[Poll] Sticky Server Advertisements

[pro4never]

Originally Posted by MrSm!th

And before you start taking about how you have suggested that as well: No, you have suggested a hidden archive forum, which would basically be the same as deleting the threads.

I have suggested archiving the existing posts multiple times, yes I prefer that section not be visible to the average user but that's not important to me, what's important to me is that the section should actually be able to be navigated without running into hundreds of invalid threads with dead links.

The reason we pushed for stickies is that it's less work and feels more rewarding to the developers in our section. The same # of actual threads would be stickied as there would be in a cleaned up pserver section (4-6 total) but the archived posts would be easily viewed in the same section. It's the simplest solution requiring the least amount of effort.

I've said repeatedly though that I can understand where epvp is coming from with no wanting to sticky single servers as it makes it appear as biased (even if the conditions for a server to become stickied are clear and unbiased) which is why we instead keep suggesting archiving old posts or deleting them. I've lost count of the exact number but there's got to be at least 5 different tweaks to the idea that we've suggested to address staff concerns and yet all we seem to get back is a wall of contradictions and half assed excuses for why it cant happen or isn't important enough to bother with.

Originally Posted by Luke

What was the exact reason against letting a member creating a collective thread with the current active/live servers?

There's a few reasons but here's my opinion on the topic.

#1: It's a fake out. I get that epvp doesn't want to appear to play favorites but anyone who would be active or knowledgable enough to create such a thread is HEAVILY involved or biased against certain projects in our section.

#2: You place the future of the section on a single member rather than a simple thing any mod that ever gets assigned can do (server online with real links? sticky it. Offline, remove sticky)

#3: The answers I've been given to our concerns involve a moderator still editing this stickied 'member' thread to add/remove which is MORE work, just as biased and runs into the same concerns as stickies do.


Who would post and maintain it? We have maybe 10 members who would be active enough to maintain it and all of them I can think of are highly factionalized or would be excluded from doing so.

Me: I can't, I'm viewed as a mod and run a project. It would be viewed as biased and may well be.
Spirited: HEAVILY polarized in our section. He could do it but people would be very upset.
Nyaori: Runs a project
Ultimation: Not very active anymore, has past issues with epvp staff (could do it but not a great fit I think he wouldn't even want to)
Throev: Probably the only person I dont have a reason why he couldn't. He may have his issues with me but he probably could. He's been involved in MANY projects and I'm not sure if they are still active. Could be excluded same reason I would be though for being involved with the projects he'd be 'advertising'
CptSky: Great fit but he's already resigned from staff and is not very active. Doubt he'd want to
CrimsonFart: I think that's Arco? he's been banned a ton of times from epvp, not very active, could be excluded.
TaTline: Dramatic history with his projects. Not sure but I think he said he was launching a new public project. Could probably do a decent job but doubt he'd be interested. I feel like he's taken a step back from the community. I could be wrong.


So, who is going to maintain this mystical list you're talking about? Why should it rest on a single member rather than any assigned moderator? How is having a moderator edit the thread to keep it updated better than just sticking the damn threads themselves?

[CrimsonFart]

Okay so basically, Mr. Smith, you agree with creating a subsection in which moderators can move dead servers to so that the Private Server Advertisement section can be cleaned up and maintained properly, correct? This way the 'value' of advertisement threads of dead servers gets preserved whilst online and active servers get pushed to the front so people get a better idea of what to choose from.

So will you throw this in a weekly/monthly meeting you guys have or something? The sooner this can happen the better.

[Ultimation]

Originally Posted by MrSm!th

Your previous post did not provide any value to the discussion. If you want to rant about epvp, do it elsewhere.

i wasn't ranting about epvp, i was stating the obvious, these threads never come to a solid conclusion, thus nothing gets changed. And in no way did my post break any rules, it should not have been deleted.

[MrSm!th]

I've lost count of the exact number but there's got to be at least 5 different tweaks to the idea that we've suggested to address staff concerns and yet all we seem to get back is a wall of contradictions and half assed excuses for why it cant happen or isn't important enough to bother with.

That's simply I lie. There are no contradictions in our statements (granted: except for that one time i misread your skype message) and when you suggested an archive, you were talking about a hidden archive.
Also, we did offer alternatives to your suggestions as well, which you just ignored first and then simply responded that it wouldn't work without even trying.

There is no need for us to respond with half assed excuses to a good idea (a publicly available yet read-only archive forum), so please stop pretending you are a victim of our nonexistent stubborness.

So will you throw this in a weekly/monthly meeting you guys have or something? The sooner this can happen the better.

Yes, we will discuss it this Thursday.

[pro4never]

Originally Posted by MrSm!th

That's simply I lie. There are no contradictions in our statements (granted: except for that one time i misread your skype message) and when you suggested an archive, you were talking about a hidden archive.
Also, we did offer alternatives to your suggestions as well, which you just ignored first and then simply responded that it wouldn't work without even trying.

There is no need for us to respond with half assed excuses to a good idea (a publicly available yet read-only archive forum), so please stop pretending you are a victim of our nonexistent stubborness.

Are you even reading my posts?

I'm FOR archiving old dead threads, I dont care if the subsection is visible or not. My only concern with it is that it ends up making the forum less user friendly compared to simply stickying the 4-5 servers currently online.

The total number of servers advertised in our section regardless of player count, quality of server, time online, etc is about 5, 8 at most. By moving all the dead link threads to an archived section you make it easier to browse the online servers and solve that problem but you at the same time make the forum less user friendly because you end up with a sub forum containing only a handful of threads and a separate sub forum containing hundreds with all dead links.


Yes, I feel stickying is the better solution
Yes, I'm frustrated that the excuse has no true basis in reality
No, I'm not against archiving old threads and having them visible to members

 Spoiler

Throwing this in a spoiler because it's not overly relevant but what pisses me off concerning the no stickies is this.

-We can't sticky threads because that comes across as epvp endorsing them
-Moderators/those running servers can't make a all in one thread but normal members can
-If a normal member makes a AIO server list, a mod can instantly sticky it
-That AIO thread can include things like ratings or reviews which are by their nature going to be very biased
-A mod can then edit the content of that thread as they see fit to add/remove servers listed

How is it no one sees the contraction and convoluted logic of this?

[MrSm!th]

Are you even reading my posts?

I'm FOR archiving old dead threads, I dont care if the subsection is visible or not. My only concern with it is that it ends up making the forum less user friendly compared to simply stickying the 4-5 servers currently online.

Yes, I am reading your posts. I do understand that you agree with the idea (although you prefer stickying threads). And I am saying that your claim of us outright refusing every suggestion you made is just plain wrong, and you did not suggest a public archive in said complaint thread.

As I said, I think we found a good compromise now, so there is no reason to continue this pointless meta discussion.

[Luke]

There's a few reasons but here's my opinion on the topic.

#1: It's a fake out. I get that epvp doesn't want to appear to play favorites but anyone who would be active or knowledgable enough to create such a thread is HEAVILY involved or biased against certain projects in our section.

This shouldn't be a problem if we setup listing-rules (which we would also need for the sticky version).

#2: You place the future of the section on a single member rather than a simple thing any mod that ever gets assigned can do (server online with real links? sticky it. Offline, remove sticky)

No, moderators are able to edit any members threads/posts. It's usual that collective threads from members are monitored from the epvp staff.

#3: The answers I've been given to our concerns involve a moderator still editing this stickied 'member' thread to add/remove which is MORE work, just as biased and runs into the same concerns as stickies do.

Well, about how much servers are we talking? We can't speak about work if there are only 5 links to add.

Who would post and maintain it? We have maybe 10 members who would be active enough to maintain it and all of them I can think of are highly factionalized or would be excluded from doing so.

Me: I can't, I'm viewed as a mod and run a project. It would be viewed as biased and may well be.
Spirited: HEAVILY polarized in our section. He could do it but people would be very upset.
Nyaori: Runs a project
Ultimation: Not very active anymore, has past issues with epvp staff (could do it but not a great fit I think he wouldn't even want to)
Throev: Probably the only person I dont have a reason why he couldn't. He may have his issues with me but he probably could. He's been involved in MANY projects and I'm not sure if they are still active. Could be excluded same reason I would be though for being involved with the projects he'd be 'advertising'
CptSky: Great fit but he's already resigned from staff and is not very active. Doubt he'd want to
CrimsonFart: I think that's Arco? he's been banned a ton of times from epvp, not very active, could be excluded.
TaTline: Dramatic history with his projects. Not sure but I think he said he was launching a new public project. Could probably do a decent job but doubt he'd be interested. I feel like he's taken a step back from the community. I could be wrong.


So, who is going to maintain this mystical list you're talking about? Why should it rest on a single member rather than any assigned moderator? How is having a moderator edit the thread to keep it updated better than just sticking the damn threads themselves?

As written in #1.

I would also be okay with an archive forum, but it doesn't make a big difference.

[pro4never]

Originally Posted by Luke

This shouldn't be a problem if we setup listing-rules (which we would also need for the sticky version).

As per my list... everyone that comes to mind to create such a thread is either
A moderator
Running a project
Heavily polarized in our community (aka hated or causes drama)
Not interested

Originally Posted by Luke

No, moderators are able to edit any members threads/posts. It's usual that collective threads from members are monitored from the epvp staff.

I'm well aware that mods are allowed to edit threads. My point is that a moderator or project owner isn't allowed to create the thread because that would be biased but that same mod could edit the post to add/remove anything they wished. That just stinks of bureaucratic double standards. I get that it's the rules in place but it's pretty ridiculous.

Originally Posted by Luke

Well, about how much servers are we talking? We can't speak about work if there are only 5 links to add.

Obviously creating such a thread is not much work. In a year from now though, it's highly unlikely it would be kept up to date because servers come and go, members join and leave. Realistically speaking the ongoing updates would become the responsibility of the section moderators, the same as if we went with stickying online servers and leaving offline servers as non-stickied as an archive




I suppose convoluted logic is more apt to describe my concerns rather than contradictions. The solutions being at least considered tend to try to skirt around issues by simply trying to hide them and in the process are making the solutions less user friendly. It's very difficult for me to see two sub-forums, one containing 5 threads, one containing hundreds as more user friendly than having a single subforum with hundreds of archived standard threads and 5 stickies.

[CrimsonFart]

I don't know who thinks I'm Arco, but that's ridiculous. Do an IP check if you need to. I'm mostly a lurker, but if necessary I can maintain that section of the CO subforums.

[pro4never]

Originally Posted by CrimsonFart

I don't know who thinks I'm Arco, but that's ridiculous. Do an IP check if you need to. I'm mostly a lurker, but if necessary I can maintain that section of the CO subforums.

Totally my bad, I'm bad at keeping track of people who've had like 10 diff names... He used a ton and they were similar so I just assumed.

[Nyorai]

The reason why I actually prefer the child forum for discontinued projects is simply because members come and go just like mods. We cannot guarantue that someone responsible for maintaining a thread will continue doing it next year or even next month.
Archiving discontinued server advertisements in the other hand is something that can be done by any mod, any time simply by checking if links are dead or alive.

It would keep things much cleaner in the long run and would surely help members choosing servers to join since they would only be checking out active servers.

[Luke]

It really shouldn't matter if there are listing rules. I don't think a member who applies for that job would manipulate the list just to promote an inactive/trash server just to get his account banned.

It's very difficult for me to see two sub-forums, one containing 5 threads, one containing hundreds as more user friendly than having a single subforum with hundreds of archived standard threads and 5 stickies.

I would rather add the archive as a subforum of the advertising forum. That should be fine from the usability perspective.

[Spirited]

So, your cleaner solution to stickying threads ... is to create a subsection for dead advertisements. Because that's a good amount of work for a moderator to do rather than stickying a thread when someone reports it as meeting requirements. This is so baffling to me; the easiest solution is right in front of you with zero effort, and you rather complain about it not being an option for a month. And what of that new section for dead servers? You're going to have an advertisements section with 6-8 servers, still only 2-3 good servers that they have to find? It almost solves the problem, doesn't it? Almost. It also makes it look like almost our second foot is in the grave.

[Ultimation]

Originally Posted by Spirited

So, your cleaner solution to stickying threads ... is to create a subsection for dead advertisements. Because that's a good amount of work for a moderator to do rather than stickying a thread when someone reports it as meeting requirements. This is so baffling to me; the easiest solution is right in front of you with zero effort, and you rather complain about it not being an option for a month. And what of that new section for dead servers? You're going to have an advertisements section with 6-8 servers, still only 2-3 good servers that they have to find? It almost solves the problem, doesn't it? Almost. It also makes it look like almost our second foot is in the grave.

drama boy has returned... rip

[Luke]

@ If you believe it or not, those "dead advertisements" still drive traffic to the CO2 section, there are also other reasons not to delete them, but that's the main one why we not gonna purge the whole forum.