meaningful Forum it has to have strict rules of conduct or nothing of any value will be gained here. The Forums are here for the community to aid one another with issues of the game as well as game Staff getting things out with regard to the game to the players. Before you complain about the Forums, ask yourself "whom have I tried to help today?" "Am I part of the problem or part of the solution?"

If you concentrate effort more on helping and less on complaining then you may find this Forum taking a change for the better and be a happier place to be on and post. Stephane can’t change the boards; the SuperMods can’t change the Boards only the Community can change the attitude and demeanor of the Forums. So it’s up to you guys and gals of the Graal community to make these Boards better by following the rules even though you may not agree with them but do it anyway for the sake of the community. It’s fine to want to get something changed but do it in a manner befitting a Game with young mature adults and not spoiled children who just want their way. I have the utmost respect for many of you and others I could have, if they try reasoning instead of rebellion. Think about it.
;)

Simply put:

1) She did not say the thread was closed for flaming.

2) Flaming is not inherently a violation of the rules. Why not read them?

Oh I see. So how are we to know which way to give our opinions? Oh wait, I know. Because you're going to determine for yourself, whether or not you think our opinion is given in a way that you agree with.

For ones like you whom seem to need to have their post governed for lack of mature responsible posting , yes I think you have the idea..:whatever:

It's interesting to see how You and some others leave and come back after a few weeks.

My point of view is your tooth are not big enough to hit me because if it were you will have eaten me since a while. Personaly i will never eat you because it will really taste bad.

Also You are just going nowhere attacking me but to a point of no return.

So what are you expecting from me ? Perhaps are you worried to not be in the list of 4 people i have banned since 6 year i manage Graal ?

:\ unix.. what does this mean? :|

That's just another way to explain how power hungry people are thinking. Probably not in a perfect English also ;) Just the translation of my mind when i was reading the thread.

Unixmad, hi, nice to see you. I understand that you don't like to see this kind of discussion on the board, but what other option do we have? I sent you a PM a few days ago and you still haven't read it. How are we supposed to voice our concerns?

Contrary to what you may think, we're not doing this as a way to attack you. Some of us feel a little bitter, but that's just a secondary matter. We're doing this because we want the board to be moderated properly. In essence, our goal is the same as yours: A happy, well-managed community which will complement the game itself.

Sure, complaining will create some short-term, temporary hostility. But isn't that better than a long, drawn-out dissatisfaction?

You didn't really express yourself very clearly here. R0bin's story is pertinent, because it's almost identical to the situation here. Ignoring the problem may eventually make things less hectic, but it won't be any kind of solution.

Um. On the contrary, the problem is that they don't think it's professional enough. This isn't about strictness, it's about uneven moderation and illogical rulings.

"Every little thing"? Other than you two (and the people I banned, obviously) people rarely complained about my work. It was certainly never on the scale that the new supermods have achieved. What's the difference? Simple: The new supermods are making mistakes, and making the board a less fun environment.

Now, I'm not saying we should flame them for this. I'm not saying we should hunt them down and crucify them. We know that Unixmad isn't going to remove them (it's a matter of pride now), so the next best thing is to educate them. They don't understand the rules, so we explain them. All we ask in return is that they listen, and allow themselves to be taught. So far we haven't seen that.

Would ignoring the problem make me part of the solution? When you were dissatisfied with my performance as supermod, did you ignore it? Whom did you help on all those days? You complained both privately and publically, you have no right to condemn others for doing the same.


Being nice to everybody won't magically turn the moderators into competent people. Their mistakes and their laziness are real problems, and they need to be fixed. Your suggestion would merely give them free reign to moderate as poorly as before.

Is that the only way? You're not stupid, don't pretend to be.

Incorrect.

Why do you consider that spam? More to the point, why do you excuse the lazier version where they quote only one person?

Oh! i understand, its a strange analogy biut i suppose its suitable for power-hungryness

Kaimetsu, it is not fair to not give a chance to a team and complain about them after only a few days.

I have always supported you when you were moderator and trust me that i add lot of complain about you ! So i am really disapointed when i see you attacking people like that.

That's just going nowhere just ruining the friendship of this forum.

So please let the new team show what they can do and let's come back speaking about Graal and not forums rules.

On that note..

Where is graal3d + graalv3 with new scripting? :'(

But, unixmad...how many of those complaints about Kaimetsu were valid? It's not the number of complaints that matters - it's the validity of them.

Unixmad, there have been many examples of places where they have made bad decisions. Even after we have tried to point out their mistakes, they continue to do it. All we are trying to do, then, is educate them and help them learn to do their jobs properly.

You think so? You never thanked me, you never acknowledged me, you never gave me the tools I needed. What kind of 'support' do you mean?

Of course, but most of them were either:

A) From Moon God or Moon Goddess, who hated me because I didn't censor every little negativity (which, believe me, would only serve to create a greater feeling of hostility).
B) From somebody I banned for breaking the rules, or somebody whose friend was banned.

The majority of the users supported me, which should tell you something about my success as supermod. On the other hand, only the tiniest minority supports the new administration.

I don't see it as a simple attack. I criticise them because I want them to improve. I have a lot of experience and they have very little. Don't you think there's at least something I can teach them?

They've already shown what they can and will do. That's what we're worried about.

I will not go on a private talk with you on public forums but what other tools than the normal vbulletin tools did you need ?

Also if you think that supporting you for months and months as supermod on forums is not thanking you for the good work, then what were you expecting from me ?

I known that you are not friend with Moon God or Moon Goddess but they are all 2 like you, old graal supporters and i personaly trust them, what is very important to me.

Also it's easy to understand why most managers prefer to choose people they trust for important tasks, so it's not a community choise but a personal choise.

people.. go to bed, kaimetsu, its 3 in the morning, unixmad, its 4 in the morning... tempers are made shorter by lack of sleep.

So true...

Good night everyone.

I'm happy to take this to whatever medium you want.

Without admin access, I was unable to:

• Unban people
• Add/remove moderators
• Edit users' sigs or profiles (if somebody had an illegal sig, I couldn't remove it)

These restrictions drastically slowed me down, as I had no choice but to work through the often-unreachable admins.

How did you support me?

You can trust them to some extent, yes. They won't go crazy and start deleting the board, because they're more responsible than that. Indeed, they probably won't do anything corrupt if they can't find some way justify it to themselves.

But selection of supermods is in the past now. I know that they won't be removed in the near future, however much I disagree with the decision to hire them. So instead I try to help them see the error in their actions, that they might learn to moderate better. Is this an ignoble goal? All we want is a fair, friendly forum, just like you.

Trust is important, yes. But you would benefit greatly from listening to your users - especially those who've supported Graal in the past. Almost all of the forum oldbies would agree that Kamuii is a better choice. He has the experience, the intelligence and the integrity to be a first-class supermod.

As well as issues of competence, you have to realise that you can't see every side of a player's personality. You trusted Nemesis because he only showed you one side of himself. The players knew that he was corrupt and inept, because they saw his true nature through his actions. If you had listened to them, we could've avoided the nasty circumstances surrounding his departure.

I understand your reluctance to rely on the community for this kind of thing, but you could at least consult a few trusted members? It's a powerful resource, and currently you're not taking advantage of it.



Nocturnal, man. This is morning for me.

I let stuff go for a while, to see if they would get used to it, and just when it seemed to be changing it went back to point A. It's nice to see Unixmad entering the discussion, and I understood everything he said, but... somethings just didn't make sense, even in English. If Kaimetsu would come back, as supermod I would literally crawl into a corner, rock back and forth muttering "The second coming is upon us" and slowly druel myself to a wet, saliva filled death. I can't see that happening, not because of him tho. You know if you make a good choice, people will forget the bad ones, Unixmad?


[EDIT]

You may not have seen all I said earlier, they were deleted, that's not a complaint.. I just want you to know.

[/EDIT]

Right on! To sleep with the sun rise, awake with the street lights. >)

Since unixmad is reading this now, I just wanted to take a moment to personally appologize for giving him a headache. I'm sorry man, it's just a bit frustrating when such forum atrocities have been occurring. Though you may think I'm anti-Graal, I'm not. I really enjoy this community and I don't want to lose it. I'm just having a hard time adjusting to the recent changes to the administration. I don't have anything personal against your choices, but I just don't think you made the best choice and the recent neglect the forums have received shows. Again, I'm sorry for upsetting you. No hard feelings? :)

What is this supposed to hint at? That I quit and came back? No. My account time ran out and I didn't realize it until it was too late. Then Angel reupgraded my account for me. I never left and came back. I didn't leave in the first place, I just didn't have access to the forums.

Okay, that was just insulting... I think. I'm not "power hungry", nor do I want anything to do with moderating these forums again. I just want to see people in charge that can do the job right, and I don't mean myself.

I'm not attacking you. I'm just making a suggestion to the moderators and questioning your recent decision. All I'm expecting from you is to pick people that are going to be good at the job. You totally bypass Kamuii and all he has done for the forums, and then give MoonGoddess the position he should have recieved, and all MoonGoddess has done is cause a big upset among the forumgoers.

You never appreciate the people you've hired until it's too late. Like Kaimetsu, who did a great job on the forums. Never got a thank you, or a compliment, or anything from you. He barely even had any contact with you. He did all that work and all he really even needed was some encouragement and thanks.

I've already been on your ban list when I was globally banned for giving constructive criticism about GK. Why would you add me to it again? Giving constructive criticism about the moderators? This is exactly what I'm talking about. Stop bullying the paying customers and listen to us instead.

I'm not bashing anyone or being anti-graal, or harassing anyone, or being out of control. I'm just calmly stating my opinion. If you want to disagree with it, that's fine. But you really don't need to flip out and think I hate you and Graal and everything. I'm not here to make problems, as much as you'd like to think otherwise.

But if you really want to, then ban me for my opinion. No that isn't a taunt or a dare. You just seem to feel so strongly about banning me or threatening to ban me. You probably aren't even aware of this... but a lot of people seem to be anticipating my playerworld. Which will never come out, if you decide to ban me for some silly reason such as voicing my opinion in a calm manner.

Since i will close the thread i will not add anything because it will not be fair and also there is enough in this thread to make his/her own opinion.