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Suggestion Server Gala - Lock all threads & restrict posting to OP only

Michael Orsino

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Taking a quick look at the state of the Server Gala, I am confident that the owners of popular servers advertised there will agree that the conditions of their threads are toxic. Rather than being a valuable promotional tool, these threads have become plagued by a discontent minority of players voicing their opinions with damaging rhetoric and slander. I couldn't immediately find any exceptions amongst the larger servers advertised.

My suggestion to change this is essentially for all Server Gala threads to be locked in future.
  • Thread locked after posting
  • Posting enabled for OP only, maximum 1 post per week to summarize updates etc. (Or if an auto-merge system can handle this, that'd work well too)
  • All current threads to be archived (like 'archived distributions')
  • New threads to be created by the server owners

This will bring value back to the Server Gala threads beyond what they offer in the lead-up and first week or so after release.
With the way it is now, I actually think these threads are likely a net-loss for the servers.

Edit 01/04/21:
Key points worth considering before responding:
  • Server owners choose to post in the Gala - it is not some right of the players for the threads to exist (Roughly 60% of top servers, including Medivia for example, don't bother to have a presence and only 20% of top servers have an active presence.)
  • Nobody else is allowed to create a Gala thread for a server - only the owner
  • I am not suggesting that discussions about servers shouldn't exist or that anything should be censored
  • "There's no such thing as bad publicity" Yes there is - that's just an age-old saying that holds little truth
 
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I’m in favor of this, but with the caveat that the secondary discussion thread be created and linked to the advertisement/updates thread.

As a user, looking at various servers for what they offer within the Server Gala section becomes a situation of “what they offered at launch” only unless the owners stay on top of constantly editing their OP as new changes or content are released. Any updates the share within the thread itself get drowned out by “discussion” and so someone looking for information has to wade through all of that overwhelmingly toxic discourse.

It would be nice to have a place to see the updates and form an opinion for yourself.
OP can request the first post to be updated with new information, or request it be locked/deleted and have a new thread.

A separate 'discussion' thread changes nothing. Server owners will still lazily update their posts and the community will still discuss.
 
Server Gala is a unique board I should say - I would leave it as is.
 
Completely disagree.

Players make or break a server, plays donate to create a server income.

Players therefore have a right to comment their opinion on servers listed, share ideas for improvement or even comment on previous editions hosted by the particular hoster.

Bottom line is, yea there are trolls and toxic people but that goes for everything. Players make a server great and muting them from this would be a poor disrespectful move.
 
1. It's a forum. People post threads and reply within the rules.

2. There's no such thing as bad publicity. Ask server owners with 90% update posts how much they would like players bumping their threads.

3. You're getting free advertisement. So don't complain.
 
Yeah I don't think this is an attempt to improve the forum, so much as it is an attempt to improve the reputation of the poster's server, which has received repeated negative feedback regarding staff quality and behaviour. They just don't want people reading that, and they think it's some sort of injustice that players have had the audacity to feed back on it. This whole 'it's for everyone not just for me' is just posturing to save face.

Part of me wouldn't be surprised if they were somehow rewarding people supporting such proposals; they did literally pay people for reaching level 30 on their OT, it's not out of their remit to sponsor people to back their ideas. It's the sort of slimy move these guys would make.
 
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