I am no longer your moderator...

[yin26]

Please disregard my previous statement. What you say now makes PERFECT sense!

[MarkG]

guess what darkstar. if you sum up what i've earned (in $ not in fun) over the last 5 years that i do civ sites, or at least the last 2.5 years than i run apolyton(cause tfgc2s never had any server costs and therefore never had any ads either) then i'm much more close to being a volunteer rather than a paid professional

and if you consider that i dont have any business administration, marketing, consumer relation, web design, graphics design or unix administration training(i do have some training in programming though, and yes my job description on apolyton includes all of the above) then again i'm much more close to being a volunteer rather than a paid professional

so does that make me not responsible about everything around apolyton?

[yin26]

Markos,

I've always thought you and Dan have made substantial contributions to the community, and I know this makes you ZERO money. As regards this thread, I can only say our mutual reactions created a pretty lousy result.

[East Street Trader]

Well, I arrived for a visit to this forum because I remembered what I thought was a neat piece of moderation by Yin26 mentioned in the Community forum, thinking to see what the kind of constructive response to criticism which he had illustrated might help to foster here (also because the Firaxis website has my appetite well wetted).

But what do I find? I'm too late to see anything but the fallout of Yin's efforts.

It is, I suppose, inevitable at a site where folk share lively interests in a lively way that some tensions must come into existence and then surface.

One up to the owners that they allow public debate of their actions and show decent good humour. One up to Yin that he has not flounced off.

Reckon, though, you've lost the services of a good moderator MarkG and I'm guessing they don't grow on trees.

A point of which I had been unaware until reading this thread is that the owners view themselves as providing an interface between developers and players. Well, of course they do. But I doubt that it is a winning game to actively try to push the site as achieving that purpose. Developers are no fools. They are bound to take a peek at sites like this to see what they can learn about their market. But if the owners tailor the contents by reference to any perception of what designers may like, or not like, to see - my bet is the interest in the site from developers will die toute suite. It will lose the exact thing which the developer wants - genuine access to the actual, unabridged, views of their prospective customers and a chance themselves to judge what pleases and fails to please.

[yin26]

East Street Trader,

I appreciate the sentiments. While I'll never respect this particular decision, I respect Markos in general. I hope you visit here more at any rate since some of the most polite and productive discussions you might ever have at Apolyton happen here.

[Theben]

You may not recall, MarkG, when I was moderator I asked you what I should or shouldn't do, and what was expected of me. Your reply was vague at best.

Yin, sorry to see you go. All things change, I guess. Best of luck; don't be a stranger to these forums!

[MarkG]

quote: Originally posted by East Street Trader on 03-12-2001 01:15 PM But if the owners tailor the contents by reference to any perception of what designers may like, or not like, to see

your... perception of the situation is sadly wrong. if you looked more carefully in the threads of the recent days(before suggesting that we "tailor" the contents of the site), you would see that yin had no problem reposting the exact same thread as a poster.

[Mannamagnus]

Most of my working life I've been training journalists and a lot of that time we've spent discussing ethics. For what it's worth here is my opinion on this whole case.

I think the topic of the thread "The myth of a bugless civ" is very valid especialy considering the upcoming release of civ3.
The tone of the introduction by Yin could be seen as an attack on Firaxis by someone who knows that Yin has a grudge agains Firaxis. However I don't know Yins feelings towards Firaxis, so ....
For someone who doesn't know Yins background the purpose of the tone of the intro is only to incite discussion, in which he succeeded very well. (A quality in a moderator which I think is very benificial if you want a forum which is very much alive)
Printing the whole article is the most objective way to work. If you don't want to be accused of pulling things from their context and you don't have to worry about the length of the article this is exactly how to do it.

Things went wrong when Yin decided to quote a personal message. If Yin were a journalist I would say he shouldn't have; you can't quote a source if you can't reveal who he was. However Yin is not a journalist and was obviously p***** off. It think it would have been better if he had not mentioned the message and have fought it out with Mark on a more private level.

My verdict with regards to Yin:
a)Yin was right to start the thread and did it almost in the best possible way.
b)Had Yin not acted on impuls he would have done the wise thing and settled things with Mark privatly.

Now to Mark (I'm sorry if I'm lecturing )
You and Dan have created a wonderful community. In order to keep up the good work I understand you need a good relationship with developers. But, again from a journalists point of view, you need to be objective in order not to loose your credibility and your audience.
Where Yin might have been too critical, you to me don't seem critical enough. (This is something which I especialy noticed when you kept defending CtP2 and Activision).

Software developers are not doing you a favor when they post on your site or give you the latest news. They need you to reach their customers; you are doing them a favour. Being critical will only make them respect you more and not take you for granted. Apolyton is the number one tbs-games site and they can not afford to loose you!

Concerning how you delt with Yin: I think you shouldn't have used the forum to settle things. You should have appreciated more the amount of work he put into the civ3 forums and if you thought his attitude was damaging your relationship with developers you should have discussed it with him in private.

My verdict with regards to Mark.
a)Mark should be more objective and critical
b)Mark should not underestimate the value of Apolyton for developers
c)Mark should not use the forum to settle differences with "employees".

Last observation:
Since this whole affair has gone public it might be a good idea to settle this whole thing by publishing all correspondence related to this issue in a seperate thread so everyone can make up his own mind, and next close any threads related to this subject.

I have spoken.

[MarkG]

dear Mannamagnus,
some observations on your post

1) our objectivity towards developers and games can be judged based not on what one of the owners of the site posts in the forums, but on which reviews are reported(all) and what kind of opinions are allowed to be posted on the forums(again, all)

2) regarding the public handling of the issue: i begun to deal with it in private. when it went public by yin, the only thing i think i should do was to resolve it and discuss it in public. there could be another way in order to be clear about it towards our visitors.
[This message has been edited by MarkG (edited March 13, 2001).]

[lord of the mark]

Like duh?

Suppose an editor for the New York Times writes something that the publisher dont much like, and the publisher sends him a nasty note about it. Suppose the editor then publishes the nasty note (with name omitted) and asks the readers for their opinions of the publishers note. How long do you think the editor would last at the NYT, or anywhere else for that matter? Now the ex-editor would probably pick up a nice gig at the New Yorker, and write a book about the NYT, and the NYT publisher would end up with some egg on his face, but no one would seriously expect the situation to be resolved any other way. When you're publishing someone's private nasty notes (not the same as publishing innocous private email) the situation is obviously war. When you go to war with your publisher (whether he pays you or not) you cant expect to get published by same.
People seem to be holding Markos to a higher journalistic standard than the worlds most prestigious news organizations. This is absurd, on the face of it.

[Mannamagnus]

Dear Mark,

quote: 1) our objectivity towards developers and games can be judged based not on what one of the owners of the site posts in the forums, but on which reviews are reported(all) and what kind of opinions are allowed to be posted on the forums(again, all)

I agree completely, but I think it would be nice if you,MarkG, would be more straight forward in expressing how you feel in stead of holding back in order not to offend developers. Mind you this is not an attack on you but only the impression I get from reading your posts. If my impression is wrong I stand corrected.

quote: 2) regarding the public handling of the issue: i begun to deal with it in private. when it went public by yin, the only thing i think i should do was to resolve it and discuss it in public. there could be another way in order to be clear about it towards our visitors.

In this case I think it would have been wiser to issue a statement saying this was an organisational matter which you were not prepared to discuss in public and next refrain from giving any comment on the matter.

But who am I ...?

[Mannamagnus]

Lord of the Mark,

quote: Things went wrong when Yin decided to quote a personal message. If Yin were a journalist I would say he shouldn't have; you can't quote a source if you can't reveal who he was. However Yin is not a journalist and was obviously p***** off. It think it would have been better if he had not mentioned the message and have fought it out with Mark on a more private level.

Maybe if you were to re-read my post you would see your intrepetation is flawed.

Apart from which: it is not what you are, but what you strive for.

[Lancer]

Perhaps the single greatest Civ related accomplishment here at Apolyton is the creation of the Civ 3 list. Though alot of people helped, only one held it all together, a monumental task involving thousands of posts, discussions without end, and finally the carving of it all down to a list of ideas that were the culmination of endless discussion that was exciting to watch be a part of. All the time Yin was there, making the diverse personalities of the people in charge of topics stay focused on their task, a far from easy job. Yin did it, and I have the greatest respect for the accomplishment and the man behind it. I don't know if anyone else could have done it, Yin was the man for the job, a true leader.

However, like McArther learned when he had a public dispute with his president, even great leaders have to be good followers, at least in puplic. If I recall correctly, it was his public dispute w/ Truman that was the beginning of the end for him. Now certainly Apolyton isn't the US, but the leadership issues are the same, and the result is the same. I have to agree w/ Marcos, this should have remained private. The whole thing is very sad, but I don't see how Marcos had any other choice.

Bummer, Apolyton loses...

[MarkG]

quote: Originally posted by Bell on 03-13-2001 12:32 PM On the other hand, look at how Apolyton (official Apolyton, not the forums) reacted to CTPII. There have been a few hints of disapproval, but nothing anywhere close to what Activision deserves for the totally irresponsible way that they handled CTPII...

the role of the "official apolyton"(mainly expressed through the news, since you want to leave aside our policies regarding what gets posted on the forums) is to provide usefull news and information not to rant about activision's actions.

[Koyaanisqatsi]

quote: Originally posted by MarkG on 03-13-2001 01:16 PM the role of the "official apolyton"(mainly expressed through the news, since you want to leave aside our policies regarding what gets posted on the forums) is to provide usefull news and information not to rant about activision's actions.

I wasn't asking for a rant. There are ways to show disapproval politely and productively.