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3/14/2007 5:58:40 AM
232
The 7th Column, The Community, It's Guy, and The Lack There Of
[b]The 7th Column, The Community, It's Guy, and The Lack There Of[/b]
[i]Let me begin by saying what follows is not my rant, but as I agree with most of it I believe it should be posted. If I am wrong for this then I will recieve my just 'reward' but it must be said. I will not reveal the identity of said ranter for his own privacy reasons. Enjoy!
*note: This was written before the announcement of the new Bungie.net*[/i]
Part 1:
You asked for this. Here goes. :3
Let me commence by stating that the problem with the Bungie.net community is deep rooted. I don’t like to blame the web team with any scathing conviction because they have provided the site that, at least formerly, hosted a really good community. However, SketchFactor apparently gave up even before the “upgraded” column was implemented – he was after all the Community Guy whose responsibilities, theoretically, included the interaction with the good persons of the Seventh Column. I was never around too long before the change so I have no grounds on which to argue that he was ever actively involved, but the fact of that matter is that when I and some of my friends submitted our chapters for approval (as was the former custom), he accepted them. The spotlight, too, had been fairly frequently updated.
I understand that there are slightly higher concerns than a thriving community of well-mannered, Bungie-loving individuals – the professional needs for a sleek site with job offers and interaction with Halo 2, for example. It’d be ignorant in the extreme to pretend said necessities do not exist. But how many times have we been told that Bungie.net is not a business site – it’s a community site? The answer, should you wonder, is very often indeed.
I’ll be up front and admit that some of the things done with the site are amazing, not least the full integration of the various modules as one easy-to-navigate conglomeration. I’ve always liked the forums as they, in my opinion at least, look the part, and are so very easy to use. There’s no unnecessary formatting; you just hit reply or new topic, type what you want, and hit submit. Nothing could be simpler. Since I’d never used a forum before that time, it was the perfect way to get started.
Also engaging was the Seventh Column. An invite from a prominent founder via Private Message introduced me to it, and it was excellent: lots of databases and plenty of room for personalisation and creativity, plus scope for organising chapter-wide events. This little communities thrived as one and interacted with one another publicly, also, where great friendships were made and inter-chapter events established. In fact, that was the purpose of the 7th Column Community Page, which died at about the same time as the Spotlight and news.
Priorities seem to be wrong, also. I refuse to believe that a search feature – and repeat threads will surface, especially in the absence of constant new discussion material and in the presence of the ridiculous “don’t dig up old threads” regulation – is more crucial to a community site than the community itself. Surely resources would have been better spent on the 7th Column in one way or another.
And so many empty promises. Nobody expects miracles, but when fanfests, an updated column, more interaction from Bungie and a community that has official support are pledged, it’s saddening when they are not fulfilled, and more so when they simply fade away without even a “no, that’s not going to happen”. I wouldn’t will them all to attend massive fan gatherings, because, let’s face it, no other game developers do, but the fact that it’s happened before and future events were promised makes it that little bit worse. I’d much rather see a fantastic Halo 3 than direct community interaction, as I’m sure we all would, but surely the purpose of a site for the community and Bungie’s having of a community team is to interact with their fans? But Bungie is just the core, the very heart of a system composed of many more organs, blood, bones and flesh.
[Edited on 3/13/2007]
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[quote][b]Posted by:[/b] x Foman123 x Being a reader, I am always inclined to read carefully written and long posts with much more interest and care than a short post. This post was no exception, and I read the whole thing carefully. Please keep that in mind as you read this reply further. I am going to disagree with those people who say it is well-written. But to be fair, I write persuasive and argumentative pieces for a living; my standards may be a bit high. I want to respond at length to this rant, and although I know that anything more than three paragraphs long on these forums is unlikely to be read thoroughly, I believe that most of the Septagon knows my posts well enough for this to catch your attention. Throughout this post, I will refer to "you." When I say that, I am referring to the original poster - not snowman, but whomever he posted for. [b][u]This Is Not the Bungie Soap Opera[/b][/u] I am too old for the social games we all used to play in high school. I remember them well, and your rant smacks of trying to revive or transpose them onto a video game developer's website. [b]I resent you for attempting to do this.[/b] And I think that "resent" is possibly not strong enough a word. I resent you [i]and anybody and everybody else who feeds into this[/i] for attempting to turn a fun and lighthearted way to kill time during my workday into a horrifying, juvenile, intimidating melodrama. I am in my late twenties, a fully grown man with an undergraduate and a graduate professional degree. Despite the large amount of time I spend here, perhaps I see things through a different lens, as my job takes me all over the world and my co-workers and clients are people with real power - CEOs of some of the world's largest corporations, politicians with names that I guarantee you would recognize, and attorneys/judges who have helped to mold and change the laws that affect our daily lives. So excuse me if I fail to see how becoming or not becoming a moderator on Bungie isn't the most important goal in the world. I was popular in high school, as I was an all-star football player and a straight-A student, so please don't think that I am simply being a "sore loser" when I say that I was thrilled to leave the gossiping, sophomoric, worthless discussions that my "popular" friends got into far behind. Your attempt to revive this kind of false social hierarchy on this website is offensive beyond words to me. Perhaps I am being a bit harsh. I do not want to sound dismissive. The following statement will sound like a cliche, but I say it honestly and from the bottom of my heart: I believe that you have seen too many episodes of "The Real World" and its ilk. It must be realized that this is not a reality TV show or a soap opera, and we are not actors in a melodrama. When viewed through the lens of melodrama and politics, everything seems to have more weight and impact. When it comes down to it, this is a video game website. Even being a moderator is not "real" power - it is perceived power. Sure, they can ban you, or whatever, and they get special text, but when it comes down to it, a moderator is still a guy just sitting at his computer - just like you. You claim that you were "used" as someone else's springboard to power. In keeping with this "soap opera" theme, you seem to feel betrayed and dismayed by some other unnamed person's promotion to moderator over you. Well you know what? Boo hoo. I -- along with many other non-moderators who post regularly in the Septagon -- would love to become a moderator. I have a genuine interest in the Community and I am a huge Bungie fan. I do what I can to help the Community, trying to come up with new ideas, post intelligently at all hours of the day and night, discuss others' posts thoroughly using logic and reason rather than emotion and insults, pass along "bad posts" to the forum moderators, and even help Gods Prophet to run The Guide, so that new users just getting involved in the 7th Column have a place to go to find interesting information, reviews, and interviews. I have done what I can to distinguish myself in this Community, and I think that I would make a great moderator. I could lay out the reasons here, but I do not feel that this is the appropriate place to engage in shameless self-promotion. Instead, my point is to say that if I never "get the promotion," I will not feel slighted or betrayed in any way. I do not want to be a moderator for the power, but rather to help the Community. And that is what YOU and every other person in this Community (moderators and regular members alike) should similarly desire. As long as someone is helping to clean things up and keeping things active and intelligent, I will be happy to spend my free time here on bungie.net. Moderator or not. I do admit to wanting to become a moderator, but not for power reasons. Rather, to help this FUN and ENTERTAINING WEBSITE be more interesting. You haughtily refer to a 7th Column "aristocracy" and "upper class," using the words that you know have a negative connotation in order to imply your apparent disapproval of this stratification. You seem to forget that even you admitted that some people who post here are morons and some are clearly more intelligent than others. I see absolutely nothing wrong with attempting to distinguish oneself by posting intelligently, nor with preferring to associate and identify with peers who one sees as similarly intelligent or creative. To do so does not mean that you are elitist, but rather that you prefer to a have a place on bungie.net where you do not have to wade through forum games, spam, and classified ads just to find an intelligent and meaningful discussion. If you turn these forums into some kind of ridiculous false power game, you will inevitably start to see ghosts that are not there and feel betrayed if you are not the individual to "rise up the social ladder" (or however you put it). [b][u]The Latest Batch of Moderators[/b][/u] I must forcefully and emphatically disagree with any notion that the "latest batch" of moderators is some kind of failure. Such a statement or implication is an obscene miscarriage of the truth - even if it IS based entirely on some anonymous person's subjective ideas of what makes a good moderator. In my role for The Guide, I have had the opportunity to have extremely in-depth conversations with many of our forum moderators. I have asked them pointed and blunt questions and seen nothing but a genuine desire to help the Community. I know what power-hunger looks like, and I also know that a person who is truly power-hungry will not be drawn to a video game website. What you find in the more distinguished ranks of the Bungie Community are people who genuinely want to help and exchange thoughtful ideas, and make things easier for all to navigate. That is what it IS and SHOULD BE about. Nothing more. The moderators whom I have interviewed for the Guide have not only said that they have a genuine interest in helping the Community, but proved it by being ruthless but fair in locking bad threads, banning bad users, and contributing to the Community in wholly meaningful, intelligent, and helpful ways. I am not an ass-kisser, and make no mistake: I am not going to be kissing the ass of some person who is ten years younger than me merely because they type in white text. But I am going to be fair. And that means calling you and your false statements out for the self-serving, despicable lies that they are. [b][u]Conclusion[/u][/b] In conclusion, I believe that you feel pretty great about yourself after writing this. It seems to me that the [i]primary[/i] purpose of the post is not motivated by a desire to help the Community, but rather a desire to make yourself feel self-righteous about the fact that you are not a moderator. Ironically, you not only had no choice in not becoming a moderator, but you even [i]wanted[/i] it badly enough to feel betrayed when someone else became a moderator over you. I despise this thread because it adds nothing to the Community and nothing to the fun and entertainment value of bungie.net. Instead, this thread attempts to take something fun and entertaining that I love and turn it into the halls of my high school / a reality TV show. For this reason, I will not be responding any further in this thread. Instead, I'm going to head over to the Halo 3 forum and discuss X Button theories and graphics. This thread cannot and will not take the fun of the Bungie website away from me.[/quote] Quoted for truth. I could not agree more with this post, even tho I could never post with as much eliquence and style as Foman. This site is supposed to be fun, and you are turning it into a reality show. Please, please, please stop. [Edited on 3/14/2007]
