The OFFICIAL GRIPE THREAD

[rah]

Hmmm, let's see....

Ming, besides the personal abuse he has to take here.

Someone threatened to hunt his daughter down and rape her.

Threatened to get him fired from work.

I won't mention the hateming website since Even I thought that was kind of funny.

We'll ignore all the threats of physical violence since they're kind of normal on web sites and cowards run rampant while hiding behind handles.

So sometime when he runs out of patience dealing with people here, he should be cut some slack. BUT NO> we're expected to perfect every time. We're not.

He does or makes a 100 decisions a week. People never seem to remember the 99 good ones. Just the one bad one.
Ok, that percentage may be a tad high, but what the heck I'm biased.

and no, Locutus is not the hotel manager. Besides being an owner, he a highly technically skilled asset to the team who has spent more hours working on the site them most people spend posting. Without his effort there would be no hotel. We would have shut it down already. That's a fact.
SO when people make fun of the work that he does and try to over simplify what he does,
I THINK he should be cut a little slack. We cut slack to the posters here all the time. Yet little tolerance is shown to the owners.
Yes, I wish his skin was a touch thicker but I don't think anybody here would sit still while someone made fun of their work and all the effort they've put in.

So If I have to make a choice of having a few fewer guests or not having a hotel. There is no choice.

That is reality. I apologize if people may take this the wrong way and stop posting here. They will be missed.
But there has to be hotel for the rest of us.

[Ninot]

p.s. And yes, of course Asher could take it upon himself to put aside the past and change his behavior, but he won't, and he won't listen to me, so that's why I didn't suggest it.

Asher has done an OUTSTANDING job of putting behind the past with NYE in the hockey thread this year. After they settled things in September, we didn't have a single spat between the two. Considering how past years have gone, that's remarkable.


He's capable of playing nice if given reason to. I don't think the mods here give him a reason. The double standard has stood for so long afterall.

[snoopy369]

Spec - I understand what you're saying, except that:

Apolyton does not turn a profit, or even pay for itself.

Ads and PLUS do nothing but help offset the running costs - and don't even offset it. They are voluntary contributions by those who believe the site is worth paying for, and are very appreciated; but they're not 'payments' made for a service rendered. This is a community, like many others out there, and one that some people are willing to spend (in a few cases, significantly) to maintain.

So the 'customer' analogy is poor... there's a significant difference between a profit-based business (where it would make sense) and a non-profit site that runs on volunteers and voluntary contributions. Those that make the (significant) voluntary contributions, either in work or in cash, get rather more of a say than those that don't ... and that's just how it is, on ANY site.

Anyone who believes the moderating is strict here needs to look at pretty much ANY other site of similar size or greater on the web. I like that, and most of the people here do as well, as far as I can tell... but it seems to cause people to think it should be even more lax.

All I'll say about that is I haven't seen anyone banned for On-topic posting who wasn't an Off topic poster screwing around intentionally, or a bot, in a long, long time ... probably as long as I've been staff. The folks here for Civ seem to enjoy themselves... and that's good, in my opinion.

[Veritass]

Thank you all for inviting me to your house. It really is quite nicely done, though sometimes it seems more like a frat house with all the people coming and going at all hours.

With all the nice discussions, it is much like sitting around the fire pit with various groups of friends, discussing things that we are about in our lives. I would like to share some of what I have learned being around [real life] fire pits having these discussions.

We all benefit from these times. Interacting with others expands your ability to share with them, and to hear ideas and opinions different than your own. This expands your circle of existence on this planet, and expands the potential knowledge and understanding in your own mind.

Not all of your friends are compatible. You might not want to have friend K over at the same time as friend L, because they just don't mix well. That one time that they were together was practically explosive. In general we all try to be at least civil, even with those with whom we disagree, but K and L went over the line that night.

We all know that K and L went over the line that night, and we don't need to keep bringing it up over and over at every fire pit. Most of us have moved on and recognize that instance for what it was. Some of us don't know all the details of that instance, and we want to gossip about it, but we hold that impulse in check, because continuing to bring it up does not serve anybody.

With some of your friends you make a tacit or explicit arrangement that certain topics will not come up: some of your friends are interesting to talk to about politics, even though their politics are the opposite of yours. Some of your friends are interesting to talk to about religion, even though -- or especially because -- their religion is different than yours.

A couple of your friends are interesting to talk to about some issues, and when they start to go off on "that issue", everybody already knows what they are going to say, as they have said it twenty times already. These people are generally harmless, and they are easy to ignore. They just take themselves a little too seriously in this one area.

Of course, there are those of your friends that don't know how to conduct social discourse, or otherwise can't be civil, and those people you stop inviting and may even disinvite. I completely support your rights as a homeowner to do this.

I, for one, love our times together around the fire pit. I get a lot from it, and I hope that occasionally I can add something to the discussion.

[Koyaanisqatsi]

Ah well. Guess this place isn't what I thought it was.

Later all.

[snoopy369]

Originally posted by Ninot

p.s. And yes, of course Asher could take it upon himself to put aside the past and change his behavior, but he won't, and he won't listen to me, so that's why I didn't suggest it.

Asher has done an OUTSTANDING job of putting behind the past with NYE in the hockey thread this year. After they settled things in September, we didn't have a single spat between the two. Considering how past years have gone, that's remarkable.


He's capable of playing nice if given reason to. I don't think the mods here give him a reason. The double standard has stood for so long afterall.

I agree with your first part, absolutely. I do think some of that is NYE having a thicker skin, but both of them can be abrasive to the other intentionally so that's not a one way street in any event.

However, Asher knows how to rub people badly without crossing lines that others would consider wrong, and uses that to his advantage. That's the part that needs to change - it's okay to do that to a certain point, but beyond that point it is deleterious to the site. It's fine to point out that this site is running on ancient software - christ, we know that more than any of you do, and deal with the **** from it daily; trust me when I say that all of us technical folks want vb3 and the random crap gone from this site faster than any of you, Asher included - but repeating that over and over to the people working to correct that - and by working, I mean giving of significant amounts of their free time while not getting any return other than the friendship and appreciation of people they've never met - is unnecessary and not appreciated.

If you walked up to a guy working on the potholes in the road, and sat there while he worked and told him all about how the asphalt the road was originally built on was **** and over and over againg pointed out the potholes still to be worked on, are you surprised when he eventually decks you? Did you deserve it? **** yes, you did. It is useful the first time to point them out; the second time it might be funny, to you; but the 88th time, it's rude and inappropriate, and deserves a ban. If there was overreaction in the details and communication involved there, can you really blame him? We're all human, and when poked enough time in the same wound, we react strongly and sometimes without thinking things through fully. Asher knew full well what he was doing when he did it, and deserves no sympathy for it.

[Saras]

Originally posted by BeBro
Asher got banned

for what?

[CrONoS]

Originally posted by Saras


for what?

Being Asher
.:click here

[Spec]

Originally posted by rah
Hmmm, let's see....

Ming, besides the personal abuse he has to take here.

Someone threatened to hunt his daughter down and rape her.

Threatened to get him fired from work.

I won't mention the hateming website since Even I thought that was kind of funny.

We'll ignore all the threats of physical violence since they're kind of normal on web sites and cowards run rampant while hiding behind handles.

So sometime when he runs out of patience dealing with people here, he should be cut some slack. BUT NO> we're expected to perfect every time. We're not.

I understand how that can be frustrating, but that come with the terriitory. Someone that cant handle pressure, wont work in stocks. I am not responsible for all these threats and stuff, so I shouldn't have to endure the consequences. Even more so if I am not even aware of such a situation.

He does or makes a 100 decisions a week. People never seem to remember the 99 good ones. Just the one bad one.
Ok, that percentage may be a tad high, but what the heck I'm biased.

Yes, you are. I.e., I mange a plant for a living, I have employees, and if one employee gets on my nerves for which ever reason ( I could tell you stuff you wouldn't beleive ) I wont take it out on other employees. So its no excuse imo. A mistake is dropping a plate and breaking it, forgetting to put the gas cap back on when you filled up....not writting an e-mail that took you atleast 5 minutes to write and hammering the poster to submission for no reason.

and no, Locutus is not the hotel manager. Besides being an owner, he a highly technically skilled asset to the team who has spent more hours working on the site them most people spend posting. Without his effort there would be no hotel. We would have shut it down already. That's a fact.
SO when people make fun of the work that he does and try to over simplify what he does,
I THINK he should be cut a little slack. We cut slack to the posters here all the time. Yet little tolerance is shown to the owners.
Yes, I wish his skin was a touch thicker but I don't think anybody here would sit still while someone made fun of their work and all the effort they've put in.

Let me ask you this, 3-4 years ago, when Asher made these "demands" how did he ask for them? Was he arrogant right away or did he get impatient through out the years? How many times did he make suggestions? How many times was he not taken seriously because of his arrogant attitude? Thats what I ment by setting aside the bad so you can see the good. I'm sure he's not completly full of it...right?

And how is it that Locutus can act that way with Asher and get away with it? I am not saying Asher is right, hell, far from that, but his is always much more pounded on than most other posters. Yes, he has a talent to get under peoples skin, but his posts have content, suggestions and ideas.

So If I have to make a choice of having a few fewer guests or not having a hotel. There is no choice.

That is reality. I apologize if people may take this the wrong way and stop posting here. They will be missed.
But there has to be hotel for the rest of us.

The problem I have with this post is the word "few". What do you qualify as "few". Is going from mansion to living room "few"? And you are ready to go to even fewer because of people lke Locutus? Sure, hes a tech and all, but in no way should he have Mod privileges the way he acted. Classic UR....and what happenned to UR?

Spec.

[Spec]

Originally posted by snoopy369
Spec - I understand what you're saying, except that:

Apolyton does not turn a profit, or even pay for itself.

Ads and PLUS do nothing but help offset the running costs - and don't even offset it. They are voluntary contributions by those who believe the site is worth paying for, and are very appreciated; but they're not 'payments' made for a service rendered. This is a community, like many others out there, and one that some people are willing to spend (in a few cases, significantly) to maintain.

So the 'customer' analogy is poor...

No, its not. If we weren't here, why would you even have a site?
If you have no customers, why would you even have a hotel?

I am not talking about profits here, I am talking about a reason for a cause.

A site for posters. No posters, no site. Period.

Spec.

[BeBMan]

Originally posted by rah
Someone threatened to hunt his daughter down and rape her.

Threatened to get him fired from work.

This is completely out of line and anybody who comes up with such nonsense should get his ass banned asap.

Saras: I didn't whitness the process, just understood that it was something between him and Locutus.

[Spec]

Originally posted by snoopy369
If you walked up to a guy working on the potholes in the road, and sat there while he worked and told him all about how the asphalt the road was originally built on was **** and over and over againg pointed out the potholes still to be worked on, are you surprised when he eventually decks you?

This makes no sense. The guys has no responsibility what so ever how the road was made. He does what is asked of him, he's a blue collar, not a "mod"

Take me to his boss, or the guy responsible for such crappy infrastructure though, that would be a whole other matter...And I would deck him, with reason. Because he didn't listen to the people and wasted our taxe money on crappy infrastructure, using the rest for his own political campaing.

Spec.

[Ninot]

Part of what bothered me about what happened that night was when Locutus told him that the thread he was posting in was only to regard site layout, and Asher made a new thread to voice his complaints, that new thread was deleted. It wasn't an offensive thread at all either. Just seemed to me like Locutus was going overboard with his actions on Asher.

Two to tango, you know?

[Spec]

If 90%....no...lets say 80% of us think that Locutus went overboard, is there a slight chance that you would agree with the majority of your customers?

Spec.

[rah]

Locutus, didn't do the original design. He's trying to make it better. For who? The community.

It can't be for the money, since we don't make any.
It can't be for the appreciation of the users like Asher.

Maybe it's just because we like this place and would like to keep it around. Not everyone will agree with how we do it. Sorry. And for those that don't think we don't listen, I will obviously never be able to convince you otherwise. But we do listen. We don't always have the resources. But we do try. That's got to be good enough because it's all we have.