2019-03-16 23:26:14

OK folks, here's the situation, it is now not OK to gather community input regarding a problem that affects all of us. See this post for details. I don't even know what to say, I literally have no words.

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2019-03-16 23:42:50

Agreed. It's quite fun that nowadays all topics that should be discussed, get closed. Sometimes for me it seems like moderators even don't wanna confront these problems.

2019-03-16 23:46:28

Agreed, I didn't even incite anything, just asked a question.

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2019-03-16 23:48:38

This is simply hilarious...

2019-03-16 23:50:09

sad.

2019-03-16 23:57:35

Here's the deal. I'm unfortunately on Jaydes side with this one. Your not simply gathering community consensus. Your essentially attempting to get a user banned from this forum. Not with a formal appeal mind you, but with an informal poll. Right after everyone was practically at each others throats in the midst of a discussion disagreeing, for the thousandth time, with Mason and his actions. So if I'm reading you correctly, you propose we take the word of a bunch of pissed off players. We take action here on the forum for matters that occur elsewhere. Nowhere, and I've been over and over and over that document, do we have a rule that says:
Thou Shouldst refrain from unrightfully banning players, and being flaky/undecided, and running games with less than ideal administration, and being unwanted by members of this here forum. Such will, at bidding from the community at large, result in a permanent ban or other draconian form of punishment.
We hope you enjoy your stay!
Sorry, but no.

Sorry, but post two really made me laugh out loud. All topics that get discussed... Get closed? Sorry? I'm afraid I might ask you to provide some examples here to back up your claim. In the course of a week, at least five separate topics were created that needed closure. Three dealing with Mason and that were the product of much mud slinging. Two asking mods to go ahead and outright ban a member of the forum, Mahdi and now Mason. I think we can all agree Mahdi is pretty annoying, indeed he's currently skating on extremely thin ice. As in he's been banned once before and either starts or ignites pointless disagreements. However, that doesn't by any means spell out the need for immediate action, most certainly that which violates rules. Mason's decisions off forum are widely disputed, I have a lot that could be said on the matter that wouldn't exactly be in his favor. Still, we have no reason to go ahead and entirely avoid the clear rules and regulations. Think Mason should receive a warning or punishment? Cool. Create a topic and professionally outline your reasoning as opposed to creating a poll demanding us mods violate our rules, cool. If you go back and look at the Mahdi topic, I went ahead and let the discussion continue for a time for this exact reason. but enough pointless bashing, flaming, and mud slinging has occurred already. And was it not matters off-forum that lead to the infamous Walter ban?

2019-03-17 00:04:45

But can't you realise that all these closed topics are because of Mason himself? Don't you realise that he is causing all of this drama? So yeah, Ironcross was right again.

2019-03-17 00:29:43

It has more to do with making a black mark against a developer who isn't worthy to be here. OK, so don't ban him, but note on his profile something he can't remove that he's an untrusted developer. I also never said that you guys were obligated to follow the poll, I said the opposite, that we couldn't make you do it. I just wanted the information, and I will have the information, I just won't be using this as a medium for collecting it, but I'm still collecting it.

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2019-03-17 00:37:05

Exactly. But ey, if they mark him as an untrusted developer, it also would mean that they let him to not come back anymore. Because just think with others' head. We see an untrusted developer, why would we even bother looking at his games or anything. So he would feel like hes thrown out this way, too.

2019-03-17 01:02:12 (edited by Xvordan 2019-03-17 01:09:43)

To date, all the posts I've seen that start up drama about this Mason individual have been made by others, by things he's done off the forum, not as a forum member. He hasn't participated in character assassination posts, hasn't been part of any deliberate pirating rings, hasn't been linked to any moderator impersonation scams, etc. While I respect that you guys are annoyed with him for stuff he's done on his own games and services, that's stuff he's done on his own games and services. You're basically saying... This person pushed me in the school playground, can we please ban him from the YMCA?
(Edit) I went back to look at a few topics, and while Mason definitely isn't clean, I'm actually gonna give him the benefit of a doubt here, since any responses he made (be they warranted or not), were in answer to a multitude of other criticisms, insults, and other negative statements about him. If I were the victim of such a stream of negativity, I'd probably be tempted to respond in kind.

Honestly I think a certain sect of forumites seem to have a personal beef with either Mason, the moderators, or both. You guys keep questioning decisions they make on some of the loosest grounds. You're doing your best to discredit the moderators, moderators most of us agreed we needed more of. They do their job, and as a reward, they're criticized for it.

All the childish, judgemental, elitist, self-important, high and mighty behaviour exhibited by some few of the forum members of late have been rather frustrating, and it seems to be those members who post the most. I guess we really can't just be a forum who respects one another's opinions, right? Because to some of you, if they're not using your programming language, or upgrading like you think they should, or linching the people you think they aught to be, they're clearly idiots who don't know what they're doing, be they forum member or moderator.

I read the topic linked to in post 1, and it is if nothing else the straightest form of character assassination, the perfect tinder to kindle the flames of drama. Lately, several topics have been of this nature. Are we a forum for people who enjoy gaming, or are we a forum of middle school children who just can't stop bickering?

I for one emphatically support Jade's decision to close the referenced topic. Please. Lets all remember that we're a community brought together for the enjoyment of audio games, rather than for the perpetual conflagration of fires, just because person B decides they don't like the same kind of socks you like. The world is a wide place, boys and girls. People are allowed to do things as they will sometimes, having their own opinions and such, too. I know, it's shocking!

Kai

Spill chuck you spots!

2019-03-17 01:13:33

I agree with Carter and Xoren. It seems to me that the "community consensus" is a public execution of sorts. Even if people have done some stupid things in the past (which it seems like that's the case), you're making yourself look like an utter fool publicly calling people out. Ironcross, I find it hard to believe that that topic is anything that will not incite drama, just due to the nature of it. I'm a high schooler, and sometimes it seems people who are much older than me have much less maturity. I hate drama, and I hate posting this, but can we just stop with this crap? this just annoys me to no end, and I sometimes I feel ashamed that the vocal minority can be so toxic.

A winner is you!
—Urban Champion

2019-03-17 01:49:52

Actually, the annoying thing is when people try to put a stop to it, why, let it run out. Why should anyone care if people are fighting, don't go into those topics then.

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2019-03-17 01:55:54

I'm curious, how would putting an untrusted developer status on someone's profile fix this problem? The issue with this community is that, if we allow that to happen once, certain members would be clamoring for the flag to be added to other devs' profiles that they don't personally like, or because they charge too much for their games, etc. I don't feel that the moderators can, or should, make decisions about which claims are valid and which aren't, since much of the drama that happens is usually off forum. Now, I agree that in this particular case, Mason did shoot himself in the foot, but I don't necessarily think that drawing a line between devs the community trusts and ones they don't will do anything but incite more drama as people fight over who should be allowed to have that coveted status.

On the other hand, while I have no personal stake in what happens to Mason since I never really played his games except for the original Scrolling Battles, I'm shocked and disgusted by his conduct on the forum today. That's not at all how a developer should act. Where I make note of that in my mind, and vow to never financially support him, others may draw the line at different places. So, what's a valid response here? Personally, he's had two warnings, I can't imagine that anyone who cares about serving the community would want to be banned, so is that enough? Who knows? What I do know is that we're going down a slippery slope here, and I don't think putting black marks on people's profiles is the right way to go about it.

The glass is neither half empty nor half full. It's just holding half the amount it can potentially hold.

2019-03-17 01:56:16

Honestly, I think both of those topics have  potential for drama. I made my thoughts on what Mason was doing very clear today, but this is not the way to go about dealing with it.  Get the data if you want but honestly I’m not sure how much it would matter.

The moderators are not trying to close every topic that pops up, they’re just trying to keep a bad mess from getting worse.  I’m not sure if you saw how quickly things progressed today, but another one of those topics is the last thing we need right now. As for people  fighting, this is audio Games.net, not audio flames.net. This point has been brought up countless times before, but what would you think if you were a new audio game developer coming on to this forum only to see a 100 post long topic that became Ground Zero along time ago,  and hasn’t stopped even though there are more than enough moderators and all you probably have to do is press the close button? What impression would that leave?

Thing is, letting that sort of thing continue is a bad idea for multiple reasons.

I would rather listen to someone who can actually play the harmonica than someone who somehow managed to lose seven of them. Me, 2019.

2019-03-17 02:32:50

Thanks Xoren, thumbs up. You managed to put it better than I would've. I was actually AFK for a bit so your post saved me a bit of time. It's also worth saying, he was warned today in response. Don't get us wrong, we understand and in many cases strongly feel your disagreement. But that doesn't mean a public lynching is in any way warranted. It's the basic job of admins to make sure things are running smoothly. If that includes warnings, the closing of topics, or even bans? So be it. You might not like what someone says, or the way they look, or the things they do, or the clothes  they wear. Yet unless they're either being of direct harm or a rule is agreed upon to prohibit the offense, acting without merit is essentially heavy-handed oppression. I hardly think such is in the least bit fair. I'm of the belief that a good admin doesn't act based on his personal opinions. Acting on my personal opinion would call for temporarily prohibiting all posts by Mason, not in the rules. Of course it might also call for outright banning or adding a hothead or overly-opinionated tag to the profiles of individuals here who find it so difficult to maintain a calm, constructive conversation without going slightly overboard, and a decent number of our members might agree with me. Of course, OP might find an angry access denied message or restricted tag when he next logs in so I must refrain because then I'd be an iron-fisted dictator.

Ironcross, you ask why we try and put a stop to fighting or hostility of which no constructive result can be possible? I honestly would've thought the answer to be common sense or at least overwhelmingly obvious. We merely want to create an open, welcoming environment for everyone to be free to discuss games. Disagreements are more than allowed, and even a natural part of life. We don't want this forum to become a place known for insane negativity. By allowing the sort of heat and character assassination seen today, we'd be turning away a good many potential players and developers alike. I hardly think you'd be fond of being on the other end of the crippling effect. You could be in the microscopic minority who think otherwise , but I can assure you most don't think the same way. Consider yourself glancing at a new community, wanting to demonstrate some cool concept or masterpiece of great  portions. Something you had spent a great deal of time perfecting. Something you were proud of and wishing to receive suggestions on. What would you think if your first view was of flaming? Now consider the inverse to be true. What if the community seemed welcoming, ready to play and civilly point out shortcomings.

To those that say we aren't sufficiently handling the recent influx in outright hostility, I'd be curious how you feel we should be going about keeping peace without handing out warnings and putting our feet down so to speak.

2019-03-17 02:44:36

Well I'm not fond of letting him just be how he is and people not knowing may have got screwed by buying into his games. OK, so no, we can't expect a game to be up forever and a day, that's not realistic; but what should be expected is to not have a situation where someone is so emotionally unstable and flaky where that intersects with finances. Making things free, then paid, then free then paid, or being wishy washy with what paid accounts get you, that type of thing is not a good business practice to me. SO, how do we let potential people know this person is a particular problem. We end up with newcomers to audio games all the time, and if someone comes along and sees, oh cool, this game looks neat, then decides to buy it, or upgrade their account or what have you... That burns me. I wish we had a way to let people know this person isn't to be trusted.

As to the fighting, that was more meant towards users than mods, but yeah I hate that IRL too like if people are fighting and someone tries to keep the peace, like why, let them fight, I'm interested where this is going to go, I'm like loving it and I'm in my element right now and you're ruining it for me. Also if I'm the one fighting with someone, I want to do it without having people all up in my grill trying to stop it.

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2019-03-17 03:10:40

I don't doubt for a second that the moment he decides to release scrolling battles 23.2.164, we'll have a myriad of displeased customers publicly refusing to pay, or at least voicing concerns. Which is totally fine. Just as long as it doesn't devolve into Mason the good for nothing piece of useless dogshit, or personal attacks or character assassination or really anything stated in the rules, we should be all good. Mistakes speak extremely loudly, and even more so when looking at 5+ years of inconsistencies. It sort of bothers me as well, but what can ya do? This sort of thing happens all the time.
Picture this. You decide to stop off at a restaurant advertising good juicy steak burgers. Don't read yelp reviews, don't listen to the various murmurs, couldn't care less about rumors. You just want a fackin burger with fries. Sit down, order, wait 2 hours to get your food only to find the worst tasting burger along with maybe 10 small fries. You'd be pretty pissed. You're not likely to recommend or choose that establishment in the future. You might write a negative review yourself. Is this restaurant a scam? No, it most certainly is not. Is what Mason is doing a scam? No, it most certainly is not. It's only giving customers the short end of the stick, and you learn your lesson never to go back. This is in one way crucial. If Mason begins to try and correct his mistakes, it'll undoubtedly require a great deal of promotion. Many will refuse to touch anything he creates, yet it only takes one to obtain and really enjoy the game. He'll post recordings or stats, what have you. Slowly but surely others will follow suit, however, as they always have and most likely always will.

2019-03-17 03:46:58

this popcorn is great. anyone want some? making extra.

2019-03-17 03:51:59

Okay, so you lose out on a potentially interesting game because of Mason's tendancies as a dev. Big deal, you'll be okay. I get that money is a different story, but honestly, I would say by this point hundreds of posts on this forum have something to do with Mason. This is exactly what isn't going to help. The more attention you give this, the angrier he'll get and be even more fueled to make bad decisions. I'm not saying condone his behavior, but I guarantee if you stop paying any attention whatsoever to his products, you won't be getting all wound up and upset, and he doesn't have to bight off way more than he can chew, it's a win-win. You'll be seeing a lot more results if this all just stops.

2019-03-17 15:01:08

Ironcross32 wrote:
I'm interested where this is going to go, I'm like loving it and I'm in my element right now and you're ruining it for me."
Wait... I'm now curious, why, and how, can someone (in this case, you) be in their element over negativity like this?

2019-03-17 15:12:58

CarterTemm, you made quite a good point in this. Finally a moderator who can tell the things without letting his personal emotions to ruin it. Because sadly, one of the staff members likes just closing the topics and every opinion that is different from the accepted one, is extremely bad.
I am sorry, didn't want to attack anyone personally, but i guess we all know who i was talking about.

2019-03-17 16:11:10

Ironcross, the one previously vocal in the topic calling for mod reform for precisely this issue alone among other things, namely, no more bans on a whim based on flaky evidence or communal beef with that person, is now basically trying to imply bringing that shit back? I see the hypocrisy here. Think about that for a moment.
We didn't want mods to overstep. So they're not. Jayde even learned not to and is doing a great job of being fair while at the same time not being afraid to act decisively when something gets out of hand.
Character assassination? There's a rule against that very practice now. In fact, there are rules that both users and admins must follow, that are extremely fair and transparent. Hopefully they'll be able to find some official home if they can...wait, isn't Aaron an admin? Isn't that under administration/settings/registration where you can control what rules get shown on the rules page?
At any rate, my point is that it seems like if it's him at stake, like it was in the banning incident, he'll be all for fair practices. But this one incident where there's personal beef with someone's off-site, and in this case now on-site activities, he'll call for what amounts to be the very practice we didn't want? Come on!

ironcross32 wrote:

if people are fighting and someone tries to keep the peace, like why, let them fight, I'm interested where this is going to go, I'm like loving it and I'm in my element right now and you're ruining it for me.

Remember, for those who can't get enough of the brouhaha, Ultrapopcorn *used to be* available to you. Guess now ultrapopcorn withdrawal must lead to drama withdrawal as well, huh?
Lol!
Ok, serious response to your quote follows, all obvious sarcasm aside.
Hearing the same song and dance over and over probably does get amusing at some point, but it gets old probably even for you. Why else would you want to call for Masons' ban? Even with those reasons you stated, why wouldn't you just want to let the fight keep going, if, as you say, let them fight. See where that logic is twisted and seems incredibly double standard-ish?
Also, even if you somehow find it entertaining, it is a major turnoff to a new member or developer. I haven't seen a single post from mytruesound ever since resolving the fallout. Not to say that is a direct result of it, but let's assume it is for a while, and put this hypothetical scenario in a different light. Ian Hamilton recommended new mainstream developers stay away from this forum because of its general dickish attitude at  the time. If we have any hopes of becoming accepted in the mainstream community, and taken seriously in the push for game accessibility, this type of behavior is probably the worst example. And developers are not going to take the needs of maladjusted kid-like attituded individuals to heart. I know, that hurt, but how the hell am I supposed to point this out in a way that will resonate with folks here? So that developers will actually take us seriously? What if MyTrueSound started talking about their experience to other developers they knew (I'm not saying they will, but let's pretend they did) I assure you no new developer would visit this forum. Seriously. It's demotivating when so much time has been put into their work, or they are a new developer that is trying to become accessible.
You think this financial fallout is bad, well look at Somethin Else. People who legitimately purchased those games are now forced to find ipa's on the internet because Apple had removed them from the store in the purge. People who, legitimately, paid, for the games. They are now unplayable as ever, no questions asked, unless you do such a thing, and even then there are legitimate pitfalls (token expiration and the like) that make them a pain to play. And those were truly ambitious games like no other. But SBYW? Yeah, cool game, financial perks and all, but 1, that game is apparently now still playable, and 2, there are legitimately a billion other games like it (Swamp for example.) That's not a rip on Mason that's just a fact, there are so many build-your-world kind of games, but there is only one/two Papa Sangre's, which are now virtually unplayable. And don't get the idea that Mason doesn't take financial needs into consideration. His biggest game yet, the tribute to TombHunter, remains supported to this day, and guess what that game was paid.

2019-03-17 16:21:53

And here's proof of the general epidemic of various groups of people dicking over other new developers within the past year and a half or there abouts.
round 1, concerning the code7's delayed accessibility launch that would've been apparent if someone looked at the Kickstarter page
And finally, these two.
this initial topic about Goldgun
slight issues yet criticism taken way too far. We recovered, or so we thought...
the results
Let those speak for themselves. If this is the message we want to pass that we aren't as exclusive as people say we are, then that's exactly what these unrelated yet all too similar threads illustrate. We need to get our collective asses in line if we want to be taken seriously by the better part of the community. The mainstream community may have drama left and right, but that's not anymore enjoyable especially if they see us as a small community engaging in even more drama.

2019-03-17 16:54:21

Yeah, I'm agreeing with Jayde and Carter, 100%, here. If I hadn't seen this thread first, my reaction to the original would have been "are you drunk?" Like, I might expect that from some newb or habitual envelope-pusher (pushing it with a lit match, that is), but Ironcross knows better.
The thing about all this Mason drama, from my perspective as someone who doesn't spend time on his online games or in relevant off-site discussions, is that someone gets frustrated with Mason elsewhere, then comes here to complain about it in the most flammable way possible, it bursts into flames, mods lock the thread, rinse, repeat. TBH, this has become so common that I'm wondering if we should rename the site "Mason and sometimes Sam suck and we hate them" dot net, guest-starring the Swamp thread.
And comparing the title and tone of the first post in this thread, with that of the locked thread, is a good way to see an irritating tactic. Someone does something blatantly unreasonable by the standards of the community, gets an appropriate and proportionate response, then writes a well-phrased and passive-aggressive complaint that would lead anyone who missed the inciting incident to believe they really were a reasonable, well-behaved individual being unfairly oppressed by The Man™. Like, if there were some demonstrable failure to understand why this is ridiculous, that'd be one thing—and probably still temp ban-worthy, since that's not a misunderstanding that bodes well for future behavior—but Ironcross is neither stupid, nor from the other side of a cultural gap vast enough to make this look OK.
So I ask for real this time: Ironcross, were you drunk or something?

And say you not, "But Mason...", for if Mason breaks the rules, he, too, will be moderated. Until then, if he fails to honor purchases, maybe put a warning in the database, else, throw new InvalidContextException();.

看過來!
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    George... Don't do that.

2019-03-17 17:11:36

You know what it is, and I figured it out. I lose sight about how it impacts real people. It turns into this UFC like thing, except I can manipulate it to make it go my way, and that's fun. I can spin it so many different ways, and watching the fools go back and forth while I'm throwing up signs, it's exhilarating. It's trashy as fuck though and I know it is, but I start getting into it and forgetting about the people aspect of it and just start seeing one side and the other. I gotta quit doing that because when I later realize look idiot (and that is me calling myself an idiot not any of you), that's a real person you're fucking with. That's not what I want to do.

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