Post/Author/DateTime	Post
MindWandererB 12-12-07, 02:42 AM	I don't know how many of you have been keeping up with the politics involved in the switch over to gleemax, but I've been asked to post the following: ------------------------------- The community Management team has created a new initiative to help the community express their feedback and suggestions regarding the forums. With the large number of forums we have we wanted to implement a way for users to get their feedback to the CM team in an effective manner. Community management believes that the best source of information about a community comes from the community itself, and this program is designed with that principle in mind. Forum leads do not have any moderation powers whatsoever. They do, however, have a direct voice to the WotC Community Management team. They are here to help represent your community. If you have any feedback or suggestions you'd like to see passed along, let them know! Forum Lead Mission statement; Forum leads work as advocates for the community, providing WotC with suggestions and ideas regarding their community, while also helping to provide guidance and help to all forum members, new and old. If you want to know more about the Forum Lead program, or if you have any questions or concerns, please visit the VCL Open Discussion here (http://forums.gleemax.com/forumdisplay.php?f=725) and let us know. The leads for this forum are MindWandererB and TelinArtho. ------------------------------- What does that mean? Basically, as GM, I already had the ears of the WizOs, who still act as forum moderators and can still get stuff done like granting custom avatars and titles, stickying posts, and whatnot. (I'm still trying to figure out how to get archived posts restored; that power was taken away from the WizOs and it's an uphill battle trying to find someone who will do it. If the "community" wants to mention that as a feedback item, I'd be more than glad to pass it on... :)) But now there's a new branch of the forum government, the CM team. So far, that consists of Solice and Gamer_Zer0, to my knowledge. (There are probably others involved, but they're the only ones that seem to be doing anything.) So now I have their ears as well. In theory. I haven't yet figured out how to get their attention. But they're more in charge of the big things, like forum policies and structure. While I'm sure this thread will eventually trickle off the bottom of our first page, you can use it to discuss anything you'd like me to pass on to the CM team. If you can't find this thread anymore, you can mention it in the Tavern. For what it's worth, it also means that if I unexpectedly vanish, whoever takes my place will also have to figure out how to be made the Forum Lead. You can probably figure it out by posting in the VCL Open Discussion, linked above. If you need to be "nominated" because of the politics, any of the other forum leads or GMs can do it.
whitebaron 12-12-07, 03:18 AM	i think wotc/gleemax has still much to learn concerning communities and what they should do or should not do. currently, they are trying to restrict everything way to far. i guess there'll be at least some part of the forum population migrating to a free board because of this. what i totally don't get is why they don't give any mod powers to GMs and the like. its just managing user rights, which with their current vbb 3 system is really easy. and it would be only about the forums initiated or managed by people that are really here long-term. making shared accounts that stand outside of the paid system would surely not be an issue if they had even planned for such a case. currently, they are shutting everything down that could be a threat for their money-basis, and communicate as reforming the community. THAT i believe is a very bad thing.
MindWandererB 12-12-07, 04:05 AM	We used to have mod powers. Then we lost them, got them back, and lost them again. And shared accounts are no longer just logistically difficult, they're specifically prohibited. So it has less to do with their technical skill than the politicking going on.
mucki 12-12-07, 04:27 AM	Right, I gladly get behind your move to get back the old posts. I always found it quite disturbing as a newcomer to find links to old stuff that didn't work. Often it is not really important (like the picture thread) but sometimes rules and other things link to old posts and if you can't see those you don't have much idea of whats going on. A second, more personal issue: The new login system is completely broken imho. For one, I have to relogin every two weeks. If I decide to store a cookie on my PC for the login, then I would very much also like to say how long i want it stored. But this is something I could live with, if the login screen itself was not completely broken in Konqueror. I don't know what ungodly combination of javascript and whatnot they produced for this page, but there is a reason why you should just use simple Forms on webpages: While it may be nice and fancy that the button reading "login" changes to "please wait ..." after you click it, this doesn't help me an awful lot if it means i cannot login at all because of it. I have already reported this as a bug a while ago, but apart from some other people with the same problem, and the inevitable: "use browser XY its much better" replies I got no official word on the issue.
whitebaron 12-12-07, 06:13 AM	And shared accounts are no longer just logistically difficult, they're specifically prohibited. So it has less to do with their technical skill than the politicking going on. well, that's what i partially meant. i think it just evaded their knowledge that people like to have shared accounts for certain issues that come up in a forum, where they'd either need mod powers, or some shared capabilities. when they realized, oh, well, there is something, they just banned it instead of trying a solution. this is not about technicians - i believe they'd gladly provide such a thing - as i said its only about money. and something that calls itself community based, but takes its decisions based on the money-factor, is always something you have to watch closely. @mucki: use firefox :), it's better - usually. but gleemax has no good support for it either. i figured, maybe its like at our company: we support windows xp or vista, java 1.5, IE and firefox. and that's about it. if people come complaining, they get "use a better system" ...
hogarth 12-12-07, 07:05 AM	Does it really make a big difference one way or another? I don't remember the Wiz_Os doing much in this particular forum (although maybe there was stuff going on behind the scenes).
mucki 12-12-07, 08:46 AM	I know firefox is better. I am a strong proponent of higher firefox usage and I use it on every PC where i do serious browsing or do not have a good browser available. But it is also much heavier than konqi, which is built into my kde box anyway. So I will not replace a browser that has near perfect CSS rendering and loads up in 0.1 seconds with another browser that has just a tiny bit better and needs half my ram and 10 seconds to load. Hopefully KDE4 will solve this for me.
McJarvis 12-12-07, 08:58 AM	In general, I think there is too much busting on WotC for wanting to turn a profit. D&D isn't exactly a CCG(high profit margins that give steady revenues)- so I just take whatever they'll give me. Honestly, all my hobby money goes to my xbox- because that system actually has value-added things to purchase. [Mass effect gives me joy. splat books no longer doso]. What does that mean? Basically, as GM, I already had the ears of the WizOs, who still act as forum moderators and can still get stuff done like granting custom avatars and titles, stickying posts, and whatnot. (I'm still trying to figure out how to get archived posts restored; that power was taken away from the WizOs and it's an uphill battle trying to find someone who will do it. If the "community" wants to mention that as a feedback item, I'd be more than glad to pass it on... :)) Things that I want: 1) Some way to maintain a common post between multiple people. If wiki's can keep track of who-changed-what, then surely a forum can. 2) A GM who actually has mod powers. 3) If not #1, the ability to give people old accounts- even if you have to apply for the account transfer through mods. Consider this a "community feedback". :)
Book4 12-12-07, 11:07 PM	(hrum..) HI! :waves: (I’ve been lurking) Hogarth is right, the WizO’s never bothered this forum, but that was because the GM had mod powers, and well … no one on the wizo staff felt that we needed any real arbitration. This “game” runs differnt than most, and the necessary community aspects like pitlording are much more rigorous and extenuating than many of the other “game” threads. You will note that when WizO_Shadow last snuck in she “eeped” and “left a note” … then got out of Dodge asap “so to speak.” whitebaron, you are totally right in that the communities like CoCo and the other “Games: Message Boards” are suffering from the “how do these fit in?” phenomena. In the olds boards a GM was all but a WizO, however in the new “Gleemax” arrangement a “Game Master” is so far from that … they may, in fact, end up needing to pay $$ to maintain their status. This may seem ridiculous, but let’s review some facts first. The super-gee-wiz interactive Gleemax is easily over a year away. The current landing page says Alpha, and as far as I can tell right now it’s little more than the old forum with an evolving account management system ..so far. There are links to “checkers and chess” games but those don’t work yet, and then there is all that “character vault, and VR game table” talk. In the end, accessing the message boards will remain free to all, but “running games” will not. I am concerned that the message board games (like CoCo) will become part of said “pay to play” games. Ideally not, but it looks fairly possible to me. Why? The new Gleemax is going to be a “myspace” of gaming. What is intended to be the primary interface is going to be the personal account page, leading to the “playing games” interface (checkers, cards, chutes and ladders, and D&D 4E), after that you’ll find the blogs, and then (lastly) we have the forums that (as far as I can tell) are being kept around (almost) more for legacy than anything else. How this will effect the games that are currently being run as message boards? I see two possibilities, A, Message Board Games will remain free and members will be able to initiate new ones. (If anyone is familiar with the new “goblin game” that could very well join CoCo and etc on this section of the website). :clap: B, A forum dedicated to a "game" could become a kind of perk available only to paying members of the Gleemax. :weep: Obviously A is far better for CoCo than B. If B … May I “humbly” suggest that I .. ;) can resubstantiate a new CoCo at a differnt site (corecoliseum.com !? it's available… ) Should that become a necessity – there is one beni ... I can start a wiki-server as part of that. Actually now that I mention it ... I could start a wiki ... anyone want to buy corecoliseum.com and shoot me a message? I could put a wiki up and what not by the new year. All of this conjecture is still very much in the “alpha” stages, but I would like to ask that MWB look into the state of the “Game Boards” in relation to the fee/free accounts. …. BAHH! I don’t think there is anyway were getting around that. Which is really blasted annoying. As far as I can tell (from what I have been able to gather) the reason for this issue is that the legal liability implied in the terms of service does not allow for such a transfer of liability. Sadly … the only resolution I see to that is something of an “Option A” issue. IF, the GM is a paying member and agrees to some sort of larger liability – and THEN allows others to use accounts that s/he has spawned and thereby assumes all legal responsibility for possible abuses … maybe. There is a possibility that when “merchant/publisher” accounts are started there may come exceptions to that … but there again we have an “Option A” problem … furthermore – those kind of accounts may only be available to “Sovereign Stone” or “Green Ronin” and the like (not us DIY gladiators). Then again they may not allow that anyway – it sounds like there are “legal” ramifications. My primary question in this issue is to MWB. @MWB : Are they still allowing for Pitlords to be a “special exception multi-user” account, or has it now become your “sole” possession? (I quoth sole, because we all share a bit of the "soul" of CoCo ... :rolleyes: even widdle ole me).
MindWandererB 12-12-07, 11:50 PM	Well, Cat lacked mod powers most of the time I was here, and the WizOs still didn't come by much. Both he and I had to occasionally pop off PMs or make a post in the GM Lounge (yes, we have access to a special forum, but it's pretty dead) to get mod stuff done, but it was all behind the scenes. Whether patron-run games will be moved to a pay area is something I can't answer with conviction, but I think the Powers that Be know perfectly well that we can just move our games to ENWorld, EZ Boards, or a private server. We'll get less attention that way, but we can do it and they know it. By allowing us to hold our games here, they retain a measure of control--after all, if we had a members-only private board, who's to stop us from posting whole chunks of non-OGL material? No, they want to expand their influence, not contract it. And the main reason they want to charge so much is so that they can recoup their startup investment--I'm not at all sure they expect to make a profit on this. I get the impression Book's doomsday idea is more because he hasn't checked out what's actually at www.gleemax.com, where the "primary interface" already is. On the forums that discuss the changeover, the CM team has been very vocal that they're going to try as hard as they can to facilitate GMs' jobs, and that they're not going to impose additional restrictions, responsibilities, or fees on us. Re: wiki: The problem I still have is I don't want too much to be the sole ownership of one CoCo member. Drac's stuff already makes me nervous, but we can use IC if his roller goes down, and a couple of us have copies of the mapper script. Any critical resource needs to be transferrable with no costs and no legal issues. Wikis are nice in that anyone (or anyone with the privilege) can edit them, but they're less nice in that someone actually has to own the domain. WotC's talking about establishing wikis for some things (like campaign settings); maybe we can get them to give us one. @Book, on your last question: It's stuck with me. I am Pitlords. And Communitylords, and Guildmaster (TLT), for all time. If I resign as GM, my replacement will have to duplicate all the Pitlords posts in his or her name (unless they give us mod powers back). Similarly, Zevox is Guildlords and NiQil is Prisonlords, and they're both gone. Speaking of which... Telin, it's clear you won't get the Prisonlords account back. You should go ahead and start a new Prison and Courtroom in your name so you can edit them. Regarding Book's second-to-last question: If the paid subscription bit was the only problem, they could just make the rule that only non-paid accounts can be shared. We could even register "official" shared accounts. But their reasoning is that since shared accounts are prohibited for everyone else, they should be for us, too, mainly because of the security risk--they seem mostly afraid that they'd have to dish out a bunch of bans because someone leaked the shared account password and it got abused. Losing a GM and all the senior members of a game to that would just be sad.
Book4 12-13-07, 12:26 AM	Sorry, reading through the gleemax updates is like sloshing through 3 feet of muddy madness. Must have worn off on me. :raincloud But the shared accounts are gone for good. Ideally we won't have to worry about them asking MWB to pay to continue as GM (whew). The wiki thing ... it's a suggestion. Which leads me to a question. Drac's mapper, and etc. Do you know if at any point those you will be able to integrate any of those "internet applications" into the actual gleemax site? A simpler version of the question would probably be "are they gonna offer webspace with the ability to run something like drac's mapper?" The reason a wiki seems so pertinent is that it would allow us the "communal power" to maintain those things that we have been using shared logins for previously. Insomuch as the site itself - I am more than capable (and willing) to make a site open and accessible to elders of the CoCo (via sending the admin logins to MWB and letting him percolate them out to elders). The domain name could be in MWB's name, and the only thing "theGKP" (that's mah company) would posses superior to any of the admin's would be the ability to administratively delete the entire site ... which they would have no interest in doing. It is definitely a doomsday suggestion, but its something I can do. On the other hand - changing procedure may be simpler that trying to integrate another (non gleemax site).
TelinArtho 12-13-07, 12:33 AM	I'll see what I can do about creating the new threads. Hopefully I can get them in before next pairings. As far as my concerns - I would of course love to see the archived threads returned to the main boards (so you have another voice in support of that). As for the multiple-user accounts - I don't think there's much to be done about it anymore. They made their decision on the matter and it doesn't look like it will change. Better to adapt and move on than buck against it.
MindWandererB 12-16-07, 02:13 AM	I'll see what I can do about creating the new threads. Hopefully I can get them in before next pairings. As far as my concerns - I would of course love to see the archived threads returned to the main boards (so you have another voice in support of that). As for the multiple-user accounts - I don't think there's much to be done about it anymore. They made their decision on the matter and it doesn't look like it will change. Better to adapt and move on than buck against it. <grumble, grumble, grumble> I just learned that it is possible to change the ownership of a thread from one person to another. I don't think the CM team has quite figured out how to do it yet, but it is supposedly possible. Fortunately, the Prison and Courtroom need to be periodically restarted anyway, but this should be an option if I ever have to leave and transfer authorship of posts in the Rules or Characters thread to a successor.
whitebaron 12-16-07, 08:48 AM	well, technically this is done very easily in vbb, as each post is linked via it's posters user_id to the owner. change it in the database, and you get a new owner - it's as easy as that. usually, community forums of all kinds don't do this, since it is meddling with who did what. if gleemax does this, all the better. - but i wouldn't count on it to go like that for all times - after all, it is direct manipulation of the forums' database.
MindWandererB 12-19-07, 07:20 PM	Man, they're crazy disorganized right now. Hopefully they'll get their act together soon. At least one good thing has come of this: my PM box now has a capacity of 200! I don't have to worry about that filling up anymore....
Rauul 12-20-07, 12:57 AM	Man, they're crazy disorganized right now. Hopefully they'll get their act together soon. At least one good thing has come of this: my PM box now has a capacity of 200! I don't have to worry about that filling up anymore.... yea around June... of 2010
whitebaron 12-20-07, 02:15 AM	Man, they're crazy disorganized right now. Hopefully they'll get their act together soon. At least one good thing has come of this: my PM box now has a capacity of 200! I don't have to worry about that filling up anymore.... i don't even know why they are limiting it like that. giving every user 20 additional PMs would probably remove most of the problems user have when it fills up, and would cost at max 1mb/user (most likely less, as not every user fills his pm box), as pms are already limited to 50000 characters or so. please tell them that 50 PMs would be great! :)
MindWandererB 12-20-07, 03:54 AM	i don't even know why they are limiting it like that. giving every user 20 additional PMs would probably remove most of the problems user have when it fills up, and would cost at max 1mb/user (most likely less, as not every user fills his pm box), as pms are already limited to 50000 characters or so. please tell them that 50 PMs would be great! :) 1 mb/user would make over 170 gigs--not much for a deal like this but not chump change, either. I think this should be mentioned after things settle down a little... and after all, you can always save PMs locally.
whitebaron 12-20-07, 05:59 AM	i don't keep pms. i throw them away after each weeks pairings. still: incoming: 6-12 pms for tactics. outgoing: 3-6 pms for my own tactics 2-5 pms for clarifications on tactics. 3-5 other pms, like requests to pitlords makes a min of 14 and a max of 28, so if i forget to do this any given week, it's full immediately. costs for 170 GB: ~100-200 USD (that already includes overhead for raid system) - and you don't need to backup PMs as a forums-provider. they can be resent if something crashes. also, there are only 66000 active users at gleemax at the moment (so, 66gb maximum, more likely to be ~ 15-20 as not every user uses his pms to the last character and many don't even use pms).
CrazyArtificer 12-20-07, 06:04 AM	Surely it shouldn't be that big of a deal for them to increase the server capacity of those few gbs. We are talking about a company with sales calculated in the millions and they can't add a $100 hard drive? Sell that thing to them as a marketing expense to increase customer satisfaction.
lonewolf 12-20-07, 07:31 AM	ah, all the young ones who cant remember the huge relief when wizards doubled the allowed stored pms from 10 to 20. :rolleyes:
McJarvis 12-20-07, 07:41 AM	ah, all the young ones who cant remember the huge relief when wizards doubled the allowed stored pms from 10 to 20. :rolleyes: That was a great day indeed.
MindWandererB 01-03-08, 09:41 PM	Gamer_Zer0 is actively solicting questions about the launch of DDI. If you have any, please post them here and I'll pass them along.
SauroGrenom 01-04-08, 02:43 PM	Where do I go for a consolidated and complete list of DDI features? Are there any independent "reviews" of the service that I can check out? How much is this going to cost me/month? Can I use the service to remotely "store" some of my rules sources? For example can I use it in place of having the SRD open on my computer. How about if I want to use the rules book when I'm away from my own computer? For example if I'm gaming at a friend's house and my character goes up a level in the prestige class, can I then go reference that info from another laptop that happens to be available at the gaming table? Can we use the custom dungeon system to run CoCo battles with no pitlord or diminished requirements on the pitlord?
MindWandererB 01-04-08, 04:52 PM	Where do I go for a consolidated and complete list of DDI features? How much is this going to cost me/month?These questions were answered today (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/4ask/20080104a), at least as much as they're willing to answer right now. Are there any independent "reviews" of the service that I can check out?Certainly not yet--you can preview what's currently complete (which is basically nothing except articles), and no independent source knows more than that.Can I use the service to remotely "store" some of my rules sources? For example can I use it in place of having the SRD open on my computer. How about if I want to use the rules book when I'm away from my own computer? For example if I'm gaming at a friend's house and my character goes up a level in the prestige class, can I then go reference that info from another laptop that happens to be available at the gaming table?This has been answered in the affirmative. For a "nominal fee" (paraphrase: "the price of a cup of coffee, but whether that's Folger's Instant or Starbucks hasn't been decided yet"), you can use a code printed in each book to access the pdf version online. The exact mechanic is something that I don't think they've decided on.
whitebaron 01-05-08, 09:53 AM	about the forum-index and posting issues: is there any official statement to be had over this? a) are they gonna fix it? b) when are they going to do it? c) since this occurs ever since the switch of gleemax, do they even have a clue whats causing it? note: from experience i know, that re-indexing a decent sized and maintained vbb takes about 10 minutes. with the increased amount of posts in gleemax, i believe it to take 20. of course, i don't know what technical problems are hitting them exactly - but this, in my opinion, is not good advertisement for their future online products. :( edited PS: you cannot send or receive pms either. i believe the one unread message in my inbox are tactics from one of my fighters. what to do? btw, found something different, too: You have 17 messages stored, of a total 75 allowed.
CrazyArtificer 01-05-08, 02:35 PM	I'm seeing the 75 messages thing too. I haven't been able to see new posts on the forum threads for the whole day, I have to open the thread which interests me and then refresh it to see if there are new posts.
MindWandererB 01-05-08, 04:32 PM	Seems to be fixed now. WB, were your comments about the recent glitch or about the slow re-indexing in general?
whitebaron 01-05-08, 05:17 PM	Seems to be fixed now. WB, were your comments about the recent glitch or about the slow re-indexing in general? well, re-indexing should not really be necessary anyway. but if it has to be done, because something fails, it can be done quite quickly. my initial 3 comments were more about the general thing, since things like this happen about every 2 or 3 days for some time. (not nearly as long as it took this time)
TelinArtho 01-09-08, 10:34 AM	To all - it appears I have been approved as a Forum Lead here as well. So if you have general questions that need to be escalated and such - MWB and myself are the people to go to (and this thread would still be better than PM I suspect - though PMs are fine). That said - I don't have rights to post in the directed discussion yet - so right now I am only a forum lead by virtual title...
TelinArtho 01-10-08, 02:10 PM	<grumble, grumble, grumble> I just learned that it is possible to change the ownership of a thread from one person to another. I don't think the CM team has quite figured out how to do it yet, but it is supposedly possible. Fortunately, the Prison and Courtroom need to be periodically restarted anyway, but this should be an option if I ever have to leave and transfer authorship of posts in the Rules or Characters thread to a successor. Given this - do you think it would be worthwhile to switch ownership of the Mercenaries of Gladius posts and the Pitlords posted posts in the Propose a Mercenary thread to me?
MindWandererB 01-10-08, 05:13 PM	We can request it. Doesn't hurt.
TelinArtho 01-15-08, 05:21 PM	And just to be official - I now have my posting priviledges in the restricted sections so feel free to send your requests to me now. (oh and YAY for 200 max messages in the inbox... I might not fill up in three days now...)
Rauul 01-16-08, 08:39 PM	(oh and YAY for 200 max messages in the inbox... I might not fill up in three days now...) Will take you 5 days Now :)
TelinArtho 01-16-08, 08:44 PM	Not likely... when it was 30 I was filling up every day just about. When it was boosted up to 75 - I was still filling it up regularly... (maybe not everyday - but probably 5 days out of 7...). Some days are better than others - but I have a very high volume of PM traffic.
TelinArtho 02-08-08, 01:38 PM	Well - apparently posts are not going to be switched for user ownership. This rather sucks... but I guess I'll just leave them alone. If we get a higher traffic of mercs to add I'll recreate them - but otherwise - I don't see much benefit to it.