Personal attacks

[Jumpingfist]

I received this is my personal forum mail today.

Dear Jumpingfist


You have received a warning from the staff of Alamaze & Fall of Rome Forum. Personal attacks on another will no longer be tolerated on the forum. Please refrain from making such attacks any further. 


I can only figure they are commenting about comments I made to Uncle Mike.  Which is all and well but the staff and in particular UM has "personally attacked" me many times yet I mildly respond back and I get a notice.   Some of my favorites
-nothing is wrong with the code.  You can keep whining about it if you like.  -this was over the combat system not working correctly which is the primary purpose of beta 3.
-to the new players be warned there are some bad apples that like to use exploits.  - this was referring to me.  Even though I have likely brought more "exploits" to the forums than possibly all players combined.  In fact the only tricks or exploits I do not bring to the open forum are those that are told to me, that I did. To figure out myself.  Funny how I still have not seen some of them fixed.

I have no problem if we are to not personally attack other.  That is being polite.  I personally do not say anything in the forum I would not say to someone's face.   Maybe it is not always nice but by no means is it something I feel I should get warned over.  

Ry Vor once said this is like a family and I had been treating it that way.  We argue sometimes do not say nice thing but not outright racist or totally wrong.  I guess I miss understood the family dynamic, I did not realize it was we are the parents with a do as I say not as I do approach and you are the children.

I am sorry if I hurt UMs feelings enough he felt a need to complain.  That was not my goal.  We were arguing and I was speaking my mind at the time.

[VballMichael]

I would say take it at face value for what it was intended. Just a warning that we should not be making personal attacks on the forum. We have all said things we probably should not have on the forum. Personally, I like the message and think we should all abide by it. I am sorry you got called out on it, but that message could have gone to a dozen people at different times. It is not the first time someone has called on folks to be more careful on the forum. I think the key word there is 'personal.'

[Jumpingfist]

In the same thread I got my warning UM effectively called me a cheater. His personal attack was likely much more personal than mine was. But only I am flagged. I was effectively telling him to fix something.

[unclemike]

Ohhh, there's so many ways that I can respond to this thread

Jumpingfist and another's post was removed recently by the administrator on another thread due to their posts being negative and non-productive for the players.

Let's just say that players who issue personal attacks will be banned for a while to allow them to cool down a bit. If new forum accounts are created by them to continue their negative comments, they may end up being permanently banned. Losing one customer is better than losing several due to the hostility of the environment.

For the record, I never said that anyone in particular actually "cheated", only that a particular advice or strategic decision that was being discussed was either an exploit (that shouldn't be used since it would be unfair to other players) or that the particular advice was negative for the game overall.

So pertaining to the particular subject at hand (e.g., declaring an invading kingdom your ally to drop their regional reactions), is actually an exploit and players should refrain from behaving this way until the game designer decides what to do about it. Resources are tight, only Ry Vor and myself, so it may take a while before something gets fixed. Try not to complain if fixes are not being done quickly enough since I'm only working on Alamaze part-time (reduced to 10 hours a week now to handle new development, bug fixes, support, forum, ...etc) so it may take a while.

Let's try to be more friendly with each other and enjoy the game but personal attacks will be dealt with so that they don't occur anymore...

[HeadHoncho]

As long as personal attacks by the administrators are treated the same way, I have no problem with this.

For the record, however, nothing that JF (or I) said in that deleted subthread was a personal attack.

As soon as either heavy-handed moderating or double-standards begin to emerge, however, I will say plainly that I'm gone for good.

EDIT: I notice a strikethrough on JF's forum name. Have you banned him???????

[VballMichael]

Sorry, HH, I disagree. I have never been a fan of personal attacks on the Forum and do not consider protecting the site and one's customer base to be heavy-handed. I have never had an issue with your comments, but there have been plenty (my own included) that have bordered on the personal. I like management taking a stand on them. I am not opining on whether these particular comments were personal, but I am glad to see some moderating of comments in general.

[HeadHoncho]

VBM, what I'm saying is that on the narrow and specific issue of personal attacks, if we're going to ban them for everyone, then great, but if management still gets to make them, then I'm out.

VERY surprised you're OK with that.

[VballMichael]

I am not ok with Management personal attacks either. I guess I read the message as: "Enough, personal attacks stop now." I assume that applies to everyone.

And remember, on the ally declaration thing, I brought that to folks' attention because it does feel like an exploit. It is not cheating. It is not against the rules. But it is clearly not the intention of the game to have ally declarations actually help you hurt your enemy. Just like we quit declaring enemies into allies at the end of a game to affect status points. Clearly within the rules, but not how they are intended to affect a game.

[HeadHoncho]

We shall see.

[Ry Vor]

I think the points have been made.  Glad we have player support to make the posts more civil, and I would say that should carry over to perceived coordinated attacks which often are not coordinated.  There is no ban in place now.  I'm closing this thread.