Strat and TSN

Of course there is always more anyone can do about a million things- lets take some examples:

perhaps you missed the many letters I both posted here and sent directly to SoM including letters sent to his Hal-ness????

Perhaps you missed the many times both myself and others attempted to get the ball rolling to make some changes?

Perhaps you missed the many times I added my signature to petitions people had to do something very specific?


But yes, Im sure you are right- implying that the community could do more is not outright saying that the community needs to be more responsible- not mentioning the company of course doesnt specifically mean they have to take responsibility, merely implies it...

You know I used to be very diplomatic in explaining to people why they are wrong- just dont have that kind of patience anymore.
Look, I have nothing against you personally- Im just more than fed up with any implication that the responsible party doesn't need to be the people who have direct control of the product.

So yeah- I can do more- sure- but maybe just maybe after begging and pleading for years Im waiting for the other side to make a move...but, yeah, I can do more- good thinking...

I make no claims that I'm an expert at this game; at best, I'm mediocre. But I've been playing online for more than 10 years so I qualify myself as a semi-veteran. My enjoyment of the game itself is still nearly as high as ever, but I really do miss the give-and-take of the old ATG forum, where opinions on players, management strategy and baseball itself could be traded with impunity. Now, there is rarely much of interest to me there.

The biggest reason for this was because SOM drew far too hard and too deep a line on what constituted legitimate forum content. Complaints about the transition from TSN to SOM or the latter's response to these complaints suddenly became illegitimate content, which was made perfectly clear in advance by SOM. Then the censorship ensued, followed by self-censorship from a lot of frequent (and valuable) contributors, many of whom simply quit the game. Then, the company made it even worse by declaring that there would be no response to ANY forum complaint, other than through the help desk. (In SOM's defense, some of the criticism was over-the-top, demands phrased in language that even I, a veteran newspaperman who has covered everything from the cop shop to the White House, found offensive.)

In a way, this was predictable: For the better part of 50 years, SOM provided a product that was badly needed by us fanatics, and it provided that product extremely capably to an ever-increasing number of satisfied customers. I doubt that it had to deal with very many complaints, and those that had to be dealt with were handled over the phone. Suddenly, after the takeover from TSN, SOM found itself deluged--in a public forum--with a whole bunch of criticism (a small part of which was extremely abusive) that didn't help attract newcomers drawn to the online game by their board or CD Rom experiences. I don't believe that management was prepared for this (and certainly wasn't entirely prepared for the switchover, a process that happened with too little preparation and too many gaffes).

I may be alone in this thought, but it seems the company may be trying to self-correct the communications problem without admitting that it's doing so. John Garcia's recent blogs have acknowledged a few issues, with promises that they will be addressed. And the help desk, which I have used more than a dozen times, has resolved my problems (most of them self-caused) almost immediately, including fixing a gaffe within a couple of hours on a Sunday no less.

Hopefully, SOM will continue on this path, which may be sufficient to preserve the online game for those of us who are left. But I'm afraid the ATG forum that I used to love is gone forever.

Firstly, nice rolly-eyes...they're quite cute. But, I'm sure you're well aware they don't aptly substitute for actual arguments, and they certainly don't here.

But yes, Im sure you are right- implying that the community could do more is not outright saying that the community needs to be more responsible- not mentioning the company of course doesnt specifically mean they have to take responsibility, merely implies it...

No it doesn't, it merely and accurately states and implies that we community members also have to work to improve the community and what we can do to do so.

You know I used to be very diplomatic in explaining to people why they are wrong- just dont have that kind of patience anymore.
Look, I have nothing against you personally- Im just more than fed up with any implication that the responsible party doesn't need to be the people who have direct control of the product.

I have nothing against you personally either. In fact, you seem like a cool guy who has been frustrated by SOM's communication problems, which I acknowledged in previous posts do exist. But again, I never implied that responsibility doesn't lie with the "people who have direct control of the product." I said and implied that the community members also have responsibility to do what we can, since we can do it, and we are the ones who both suffer from the community's current state and would enjoy its improved one.

So yeah- I can do more- sure- but maybe just maybe after begging and pleading for years Im waiting for the other side to make a move...but, yeah, I can do more- good thinking...

Again, I'm sure you have sufficient reason to be pissed, but if you truly want an improved community, you should work to improve what you can as you can, not just wait for those who have frustrated you and let you down. But if the process has exhausted you, I completely understand.

First Tom(bontoman)- always enjoy what you have to say; please keep chiming in.
Have always found your perspective valuable.


Second-
Remember, the thread asked what caused the issue of many of the vets to leave the game from the TSN days.
Once we accurately address that- then by all means, post another thread about what can be done to improve the situation we currently find ourselves in- but lets not mislead people about who bears the onus for where we are today.

Third-
Im equally burnt out from battling with the powers that be and not making much progress, and addressing some of the folks who don't want to simply acknowledge how easily thing could have been different had everyone spoken and/or taken a stand.
While Im not including you I.Strether in the group of people who argued that SoM didn't need to do anything more than they were doing, it would have been great had you been amongst the many people who argued as passionately as you are doing now for better communication with the community from SoM.


PPS- I am very interested in the question about Ernie Banks- I dont know the answer but am curious b/c Im quite sure there is an important point being made.

Second-
Remember, the thread asked what caused the issue of many of the vets to leave the game from the TSN days.
Once we accurately address that- then by all means, post another thread about what can be done to improve the situation we currently find ourselves in- but lets not mislead people about who bears the onus for where we are today.

Again, you keep misrepresenting me and my posts by saying I'm "misleading people about who bears the onus for where we are today." I never said nor implied that in my posts. I would tell you to show me where I did, but you and I both know you can't. However, you should quote me directly if you're going to keep making such inaccurate accusations. I have always said and implied that both SOM and its subscribers can and should do all we can to improve the community and forum. And no, neither I nor anyone else has to nor should wait for SOM to right their previous errors before we do what we can to also improve the forum; that would be apathetic and unproductive. I plan to put up similar posts in the General forum, and maybe the Mystery Games forum. If the ATG community as a whole wants to wait for SOM to move first, I have no intention to persuade it otherwise.

Third-
Im equally burnt out from battling with the powers that be and not making much progress, and addressing some of the folks who don't want to simply acknowledge how easily thing could have been different had everyone spoken and/or taken a stand.
While Im not including you I.Strether in the group of people who argued that SoM didn't need to do anything more than they were doing, it would have been great had you been amongst the many people who argued as passionately as you are doing now for better communication with the community from SoM.

I completely sympathize with you here, and I in no way doubt the legitimacy of your past complaints or SOM's failures to meet or even address them. I wish I was with you then, too. However, I do hope to be with you in such future battles, and I hope, when you're ready, we can both work with others to revitalize our somewhat-wilted community.

Jason (L.Strether)

So will anyone answer the Ernie Banks question? I'm interested in what it is?

Also, I like the whiners and complainers, since I'm included in them by I.strether, although to be precise so as not to have I.strether reply saying he didn't mention anything about me personally or mention me by name, I am one of the users who stated the cost of 20.00 was too high for a team in online strat.

Whiners and complainers make forums active. I never thought of myself as one, I always thought of myself as a person who likes to criticize things that I find incorrect. But for most, if you criticize something you are a whiner or a complainer to persons who think what you are criticizing doesn't deserve the criticism. To those who agree with you, it's different. They look on you as criticizing not complaining.

So I will take on the moniker of a complainer, I don't mind.

I would like to address another thing.

Some people, I don't remember who exactly, I'm too lazy to go through all the posts I have read to find the exact people. But some people have mentioned to me and other complainers that, I will paraphrase here, that if online strat is too expensive, or not good enough, or has too many issues, why do we keep playing it? I take that to mean that by continuing to play it negates the complaints about it. Negates the arguments against it.

Meaning, because you complained strat is too expensive, yet you still continue to play, then obviously, strat can't be too expensive to you at all. Or if strat has too many issues with its gameplay, yet you still play it, then those gameplay issues aren't as big of a deal as should be complained about.

Or to put it more bluntly, your criticism is b.s. because if you thought the game was too expensive, or too issue-y, or not good enough, you wouldn't continue playing it or spending money on it.

That argument makes sense but its wrong when describing people like me. How it is wrong, is what differentiates the compaliners from the criticizers. Complainers leave because they feel personally wronged in some way by the game, see it as unfair. Criticizers make critical statements, it is not an emotional thing but a critical thing and they make those statements because they care about the thing they criticize. If they didn't care, they wouldn't waste their time saying anything.

I continue to play the game because I love the game, I have been playing it on and off since the early 80s. I go away for awhile, when I need to take care of other things, but I always come back. I like to point out things that for me would improve the game. I personally think I am not a complainer, but if others think I am, I'm ok with that. It won't affect my posts on this forum. Personally, I think that when I became a forum contributor, the forum itself has taken on new life. Many of the topics I have started or commented on have sparked some lively debate. Criticizers or complainers tend to do that to forums, hence the reason why I like them, and don't mind being included among them.

So now I have a new moniker, call me Scott the Complainer

Thank you for your attention to my comments,

Scott the Complainer

I love Strat. Loved it playing the board game in the early 80's and love it with the online version now.
However until a new version of cards, new pricing or something that will cause an impact, I will continue to drastically cut back on the amount of teams I play.

Keep it up and SOM will censor and lock this thread.

I.strether you are a little late to this "party". Where were you during the switch over? You could have been telling SOM they could be doing more to address the community and in turn the community would step up and also do more. Instead they start by treating the community as know nothing imbeciles.
When they switched over from TSN and we heard that they would have three programmers, we thought great, Bernie times three. First thing they did was put a muzzle on Bernie. SOM would not lower themselves to actually communicate with us. In Bernies day, he would read the wish list and pick it apart somewhat, saying what is realistic and what won't ever happen. No immediate results but he acknowledged our ideas. Now the wish list never gets a mention. Does SOM know it is even there? They should, they put it there. How about after two years worth of input, telling us they actually read it sometimes?
Sure the community can do more to make this a friendlier forum and game but most are treading lightly after watching many of our friends get chewed up and spit out for actually voicing their opinion. Most stood their ground for a while thinking logic would prevail while others just left the game because of the lack of respect SOM showed their paying customers. On their way out, they and we all predicted this exact outcome. A dying community with mostly only the complacent ones sticking around. SOM weeded out all of the passionate community members, making for a bland and boring forum.
We could have used you during the transition to help tell SOM the importance of communication. You are correct in that all we have is for what's left of the community, to step up and make this a more friendly enjoyable environment but that would be much easier if the SOM approach wasn't anti compassion.

I.strether you are a little late to this "party". Where were you during the switch over? You could have been telling SOM they could be doing more to address the community and in turn the community would step up and also do more. Instead they start by treating the community as know nothing imbeciles.
When they switched over from TSN and we heard that they would have three programmers, we thought great, Bernie times three. First thing they did was put a muzzle on Bernie. SOM would not lower themselves to actually communicate with us. In Bernies day, he would read the wish list and pick it apart somewhat, saying what is realistic and what won't ever happen. No immediate results but he acknowledged our ideas. Now the wish list never gets a mention. Does SOM know it is even there? They should, they put it there. How about after two years worth of input, telling us they actually read it sometimes?
Sure the community can do more to make this a friendlier forum and game but most are treading lightly after watching many of our friends get chewed up and spit out for actually voicing their opinion. Most stood their ground for a while thinking logic would prevail while others just left the game because of the lack of respect SOM showed their paying customers. On their way out, they and we all predicted this exact outcome. A dying community with mostly only the complacent ones sticking around. SOM weeded out all of the passionate community members, making for a bland and boring forum.
We could have used you during the transition to help tell SOM the importance of communication. You are correct in that all we have is for what's left of the community, to step up and make this a more friendly enjoyable environment but that would be much easier if the SOM approach wasn't anti compassion.

Hey, 6 team leagues, leagues with computer generated random player pools, those were high on the list!