Announcing WePlayCiv!

[Dinner]

All posts that are about past events or are not about weplayciv will be removed from this thread.
Everbody is free to like or dislike weplayciv and to express this, but personal attacks and continueing references to the past are good for nobody.

Let's burry the past (not without learning from it) and focus on the future.

Honestly, the last line of this post is nonsensical. Deleting all references to the past and refusing to talk about it GUARANTEES that no one will learn from it.

[Solver]

I'll make my points short and WPC-related as possible, just saw that the new owners don't want discussions around past events, which I respect.

Please don't get me wrong, I've found myself in a similar situation where I got banned from a site for standing up for a banned member. I got labelled a sockpuppet, and after they were done purging my other friends, I left and we formed another site. Did you not see me arguing that Dale should stay? I understand your motivations for doing so, and wanting to get together, I just would prefer personally that you stayed on here.

I should note that I never supported Dale's actions even if I agreed with the overall point he wanted to make. But the new site is a very emotionally difficult decision. All three WPC founders have been on Apolyton for a long time and considered our home, we had 18 years of summary experience as Poly staff. I just don't want you to think that WPC was founded overnight, it took a good amount of thought.

Would you consider me a primarily off-topic poster? I want to get your understanding of off-topic vs on-topic. I don't have the computer to run the newer games so there is little point in me posting in Civ3 or CIV for that matter. My impression is that the community pretty much remains the same as it's always been.

I wounder consider you an OTF poster primarily, yes, because that's where most of your posts are. But I should say that I am myself also guilty of this "off topic vs. on topic" thinking, which isn't always beneficial.

Like what did you have in mind? I'm all ears Solver.

I don't want to publicly discuss how I would or would not run Apolyton. But I think that, if you check out WPC, you'll be able to see roughly where and how I want to go.

It's a lull. Frankly, I'm of the thought that there's not much they can do. However, with the recent poll showing that 65 percent of offtopic regulars still play civ regularly, and 95 still play occasionally, that leads me to believe the one thread that brings everyone together (except besides Asher), is their enjoyment of the civ genre.

That poll was highly interesting. But note that most of those off-topic regulars who play Civ still rarely post about it in the on-topic forums. I don't know why but one of the goals at WPC now is to try and maintain a united community where there's significant overlap between on and off topic posters.

Easier and harder. I've done both jobs, and it's more satisfying to upgrade then to start from scratch.

Oh, I agree. But it's also satisfying to get things done, which comes faster when you start from scratch, in situations like these.

Solver, don't get me wrong here. I respect your abilities. I am disappointed that you don't feel Poly is worth the effort to set right. That is something you and I will have to agree to disagree. I hope that your site provides you what you are looking for, but I know there are going to be times when you wonder whether it is all worth it.

It's not even a question of effort, it's largely a question of belief. I didn't believe in my own ability to set Apolyton right, as you put it. Or, more precisely, I believed in that ability considerably less than I believe in my ability to build a successful community at a new site. Time will show if I was right or not.

With this, I'll stop discussing anything related to past events at the site, on these forums, as the new administration wishes.

[Solver]

I've had no less then 4 PMs from people on your site begging me to come post there instead. I don't understand why. Either Dale and Locutus would enjoy the power to arbitrarily ban me and get off on it, or you guys are just trying to steal anyone from Apolyton you can.

Do you hold me responsible for those PMs you get or what? I don't know why these people PM you either, I didn't ask anyone to PM you.

Go ahead and visit. You certainly won't be banned arbitrarily just for showing up, you won't be banned if you follow WPC's rules, the basic of which is no personal attacks. Sorry, your claim that you'd get banned immediately has no merit. Anyone is welcome to come and gets treated the same.

And if you want to discuss the other points, I'd be happy to do so in private or at WPC, but not here.

[Locutus]

I'm not Asher, and I think this is rather dubious. Dale gets stood down for his actions, which split Poly admin into his supporters and detractors. Dale gets upset because he thinks he did which was right, and annoyed that Poly doesn't rush to his defense, and even tells Asher that he has a place here.

Solver, I'd find it much more believable if you and Locutus didn't have Dale on as your staff, that this was all about good content and community. From my seat, Dale wanted to take his ball and go home, so he decided rather then put up with Poly, that he would start his own site, and pull everyone who had a beef with Poly along.

That little spat of OT drama recently has absolutely nothing to do with us working together. Solver, Dale and I have been very close friends for 9-10 years now, and have worked together on numerous project (not the least of which was Civ4 itself). We probably know each other better than some of our RL friends and family know us. We're doing this together because we get along very well and have many of the same ideas on how to run a Civ site. If a few drama queens in the OT want to get upset over that, that's their problem.

Frankly, if you associate Dale more with the recent incident in the OT than with the tremendous body of work he's done for the Civ community in the past 9-10 years, you have a very, very different set of priorities than the community we're targeting. If that's so, that doesn't mean you're not welcome on WePlayCiv, but realise that the name of our site reflects what we're focusing on.

You mentioned community. It is important to people, myself especially the community that is already at Apolyton.

The Civ community extend far, far beyond the borders of Apolyton. In fact, these days only a very small portion of the Civ community is located here. When we talk about community, we mean the Civ community, not the Apolyton community -- there is some overlap there (and we certainly want to cater to that group) but increasingly less of it.

I can't really see the purpose of a third site, unless it's for the gratification of the administration.

Don't underestimate the value of that. Solver and I especially have invested hundreds, even thousands of hours into Apolyton over the past decade. But in the last few years I at least have gotten pretty much nothing out of that investment. I have not gotten much enjoyment or satisfaction out of running the site (other than some specific projects like PolyCast/ModCast), I'm not getting paid for this, it's certainly not getting me laid... What exactly do you think is my motivation to continue to do this?

I know it's very, very early, but setting up this new site has already given me more enjoyment and satisfaction in the last few weeks than I've gotten out of the last 3 years at Apolyton. Call it selfish if you want, but that alone makes it worthwhile for me.

Considering that the three of you didn't do it at Poly, I don't see why that would change with your new site. You all have bad habits.

Yes, we've made mistakes whilst running Apolyton, and we've learned from them. Sometimes a fresh start is exactly what you need to get rid of some of those bad habits.

what's going to happen, are you gonna ban all the trolls? Lock them out next time they get under your skin?

Well, yes, that's exactly what's going to happen. Anyone is welcome to post, but trolling of any kind will not be tolerated. If someone wants to do that, there are plenty of other places on the web for them.

Why not do so on Apolyton?

A variety of reasons really. As already noted, I'm not getting any joy out of Apolyton, so continuing to run this site isn't an option for me. However, I still have lots of ideas and ambitions for running a Civ community, so starting a new site is the logical next step.

Practically speaking, Solver has already addressed the issue of the community problems on Apolyton. We feel no need to upset the guys that are happy here, but we do want radical changes in how we run our operation, so just splitting the site up makes perfect sense.

There's also the issue that many people (ourselves included) have very rigid, entrenched ideas of what Apolyton is, what it isn't, what it does, who it's for, how it should be run, etc. And there is this strong sentiment here that Apolyton is it's own entity that is completely separate from (and superior to) CFC and other Civ sites, a sentiment that we don't find ourselves agreeing with. Sometimes a fresh start is just what you need to break with some of those preconceptions and conventions, to redefine who we are and to open up new connections and friendships outside of the walled garden we've been living in for the last 11 years.

Is there a chance that all this will be moot and that 2 years down the line WePlayCiv will be just another Apolyton clone? Sure, that's always a risk, but we at least want to try to create something different, and we'll give it all we've got to make it succeed. If it doesn't, at least we'll be able to say we gave it our best shot, and hopefully had some fun along the way.

Some of the other reasons for starting a new site are of a more practical nature: Apolyton has a ton of legacy stuff to deal with, which is an incredibly complex and frustrating thing to deal with. It took us over 2 years to upgrade from vb2 to vb3, it took less than 2 days to set up a new vb3 forum on WePlayCiv. There are many similar issues with file databases, info pages, site design, etc, etc, etc. Running Apolyton is 95% dealing with legacy, 5% building something new. On WePlayCiv, we can focus entirely on building cool, new stuff that has immediate value -- and we can build it in a more future-proof manner than Apolyton was built so that hopefully 10 years down the line we won't be having the same problems all over again.

Finally, there is the monetary consideration. Dan's always kept quiet about this, but Apolyton is losing money hand over fist on a month-by-month basis. PLUS subscriptions kept the site going for a little while, but most of that came out of the Life funds, and those have long-since been depleted; what's coming in on top of (from both PLUS and ads) is almost negligible compared to the costs. We had a few lucky breaks along the way (and a few very, very generous donations) that kept the site going so far, but in the long run the site is not financially viable. We've had to decline projects from being hosted on the site in the past because we could not afford the bandwidth bill that would've come with them. That is not a healthy situation and not at all easy to rectify (it can be done but would involve a lot of pain and frustration).

Starting afresh on a new site, Solver, Dale and I have been able to take some measures to keep the costs in check. WePlayCiv will only cost us a fraction of what Apolyton would've cost us, and there is a realistic chance of even making it self-sufficient down the line. And that with a better server and much better bandwidth package than what Apolyton has right now -- allowing us to do a whole lot more in terms of on-site hosting of large mods, video, etc -- which has been my ambition for years.

[Asher]

Do you hold me responsible for those PMs you get or what? I don't know why these people PM you either, I didn't ask anyone to PM you.

Go ahead and visit. You certainly won't be banned arbitrarily just for showing up, you won't be banned if you follow WPC's rules, the basic of which is no personal attacks. Sorry, your claim that you'd get banned immediately has no merit. Anyone is welcome to come and gets treated the same.

And if you want to discuss the other points, I'd be happy to do so in private or at WPC, but not here.

There is already at least one thread there where people -- including your esteemed new admin staff -- are making personal judgements about my character there. Don't pull this ****, Solver. Personal attacks are already happening there, behind my back even, so why should I expect any different?

Dale and Locutus have BOTH demonstrated they are not to be trusted with administrative powers and have both specifically abused their powers in dealing with me. Why on Earth would you want to pretend they've changed?

There's already been negative comments at your site about me, then you keep saying I'm welcome to post there but you're not doing a damn thing about those comments in the meantime! In fact, your colleagues are making them.

Don't pull this crap where you think you can pull the wool over people's eyes. We all know your comments saying I'm welcome to post there are empty. You already exhibit a doublestandard by permitting people to say negative things about me personally (Ali has said several things specifically I've seen) that have not only not been punished, but have been reinforced by other admin on the site. It's a joke. A few days in and you've already managed to reproduce your inconsistencies you were all famous for on Poly as part of the old admin staff.

[Solver]

Funnily enough, Asher, we're consistent. There have been some unflattering comments about you at WPC but nothing I've seen that would qualify as a rule-breaking personal attacks. The interesting part? If someone is allowed to say about you that they're not a fan, you would be allowed to say the same thing. That's consistency. If you say to another person that they're a despicable moron whom you utterly detest, that's a violation of the rules. There hasn't been any of that against you at WPC.

We do not mean to enforce a very heavy-handed moderation policy like on CFC where any negative post about another person warrants a warning at least. If you were at WPC now, you'd find that you're allowed the same level of negativity and disagreement that everyone else is.

[Solver]

dp

[Asher]

I've already told you I'm never going to post at your site. Why do you keep asking?

Honestly, it's just bad form to leach from another site.

You admit you let people post unflattering comments about me. Those are your words. That's a generous way to put it.

An insult is an insult, if it is by calling me a "moron" of it it's by "unflattering" psychoanalysis, it's still insulting. Figure that one out.

All you're doing is making a breeding ground for passive aggressive posters, which helps no one. You need to go all out like CFC, or let loose like Poly.

[Solver]

I'm not asking you to post, I'm pointing out what treatment you'll get if you decide to come. If you don't want to visit WPC, I think the site will overcome that

Your claim of leeching is just silly, WPC members are there because they either like what WPC offers or don't like what they get at Apolyton/CFC I would presume. Say, we have multiple SMAC members now who are enjoying the fact that we're providing organized hosting for various old SMAC files.

[Robert]

This is not the right place to have this discussion.
Thread closed for now.