[QUOTE="michaelP4"]Okay, will generally address the points put forward. Will start with Gallion-Beast: Community policing: unions have always been subjected ultimately to the ToU. They had the option to be exclusive but most remained inclusive of anyone who wanted to contribute. Troublesome users will still be dealt with just like they always have been. Unions were never really given the powers to properly deal with them - there was nothing you could really do apart from relying on the mods to deal with them, formally speaking. Informally, a PM or social pressure was the most that could be done to get bad users to fall in line - this usually works, with extra formal steps being able to be taken if necessary. Leaders (and officers? I'm not sure) can eject users from the union (without changing settings to invite only). From the unions perspective, this is equivalent to a ban on any other forum. That people ejected from unions are not deprived of any other gamespot services is pretty irrelevant. At the RPG Temple, we have had cases in the past where new users couldn't respect other people's opinions and after being given a chance and appropriate social pressure weren't willing to change. And it's perfectly possible for such users to continue acting that way without openly breaking the TOS.
Not only that, but there is usually a mod or two at the bigger unions that can help in this regard - so unions could form a partnership with this mod to help out in keeping the peace.michaelP4
While I have on very rare occasions seen a mod post in a union, no union I've frequented in my 8 years of gamespotting has had an active mod. I'm sure there are unions with active mod members, but it doesn't address anything because they're still stuck rigidly to making decisions from the TOS and taking actions that effect the user across the entire site. Permabanning someone is obviously never going to be as easy as ejecting users from a union.
2. Unions own rules: true, but believe me, from experience, you will have to draw up clear lines and if/when necessary, enforce them. GS has always taken care of this - doing it in a more insular and personal level can make things trickier. Certainly easier to rely on an outside independent and non-personal force to do this and make non-biased judgements.michaelP4
You're in or you're out. When everyone's a group of friends, things are a lot simpler. it's the way we've been operating for years, and it works great.
3. Yes - but in another site, they'll be able to go much further than that. Actual moderating, suspensions and bannings. I don't think every union officer and leader would have the skills, experience or intuition to make such calls sensibly. Of course, this would be something they'd need to sort out and keep control of, but this time you won't be able to blame GS if something goes wrong.michaelP4
Moderations resulting in removal from forum: As mentioned above Unions have this, it just doesn't effect any other boards. Moderations resulting in suspension: Wildly unnecessary in a small community, if someone's bad enough to warrant a suspension, they're not welcome, and can be removed instead. Moderations with no penalty: Pointless
4. That and things like blogs, levels, events etc. Also, again, unions were never really given that much control - that's really an illusion. The mods and ultimately, the admins control things around here.michaelP4
Blogs are a decent feature, if not one I've looked at in years. Levels I wouldn't really call a feature, and certainly not one worth using the site for, they just exist and do nothing. Events I know literally nothing about, so i can't speak for anyone else in that regard. Mods are pretty much totally irrelevant to unions other than the fact that they could theoretically see TOS violations in boards they're rarely a part of. I haven't seen anyone doubting admins controlling things, destruction of communities is certainly control, yessiree. [QUOTE="michaelP4"]The compromise: of course this isn't the ideal situation. We want unions to stay; they want unions to go. Two opposite sides. Can't please everyone or reconcile completely, but the compromise we have now is honestly the best we're going to get if you want your community to continue on GS. Let's not forget this is the first time ever really GS has acknowledged its done wrong and is at least trying to do something. I'd like to reciprocate that generosity of spirit by at least trying to make things work in the new GS. Remember, without GS in the first place, there wouldn't be any unions at all - so I'm always mindful not to bite the hand that feeds you. So ultimately, it's up to the communities themselves on what way they want to go. One thing that's sure though is the unions feature will be going - nothing can stop that. What won't be going now is the communities - essentially what they are. This is a victory - we've won this battle. I'd be happy with what we have instead of pushing our luck - as I don't think GS really have anything else in store for us.Well, when the hand that feeds stops feeding and starts become the hand that throttles, stating one's objections is at least rather justified.
Firstly, thank you very much for moving towards a compromise! It really is fantastic that you're willing to listen to users and attempt to address their concerns. Secondly, your terms are horrendous, and are currently not a better alternative than moving off site. The ability of the community to eject people who are disrespectful to other members is essential to foster the atmosphere than Unions have, and relying on "The mods will ban them if they post pornagraphic content or have been trolling for years" isn't sufficient. Community policing is essential, and the insular nature of unions means moderation from detached authority figures who aren't part of the community making decisions according to gamespot's TOS instead of "Is this the best thing for the board's community" simply isn't good enough. Adressing michaelP4's arguements against moving offsite: [
1) How will you get new recruits? 2) What will be the ToU? 3) Who will keep the leader and officers in check - can you trust them with a huge amount of control and power? 4) What about other features - GS will have an entire site load of features - will you be able to keep up?michaelP4
1) With great difficulty. This is the primary reason unions wish to remain a part of gamespot, if this was not a factor there would be no reason to fight for unions to continue to exist, we would move and not put up with the BS. But giving us our unions in name only is not enough to make up for it. 2) Something to the effect of "1. Be respectful. 2. Be reasonably safe for work". Unions are groups of friends, it's not the same as running an open board that is trying to maximise it's number of users for ad revenue. 3) The leaders and officers are a major part of the community, if they were a problem in the first place there would be no community to care about. Besides, the most they'll be able to do is kick you out and edit your posts, they can already do that in their own union. 4) Videos, reviews, other forums? Unions are the only thing gamespot provides that are not easily available on many other sites to the same level of quality. If gamespot cannot be convinced to not take our communities away from us (and removing community control is doing just that, whether you slap our name on a a regular games board or not), then showing it brand loyalty would be masochistic.
By all means, continue ignoring unions with the next update as was done for the last, as they pretty much function just fine without additional support. But please don't remove entire longstanding communities from Gamespot, it's a disgusting way to treat your userbase. Why not let them sit where they are in their current format while just changing the rest of the site?
[QUOTE="Zeviander"][QUOTE="0rbs"]The people that cannot afford the software usually pirate it. This destroys small business and a lot of the larger firms such as reuters and getty's are considering a mass exodus away from the suite.0rbs
-pirates will continue to pirate, nothing is lost or gained -students who cannot afford the perpetual license have another legal option to get the software outside of subsidization through their institution -any large business that refuses to use Adobe's software will only hurt themselves, as Adobe's software is top-of-the-line in that field This is a good business move for Adobe, they can increase their profits by increasing the amount of people who can use their software. I'm not seeing a problem here.
Photoshop for students is 200. Now it's 240, and at the end of the year, you cannot use it anymore.
Adobe will make money on this, but a lot of professionals, and i'm talking people that are important in the industry are leaving the software suite.
Surely they would just continue using the older versions that they already own, no?
Technically the chances of them having twins was at least the same odds as any other couple. There's just less couples who happen to both be identical twins than who aren't.
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