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General: MMORPG.com Community Manager
Stradden
Managing EditorMember CommonPosts: 6,696
MMORPG.com is sorry to announce that our long-time Community Manager Laura Genender has moved on from her post here at the site and has taken over duties in the community department of a development studio.
While we here at the site are sad to see Laura go, we know that she will excel in her new post and we wish her well in all of her future endeavours.
In happier news, we can now also name our new Community Manager. Richard Cox, who worked most recently on the community team over at EA Mythic, is a former Staff Writer and Moderator here at MMORPG.
We know that Richard is a great addition to the MMORPG.com team, and we look forward to working with him now and in the future.
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
Comments
Self Edited my response.... i dont want to be banned after all.
But it is no secret many of us poster didnt really see eye to eye with Laura. I must say i am glad she left.
I dont think she really had knack for this type of job. And her arrival at the steering wheel of mmorpg.com community also marked start of prosecution, banning, post deletion, post moving ... and other form of non-freedom of speech solutions.
On the end it resulted in many regular posters dissapearance - either from being permabanned or annoyed by not being able to post in open manner , and say what they want to say
I hope that new community manager will believe in freedom of speech , and opportunity to express your oppinions in free and open manner. Things that once upon the time made mmorpg.com man destination for mmorpg players
I think Laura did a decent job. What is/was Richard Cox's moderator handle?
Here's the thing,
MMORPG.com has rules. People who don't follow the rules will have their posts deleted and or be warned / get a ban. It's that simple, and it wouldn't change no matter who the community manager is. Posts criticizing a game (for example) are ok, posts that bash a game without backing it up, posts that attack other people and the like simply won't be tolerated and frankly, shouldn't be.
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
Hey Richard (Rick? Rich? Dick? ... got a nickname or just Richard?)
As your first act as the CM for MMORPG.com you should appease the community by unlocking the Mourning Thread.
It should never be forgotten. It's an infamous thread and a reminder that somebody is out there specifically to ruin our passion...
Thanks
PS: Welcome. Pull up a chair and start drinking, like all good CMs do ;-)
- CaesarsGhost
Lead Gameplay and Gameworld Designer for a yet unnamed MMO Title.
"When people tell me designing a game is easy, I try to get them to design a board game. Most people don't last 5 minutes, the rest rarely last more then a day. The final few realize it's neither fun nor easy."
Greetings all!
I'm very happy to be back on the MMORPG.com team. Some of the old timers might remember me from back in the day, 2003-2005 or so. My handle now is the same as it was back then, though my real name is different. Long story short, I legally changed my last name to take my step-father's. It used to be Richard Duffek.
Some of you might recognize me as the former Community Manager of WAR for EA Mythic, as that's where I went when I left this site in 2005, until this past October when me and Mythic parted ways. I took a couple months off to experience the birth of and welcome my first son into the world.
As far as the above comments about the forum moderation and such. The site has rules, as Stradden said, oddly enough, almost the exact same rules they had back when I worked here before. I backed them then and I back them now. If you break the rules you'll received the appropriate consequences. Me being here instead of Taera isn't going to change that.
As always, if you have any questions about a warning/ban or just about anything in general, please don't hesitate to drop me a PM or email to [email protected].
Thanks again for the welcome back, it's going to be a fun ride.
Richard J. Cox
"There were much of the beautiful, much of the wanton, much of the bizarre, something of the terrible, and not a little of that which might have excited disgust."
Welcome back Richard.
While not wanting to make a mountain out of a mole hill as this is not what this thread is about... but...
While I believe and respect the rules here, imo rules are not always black and white, there can be quite a bit of grey in there. Please try and keep that in mind when making judgments.
I do think it's great that you allow that "open door" policy about shooting you an email or PM. Shows you care.
Anyway, just my two cents.
Welcome back and congratulations on the baby.
I will have to agree with Lobotomist though about Laura. Maybe it goes deeper than most of you know who knows but she did a very poor job of management. Many a times I'd find my posts deleted with no word, no warning and absolutely no reason for them to be. It broke absolutely no rules wasn't directed to anyone and wasn't flame bait just was completely gone. During the course of her (reign?) I managed to get a ban for Retaliation, I have never seen such a ridiculous claim in all the years I've been around.
I am glad she is gone and wish her luck on her future ventures but silencing posters for no reason really got under my skin. After countless emails to her that went unanswered I gave up and literally just stop posting in discussion. Laura was the reason I barely viewed the site on a regular basis and now that problem is gone.
I understand there is rules but she went beyond the rules and started deleting, banning, warning at her own whim and I'm not alone when thinking about this.
Any good luck Richard and I hope you set the stone back where it belongs just like the good ol days of mmmorpg.com
Here's the thing,
MMORPG.com has rules. People who don't follow the rules will have their posts deleted and or be warned / get a ban. It's that simple, and it wouldn't change no matter who the community manager is. Posts criticizing a game (for example) are ok, posts that bash a game without backing it up, posts that attack other people and the like simply won't be tolerated and frankly, shouldn't be.
I am not sure Stradden
Rules are rules. Even when you enforce RADICAL third strike rule.
But how you interpret those rules is in question here.
When saying : "People love Vanguard because they are bored with WOW"
is constituted as : BAN for reason of "Insulting the game"
Or when you get banned for following reason : " You have negative opinion - and in a way it is trolling"
Or : " You insulted the game "
-
Who can say where is the line , when reason for ban is "Insulting the game" or "Negative opinion"
The decision is completely in hand of community manager - Power to permanently ban poster that was part of community for years. Community manager judging upon his own personal mood and using blurred unclear rules.
It was clearly a reason most of us do not dare to post anymore. Or do not want to , from fear of being permanently banned from the site ...
For this you can single handed thank Laura ,
Oh trust me, I definitely know there is very little black and white, and a whole lot of gray. Mods are human just like everyone else, and everyone is capable of making a mistake here and there.
You also have to keep in mind that not everyone has the same levels of sensitivity. Something you post or something that is posted at you, you might not feel it is offensive at all. But that doesn't mean others feel the same way. Just because you post something that you didn't think was offensive, or maybe didn't even mean for it to be offensive, doesn't mean it doesn't offend someone.
As for retaliation... Trust me I know how hard it is to take the higher ground and not go for the bait. First and foremost I'm a gamer. I've been involved in online gaming since the days of BBSes, moved on to code, run and play MUDs, and I've extensively played just about every MMO to hit the NA market. I've participated in over 65 betas. I love online gaming and I can smack talk with the best of em. But sometimes it's better to just walk away, not take the bait and report the person.
Richard J. Cox
"There were much of the beautiful, much of the wanton, much of the bizarre, something of the terrible, and not a little of that which might have excited disgust."
Alas , regardless of our little discussion -
Warm welcome to you Richard
This are hard times for mmorpg's and there a lot of unsatisfied people.
Your work will not be easy. But i hope you will manage to bring this community (that we all love after all)
to its former hights , and BEYOND!
Welcome Richard.
I am mike470, and I'm sure you'll get to know me when I end up getting lots of warnings and bans...so in about a week, perhaps?
Welcome to the staff and I look forward to smack talking with you
__________________________________________________
In memory of Laura "Taera" Genender. Passed away on Aug/13/08 - Rest In Peace; you will not be forgotten
yay! Welcome back Richard
Aww.... Bye, Taera/Laura! Fair seas and following winds for you, and good luck with your new job.
Tuor/Ed
I agree, but in that same regard, does that not mean you should make some effort to hold everyone to the same standards?
As the saying goes, if you are going to make one of them do it, then you better make them all.
Personal bias has been an issue with certain staff on these forums for years, certain trolling/flaming threads or posts are deleted, while others can rampage about and see no consequence whatsoever - the cherry picking of threads for deletion/censorship based strictly on whether or not the staff members personal opinion conflicts with the posters (or not).
You are absolutely right, that won't change, no matter who the Community Manager is.
Rock a FailCom avatar now and express your disgust with pride!
The truth hurts...
Funcom RX
Any time that an accusation of "personal bias" is made, it is investigated by the Community Manager. If we find that there is personal bias being used in deleting / locking threads or posts, appropriate actions are taken.
More often than not though, accusations of "personal bias" are false. Heck, on more than one occasion, I've been accused of being biased toward games that I haven't played, let alone formed an opinion of.
If you want to know the real problem, it's that we have so many different forums, and only so many moderators to go around. Our moderators work here on a volunteer basis and we thank them very much for that. They often put in a great deal of their own time and effort and I encourage anyone with an issue to voluinteer themselves.
As to it all being the same and "fair" to everyone. Like in life, it's about who gets caught. If you break the rules, expect to deal with the consequenses. If you don't get caught, then I guess you were just lucky. If you do, you broke the rule and there isn't much of an argument.
Nobody here is "cherry picking" threads for deletion. That's not in our best interest. This isn't my own nor anyone else's personal soap box and it will not and is not used as such.
I'll long story short this for you:
No staff member's personal opinions of one game or another are to have any impact on the way that the forums are moderated. I'm not going to sit here and pretend that it will never happen. That kind of thing happens everywhere from time to time. What I can say is that when it happens, it's wrong and if you feel that is the case, that's why we have a community manager that will listen and fairly assess different situations.
Remember, just because you don't like the decision that a moderator, the CM or myself make, doesn't mean that there was some kind of "personal bias" or conspiracy going on.
Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com
I think the problem, Jon, dates back to when Laura was a Vanboi(girl...whatever) and visciously went after people who spoke poorly about Vanguard, but let similarly styled posts about other games "slide".
As a previous CM I understand that, yes, personal bias does indeed exist no matter how much you fight it. I had it, you have it, Laura has it, Richard has it... it's just part of being human. The job of the CM is to overcome that and just work with it...
With Forums as busy as these, it's easy to get swept up in the Moderation calls I'm sure. Anybody who posts in the Darkfall section knows that any questioning Darkfall/Aventurine post gets reported by somebody who stands just on the other side of the fence.
The job of the CM is to ensure the post is not actually malicious... the problem with the amount of Warnings is when you log in and see 5 warnings you'll look at the posts and decide. If you log in and see 50 warnings you'll start skipping steps. When you log in and see 100, it's easy to fly through them and temp ban the people just to get through it.
The fault is just as much the Community's as it is the Moderation Board. We (the Community as a whole) have developed a "I'm now sure so I'll just press the flag here and let somebody in charge decide", not realizing the majority of posts that are flagged don't deserve it. When we flood the poor Moderator's inboxes with silly problems, they, humanly, get flustered and start making snap judgements because they only have so much time during the day.
Wow... did I go off on a tangent there or what... *flashbacks*
- CaesarsGhost
Lead Gameplay and Gameworld Designer for a yet unnamed MMO Title.
"When people tell me designing a game is easy, I try to get them to design a board game. Most people don't last 5 minutes, the rest rarely last more then a day. The final few realize it's neither fun nor easy."
Welcome back Richard, bet you are glad to get away from that den of inequity
Groupie #1 checking in
Grats hon
*hugs*
I guess I can start posting again...
I'm sorry, but there is something to be said for the letter of the law versus the spirit of the law, I got very tired of warnings and bans for things that did not deserve anything more than a "good job with that post buddy"
Nothing personal, but I have to agree that I don't think that the job was right for her, I wish her the best, but I hope that the next guy has more of a knack for this type of job.
Your argument is like a two legged dog with an eating disorder...weak and unbalanced.
WOOT! Yay for my groupies following me everywhere!
*hugs*
Thanks!
Richard J. Cox
"There were much of the beautiful, much of the wanton, much of the bizarre, something of the terrible, and not a little of that which might have excited disgust."
On the note of Laura leaving, all I can say is I hope she does well in her new job. I never had a problem with her in the time she was here, and in fact she was just about the only Community Manager of any forum that I had a continually good dialog with. She treated me fair, and in fact reversed many infractions/bans when I asked her to investigate them as possible overzealousness on a mods behalf.
As for you, Kunou, welcome back aboard. If you aren't familiar with me from your previous time here, don't worry.
You will be soon enough.
Anything in common with a certain MMO we all know announcing the hiring of two new CMs in common with this moving on to another job?
Just like when Zaryhem was announced a certain writer of a former magazine announced he was leaving the cancelled magazine/website the same day that Zarhyem was announced on that particular MMO forum.
It is strange that everytime I randomly log on to check up on WAR there is always something worth posting about. Welcome back Richard and to the job you should have had a long time ago.
*Notice: The views expressed in this post are solely those of the author... got sick of holding backspace.
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ParaTrooper, That guy that used to mod the MMORPG.com forums.
What it got locked?!?!?
! The most epic thread at MMORPG.com. 
.
~Greatness~
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"Freedom is just another name for nothing left to lose" - Janis Joplin
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