"Do you know what it reminds me of ?" Topic

It reminds me of TMP 10 years ago.

It was a quieter, gentler time.

Maybe we should leave the settings as TMP Superior Grade Members only can post?

It's very relaxing to visit here these days.

I'm so excited that I'm thinking of joining a large international ballet company!

Dan

I miss the ruckus.

Dance like nobody's watching…..and as if your knees aren't knackered….

I don't miss the chaos at all

There are a number of folks who post solid gaming material who aren't able to right now.

I really miss the 70% of the guys who participate of the forum and became to the limbo since Bill depart…

I was one of them … and I can said you that it hurts…

And it was suposed that he should have returned on Friday/Saturday … and any info about him…

For kindness and respect to the absent ones there should be some information about it….

Amicalement
Armand

Life certainly does seem rather less fractious than it has of late, although perhaps a little too quiet. It does however give some good indications as to the sources of many of the dramas here in the last year or two.

I hope Bill is enjoying his extended holiday. My money now is on him cruising in the Adriatic. Its what many people I know seem to be doing these days :)

This place is moribund. This is worse than anything previously encountered. Anyone who thinks that cutting out public discourse, out of a fear of how people will act, was a good idea, is wrong.

When you create an elite group who can still speak, all you've done is show how fearful you are. Make all the excuses you want for shutting down participation. None of them fly.

The damage probably isn't permanent, if Bill will unlock the free accounts and never do this sort of thing again. If he apologized and admitted that it was wrong, that would help too.

Five posts on the front page is all I see so far this morning. Of course, I have quite a few topic boards blocked. (Ironically, including this one, so I have to come "here" to see what's up.)

You are assuming that anything that Bill did was wrong.
What a horrible thing to say!

On the plus side we got plenty of sausages.

Totally agree with Great War Ace…

Winston… dude!. (smile)

Amicalement
Armand

Since the ban on non paying members was to stop the spamming attacks, I think Bill was probably being sensible.
Just my view anyway.

I do miss the positive contributions from most of the basic members, not so the few people I consider unreasonably argumentative!

So the spamming attacks are curtailed, while participation dies off, and TMP goes comatose, not that slowly. Great…..

Let me put it this way: when it comes time to renew membership in c. half a year, if TMP is then, as it is now, I will not renew my membership. There isn't enough going on around here to make supporting membership worth the money…….

Thank you Ace

It has been a little like throwing the baby out with the bath water; yes spamming and trolling have been curtailed, but many forums have not seen a new post in days. In fact it's a good job Tango upgraded to give the site any new traffic.

From a personal point of view, Bill's decision is his decision, but it did make me feel marginalised – it felt that the only valued contribution to this site was financial, rather than value being placed on sharing ideas, giving encouragement, advice or generally being part of a supportive community.

Nick

Well as one of the silenced majority now I can speak again I'll say this about the period.

After my initial 'what the..?' moment, and thinking back on the often lengthy and bizarre assaults launched on the site, and targeting Bill in particular, I can understand the response. Need some time off, don't want to come back to a place daubed in (metaphorical) graffiti, rotten eggs and possibly human waste, so I'll swathe it in bubble wrap while I'm gone. Those folks who've taken a stake in the place by contributing to its upkeep, they should be OK to let wander around unattended though, why trash something you've paid into?

However as one of the great unwashed with no supporting membership, it does feel like being viewed with suspicion because of that 'associate' status. Everyone who's been involved in the previous trolling assaults has, to the best of my knowledge, been expunged from the membership.

It's not unreasonable to expect that repeat offenders might try and sneak back in because there's a different bouncer on the door, but the lockout impacted every member based not on their 'posting history', times incarcerated in the 'ole, but on their financial commitment. It costs, what $5 USD for a membership? Given the fanatical nature of the trolling in the past, I'd not be surprised for them to pay that just to get in and spray paint the furniture.

A suspension of all new basic memberships may have been a better option. I'm guessing that supporting memberships undergo a bit more scrutiny so trouble makers with a few quid to burn could be spotted. Why lockout all current basic members, unless it was feared there were some sleeper cells awaiting activation? That I don't get.

Now if this becomes an experiment in 'pay to post' I would hope that it would go to a poll, and I'd suggest further for basics only to participate in. I've kept tabs as much because I wasn't sure when the lockout was supposed to end, and it certainly feels more like three weeks than two? It seemed very quiet, and not the 'it's quiet, too quiet' type of silence just before the cavalry sergeant cops an arrow in the chest quiet, just boring quiet.

One last thing, I think the communication of the change was poor. Am I the only one who doesn't begin the day with the editorial? Also the message displayed seemed ambiguous, suggesting verified memberships were OK, then logging in and finding a different message on topics that only supporting memberships were unaffected. Given the nature and wide ranging impact of the change, an email might seem more appropriate, and could be aimed specifically at basic only members.

Gary

Well, Well, we are back in then!

This is the first time I have ever posted on this board in 12 years and just have to say what a pleasure it was to be lumped in with all the miscreants and ne'er do wells while personally having been Doghoused twice in 5,409 posts.

Not to mention being cited, along with others, by my peers on the "Most Helpful TMP Member on the ACW Boards?" Topic started by the Editor in Chief himself, back in January.

This has all been a bit like stopping speeding by banning everyone from the roads, hasn't it?

I'm so excited that I'm thinking of joining a large international ballet company!

Dan

Bill: why ask "Did you miss me?" when there is no posting feature along with your Editor's announcement?

Did I miss you? That is a simple question but the answer isn't simple.

My opinion about this "experiment" is that it did a lot of damage. And I hope that you never do it again……….

As another ordinary member I was not so much put out by Bill's decision to effectively Doghouse us for not paying, but the self righteous attitude of some of the Supporting Members. I took to looking up how many posts some of these people had made who thought that the site was much better without the ordinary members. It seemed to me that for many their only contribution was to pay the fee. Fewer than 300 posts in 15 years in several cases doesn't seem much by way of support to me compared to the helpful posts by many ordinary members. For those Supporting Members who prefer a more exclusive forum you have it in the Lounge. As for the acrimony caused by ordinary members I'd suggest you check out the Supporting Members only postings concerning the new Dr Who.

Vigilant +1

I'd also say it was the manner of the lockout as well, with zero warning…seriously we couldn't have had a one day warning to finish up any on going discussions?

I ponied up to be a supporting member so that I could be an active member about 4-5 days into Bill's absence. I got tired of not being able to participate. I wonder how many of us did that?

Also just noticed of today's topics, eleven out of the fifteen new topics (that I can see on my Homepage) have been started by non supporting members…..I wonder how much I've missed.

As to the supporting membership due to the way this has been handled I'm less likely to pay for a membership in the future.

As noted above, posting traffic in general dried up quite a bit without the basic members. My front page feed was getting shorter and shorter as the period wore on. Today's feed is already larger than any of the previous days still showing in my feed history.

Worse, I was disappointed to see that there were almost *no* conversations started in these last two weeks that I wanted to participate in, and very few I wanted to read.

- Ix

To echo fellow naval gamer lx I must mention that a couple of the naval boards have not had a single post for a week. Okay, this might be peripheral to 'mainstream' gaming but it does point to the value to the hobby of basic members sharing ideas and keeping the boards alive.

Most of what I've seen on the other boards have been from Tango (Gracias amigo mio por tus mensajes!) who has kept things going.

We are a small hobby and have little enough chance to read inspirational articles or posts from comrades around the world without excluding 75% of those we want to hear from.

Nick

We are only seeing one half of the decision Bill made. If he had chosen not to close postings who knows how ugly things could have become due to spammers and those who seem to dislike TMP.

Fully agree things got quieter around here. But it's certainly not a significant issue in my life as I knew ahead of time it was temporary. I'm a paying member and have been and will continue to be as I see a great deal of value in TMP.

I'll be honest and say that until coming on to the General Boards because of wondering what had happened with being locked out I had no idea of any of the politics – I'd never even heard of 'frothers' nor seen any trolling or sock puppets. I didn't even know what sock puppets were – I had to Google it, which maybe points to the fact that those of us who inhabit the gaming boards and never venture here know how to behave like gentlemen, no matter what our 'status'

In two years I have only ever encountered helpful, knowledgeable, gamers willing to share positive contributions.

And they are a mix of supporting and basic members.

If boards do not have original posts for weeks on end people will stop posting and reading which makes us all poorer.

Nick

We are only seeing one half of the decision Bill made. If he had chosen not to close postings who knows how ugly things could have become due to spammers and those who seem to dislike TMP.

The decision tree was far more nuanced than the elemental binary choice between "let everyone keep posting" and "shut down all Basic memberships". I think Gary (Starfury Rider) already made that point here, and he only touched the tip of the iceberg. There are many ways to mitigate the overall problem of troll activity, multiple more sophisticated ways to handle it on this particular web board, and at the very least a better communications effort would have helped diminish a feeling of antagonism.

- Ix

Where there's a sewer, there's froth.

Good to have you back,Bill. :)

I'm very similar to Bozkashi Jones in that I too hadn't been a viewer of TMP Talk forum until I was sucked in recently to see what all the fuss was about, and was promptly rapped across the knuckles by Bill.Prior to that I'd only realy posted on the gaming forums, apart from a bit of light relief on the Utter Drivel forum. I come here to gain information, impart information if I can assist, and look at what is new and inspires me to keep going in this hobby. A lot of what goes on in the TMP Talk forum recently seems to me to be anathema.If allowing only subscribing Members to post reduces this then that seems a good thing, at least in the short term. The way things were going it was all going to spiral into a horrible mess, at least Bill seems to have lanced the boil doing it this way.

And thanks to an anonymous donor who made my participation possible (Gwen made it clear to me that it was not her or Bill) at this very dark stage … otherwise … the singing of crickets and flying flies was an inevitable consequence …

Amicalement
Armand