What has just happened???

[Levdragon]

Hello to everybody out there on THW, most of you probably don't know me and I don't usually take part in these debates and discussions, but considering they have (at least to my P.o.V) shattered the heart and soul of THW I am wanting to ask things and state my opinions aswell as disuss the site.

I am not sure if this is the right place for it, but this is SITE DISCUSSION and all the other threads have been closed because of stup- thoughtless people derailing those threads.

I want to ask a few things, firstly, why must you people continue to banter and argue with the reasoning for bannings? People disobeyed the rules, they were wanred multiple times, but persisted, enough said. Although that being said, I do sympthaise because I know what it's like to lose a great friends.

I notice there are two sides to this issue, Ralle's side being -we want a great community etc. and don't want disobeying or rulebreaking admins and members. And the Conservative's or "Bring-back-the-banned", who want to bring back those banned (or at least some of them). People are failing to see the Third and Largest party here, the members of THW! We just want to help others out, host our projects up and download great resources! I am not sure what is to be done, or what must be done but please, if some people are trolling (having fun) etc. IGNORE them and get on with it, perman-bans or month bans seem wayyyy to harsh for things like that (unless you have literally warned them 2 or more times, which according to Ralle is the case for SOME of the banned people).

One more thing to comment on is the closeing of the RP thread which complexes me, why devote 15 admins to other things, but fail to perserve a crucial and lovely aspect, the Role Playing thread. Why not simply make sub-admisn for that threat from their more prominnent members who only have powers over that section? Seems a lot easier.

I do sincerely hope that this has been read not only by the admins but also by the members, to clear things up and get to real issue of the site discussion, us, the members, who suffer daily because of this!

 

[Karawasa]

Keep on dreaming buddy. Most of the people are involved in this mess. People who don't post much or don't contribute much...no one really cares what you think.

One more thing to comment on is the closeing of the RP thread which complexes me, why devote 15 admins to other things, but fail to perserve a crucial and lovely aspect, the Role Playing thread. Why not simply make sub-admisn for that threat from their more prominnent members who only have powers over that section? Seems a lot easier.

The answer is shameless redirection of people to a supposed affiliate of the site. An affiliate that requires a new account and has no connection to THW other than being called an affiliate.

 

[Levdragon]

I see, the RPdotcom, yes I agree it's a bit worrying, I fear it might detriment the integrity of the community of Hive.

 

[Karawasa]

I see, the RPdotcom, yes I agree it's a bit worrying, I fear it might detriment the integrity of the community of Hive.

Oh that integrity is long gone. Watch as your post vanishes lol.

 

[Levdragon]

Posts disappearing, oh dear... i'm sure mine will remain, they are valid and authentic points, questions and queries.

 

[The Dark Wizard]

Oh that integrity is long gone. Watch as your post vanishes lol.

I don't see anything disrespectful here, so I don't see why we would delete his/her post.

 

[I3lackDeath]

^
@TDW:
With all due respect, why did you close the Q&A thread? (I assume I can post this here, as it goes along with "what has just happened")

You could have simply appointed someone to delete all non-question posts, or, if you wouldn't have found someone to take care of that, simply ignore those posts and pick out the questions? (and I know that it got messy...)

 

[The Dark Wizard]

^
@TDW:
With all due respect, why did you close the Q&A thread? (I assume I can post this here, as it goes along with "what has just happened")

You could have simply appointed someone to delete all non-question posts, or, if you wouldn't have found someone to take care of that, simply ignore those posts and pick out the questions? (and I know that it got messy...)

It was closed due to how bad it got, Ralle was in agreement with me, in closing ir down.

However this thread is not here to become another Q&A. Let us not derail the thread.

 

[Stanakin]

You knew that would happen already, we all did.
Starting that thread while knowing this would happen meant you knew you would close it down without giving us our answers. I can only conclude it was a farce to make you look reasonable while you never intended to answer any of the more difficult/sensitive questions at all.
You have now pretty much destroyed this site and with it kicked the last life out of WC3 modding. This site has just lost another hundred of its resources.

Good bye.

 

[The Dark Wizard]

You knew that would happen already, we all did.
Starting that thread while knowing this would happen meant you knew you would close it down without giving us our answers. I can only conclude it was a farce to make you look reasonable while you never intended to answer any of the more difficult/sensitive questions at all.
You have now pretty much destroyed this site and with it kicked the last life out of WC3 modding. This site has just lost another hundred of its resources.

Good bye.

I apologize that you feel this way, however I did say that anyone who still wants their questions answered, could PM me and then I'd put it some where publicly and locked for all to see.

 

[Mecheon]

You knew that would happen already, we all did.
Starting that thread while knowing this would happen meant you knew you would close it down without giving us our answers. I can only conclude it was a farce to make you look reasonable while you never intended to answer any of the more difficult/sensitive questions at all.
You have now pretty much destroyed this site and with it kicked the last life out of WC3 modding. This site has just lost another hundred of its resources.

Good bye.

This isn't a solution, mate. Its called worsening things. That what you want to do?

So, sup, I'm Mecheon. Some of you might know me

What in the fuck has happened. Don't give me some non answer, tell me what is going on.

 

[Vengeancekael]

Recent events

@Mecheon, first Rui got demoted, which didn't cause too much drama because a lot of people already thought he was abusing his powers, etc.
But that wasn't the end of it apparently, later on he decided to delete some of his works, like "House of Rohan", which was a list of all the hive's staff, however Ralle disagreed and said that it belonged to him, so to stop Rui from deleting his other posts/threads, Ralle banned him and then changed the author of all of Rui's posts to Ralletester.
Then anarchianbedlam got demoted for not listening to Ralle's warnings about him harassing users, etc.
And shortly afterwards, a simple user like "The Dark Wizard" kicked DonDustin, another model mod from the chat, because Don was talking about his sudden demotion which was because of his "trolling". That was pretty much the start of the drama because apparently TDW had powers all along, but nobody knew that he was a mod and then he got the official position "Community Moderator" and Don has been asking ever since for some proof of his trolling.
Then later on Ralle stated that he was going to do a lot of changes to Staff because he felt like they weren't ready for what he envisioned for the site and so a lot of people like myself, left Staff, seeing how he and TDW were just handing out bans without any warnings to people, either for talking about the demotions/bans or actually not thinking the same way as Ralle and having a different opinion.
Ralle has hired a third-party mod, who is rather neutral, namely TDW, to look at the site and observe us mods and he is now helping Ralle rearrange the Staff.
(I may have missed out a few parts, but I think I got the important stuff in)
edit: Oh right a lot of people have also removed their resources, like Frankster (General Frank), Stanakin, etc. and have left the site. (-> protest, the site's not worthy of their resources, etc. See Red's (Red Shift) post here for a better explanation)
edit 2: Oh and the Staff has kicked in "Zero Tolerance", meaning they will be very strict and you will get banned very easily. You either have to accept the coming changes or just leave the site.
A lot of people are asking for proof of DonDustin's trolling, anarchian's bad behaviour, etc. however they haven't gotten that much info yet.
edit 3: Some things I've forgotten to mention: (Credits to Arcisal)

Bans were being thrown around casually. Posts were getting deleted. Much of the "respected" userbase of the Hive has more or less left it for dead and those who did have any resources took those along with them as well.

First there was the Moving Forward thread. That was a whole lot of batshit. Then Zero Tolerance was put in effect. Zero Tolerance essentially means any of the Hive staff can ban whoever whenever they want without warning if they deem a post disrespectful or detrimental to the site. A number of people have already been banned, namely Deolrin, OffGraphic, Phoonix, Linaze and whole bunch of others.

The people are mad. They're mad because someone whom Ralle refers to as "his trusted friend" comes in and destroys much of the community which Ralle himself wasn't even involved in.

edit 4: One final thing, Ralle doesn't want a big community anymore, he wants a healthy community, so basically Quality>Quantity, he doesn't care that a lot of experienced modders, etc. are leaving, he's going to fulfill his work and no one can convince him otherwise.


Also welcome back Mecheon!

 

[Arcisal]

@Mecheon: Continuing VKael's post.

Bans were being thrown around casually. Posts were getting deleted. Much of the "respected" userbase of the Hive has more or less left it for dead and those who did have any resources took those along with them as well.

First there was the Moving Forward thread. That was a whole lot of batshit. Then Zero Tolerance was put in effect. Zero Tolerance essentially means any of the Hive staff can ban whoever whenever they want without warning if they deem a post disrespectful or detrimental to the site. A number of people have already been banned, namely Deolrin, OffGraphic, Phoonix, Linaze and whole bunch of others.

The people are mad. They're mad because someone whom Ralle refers to as "his trusted friend" comes in and destroys much of the community which Ralle himself wasn't even involved in.

EDIT: And they closed the RP section of the forums which they claimed was subject spam and inactivity. Guess what, The Dark Wizard (Out new Community Manager) closed it. Oh and you know what, he owns another site called RPdom which is an official Hive affiliate, another topic which got Joe-black banned from chat. Ironic huh considering how we had an active RP gong on there and he closes the forums and then links to his own site.

 

[Yixx]

Finally some reasonable overview of recent events! I'm the guy who misses out on all this stuff always. Though, now I am curious for more detail

 

[Magtheridon96]

Reminds me of natural selection. (No offense to anyone, it's just that all the people who do not comply by the site rules are leaving along with those who use this site as a social network.)

 

[takakenji]

this is what happens when people take a forum too seriously

 

[Tarrasque]

Reminds me of natural selection. (No offense to anyone, it's just that all the people who do not comply by the site rules are leaving along with those who use this site as a social network.)

this is a site where users register to talk not only of warcraft. User are given the option to have friends lists, blocked user lists, pm, albums, etc. I think this is a social network and I see nothing wrong in it.

 

[Asomath]

People are failing to see the Third and Largest party here, the members of THW! We just want to help others out, host our projects up and download great resources!

Over a week ago, when everything was first starting, I made a PM and subsequent post in regards to this. Just to paraphrase:

The core community is very tumultuous right now. He needs to calm it down in order to prevent unnecessary fallout into the outer community, which is 90% of the site. If the “power struggle”... continues on too long, it can end up ruining the general user experience...the goal regarding the conflict is simple: The quicker it’s over, the better.

You see, this really shouldn't have happened, one side should have been able to push their opinions advantagiously. It wasnt supposed to continue on so long creating fallout.

So, yes, I apologize that the general user experience is hurting right now. I'm sorry that resources are being taken down in protest and that the RP section has been closed. This really should have been a simple conflict.

Cheers,
~Asomath

 

[fladdermasken]

Reminds me of natural selection. (No offense to anyone, it's just that all the people who do not comply by the site rules are leaving along with those who use this site as a social network.)

People you struggled like shit to get on the good side of, and people you will probably start badmouthing when that ups your standing in the eyes of residuary users.

Opportunism is so damn awesome.

 

[Mecheon]

Reminds me of natural selection. (No offense to anyone, it's just that all the people who do not comply by the site rules are leaving along with those who use this site as a social network.)

If so many people are opposing the rules, then there is a problem

Well, I see there's a good ruddy mess any way you slice it and this one isn't nearly as clearcut as just my old standby of telling some people to shut up and stop being dumb. I'll have a word with some people

 

[Sorceress]

It's over.. i cannot support a site that has absolutely no respect for it's members at all..
This will be my final goodbye, as long as TDW & Ralle keeps avoiding answering our questions, keep closing down threads, nothing good will happen.

I hope you people at the "top" enjoy losing more and more of your not so beloved community as time goes by...
~ Sorceress

(If anyone contacts me, i will probably not answer back.)

 

[Mecheon]

It's over.. i cannot support a site that has absolutely no respect for it's members at all..
This will be my final goodbye, as long as TDW & Ralle keeps avoiding answering our questions, keep closing down threads, nothing good will happen.

I hope you people at the "top" enjoy losing more and more of your not so beloved community as time goes by...
~ Sorceress

(If anyone contacts me, i will probably not answer back.)

You know what I said about people not helping and running around in a panic?

This is you. You are the problem. Not the solution

 

[Sorceress]

You know what I said about people not helping and running around in a panic?

This is you. You are the problem. Not the solution

Wow, you know how much your opinion matters in my head?
Zero.

 

[Mecheon]

Wow, you know how much your opinion matters in my head?
Zero.

Clearly enough you came back to respond

I'm kind of known here for having an attitude and fixing things. Leave if you want, I suppose, but wouldn't you prefer watching this to its end and gaining closure?

 

[Kitabatake]

I'm kind of known here for having an attitude and fixing things.

I'd just like to point out that having an attitude and trying to fix things seems to be a mighty fine way of getting yourself banned over here these days.

But since the site has gotten into this condition I suppose there's nothing to lose anyway.

 

[Mecheon]

I'd just like to point out that having an attitude and trying to fix things seems to be a mighty fine way of getting yourself banned over here these days.

But since the site has gotten into this condition I suppose there's nothing to lose anyway.

Got us through the last time we had a drama bomb

If nothing else, I can guarantee excitement

 

[MGCǂSpectre]

Your attitude is known to everyone from the past, Mecheon, it doesn't help in this case, though ))

(for the record, I was a guy in my early times that annoyed you in the Request forum with asking for models from Empire Earth and you asked why would anyone care to do models from some random game for me? - well I got 10 models done finally, in 2008 I believe ^.^)

 

[Kitabatake]

Got us through the last time we had a drama bomb

If nothing else, I can guarantee excitement

I don't recall the last drama bomb being launched with a Stalin style "Great Purge", or being followed by a declaration that the new administration will start banning people without warning.


In any case, I wish you good luck in your effort!

 

[Mecheon]

I don't recall the last drama bomb being launched with a Stalin style "Great Purge", or being followed by a declaration that the new administration will start banning people without warning.


In any case, I wish you good luck in your effort!

Dude, I banned like, 5 mods last time that happened

People got incredibly worried when they saw my rank was "Rule Enforcer"

 

[Bernkastel]

All this is shallow-minded.

I would like to note that people leaving with the reason; that their questions are either not answered or people get banned/demoted, It's simply stupid.
Let's think about it like this:
Would the government answer all your questions? If someone who had a high authority in the government would be put off their post or fired, would would they have to tell you all the details why this was done? No.
The information they want to give is given to you and you should not act like they didn't answer. Would you then leave your country? I doubt that.


The fact that the staff will easily scold you is because there has been enough rule breaking to justify them to do that.
The rules have been thought as something insignificant and you could break the rules every now and then as you wouldn't probably get anything but some negative reputation or a warning.
It's something that should teach you to follow the rules instead of making a fool out of yourself.
Also, so many are afraid to be banned. I wouldn't say that you need to be afraid, if you don't go fool and do anything stupid.


I hope I made myself clear about being tired about everyone asking the same questions and no matter if you're getting unsatisfying information which won't be enough for your need of knowledge, you have to accept the things that happen and just keep going forward to the future.

If you however decide to give up and leave and either say that it's because this place is dying or you're doing it because your friends did the same. That way you'll only aid in destroying this site what in your opinion is what the staff does. Leaving will only show how weak and fragile you are.

If Ralle decides that it's time for a change, then it's time for a change.
Accept the current events, child of a man.

 

[HappyTauren]

Dude, I banned like, 5 mods last time that happened

People got incredibly worried when they saw my rank was "Rule Enforcer"

I remember those golden times. I even think I was one of those people, but it was still golden. Ah, nostalgia...

 

[I3lackDeath]

You know what I said about people not helping and running around in a panic?

This is you. You are the problem. Not the solution

In a panic? How does her post signify panic? It shows frustration and disappointment. And people who say they "leave" "come back" for various reasons (habit, watching and the like).
I completely understand her point of view. I myself have calmed down to the point where I see this as nothing but a charade. If it gets interesting, I might post something here and there. That's all there is to it. Hive does not offer a future for many users anymore, so atleast let us enjoy the play.

 

[Mecheon]

In a panic? How does her post signify panic? It shows frustration and disappointment. And people who say they "leave" "come back" for various reasons (habit, watching and the like).
I completely understand her point of view. I myself have calmed down to the point where I see this as nothing but a charade. If it gets interesting, I might post something here and there. That's all there is to it. Hive does not offer a future for many users anymore, so atleast let us enjoy the play.

Because there's a whole smack of people all leaving at once, all following each other

 

[I3lackDeath]

That may be, but don't make the mistake of counting them as one movement.

 

[nickel510]

Hey Levdragon! Not sure if you remember me, I was working on a risk map when I met you and I can't remember what map you were working on.

There's a lot of drama going on in the forums, but I agree with you that the majority of the people who use this site for its main purpose, to make maps, don't care about whats been going on with the admins and the few users who get banned unless its actually effected their projects (for me thats mainly the models that users are taking down, and I suspect thats what most mapmakers will care the most about too). Not that I blame you for making this thread, but as you can already see the replies are 90% opinion and, in my opinion, totally off-topic. You wanted to know whats been happening, the best way to do that is probably to read Ralle's announcement explaining what has happened and maybe skim The Dark Wizard's answers in the AUAA thread that is now closed. You can find both sides of the argument in the AUAA thread and also get an idea of what the current problem is.

After doing a little looking around, I haven't found any hard evidence for what demoted, banned people were accused of doing, but I haven't found anything that would defend these people either. Apparently, most of the things people were banned for has been deleted, like threads and posts, or it would never been visible to us users, like admins abusing power, or it happened in the hive chat so there's no way for us to see what people actually said (unless Ralle were to post something).

IMO, all the whining, complaining and flaming is drowning out anything worth reading whenever this topic is brought up, so I'd just stick to official announcements unless you want to submerge youself in all this drama. I see no reason why Ralle would lie to us, and the only alternative to reading his announcements is to read hardcore forum users bitch and complain about things that most of us who map make don't care about when we use The Hive Workshop.

Hit me up if you want to chat some more Lev, I'm still playing on east.

 

[Stanakin]

So basically, you are saying you don't care if the people who made those resources and uploaded them here for you to use get treated like dogshit, and get called 'nothing but harmful to the site'. You only care about the resources themselves, because you may need them.
Awesome.

 

[Skycraft]

So basically, you are saying you don't care if the people who made those resources and uploaded them here for you to use get treated like dogshit, and get called 'nothing but harmful to the site'. You only care about the resources themselves, because you may need them.
Awesome.

That's Hive 2.0 in a nutshell.

 

[Bernkastel]

I do wonder.. Is it actually the resources that make these people so important to those who are defending them?

As if I went to insult or troll certain users on some thread and the posts would be deleted, and only the person who banned me for the insults had seen them.
I could say that I wouldn't have the whole hiveworkshop here asking why was I banned as I would not be seen as a person of great importance, because I had not been providing you resources. But what if I had made a lot of resources for the site in my time? I bet then my banning would raise a lot of questions even though most had seen me as a nice person.

If you ask me, the people who give us those resources are not one bit more important than any other user. If they break the rules they should be punished without any exceptions such as 'this user has been providing as a lot of useful resources, due this we are not banning him for insulting the users of this site'.

Those who have now faced the great equalizer of death, have faced it for a reason.
Let these things fall behind and let's continue to move on, gutto desu~

 

[Stanakin]

No, it is the principle that people who put hundreds of hours of work into making things for this site can get suddenly banned and get their memory insulted for supposedly doing things we're not even allowed to see.

if you ask me, the people who give us those resources are not one bit more important than any other user.

Like this site would even exist if it weren't for the people who uploaded their resources. Why would people who actually give to the site, instead of just taking from it what they need, not be considered more important? I don't imply that a different set of rules should count for them than for other people, [edit] I'm just saying that from a factual point of view, they have been more important than useres with 10 posts who don't do anything but download resources

 

[The Dark Wizard]

Just a friendly reminder after reading over this thread, if you all presist on getting at each other's throat, the thread will be closed and these type of threads will not be allowed any more. I'm tired of closing them.

Let's not ruin the discussion for everyone by attacking each other.

 

[Bernkastel]

I do apologize if I show signs of aggression, but I do have to admit that I am tired of all these accusions that have been thrown around lately.

 

[Stanakin]

I'm sorry, but I don't see anyone attacking anyone. I just see people who have different opinions and having a discussion about them and telling it like we think it is.

You know, what forums are for.

 

[Levdragon]

Nickel I am on WC3 East, I'm AgeOfPower . And to TDW, is there any chance that the RP section will ever be reopened? Perhaps a prominent member of the RP group there can be promoted to a moderator of that section only? I just feel it makes a lot more sense to do that then to ship our members offshore.

 

[Bernkastel]

In my opinion it would be good to have it opened and have a person to oversee it.
However, I'm not sure if the moderator should be one who takes part in the roleplays, but simply someone to take care that there won't be any hassle in there.

But ofcourse, I am not the one to decide any of this.

 

[ronthewk]

Huh, wait a second, I've heard somewhere that the Dark Wizard has an RP site, RPDom, no? Why can't he be the Roleplaying moderator? :S

 

[Levdragon]

Because he has his own site to moderate me thinks? But I do think that could actually work well, TDW could become the moderator of this role playing section aswell. What if, to make it better, have 2/3 moderators at different time zones for the RP section? That would help sort out bad things, in fact, if more lesser power moderators be made for all the sections of the hive, that would sort out quite a lot of issues with trolls, spam etc.

 

[Asomath]

if more lesser power moderators be made for all the sections of the hive, that would sort out quite a lot of issues with trolls, spam etc.

Mini-moderators did exist at one point for the maps section (maybe others too). The position was later abolished, in favor of user reviews, which was then also removed. The mini-mod position was found abundantly useless to some extent, as basically the powers they had were to vote as to whether or not a map should be approved, but they themselves STILL required a moderator to review the reviews and then issue and approval.

If, however, you are referring to forum moderation instead of resources. Another reason that there have been a lot of demotions and "resignations" is that that Ralle is moving towards a more concise, compacted, and generalized staff. He's removing the desire for "Specialized" positions, so instead of 3 moderators moderating specific sections, 1 moderator can cover all categories. Thus, the idea of more specialized mini-section moderators seems to contradict that purpose.

~Asomath

 

[nickel510]

So basically, you are saying you don't care if the people who made those resources and uploaded them here for you to use get treated like dogshit, and get called 'nothing but harmful to the site'. You only care about the resources themselves, because you may need them.
Awesome.

You're patrenizing me about being selfish because I'm not trying to defend some people over the internet who were unjustly banned or demoted on a forum? People who I never met, didn't know in the slightest and was never involved with. And even though I've never seen any evidence to prove that they were innocent of what Ralle accused them of doing you still think I should do something about it? And what would that accomplish anyways? Has any of the complaints, accusations and attacks against the staff and what they've been doing had any positive effect?

And if I'm so selfish, what about modelers/skinners who took down their resources? They just made their resources totally unavialable to anyone that might have benefited from using their model/skin. Why aren't these modelers/skinners making their resources available to the people who would actually benefit from them? I'm not saying they should upload them on the Hive, but what about wc3.net or anywhere that map makers could access them? They don't care about the people who want to use their resources, they just care about how they're being treated. Awesome.

Edit: Stanakin did uploaded his resources on the wc3.net yesterday. I thank him for that. Sorry for indicating otherwise in my post, its been a couple days since I've checked that site. However I still think my point is still valid because he seems to be the exception rather then the rule.

 

[Fussiler1]

You're patrenizing me about being selfish because I'm not trying to defend some people over the internet who were supposedly unjustly banned or demoted on a forum dedicated to a video game? People who I never met, didn't know in the slightest and was never involved with. Sorry, I have a life to worry about.

And if I'm so selfish, what about users like you who took down their resources? You just made your resources totally unavialable to anyone that might have benefited from using your model/skin. Why aren't any of these modelers/skinners making their resources available to the people who actually want to use them? I'm not saying you should do it on the Hive, but what about wc3.net or anywhere that map makers could access them? You don't care about the people who want to use your resources, you just care about how your being treated. Awesome.

Mhm, most people also have their resources uploaded at WC3C and TheHelper. Stanakin also uploaded them on WC3C.

 

[Direfury]

You people are just too used to all the filth that's been running around freely. As far as I'm concerned, the site was better before, around the time I was still learning how to do 3D modelling.

I'm glad to see the change, even if a few welcome, familiar faces are gone.