Editor in Chief Bill | 25 Jan 2012 7:42 p.m. PST |
I don't know why TMP stirs up so much passion in some people.Occasionally, I get an email or PM from someone who desperately wants to tell me how rotten TMP is. These aren't "constructive criticism"-type messages – in fact, the writer rarely tells me what his specific beef is. Instead, something like a jilted lover, the writer seems driven to communicate to me that he's fallen out of love with TMP, that it's the end of the world as we've known it, that I've gone and personally ruined the hobby for him, and that TMP has become some kind of festering pollution of a website. I don't know what the writer's purpose could be in sending such a message. Obviously, he believes no improvement is possible, as he's condemned me as being wrong/ignorant/evil/bumbling. Nor does it seem he wants any sort of discussion or counterpoint, as everything he writes screams out "I am right and you are wrong!" What I've finally come to, after some thought, is that the best course in these situations is to Lock the person's account, and (nicely) encourage them to not visit TMP any more. (Yes
there's some irony in the fact that these writers have all been current TMP members, apparently intending to continue as Basic Members at the website they loathe so much
) The reason for giving them the "heave ho" is primarily that I think it's healthier for them to move along somewhere else, if they have that much hatred invested in TMP. And, if they move along, that makes it less likely that I'll interact with them
which is when they seem to get provoked. Like, if they win a poll prize, or a free membership, or something "aggravating" like that. Anyway, those are my thoughts, and I'm interested in your input
well, constructive input, anyway
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PaulCollins | 25 Jan 2012 7:50 p.m. PST |
I' m of the mind that if a person really is so unhappy, yet unable to remove themselves from what it is that is making them unhappy, what you're doing is more of a healthy intervention than a punishment. |
Militia Pete | 25 Jan 2012 7:54 p.m. PST |
Can't make everyone happy. I tried. I am miserable. So, I don't try any more. Just like people that complain at work about how horrible it is. Then when you tell them to find another job they look at you and say "why? I like it here" Life is to short dealing with other peoples lack of self worth. |
John the OFM | 25 Jan 2012 8:02 p.m. PST |
. Obviously, he believes no improvement is possible, as he's condemned me as being wrong/ignorant/evil/bumbling. Sounds like a Poll Suggestion to me. |
CmdrKiley | 25 Jan 2012 8:03 p.m. PST |
They should spend some time at Frothers. You should reply with a link there. They will either find themselves at home or find that TMP is a far nicer place to be. |
fitterpete | 25 Jan 2012 8:07 p.m. PST |
Umm if they are supporting members then they are your customer.Maybe its better to pay attention to your customer base? nah ..crazy idea.Theres enough fawning over your every decision it won't effect TMP. Anyway why lock the account? Makes no sense to me.Healthier? Really? If they don't have the will power to stay away why do you care? Shrug Whatever |
flooglestreet | 25 Jan 2012 8:07 p.m. PST |
You are supposed to worry about these jerks? That's funny! |
fitterpete | 25 Jan 2012 8:13 p.m. PST |
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Editor in Chief Bill | 25 Jan 2012 8:21 p.m. PST |
Maybe its better to pay attention to your customer base? If you've read what I've written above, then you should know that these messages never include any constructive criticism, and usually no explanation at all. So there's nothing to "pay attention to" here! Also, these folks don't seem to be representative of the TMP readership in general, based on membership levels (which are solid across the board). Umm if they are supporting members then they are your customer They've mostly been Basic Members, but a few have been Supporting Members but they tell invariably tell me they aren't renewing
so no financial loss in letting them go. |
Virtualscratchbuilder | 25 Jan 2012 8:27 p.m. PST |
The reason for giving them the "heave ho" is primarily that I think it's healthier for them to move along somewhere else, if they have that much hatred invested I wish I could do that with some of my students. |
Allen57 | 25 Jan 2012 8:38 p.m. PST |
em. Life is too short to cater to all the folks who hate something and can offer little constructive criticism. Im slightly tipsy tonight but would say the same thing more politely in a more sober state. |
Landorl | 25 Jan 2012 8:45 p.m. PST |
Sounds like a great plan to me! Off with their heads! |
darthfozzywig | 25 Jan 2012 8:52 p.m. PST |
Sounds like a Poll Suggestion to me. Dunno about you, but I think we've had enough polls calling out individuals. |
elsyrsyn | 25 Jan 2012 9:33 p.m. PST |
Best thing for you to do, for your own sanity, is to just ignore them completely. This also happens to be precisely the thing that will infuriate them the most. What a coincidence. Doug |
Balin Shortstuff | 25 Jan 2012 9:45 p.m. PST |
If you get only the occasional hate mail when you've got 30k+ members, don't sweat it. |
sneakgun | 25 Jan 2012 10:32 p.m. PST |
link Because you have this odd birthmark
. |
Ratbone | 25 Jan 2012 10:34 p.m. PST |
I agree with sending them away if they are getting too hot and heavy. When people get like that they feed off responses and things get worse. |
Doctor X | 25 Jan 2012 11:12 p.m. PST |
Bill, your approach is much more moderate than how I would handle it. s need to be called out and publically humiliated. |
Cyclops | 25 Jan 2012 11:59 p.m. PST |
It's your site so do what you want. If you're making the wrong decisions then the site will collapse, which I'm sure many would love. Don't see that happening any time soon though. |
wrgmr1 | 26 Jan 2012 12:11 a.m. PST |
Bill, what you have said makes sense to me. A public forum is bound to get a few people who are unhappy, whether it's in their personal lives which spills out onto TMP or unhappy with someone who posts. If you decide to ask them to leave, it's your prerogative. It's been said before
Bill's house
Bill's rules. I have no problem with that. |
bracken | 26 Jan 2012 12:59 a.m. PST |
I love TMP and have since I found it, I can't really think of anything like it, everyone gets a chance to say what they think, we all get achance to respond, be it positive or negative. I'm not going to start a war over something that someone else had said just because I disagree with them. There is enough trouble in the world as it over real life changing events, why add to the misery! Life is way too short and you only get the one chance! Enjoy it, embrace it, live it! |
Frothers Did It And Ran Away | 26 Jan 2012 2:48 a.m. PST |
Create a page on TMP and post their angry missives and allow other members to comment/mock in the same way as a news story. |
Old Bear | 26 Jan 2012 3:14 a.m. PST |
It's been said before
Bill's house
Bill's rules. I have no problem with that. I believe Joe Stalin was known to say something similar
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CPT Jake | 26 Jan 2012 3:23 a.m. PST |
HeHe! My account isn't locked!!! Whooohooo! |
Greenfield Games | 26 Jan 2012 4:46 a.m. PST |
If I were to summarize TMP's ruthless actions I'd need only one word: peremptory. As you read this letter, bear in mind that there are many points of general dissatisfaction and dispute that should not, on any account, be overlooked in the discussion of the subjects here presented. One of these is that I could go on for pages listing innumerable examples of TMP's dictatorial tricks and neo-testy equivocations. I have already written enough, surely, to convince you that TMP is a brutal misfit. In fact, TMP is worse than a brutal misfit; it's also a jejune flimflammer. That's why it feels obligated to convince people that their peers are already riding the TMP bandwagon and will think ill of them if they don't climb aboard, too. I have a tendency to report the more sensational things that TMP is up to, the more shocking things, things like how it wants to instill a general ennui. And I realize the difficulty that the average person has in coming to grips with that, but I am making a pretty serious accusation here. I am accusing it of planning to conspire with evil. And I don't want anyone to think that I am basing my accusation only on the fact that it accuses me of being narrow-minded. Does it allege I'm narrow-minded because I refuse to accept its claim that its mind games are Right with a capital R? If so, then I guess I'm as narrow-minded as I could possibly be. TMP's oligophrenic intimations can be quite educational. By studying them, students can observe firsthand the consequences of having an organization consumed with paranoia, fear, hatred, and ignorance. TMP has been using all sorts of jiggery-pokery to convince people that we should all bear the brunt of its actions. That worldview may be appealing, at least to judgmental s, but it severely limits our national conversation on critical policy issues. Perhaps more painfully, TMP thinks I'm trying to say that it is a tireless protector of civil rights and civil liberties for all people. Wait! I just heard something. Oh, never mind; it's just the sound of the point zooming way over TMP's head. TMP's advocates are quick to point out that because TMP is hated, persecuted, and repeatedly laughed at, it is the real victim here. The truth is that, if anything, TMP is a victim of its own success—a success that enables TMP to prevent us from recognizing the vast and incomparable achievements, contributions, and discoveries that are the product of our culture. Consequently, TMP's mercenaries have repeatedly been caught adding insult to injury. I had expected better from it and its vaunted band, but then again, if we foreground the cognitive and emotional palette of TMP's merciless ideals rather than their pathology we can enter vitally into its world. Why do we want to do that? Because what I have been writing up to this point is not what I initially intended to write in this letter. Instead, I decided it would be far more productive to tell you that TMP has been reducing us to acute penury. If there were any semblance of decency left in its brownshirt brigade that ought to be an affront to it. Sadly, that's a big "if"; we all know that some people don't seem to mind that TMP likes to persuade many of its adversaries to enter into a one-way "dialogue" with it. What a jealous world we live in! In closing, I ask that you swear in the holy sanctuary of your soul that you will never stop offering true constructive criticism—listening to the whole issue, recognizing the problems, recognizing what is being done right, and getting involved to help remedy the problem. That's how I live my life, and that's how you should consider living yours. (Generated by the wonderful Complaint Letter Generator – pakin.org/complaint |
Jay Wirth | 26 Jan 2012 4:56 a.m. PST |
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epturner | 26 Jan 2012 5:47 a.m. PST |
I like TMP. I like pie too. Eric |
John Leahy | 26 Jan 2012 5:59 a.m. PST |
Pie is good! |
Tuudawgs | 26 Jan 2012 6:22 a.m. PST |
Sounds like they suffer from the Internet version of Road Rage. Sad, angry people with no control looking for someone to blame. But, then again I have been told I think too much. |
RavenscraftCybernetics | 26 Jan 2012 7:44 a.m. PST |
some pies are better than other pies and some pie is better than no pie. |
Sundance | 26 Jan 2012 7:53 a.m. PST |
Bill, I can no longer stand the random direction changes in which you are taking TMP. As a result of your noodling, I have lost my appetite, can't sleep at night and can't paint. I am melting all my minis down into one big mass of lead-like white metal mixed with colored flecks of paint and mailing it to you postage due. As a result of me leaving, TMP will surely become the black hole you've rolled on the Traveller What's-in-this-Parsec Table, and everyone involved with this heinous crime of a website will be flushed from existence. I'd say "So long and thanks for all the fish," but I'm allergic to fish. See what you've done to my life? Sincerely, Sundance. There. Does that do it? (J/K) |
Pedrobear | 26 Jan 2012 8:04 a.m. PST |
"Oh yeah? What are you going to do? Start your own casino in your treehouse and get all your little friends to come? I'd like to see that. Ah ha ha ha
" |
Connard Sage | 26 Jan 2012 8:05 a.m. PST |
<checks emails sent to The Editor> *phew* Ban 'em. If they're really that unhappy with how TMP has 'treated' them you'll be doing them a favour. |
skippy0001 | 26 Jan 2012 8:12 a.m. PST |
Jejune flimflammer? That is soooo 'Woody Allen'. Peremptory, dictatorial, oligophrenic, ennui-instilling, jiggery-pokery player, pathologically penurial? Sounds like a Fielding Mellish letter- link Greenfield Games-thanks, I sent that link to all my players. Let The Editor Edit. |
Ed Mohrmann | 26 Jan 2012 8:23 a.m. PST |
Uh
time to check the level in the Jameson bottle - in the usual fashion
DARN ! Sun's not yet over the yardarm ! <Wait – it is someplace, so
>
|
Dn Jackson | 26 Jan 2012 8:24 a.m. PST |
Ignore them. You'll never make everyone happy and the net allows, or encourages, the pathologically unprepared socially to makes fools of themselves. |
FingerandToeGlenn | 26 Jan 2012 8:25 a.m. PST |
My best advice as the person who had to respond to the "I want to talk to your supervisor" before I retired from Social Security is to simply ignore them. At least the customer isn't telling you you're secretly tattooing bar-codes on every infant's forehead, or that your computers are reading his mind. Let it go. Have a cuppa joe. |
Altius | 26 Jan 2012 8:28 a.m. PST |
In fact, TMP is worse than a brutal misfit; it's also a jejune flimflammer. What a coincidence! Last Halloween, I went as a jejune flimflammer and the previous year as a brutal misfit! A couple of times in the past, I've taken 3-4 month breaks from posting here when I felt my stress level was too high, which I think is perfectly legitimate. The last time I did, I posted a thread to give away my remaining paid membership months (didn't want them to go to waste) when some hole came on and accused me of posting a "manifesto", despite the fact that I deliberately avoided going into an angry rant about any specific reasons. Don't recall who the hole was, offhand. Bill, I think you just have to accept the angry ranters. There is nothing you can do to please every single person, and as long as you've given it a good effort to accommodate your customers and the majority are happy with the results, screw 'em. I imagine they are just a tiny element with very specific complaints, based on a few of the angry rants I've seen posted here. |
Klebert L Hall | 26 Jan 2012 8:38 a.m. PST |
Seems like a lot of effort, when you could just click the delete button. -Kle. |
Sundance | 26 Jan 2012 8:45 a.m. PST |
(FingerandToeGlenn, Shhhhh! you're giving away Bill's secrets!) |
zippyfusenet | 26 Jan 2012 9:11 a.m. PST |
Sounds like you got another hot one recently. Search your conscience. Did you do anything that set him off? Even if it shouldn't have set him off? I have seen you get very stubborn over something inconsequential, where it would have been very easy to accomodate the other party. On the other hand, the other party is generally doing the same thing. I can't really say in most cases who is being the bigger jerk. Really. |
Saber6 | 26 Jan 2012 9:25 a.m. PST |
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richarDISNEY | 26 Jan 2012 9:26 a.m. PST |
Sorry folks. I got nuttin' wrong with how this place is being run. Maybe a few 'hints' on making the search engine better
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dglennjr | 26 Jan 2012 11:04 a.m. PST |
In my business (Architecture), and as an example, I learned early on that any HVAC/mechanical system, even when properly designed for maximum efficiency and effect, will only satisfy 80% of the people. Therefore, there will always be that 20% who won't be satisfied. You can walk into any room full of people, poll them (No, don't create another poll for this.) and most will say it's fine, but others will say that it's too cold or too hot. Now, I put that little nugget of information to work while I was managing restaurants during college and while still in architecutre school. Often, during the same sweep through the dining room, I'd be stopped by one table asking if the air conditioning could be turned down because it was too cold. "Sure ma'am, I'll go change it right away." Then another table nearby would ask if I could increase the air conditioning because it was too warm in there. "Certainly sir, I'll go adjust that right away." I'd return a few mintues later to each table and repeat the same thing, "Is everything all right now?" Usually the common answer was "Yes, thank you." I can't possibly work magic making the same space both warmer and cooler, now can I? So, what did I do? Not a damn thing because the other 80% were happy with the temperature. The moral of the story is that the customer just wanted to be heard and feel like they were being catered to. However, (also restaurant related), when I had customers paying their bill and wanting a discount for a long list of bad 'whatever', (usually it wasn't), while simultaneously exclaiming "I'll never be back here ever again!", I would simply say, "Well then, your bill will be the full amount, no discount is needed, and I'm sorry we won't be seeing you 'ever' again." Editor: I'm glad you showed them the door before they cause more problems or headaches. The grass is always greener on the other side of the terrain mat. |
Jeff Ewing | 26 Jan 2012 11:05 a.m. PST |
I would like to have you pick out the most vituperative/unintentionally funny one in, let us say, a month, and post it a "Hate Mail" section so that the rest of may have a laugh at the aggrieved member's expense. |
HornetsNestMinis | 26 Jan 2012 11:43 a.m. PST |
The obvious answer is to post their email to this forum so we can all shame them at conventions. |
Patrick Sexton | 26 Jan 2012 12:09 p.m. PST |
I like the Hate Mail Section concept. |
Editor in Chief Bill | 26 Jan 2012 12:20 p.m. PST |
Search your conscience. Did you do anything that set him off? Even if it shouldn't have set him off? Someone gave him a free Supporting Membership. |
Altius | 26 Jan 2012 12:29 p.m. PST |
Someone gave him a free Supporting Membership. Well of course! That always drives me into a rage too. |
zippyfusenet | 26 Jan 2012 12:41 p.m. PST |
"Someone gave him a free Supporting Membership." I remember that incident. I couldn't see any reason for that to drive him over the brink. But it would have been easy for you to take away the free Supporting Membership, which is what he demanded you do. And you wouldn't do that. So two people I like quarrelled bitterly over nothing at all, as far as I could see. I hate it when that happens. I think I offered my good advice at the time. And then both of you did as you pleased. Much like my wife, kids, pets, co-workers, friends and every other living organism I ever encountered. So it goes. On this thread you asked for my advice. Now you have it. Do with it what you like. |