Author Topic: And now, a brief word from the Titan Network...  (Read 38426 times)

TonyV

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And now, a brief word from the Titan Network...
« on: December 05, 2012, 08:37:59 AM »
So in the past few months, on a very few rare occasions including once in the past day, we've had people request that their accounts be removed from these forums for some reason or another.  It's usually because someone has gotten upset at something that someone else has said, or they posted something that caused a bit of a stir, or whatever.  Just to head off any future cases of this happening, and to explain what will happen if it does, I wanted to post a message in regards to the issue.

First of all, if you want to go, you are more than welcome to.  No one is forcing you to post here.  Just because you have an account doesn't mean that you must use it, and if you don't post anything, there's an extremely high likelihood that no one will even notice that you're here.  I can tell you that we don't do any datamining behind the scenes except on very rare occasions when abuse has taken place, and only to do stuff like correlate IP addresses or other information to look for things like sockpuppet accounts.  Since we don't run ads on the sites, we don't place any tracking cookies in your browers, and no information you give to us that's not publicly visible is available to any third parties behind the scenes.

Unfortunately, simply "deleting" an account is actually a little harder than it sounds.  It's doable, but because accounts are synced up behind the scenes with our other sites (CIT, the Paragon Wiki, Faces, etc.) but "deletes" are only processed site-by-site, what this means is that you will cease to have a forum account but there will still be remnants of you in our system--remnants that means that if you later change your mind, you won't be able to re-create your account without a lot of time and effort on our part--time and effort that, frankly, we don't have time to be spending because someone has a thin skin.

So what I'm getting at is that if you want to go, and I mean you really want to go, then we can make that happen.  But let me be clear: If I spend the time and effort it takes to delete your account, I'm going to do it in such a way that you can't just change your mind later and come back.  This also means that you won't be able to log into other sites such as the Paragon Wiki, CIT, Faces, etc.  Maybe you think that's not such a big deal, but remember, just because the City of Heroes servers are down doesn't mean that we are dead.  We still have things such as the SaveCoH efforts going on, the Plan Z projects, and believe it or not, even an interesting new project or two that might come down the pipeline yet.

Plus, some people keep trying to designate the Titan Network as a "single issue" site.  We've been accused of basically being a front for a new Plan Z gaming studio.  We've been accused of being only a mouthpiece of the SaveCoH movement.  We've been accused of only serving to raise false hopes that CoH will be revived.  So which are we?  All of the above, and none of the above.  We are simply a gathering place.  Yes, we give an outlet for various groups to have publicity and congregate.  And yes, some of us are personally involved in those groups.  But if you think that the "Titan Network" is only out to put NCsoft out of business, or that the "Titan Network" is only out to push one successor project or another, or the "Titan Network" is only out to [insert whatever cause you think is being pushed here], you're sorely mistaken.

So I highly advise you to reconsider your request before making it, and highly encourage you to just stop posting in lieu or requesting a complete account deletion.  Better yet, if you don't want to be associated with some plan or some movement or some group or whatever, just ignore them and focus on the other things here that you want to be involved in, even if it's just keeping touch with former players.  But do NOT expect me or other Titan admins/moderators to go pushing other people out who don't fit the mold of whatever impression you have of people with "legitimate" opinions or motivations.

Now, about what set all of this brouhaha off.  Apparently, someone takes exception to some opinions held by others posting here on our forums.  I'm not going to delve into the argument or who's right or who's wrong because it's not important.  What I will say is this, though: It would behoove everyone to stop trying to interpret our unwillingness to constantly moderate contrary or even unpopular opinions as implicit approval or endorsement of those opinions.

You have to understand that since the official forums are down, a huge number of former players have now migrated here.  As such, just as we had on the official forums, we have a lot of people with a lot of opinions that hold them to a lot of varying degrees.  Just as on the official forums how Zwillinger, Freitag, and Hit Streak didn't jump on the banhammer button every time someone posted something "out there", we're not going to do that here.  It doesn't mean that we're sitting here saying, "YES!!!  That's EXACTLY how I feel!" (we'll actually say that if we feel it).  Frankly, I don't read most of the posts here and if it weren't for our awesome crew of moderators, people would probably get away with a lot more stuff.  It also doesn't mean we won't moderate the forums at all; we do look out for things such as people unicorning, personally attacking other members, engaging in things like racial, ethnic, or sexual orientation slurs, threats, and so on.  But you must understand that "troll" does NOT mean "person who disagrees with you."

Where is the line drawn?  Well, it's one of those things that we know when we see it, and in the interest of not being rules-lawyered to death, I'm not going to set out hard and fast rules here.  But just in case it wasn't obvious when you came here to begin with, sometimes people are going to say stuff that you don't like, and it's not going to measure up to our standard of being so offensive or trollish that we feel the need to squelch conversation about the topic.  Welcome to a more-or-less open forum of ideas of discussion!  On the flip side, it means that there's a chance that we actually don't agree with you, but we're still letting you say your piece anyway.  See how nice we are?

We've also received requests to delete posts or even whole threads and taken steps to restore such posts when someone took initiative on their own to do so.  We've disabled that functionality because we felt it was abused.  The thing is, when you post something, you're are setting up a context in which discussion happens.  At that point, especially after other people have started commenting, even if you originally posted the comment, it is no longer truly 100% yours but instead part of the public discourse.  By systematically wiping out such posts, the context in which they were posted is lost, discussion about various topics is gone, and worst of all, there is the risk that people think that we instigated the removal of the posts when in fact we didn't.  So just like above, I'm not going to make a hard-and-fast rule saying we'll always delete such-and-such or never delete so-en-so.  If you request it, we'll discuss it and make a decision on a case-by-case basis.  I can tell you that we will hardly ever honor any kind of request such as, "Delete everything I've ever posted!" because that's simply unreasonable, and I can tell you that it will probably take at least a day or two for us to ponder the situation and figure out how we want to handle it.  If you expect us to jump through hoops five minutes after you tell us something, you're going to be sorely disappointed and you shouldn't have posted it in the first place.

I hope this clarifies things a bit, and I'm sorry I had to distract everyone in taking the time to say it.

Electric-Knight

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Re: And now, a brief word from the Titan Network...
« Reply #1 on: December 05, 2012, 09:42:14 AM »
Thanks, sir.
I like this. A bit of common sense... a bit of the team's discretion... it's... almost a bit like reality... without all the unreality that hampers it down.  ;D


Also, can you please make sure that my account never gets deleted. :P

Carry on... and thank you!
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Thirty-Seven

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Re: And now, a brief word from the Titan Network...
« Reply #2 on: December 05, 2012, 10:02:48 AM »
All I have to say is I love the use of the word "unicorn" here... I just wish swears turned into "pancake" too.

johnrobey

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Re: And now, a brief word from the Titan Network...
« Reply #3 on: December 05, 2012, 10:10:47 AM »
Sorry you had to take the time to write that, Tony.
"We must be the change we wish to see in the world." -- Mahatma Gandhi         "In every generation there has to be some fool who will speak the truth as he sees it." -- Boris Pasternak
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The Fifth Horseman

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Re: And now, a brief word from the Titan Network...
« Reply #4 on: December 05, 2012, 10:43:46 AM »
To me, requests for account deletion are merely ridiculous drama and nothing more. We have common goals - all that matters is that we either work towards them or at the very least do not hamper each other's efforts to do the same. We don't have to agree with each other on every single detail at every single step along the way.
We were heroes. We were villains. At the end of the world we all fought as one. It's what we did that defines us.
The end occurred pretty much as we predicted: all servers redlining until midnight... and then no servers to go around.

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Captain Electric

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Re: And now, a brief word from the Titan Network...
« Reply #5 on: December 05, 2012, 12:21:10 PM »
Crime doesn't pay, evildoers!

KoA

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Re: And now, a brief word from the Titan Network...
« Reply #6 on: December 05, 2012, 01:44:37 PM »
False advertising.   I clicked this link expecting something "brief".    Total bait and switch, that was not brief at all, and I even had to get a refill on coffee half-way thru reading all that.

 :P  :)

Codewalker

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Re: And now, a brief word from the Titan Network...
« Reply #7 on: December 05, 2012, 02:39:48 PM »
*post removed due to Titan Network refusing to delete posts at users request, and not deleting user account*

I'm gonna call you out since you're the source of this drama.

I have to say I'm very disappointed that you decided to throw a tantrum. You had a lot of valuable contributions around here and mostly seemed to keep a level head even when emotions were running hot. You provided a needed reality check in a lot of threads. I even pointed some of the more venomous posters at yours as an example of how to present a differing opinion without trolling or unnecessarily provoking people.

But whatever. I thought you had a thicker skin than that, but I was wrong. You want your account disabled, fine. We don't have time for this.

Edit: Toned the language down a little "for the children". I was upset because I liked the guy and didn't want to see him ragequit over something dumb, especially in a way that puts him at odds with the site administration who didn't have any issue with him until now. Additionally, sending a message of "I deleted all my posts, you really should disable users ability to do that," then getting upset when we follow that advice, just seems a little bizarre...
« Last Edit: December 05, 2012, 04:09:34 PM by Codewalker »

Codewalker

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Re: And now, a brief word from the Titan Network...
« Reply #8 on: December 05, 2012, 03:09:16 PM »
Heh. To the person who reported my post, he could have left quietly if he had chosen. It was his decision to come into this thread, and all the others he had posted in, and make a disruptive scene.

Btw, I am not a moderator.

dwturducken

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Re: And now, a brief word from the Titan Network...
« Reply #9 on: December 05, 2012, 04:42:50 PM »
Wow! I'm actually kind of impressed! I mean, it was surprisingly small and petty, but an impressive display of dilligent pettiness.
I wouldn't use the word "replace," but there's no word for "take over for you and make everything better almost immediately," so we just say "replace."

Starsman

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Re: And now, a brief word from the Titan Network...
« Reply #10 on: December 05, 2012, 05:07:53 PM »
Web Forums without drama are like gardens without flowers, cacti without spines or smartphones without apps.  ;D
For the sake of the community: please stop the cultural "research" in your attempt to put blame on the game's cancelation.

It's sickening to see the community sink that low. It's worse to see the community does not get it.

I'm signing off and taking a break, blindly hope things change.

Kallandra

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Re: And now, a brief word from the Titan Network...
« Reply #11 on: December 05, 2012, 05:12:22 PM »
Heh. To the person who reported my post, he could have left quietly if he had chosen. It was his decision to come into this thread, and all the others he had posted in, and make a disruptive scene.

Btw, I am not a moderator.

All the drama could have been averted entirely if someone had just done what he asked. This forum should have three options for deleting a user, and one includes all their posts as well. That's all he wanted it seems, to leave the Titan Network. Instead it looked like he deleted all his posts, then someone put them all back again, and then he edited every single one.

All you had to do was hit the Delete button. No drama, no fuss, no snark.

This is just my humble opinion.

Codewalker

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Re: And now, a brief word from the Titan Network...
« Reply #12 on: December 05, 2012, 05:14:39 PM »
All the drama could have been averted entirely if someone had just done what he asked.

Until yesterday, you could actually delete your own account, complete with everything you had posted.

Until yesterday, you could also delete your own posts, and unless you went around making a big deal about it people probably wouldn't notice.

Today, you can do neither of those. This is why we can't have nice things.

Quote
All you had to do was hit the Delete button. No drama, no fuss, no snark.

The drama was already there. To be fair one of the moderators did reply and ask for clarification and to make sure he was sure about it. Then he took the action of deleting his own messages and posted a public message on Twitter suggesting that we make it impossible for people to do that.

The only thing anybody did wrong was in restoring the messages he deleted. I did that, because he's a valuable member of the community and I didn't want to see him undo all of that. I thought it was a stupid, irrational decision being made in the heat of the moment and was hoping that after sleeping on it he'd change his mind. Also because he specifically asked for it to be impossible for him to have done that. That was my bad and it's on me.
« Last Edit: December 05, 2012, 05:28:02 PM by Codewalker »

Kallandra

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Re: And now, a brief word from the Titan Network...
« Reply #13 on: December 05, 2012, 05:27:55 PM »
Until yesterday, you could actually delete your own account, complete with everything you had posted.

Until yesterday, you could also delete your own posts, and unless you went around making a big deal about it people probably wouldn't notice.

Today, you can do neither of those. This is why we can't have nice things.

Did this apply to just these forums or all the Titan Network sites? From what I've heard he wanted all of his information removed from every Titan Network site including Sentinel and Faces if he had those.

Anway, you've banned his account now and let everyone know about it. If you'd just deleted his account and said nothing we wouldn't be having this conversation because no one would know anything about it. His posts would've disappeared and so would he, without so much as a small popping noise. Instead you've drawn attention to the fact that you've banned him, and he's edited every one of his posts because either he couldn't delete them or did and they were then restored by someone other than him.

Either way, it would've saved a lot of hassle just to delete his account and all his posts without making a fuss.


Codewalker

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Re: And now, a brief word from the Titan Network...
« Reply #14 on: December 05, 2012, 05:29:17 PM »
Actually, I didn't ban him...

One of the other admins did because he was going through and editing all of the posts, including the one he made in this very thread that Tony created to try to address it quietly without making a public spectacle out of it -- the post that I replied to.

Kallandra

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Re: And now, a brief word from the Titan Network...
« Reply #15 on: December 05, 2012, 05:34:03 PM »
Hopefully it will all blow over.

I know why he was upset, and yeah he acted like an idiot...  hopefully when things calm down he might be allowed back. I enjoyed reading his posts. He was always straight to the point and always asked for facts, figures and sources for things cited by others.

I guess I was just confused as to why when he deleted all his posts someone else restored all of them, which then prompted him to do the stupid thing he then did by editing them all. *rolls eyes*

Six of one,  half a dozen of the other - as we say in parts of England.

*sigh*

Codewalker

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Re: And now, a brief word from the Titan Network...
« Reply #16 on: December 05, 2012, 05:38:10 PM »
hopefully when things calm down he might be allowed back.

I would be in support of that, even if I can't say for sure if the other admins/mods would after all the drama. I don't think the ban was a "never come back" but more of a "hang on and give us some time to think about this" measure.

Edit: I was being snarky because I thought he needed a verbal slap to snap out of it. That wasn't intended to be an official Titan Network position. I need to find some way to change the little dot color on a per-post basis or something...
« Last Edit: December 05, 2012, 05:49:49 PM by Codewalker »

Captain Electric

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Re: And now, a brief word from the Titan Network...
« Reply #17 on: December 05, 2012, 05:41:10 PM »
Ah, Gangrel.

Saw it coming.

He was a little less...restrained on the main City of Heroes forums during the final months. He really did his best to walk the line here, I could tell. Believe me, you folks who had pretty much moved over here by the final weeks, you saw an extremely different side of Gangrel.

Must have been hard for him to walk that line here, not to raise too many red flags.

And if this sounds uncharacteristically petty of me, it's because I have little respect for the people who dogged the SaveCOH effort at every turn. In those final weeks, the main forums were infested by these sorts of roaches. People like Gangrel often suggested argued that because we had not fought to save other shuttered MMOs, we should have remained complacent about our own.

No one but me tells me when I can or cannot fight for something I believe in.
« Last Edit: December 05, 2012, 05:47:50 PM by Captain Electric »

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Re: And now, a brief word from the Titan Network...
« Reply #18 on: December 05, 2012, 05:46:08 PM »
Wait, gangrel got fed up and caused a "mess", so to speak?

The guy who had a fox/wolf/some elaborate clan thing as his avatar?

Heh. Can't say I knew him at all, but drama is never really good IMO, in any form.

I just wanna say, thank you TonyV.

For this great network, this forum that lets the community come together.. so yeah thanks  :D
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Goin' to a party where no one's still alive

Kallandra

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Re: And now, a brief word from the Titan Network...
« Reply #19 on: December 05, 2012, 05:53:12 PM »
Ah, Gangrel.

Saw it coming.

He was a little less...restrained on the main City of Heroes forums during the final months. He really did his best to walk the line here, I could tell. Believe me, you folks who had pretty much moved over here by the final weeks, you saw an extremely different side of Gangrel.

Must have been hard for him to walk that line here, not to raise too many red flags.

And if this sounds uncharacteristically petty of me, it's because I have little respect for the people who dogged the SaveCOH effort at every turn. In those final weeks, the main forums were infested by these sorts of roaches. People like Gangrel often suggested that because we had not fought to save other shuttered MMOs, we should have remained complacent about our own.

No one but me tells me when I can or cannot fight for something I believe in.

You know, there's really no need for this kind of posting. It's one of the reasons I hardly ever post anything on these forums at all. Because anyone who thinks differently, has a slightly different way of looking at things, and likes to pick holes in things to see if they can be taken apart is looked upon as 'against the SaveCoH movement'. 

He never actually told you to remain complacent about saving CoH. He always tried to be helpful, yet you and others like you always threw whatever he had to say back in his face. Yes, he can be an idiot at times, but he always apologised if something he said was later disproved. Why on earth do you think he was here hmm? He wanted to SaveCoH just as much as the rest of us, but he just had a different way of expressing himself.

He never told you what to think or believe.