New Lookin's, New ideas

[Voth]

Wax, don't take this the wrong way because I have nothing against you and I've never had any issues with you, but I'm guessing a burning question on everyone's mind is who are you to be making these executive decisions concerning the Trench Wars Forums?

I appreciate the fact that you're using your own time to try to improve the forums and you're using whatever expertise or experience you have to try to assist, but are you a forum moderator/administrator? Have you ever been a forum moderator/administrator until now? These forums have always been community-run, which is proven by the fact that forum staff are not necessarily in-game staff as well.

I understand the lack of revenue that Trench Wars has coming in right now, but are any advertising companies who care about the use of the word "fu ck" going to be looking into paying us money to let them advertise on a forum that has had the same user base for the past few years (and is only dwindling, not growing)?

You need to understand things from everyone's perspective; I surely understand your points, but it is as if you just showed up out of thin air with some sort of forum power and put a censor on words that have been used on this forum forever (not sure how fu ck is a racist word, by the way). I truly think that you do have a problem on your hands, because the people who do visit these forums regularly and make it the community it is will not be happy with this as you've seen from some other people's posts. Then you'll have a bigger problem on your hands because no one wants to advertise on a forum that almost no one visits, so there goes your revenue and everyone's back to square one. Instead of dictating how things will be, I'd suggest listening to the people that Trench Wars will be making their money off of. I may not completely stop coming to the forums, but I will surely visit less and less if these types of things continue... it's almost as if the life is being seeped out of the forums.

[gran guerrero]

YEAH I'm one step from removing these forums off my bookmarks

DOWN WITH TYRANNY

o/

[Kontrolz]

YEAH I'm one step from removing these forums off my bookmarks

DOWN WITH TYRANNY

o/

one step ahead of you

[kthx]

1. I have advertising banners trying to sell me drugs, trying to get me to play evony which advertises with nearly nude women, and some cünt called ann coulter, and we can't say fück?

2. I don't want the kind of people playing this game that get offended because someone says fück, because guess what, the goal isn't to make money for the forum its to bring in money from the forum to help support the actual game where guess what, people say much much much worse than fück on a regular schedule.

3. So whats the point in doing all this shit to the forum, where the ultimate goal is to get people to play the actual game, where they are led along thinking that TW is a clean place because the forums have bleeped out obscenities only to log in to the game or let their kids play the game to have a nice little kill message appear in the middle of the screen.

Ir8yroldnewbie killed by COATHANGER ABORTION

for the entire world to see, and then it all comes crashing down. So what the Fück is the point.

(PS are you telling me cünt is censored also? fück you)

-----

Ill put it to you this way wax, either find a way to not try to change what this forum has ever been and still make money, or don't do it.

[Summa]

i tried....i gave it a shot....but i can't do it anymore...

this change is just gawdawful.....might wanna censor that.....and you're asking what is wrong with censorship in media? (forums are a form of media)....LOL? is that a joke?

go ahead and get your ads from companies that want to sponsor, right about the time you get your sponsors you will run out of people to click them.

if this crapfest doesn't change very soon, then I am done with these forums...and from what I understand most of the top posters are standing in line behind me.

but hey, you're the zone's and forum's savior right? you're going to turn everything around. whoever let you take power undermined their support base, which is always a bad political move. if you don't reaffirm it, they are going to move elsewhere.

[Jason]

just gotta say that a change this drastic...

it flat out shouldn't have been dropped in our laps completely out of the blue, especially considering the highly communal atmosphere we've developed over years and years of posting here. we've bitched at each other. we've argued with each other. we've laughed with each other. we've helped each other. we'd made friends. we've made enemies. these forums are an integral and, frankly, priceless aspect of the trench wars community. you're seriously barking up the wrong tree by trying to mess with a good thing.

[Displaced]

For a chance, i actually agree with Kthx, but Voth and Jason put it much better than I could.

I don't see how any of this is going to help the zone, or the forums... Going all "soup Nazi" on us isn't going to promote activity on the forums, and thus, wont help in getting your adverts clicked by said users.

I think the fundamentals of the forum should be unchanged, keep the same rules and regulations we've become so accustomed to, and let this forum be run "in-house" by our community.

Now, I'm all for sacrificing some of my spare time to have a go at making a new style for these forums, but I'm going to need some help from you Wax, cause I don't have access to any VBulletin 4.0 files/settings. I.e. I can't get to the CSS files etc..
So, trying to wing it would be sorta hard.

Also, who designed the layout for TWDIVISIONS.ORG? Anzu?
I'd like to try and keep the styles sort of coherent between the twdivisions.org layout and the forum style, that would mean I'd need to get in touch with whomever made the twdivisions.org site.

[Turban]

@ Wax: Is there ANY WAY to make the censors a toggleable feature for every member? Giving us a chance to decide whether or not we want to see the curse words would be way nicer than just adding some kind of fúcking censors all over the place.

:fear:

[kthx]

This is all I am saying, I am more than willing to donate my time and money to make this game better, but not at the cost of changing the reason I actually like the game. The same goes for the forums.

[Izor]

Any time the style gets changed its going to take some time getting used to...those major changes we can live with provided we can get someone to take the time to make it look good. Censorship and advertisement are different altogether as they are major changes we havent seen before and when I want to call Summa a fücking liberal dipshit I want to do it without using a character map. I dont mind an ad here and there, but some of them (like other games) are counterproductive to our community.

[Izor]

Oh HELL no

get rid of these fucking links in peoples posts immediately this is the most annoying thing I've ever seen

[Turban]

"Adblock Plus" on Mozilla for the win. No stupid advertisements.

[Wax]

To try and calm this situation down, I'm going to try and better explain what is going on and address some of your posts/concerns below:

Yes. Lots of changes were thrown in your faces without prior knowledge and discussion. For that, we appologize. This could have been handled much better. But because we are past that point, the best I can hope for is to make this process much smoother from here on out and try not to dwell on the 'should haves'.

Broke as a joke: The problem is that money is needed in order for us to keep this community running. And, we have none. The zone would like to upgrade our server so that we can support new features and provide users with a better experience. To do that, we need revenue. Hence, the ads.

Now, the advertising services specifically state in their terms of use that they reserve the right to remove their ads or withold any payments from websites who do not comply with their standards. The censory feature that was put into place is only blocking a total of five words so that we can meet the bare minimum requirements of the advertising company.

Before anyone asks for the 'numbers', let me start off by saying that we don't know. Each advertising company has their own formula to calculate how much each website gets paid. Factored into their equations are page hits, unique visitors, ad clicks and site content. Now, with that in mind, every advertising system takes a bit of time for them to coordinate their ads with our content. For example: A sports page should have sports ads to maximize the payout.

We ask for some time, so that we can adjust and tinker with the settings, as well as get some numbers to provide to the community to see if the ads are even worth it. Though I believe that every bit will help to offset the costs of what we hope to do. (To list again, server upgrade, advertising our sites/game, pay for services, etc.)

Again, sorry, and I hope this clears up some confusion.

Now lets be serious here, you could just remove that option and find some other sponsors, I am sure evony/civony would advertise on our site.

Look what happened to Sarien, Dangergirl, Maverick, etc etc etc. You can't fight something like this unless you want to try to talk the sponsors into advertising on a ghost town.

In regards to your sponsor comment, no. We couldn't find other sponsors as we are not in the position to be picky. Perhaps later on we would be able to single out a company and have them pay us, but for now we must settle for what is available to the 'general public'.

And yes, look what happened to them. Driven away by what has a track record of being an ungreatful community. Sure, everyone has handled things incorrectly, but it doesn't help with how they are received.

no f-bombs please, think of the children

oh wait, we're all responsible adults here

wax, weren't you fired from staff for insubordination and disrespect?

if you're going to put up a front at least make sure it's one that doesn't directly contradict your behavioral history

No, you are right. There are in fact children who play this game and it is a shame what they are exposed to. Then again, that applies to all aspects of their lives. But that is neither here nor there.

As for my time in staff, no. I wasn't fired for those reasons. To clear that up, I was removed from staff for having a name on two different rosters in TWD. So thank you for shedding light on that with your torch and pitch fork.

Lastly, PH, I am not putting up a front. I am merely trying to carry out and set things up so this website abides by the guidelines of the advertsing companies.

Wax, don't take this the wrong way because I have nothing against you and I've never had any issues with you, but I'm guessing a burning question on everyone's mind is who are you to be making these executive decisions concerning the Trench Wars Forums?

I appreciate the fact that you're using your own time to try to improve the forums and you're using whatever expertise or experience you have to try to assist...

(not sure how fu ck is a racist word, by the way).

Hello, Voth. No hard feelings.

Just to be clear, it is not just me behind these changes, which seems to be a common misconception. Pure_Luck and I have been discussing these ideas for a while now. So he is aware and approves of everything going on.

And yes, that is another issue. I believe the people who donate so much of their time and effort to this game don't get enough credit for what they do. I am most certainly not talking in regards to me, but so many of the other individuals who have made TW what it is today. Remember, no one gets paid to do this sort of stuff. Just show a little gratitude, not fall to their feet.

Also, I never said f*ck was a racist word. If you re-read what I had said, I had said 3 of the 5 words were racist.

2. I don't want the kind of people playing this game that get offended because someone says fück, because guess what, the goal isn't to make money for the forum its to bring in money from the forum to help support the actual game where guess what, people say much much much worse than fück on a regular schedule.

As far as the advertising company is concerned, they don't care about what happens in game. As their services are used only here on the forums. So, that point is moot.

but hey, you're the zone's and forum's savior right? you're going to turn everything around.

Please, don't patronize me. I'm simply trying to do my part to help this community grow, stick around, and be able to provide a better gaming experience.

Now, I'm all for sacrificing some of my spare time to have a go at making a new style for these forums, but I'm going to need some help from you Wax, cause I don't have access to any VBulletin 4.0 files/settings. I.e. I can't get to the CSS files etc..
So, trying to wing it would be sorta hard.

Also, who designed the layout for TWDIVISIONS.ORG? Anzu?
I'd like to try and keep the styles sort of coherent between the twdivisions.org layout and the forum style, that would mean I'd need to get in touch with whomever made the twdivisions.org site.

I appreciate the offer, Displaced. You and 'JabJabJab' are both being kept in mind. We will contact you both with the details and speak more about it.

I totally agree with what you said about the design. In fact, it is what has been suggested. The color scheme of www.trenchwars.org should be kept throughout our entire network of sites. It will help form a better identity.

@ Wax: Is there ANY WAY to make the censors a toggleable feature for every member? Giving us a chance to decide whether or not we want to see the curse words would be way nicer than just adding some kind of fúcking censors all over the place.

:fear:

Turban: I have not yet found such a feature, but hopefully it could be brought up to one of our programmers for them to maybe get something of that sort in the works.

[Noah]

There's probably not many solutions to the situation this forum is in. I have no clue how the economics of this game is like, and what we can do in the situation we are in. I doubt this was done if it wasn't needed to be done.

With that being said this is my second post in this new forum look, and I'll likely visit this forum even less in the future. I really hope someone can make a layout that isn't this little appealing.

[Galaxy Turbo]

Keep me in mind for the forum skin layout also, if Displaced knows his CSS/XHTML and skinning forums, I will be absolutely happy to develop graphics in tight keeping with the TW network sites, TWD more specifically since that is very well designed.



Also, Turban is right. Users want choices, and I think if you default the censorship on that would be fine. Just make cencorship a User CPanel choice, and those who don't want it can take it off. Sweet? Sweet.