It's all been discussed to death really.
The way I see it:
A hosting provider is a hosting provider. The project leads of TMW decided to switch hosting providers. No big deal. The person who ran the previous hosting setup was also involved in the community. Also not a big deal and actually kind of nice of them to help out so much.
The big deal is that the host confused the professional relationship with the community relationships and assumed an inappropriate role with an inappropriate amount of control over the project.
Look, if I built a website and someone wanted to help out by hosting it for free and interacting with the users here and there.. I'd be pretty happy with that. If they later started doing things I did not like and began to lord it over me(so to speak).. Well heck with that, it's MY site. I built it. And I will move it somewhere else!
I don't know if anyone else sees it this way or not, but it seems pretty cut&dry to me.
Digging up dirty facts about server move and the takeover.
Re: Digging up dirty facts about server move and the takeove
Head of the TMW Illuminati
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blackrazor
- Warrior
- Posts: 332
- Joined: 18 Oct 2007, 13:38
Re: Digging up dirty facts about server move and the takeove
I think it's complicated. From a player's perspective, from when I joined in 2007, right up until March 9th, 2013, it seemed clear to me that Platyna was more than just a host. She was the ranking top admin and final arbiter in all matters concerning the iteration of TMW running on Platinum. And all the senior staff seemed to accept this, at least as far as players could see. Keep in mind that us players are not privy to secret IRC channels and hidden forum areas, so doubtless there was more going on behind the scenes. But from an outward perspective, for years, based on information available in the public forums, website, and game, it certainly seemed as if Platyna ran the show, and that everyone accepted that, and that the community was united and more-or-less content, happy, and growing.
Now keep also in mind that I am not a friend of Platyna. We never talk, not even once. I have never received any accolades, titles, gifts, perks, or anything else from her, nor do I want, expect, or deserve such things. I am not a Platyna supporter or fanboi, per se. And it is not lost on me that she did not work well with the previous set of senior developers, Jax, Elven, Bjorn, and that the current set were not too happy with her, either, namely o11c, Frost, maybe Jen and Crush, too. I see the pattern. But I remain grateful to her for years of hosting, admin, and arbiting, during which time the game experienced a lot of growth and success. Would it have grown even more without her, or would it have died and been forgotten instead? Who knows. I do know that when Platyna was fed up over the whole Bjorn-thing, years ago, she gave the community public notice, one month's time of her intention to leave. Nothing was hidden from the players. In the end, she stayed, and the community seemed to want that. They could have taken that opportunity to leave, but they did not, so obviously they were getting something that they needed from Platyna, and some acknowledgement of that, of years of Playna's work, would be fair and nice.
Now, I have nothing against anybody on the TMWC, either. I have only admiration and respect for all the development and moderation work put in by everyone, over the many years. But, in my mind, if the TMWC wanted a more united community, there were quite a few things it could do / have done differently. Here is my list. These are by NO means a set of demands, they are only what I hope are some reasonable guidelines for a successful, well-embraced transfer of authority. You can do it without any or all of this of course, but that tends to breed drama, which is a negative.
1) Give public notice of intent to transfer. 30 days is a reasonable amount. State clearly on the forums. Keep a backup of the player files so you have something to fall back on when you move.
2) State clearly and honestly the main reasons for the move. It's not simply a routine server relocation, but a significant transfer of powers, and exiling of the old admin, due to an inability to work with her any longer.
3) Give abundant and generous credit to the old admin for all the work, blood, sweat, and tears that she poured into the project, for many years, that quite possibly kept it alive through certain critical junctures in the past.
4) Make it clear who the new host will be and what his powers will be, both intended and unintended (by virtue of root access and simple influence). No secret host until unmasked.
5) Write up and publish a constitution, clearly defining among other things, the rights, responsibilities, limits, and privileges of senior admins, who specifically owns the data-files, and the methods for succession, transition, expulsion, etc. Don't wait to do this until later, have this ready to present to the community at the point of takeover, or very soon thereafter. You need rules and transparency, especially in the absence of a final arbiter.
6) Make sure justice is served. The Nard incident and allowing people to call Platyna a "raging thundercunt" on the public forums without repercussions are two good examples of administrative black-eyes that you do not need, and will only provoke people that were sitting on the fence to take sides and make noise.
7) Bonus points if there is a visible (to the players) burst of creativity and content, soon after the transition, as a way to illustrate the before-and-after of the situation in a positive light.
Basically, none of point 1 to 7 were followed in a timely manner, and it made the takeover look ninja, sneaky, and dishonest, and it gave plenty of un-needed ammunition for your opponents. The optics are very poor and the infrastructure for what you intended is not really in place. Granted, it must seem more free to all the senior staff that previously had to deal with Platyna, but at some point you should try to see it from the onlooker's point of view. Anyways, you have far fewer real opponents or partisans than you think, and most of it is about how you did it, and not what you had to do. There is a big difference. But optics have a way of catching up with you in end, so please take care of that in the future, if possible. The vast majority of us only want to see the project grow and succeed, so we have a lot in common that we can build on, in that regard.
Now keep also in mind that I am not a friend of Platyna. We never talk, not even once. I have never received any accolades, titles, gifts, perks, or anything else from her, nor do I want, expect, or deserve such things. I am not a Platyna supporter or fanboi, per se. And it is not lost on me that she did not work well with the previous set of senior developers, Jax, Elven, Bjorn, and that the current set were not too happy with her, either, namely o11c, Frost, maybe Jen and Crush, too. I see the pattern. But I remain grateful to her for years of hosting, admin, and arbiting, during which time the game experienced a lot of growth and success. Would it have grown even more without her, or would it have died and been forgotten instead? Who knows. I do know that when Platyna was fed up over the whole Bjorn-thing, years ago, she gave the community public notice, one month's time of her intention to leave. Nothing was hidden from the players. In the end, she stayed, and the community seemed to want that. They could have taken that opportunity to leave, but they did not, so obviously they were getting something that they needed from Platyna, and some acknowledgement of that, of years of Playna's work, would be fair and nice.
Now, I have nothing against anybody on the TMWC, either. I have only admiration and respect for all the development and moderation work put in by everyone, over the many years. But, in my mind, if the TMWC wanted a more united community, there were quite a few things it could do / have done differently. Here is my list. These are by NO means a set of demands, they are only what I hope are some reasonable guidelines for a successful, well-embraced transfer of authority. You can do it without any or all of this of course, but that tends to breed drama, which is a negative.
1) Give public notice of intent to transfer. 30 days is a reasonable amount. State clearly on the forums. Keep a backup of the player files so you have something to fall back on when you move.
2) State clearly and honestly the main reasons for the move. It's not simply a routine server relocation, but a significant transfer of powers, and exiling of the old admin, due to an inability to work with her any longer.
3) Give abundant and generous credit to the old admin for all the work, blood, sweat, and tears that she poured into the project, for many years, that quite possibly kept it alive through certain critical junctures in the past.
4) Make it clear who the new host will be and what his powers will be, both intended and unintended (by virtue of root access and simple influence). No secret host until unmasked.
5) Write up and publish a constitution, clearly defining among other things, the rights, responsibilities, limits, and privileges of senior admins, who specifically owns the data-files, and the methods for succession, transition, expulsion, etc. Don't wait to do this until later, have this ready to present to the community at the point of takeover, or very soon thereafter. You need rules and transparency, especially in the absence of a final arbiter.
6) Make sure justice is served. The Nard incident and allowing people to call Platyna a "raging thundercunt" on the public forums without repercussions are two good examples of administrative black-eyes that you do not need, and will only provoke people that were sitting on the fence to take sides and make noise.
7) Bonus points if there is a visible (to the players) burst of creativity and content, soon after the transition, as a way to illustrate the before-and-after of the situation in a positive light.
Basically, none of point 1 to 7 were followed in a timely manner, and it made the takeover look ninja, sneaky, and dishonest, and it gave plenty of un-needed ammunition for your opponents. The optics are very poor and the infrastructure for what you intended is not really in place. Granted, it must seem more free to all the senior staff that previously had to deal with Platyna, but at some point you should try to see it from the onlooker's point of view. Anyways, you have far fewer real opponents or partisans than you think, and most of it is about how you did it, and not what you had to do. There is a big difference. But optics have a way of catching up with you in end, so please take care of that in the future, if possible. The vast majority of us only want to see the project grow and succeed, so we have a lot in common that we can build on, in that regard.
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mistergrey
- TMW Adviser
- Posts: 535
- Joined: 03 Jan 2010, 21:39
Re: Digging up dirty facts about server move and the takeove
I understand it's easy to look at this situation as black and white, but like most things in life, the truth is usually lurking somewhere in between (the grey area, if you willGARRETTtheGREAT wrote:I'm not saying that this thread has deserved anyone a medal of achievement. But what has earned Platyna the respect I hold for her is the work she did do. I believe her work should not be diminished or downplayed. I don't think it's right for the TMWC members to say how terrible she was to just throw people out, with no acknowledgement of their value to the team and for the TMWC to say they are doing things the right way, but then do the opposite as the very first official act. To be blunt, I think it makes the TMWC look like a bunch of hypocrites and it really lends to the whole power hungry image I'm sure would rather be cast off. If I was ostracized in the same way tomorrow, I would hope that commending my achievements would be important to at least someone.
). The TMWC are easy to point a finger at and call power hungry from one angle, and from another, Platyna can be made out to be one hell of a tyrant. I would like to point out that while I am part of this TMWC, I was not very involved with the server move, and the same is likely true for enough other members. This is not to say that I did not agree with it ultimately.. but, more to say that the TMWC did not plan this "master coup" in the manner many make out. The truth is, on the GM front at least, I don't see any way we "gained" any kind of power from the unfortunate way things played out - at most, we are able to discuss important things, like the application of the rules, and actually come to an agreement. Before, it was not uncommon to post topics asking for Platyna's input on such things and have them ignored for months or entirely. This was understandable too, as we all knew she was busy with her studies. What was not understandable, was how she publicly threatened her GM team for supposedly "changing rules" without her input, and then never even explaining what she meant when asked. To be honest, I have no personal grudge against her, but I never once felt like a trusted part of her team when she did such things, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who shared the sentiment.
Platyna did do many good things for the project over the years, and I've mostly avoided these kinds of topics simply because defending myself or the TMWC in this situation, is unfortunately not possible without 'putting Platyna down' so to speak. I have no wish to do that, nor do I think anyone who goes to Platyna's server, or speaks in her defense is a bad person. I simply wish those people would take a deep breath, and remember that at the end of the day even groups like the TMWC are just people who often have differing opinions, before posting.
I don't enjoy the way it all happened, and hindsight is 20/20 as they say - I'm sure there were better ways to handle that situation, but that applies to Platyna as well. I chose to stay with the group because I love the odd community here, drama and all, and saw that the move was not simply inspired by anger or revenge of some sort. To explain that, I'll ask this: Would this project be better off, if Platyna had been approached directly with the problems her team had with how she did things... and she had brushed us off, or told us to leave if we did not like her decisions? I am not saying she cannot be reasonable, only that she has an admirable amount of confidence in her own choices, and often had no patience for being questioned about them even if it was necessary. Had that happened, the game likely would have lost most of the few contributors left, many of the GMs, and others involved. The bottom line was, Platyna's method of having one person with absolute authority is very effective when done right.. but such a person should be clear about their decisions, work together with the people who add to the project or moderate the game, and not alienate those people who do all the micro managing when they are not around.
Long story short: I don't think there is a direct right or wrong side in this. But at this point, some actions can't be undone no matter how much people argue, and even if the split ended with a full reunion... the underlying issues left, from both before the move and because of it, would tear the team apart and harm the game and community that we all love enough to be sitting here arguing about it.
GARRETT: I do agree with one thing you said in particular.. Platyna should be acknowledged for her part in where the game is today, and hopefully will be in enough ways. I had been working on an item she seemed to want in game, so at the least I can finish that.
blackrazor: You posted as I was writing this, so I'll only address you briefly. Your points surely sound nice and reasonable, but even while I did not like how the server move was handled, I was unable to say with any confidence that she would not do something drastic as a response to very early notice, such as remove the ones suggesting it... they would have likely left anyway if she insisted on staying in charge and didn't agree to some pretty major attitude changes. I understand your point to an extent, and some negativity was apparently allowed that clearly shouldn't have been. But be realistic, and tell me do you really see that Platyna would humbly accept that criticism and take steps to change the problems? Or do you think she would have responded indignantly, and invited everyone upset with her to leave? Had that happened... there would simply be a game, hardly any GMs, developers, and that would be a very rough setback to the entire project, as well as hurting the community at least as much as the way things went down. I'm not saying it's good, or even that she would respond in the ways I've mentioned.. but, most of the community is still here, and we suddenly seem to have a lot of old players who left coming back recently. I'd rather look at this glass as half full, but maybe that's just me. If she'd had earlier notice (she was sent an email that she never saw apparently, a bit before it all happened), chances are this discussion would be replaced with a similar one, something like "How could you have organized this with others ahead of time, without telling her? That's disrespectful!". I'm not sure there was any way this could have gone without hurt feelings and anger.. but I do hope to avoid more of the same in future, whatever may come.
*sighs at his own inability to write a forum post that isn't the length of a short story...*
<Mistakes> you are too difficult to trollTiana wrote: I apologize if I gave anyone the impression that BC is the troll-king of the GM's. That title is rightfully held by mrgrey
<Frost> Germans have Chess Boxing. English have Cheese Racing.
<Frost> I'm slightly terrified what the Russians consider violent sport.
<o11c> chatroulette
<Jaxad0127> YOu can't grab yourself.
<Jaxad0127> Elenore explicitly prevents it.
<Mistakes> speak for yourself
Re: Digging up dirty facts about server move and the takeove
Platyna made sure anything public was either neutral to positive about her, or written by someone untrustworthy. She regularly deleted stuff that disagreed with her. Anyone doing that to her, though, would get harsh reprisal.blackrazor wrote:I think it's complicated. From a player's perspective, from when I joined in 2007, right up until March 9th, 2013, it seemed clear to me that Platyna was more than just a host. She was the ranking top admin and final arbiter in all matters concerning the iteration of TMW running on Platinum. And all the senior staff seemed to accept this, at least as far as players could see. Keep in mind that us players are not privy to secret IRC channels and hidden forum areas, so doubtless there was more going on behind the scenes. But from an outward perspective, for years, based on information available in the public forums, website, and game, it certainly seemed as if Platyna ran the show, and that everyone accepted that, and that the community was united and more-or-less content, happy, and growing.
Now keep also in mind that I am not a friend of Platyna. We never talk, not even once. I have never received any accolades, titles, gifts, perks, or anything else from her, nor do I want, expect, or deserve such things. I am not a Platyna supporter or fanboi, per se. And it is not lost on me that she did not work well with the previous set of senior developers, Jax, Elven, Bjorn, and that the current set were not too happy with her, either, namely o11c, Frost, maybe Jen and Crush, too. I see the pattern. But I remain grateful to her for years of hosting, admin, and arbiting, during which time the game experienced a lot of growth and success. Would it have grown even more without her, or would it have died and been forgotten instead? Who knows. I do know that when Platyna was fed up over the whole Bjorn-thing, years ago, she gave the community public notice, one month's time of her intention to leave. Nothing was hidden from the players. In the end, she stayed, and the community seemed to want that.
Re: Digging up dirty facts about server move and the takeove
Oh, so many blatant lies from "TMWC", that I simply don't know where to start from...
Let's make some things clear:
1. The only issue the developers had with me is that I disagreed to give them powers over the community. We basically never argued about anything else.
2. I had a major disagreement about how to develop the game, and the community with Bjorn. And let's remind the issues we were arguing about:
Primo: Bjorn argued that the game server should be just a testbed with no real content, and it should just serve for development.
Secundo: That we should invest our time in programming and scripting not the community because of [see above].
These two things were corner stones of current TMW, and they were worth to fight for.
After that Elven and Bjorn LEFT for their own project - so in fact they shouldn't ever involve in a project that they left like five years ago. Not only they did, not only they are still inactive but also they reserve themself the right kick me out of the project I have fought for seven and exclusively maintained for five years! This is simply NOT RIGHT, especially that they think themselves that o11c is not a good person to manage the project anyway (sic!) - at least we agree on that one.
3. When the community was mature enough and nothing could be a threat for it I have decided to divide powers wisely between myself, Game Masters and developers. I agreed with Bjorn that developers wouldn't involve in community affairs and moderators, including me will not involve in the development. In fact Bjorn was happy because of that - as this is what he really wanted, as he seemed to be annoyed by the non-development issues.
4. When I began my studies, I have decided to choose people I considered to be mature and trustworthy (stupid me), divide all my powers between them, so the project would keep going well. So I have created GHP, who was a dynamic group containing all the developers, moderators and game masters as representatives of the community. I have retained just two things:
Primo: separation of developers and moderators.
Secundo: the right to do final judgement, to be used mainly in cases that GHP can't agree or solve by themselves or when project fundaments would be at risk.
5. I have insisted on items to go in game, besides a crown and Platyna's Red Dress (that was made on my request). I would prefer to have a lab coat instead of the crown, but well. ;-)
6. I deleted stuff that was critical or uncomfortable for me? That lie is so naive, because EVERYONE can read forum archives. No critical posts, even brutal ones were retained. You know what is funny? To read such crap from two persons, who were always showing me how they dislike me and were always arguing and criticizing me and yet still were given by me highest positions in the project, because I could get over my personal likings and judge them in impartial way to be worthy project members.
7. I do not involve in the development since like 5 years, but developers had to make hidden channels on freenode so I won't eavesdrop...excuse me...WTF...not to mention that I have no idea why GPL'd project development has to be hidden...later on, post factum, I have learned that all that move was plotted on a secret channel located ON PLATINUM not on freenode...if I was eavesdropping channels on Platinum, then I wonder how I could've missed that one! Oh my, this is weak. Not to mention that decent people, when they don't like current management of a GPL project, fork another project instead plotting and impeaching.
8. I do bribe players by giving them ONE welcome gift. Interesting. ;-)
9. I wasn't just a hosting provider, I was a game admin, a lie repeated dozen times is not becoming a truth.
ALL I ever did and ALL decision I ever made was impartial and with project wellness on my mind.
I have put in that so much heart, time and money. I have spent 1/5 of my life working on TMW, just to learn, one day, that I was kicked out from my own project, all my powers were removed, and the user data that were given to me by the users in trust, were forcefuly moved first to an unknown person and then to a person who abused and DoSed the services on several occasions, by the persons who demanded more and more powers and were dissatisfied with the refusal.
Further more - a domain owner was blackmailed, that if he won't agree to change DNS entries there will be no more updates, all developers will leave and this will be basically the end of TMW.
To excuse that blatant treason, players were lied to, that my server is responsible for the lag and that all the developers and community agreed for that move. When that didn't worked, I was being insulted and banned.
Now you have a bunch of power hungry impeachers asociated in a pseudo-committee, which is just made up to allow power hungry people to hide behind it. It is just made of paper as 3/4 of people in it are inactive and were never asked if they want to be in any committee.
It is just two months of their ruling and we can already see the effects.
Regards.
Let's make some things clear:
1. The only issue the developers had with me is that I disagreed to give them powers over the community. We basically never argued about anything else.
2. I had a major disagreement about how to develop the game, and the community with Bjorn. And let's remind the issues we were arguing about:
Primo: Bjorn argued that the game server should be just a testbed with no real content, and it should just serve for development.
Secundo: That we should invest our time in programming and scripting not the community because of [see above].
These two things were corner stones of current TMW, and they were worth to fight for.
After that Elven and Bjorn LEFT for their own project - so in fact they shouldn't ever involve in a project that they left like five years ago. Not only they did, not only they are still inactive but also they reserve themself the right kick me out of the project I have fought for seven and exclusively maintained for five years! This is simply NOT RIGHT, especially that they think themselves that o11c is not a good person to manage the project anyway (sic!) - at least we agree on that one.
3. When the community was mature enough and nothing could be a threat for it I have decided to divide powers wisely between myself, Game Masters and developers. I agreed with Bjorn that developers wouldn't involve in community affairs and moderators, including me will not involve in the development. In fact Bjorn was happy because of that - as this is what he really wanted, as he seemed to be annoyed by the non-development issues.
4. When I began my studies, I have decided to choose people I considered to be mature and trustworthy (stupid me), divide all my powers between them, so the project would keep going well. So I have created GHP, who was a dynamic group containing all the developers, moderators and game masters as representatives of the community. I have retained just two things:
Primo: separation of developers and moderators.
Secundo: the right to do final judgement, to be used mainly in cases that GHP can't agree or solve by themselves or when project fundaments would be at risk.
5. I have insisted on items to go in game, besides a crown and Platyna's Red Dress (that was made on my request). I would prefer to have a lab coat instead of the crown, but well. ;-)
6. I deleted stuff that was critical or uncomfortable for me? That lie is so naive, because EVERYONE can read forum archives. No critical posts, even brutal ones were retained. You know what is funny? To read such crap from two persons, who were always showing me how they dislike me and were always arguing and criticizing me and yet still were given by me highest positions in the project, because I could get over my personal likings and judge them in impartial way to be worthy project members.
7. I do not involve in the development since like 5 years, but developers had to make hidden channels on freenode so I won't eavesdrop...excuse me...WTF...not to mention that I have no idea why GPL'd project development has to be hidden...later on, post factum, I have learned that all that move was plotted on a secret channel located ON PLATINUM not on freenode...if I was eavesdropping channels on Platinum, then I wonder how I could've missed that one! Oh my, this is weak. Not to mention that decent people, when they don't like current management of a GPL project, fork another project instead plotting and impeaching.
8. I do bribe players by giving them ONE welcome gift. Interesting. ;-)
9. I wasn't just a hosting provider, I was a game admin, a lie repeated dozen times is not becoming a truth.
ALL I ever did and ALL decision I ever made was impartial and with project wellness on my mind.
I have put in that so much heart, time and money. I have spent 1/5 of my life working on TMW, just to learn, one day, that I was kicked out from my own project, all my powers were removed, and the user data that were given to me by the users in trust, were forcefuly moved first to an unknown person and then to a person who abused and DoSed the services on several occasions, by the persons who demanded more and more powers and were dissatisfied with the refusal.
Further more - a domain owner was blackmailed, that if he won't agree to change DNS entries there will be no more updates, all developers will leave and this will be basically the end of TMW.
To excuse that blatant treason, players were lied to, that my server is responsible for the lag and that all the developers and community agreed for that move. When that didn't worked, I was being insulted and banned.
Now you have a bunch of power hungry impeachers asociated in a pseudo-committee, which is just made up to allow power hungry people to hide behind it. It is just made of paper as 3/4 of people in it are inactive and were never asked if they want to be in any committee.
It is just two months of their ruling and we can already see the effects.
Regards.
Last edited by Platyna on 22 May 2013, 21:18, edited 3 times in total.
Re: Digging up dirty facts about server move and the takeove
Platyna you started this post to evoke chaos, not sure it worked!
I also wish you could read what people wrote ..... it may help
Numbers are up, people are coming back and no internal conflict.
Prsm
I also wish you could read what people wrote ..... it may help
Numbers are up, people are coming back and no internal conflict.
Prsm
ego is the anesthesia that deadens the pain of stupidity!
Re: Digging up dirty facts about server move and the takeove
Two months and you are talking about numbers?prsm wrote:Platyna you started this post to evoke chaos, not sure it worked!
I also wish you could read what people wrote ..... it may help
Numbers are up, people are coming back and no internal conflict.
Prsm
Okay, let's talk about numbers:
1. Number of lags did not decrease.
2. Number of players decreases.
3. Number of people having absolute power increases.
4. Number of uncomfty threads locked increases.
5. Transparency index decreases.
Not to mention that contributors and players are treated like trash - but this is ucountable. However the number of contributors kicked out can be counted...but this I am leaving you to count.
Regards.
Re: Digging up dirty facts about server move and the takeove
i was trying to help!
Just because you, and i mean you Platyna, say something doesn't make it true!
Read what people wrote, absorb it, let it soak in, Your lashing out, and that doesn't help anyone, nor does it help the game. Maybe if you actually heard what people are saying you could understand, till than its a cat chasing its tail!
Prsm
Just because you, and i mean you Platyna, say something doesn't make it true!
Read what people wrote, absorb it, let it soak in, Your lashing out, and that doesn't help anyone, nor does it help the game. Maybe if you actually heard what people are saying you could understand, till than its a cat chasing its tail!
Prsm
ego is the anesthesia that deadens the pain of stupidity!
Re: Digging up dirty facts about server move and the takeove
Sorry, GARRETTtheGREAT, this topic is useless again.
Former programmer for the TMWA server.