Grand Moff Boris wrote:
1. This is not Gamers vs. Bloomilk. Please stop trying to turn your personal angst into a boards war. I have nothing against the majority of people who post on that site (though like Dean, I have little respect for its owner based on his operational involvement of that board). I don't think of SWM players as "bloomilkers" or "gamers," and I'm disappointed that you are trying to create turfs by labeling in this way.
It was not me doing that, regardless of how you see it. That is what I am trying to AVOID, I am trying to get people to see that this can be a good venture, but the polarization has already been made and does NOTHING to try to get those who don’t know what we are doing to realize that it can be pretty cool. By attempting to answer people’s questions instead of taking criticism to mean that those who have criticized are trying to destroy the gamers effort, I think we can actually get a few people to see that this is pretty cool I will post a couple paragraphs form a pm from a gamers leader here, author anonymous, I'm not sure if that's unacceptable or not:
“I have endured BS on this forum for 2 years and really could care less what someone on this forum thinks of me or my leadership skills. One thing every real leader knows is you cannot lead someone who refuses to follow. That is bloomilk. I am not try to solve anything here at this site and never will try to do so again.”
“At this point I am looking into my own squad building program and then I will be done with this site. You guys can be as critical as you wish. Like I said when you have an idea on how to improve the process that doesnt mean grinding it to a halt let me know. Otherwise we will continue plugging along. If people dont like my attitude then maybe they should look in the mirror. After taking 2 years of nothing but rudeness, meaness from the bloomilk community why should I give a s***. One day someone on this sight will realize that if you want to be involved in a process try not insulting the son of a bitch making the decisions all the time.”
I think it’s pretty obvious that any discontent is viewed by this leader as being against the whole effort.
Grand Moff Boris wrote:
2. It's very, very important for you and everyone else here to understand that there are exactly THREE people on the design team. We have people advising us and giving us playtest feedback. Some of those are privy to everything the three of us are doing. Most are not. So your entire rant here is aimed at people who - at best - operate at an advisory level. Aside from me, I don't believe there has been any posting by anyone from the design team. We just don't have time for that, between our jobs and doing this volunteer project and personal life stuff.
Regardless of the status of being on the design team, I am fairly sure that all of the statements in my first post came from people whose name colors over here show that they are community leaders. I think it’s unfair to accuse me of starting a forum war when the leaders here often act without leadership to people over there.
Grand Moff Boris wrote:
3. I can't find where anyone told you to leave if you didn't like how the v-set was being handled. Maybe I missed something, or something was said to you privately that I am not privy to. All I have seen that was said is that your ideas were already considered, and this is the way the few of us who developed this project decided to go with it. We don't want this project simmering on a burner for an extra year while we hammer out even one piece that requires 250 people to compromise on a single decision.
Why do the 250 have to agree? Whoever said that? How does involving the community in the design of a piece mean putting them in charge of it? Are you beginning to see how this repeated attitude and exaggeration might be frustrating to anyone trying to get more community input involve?
As for the “With us or against us” here’s a few times it came up:
“Simply if you dont like the Virtual Set dont use it. If you have a problem with what the design team does then dont use the V-Set.”
“Now you are upset at the process of creating the set. Well sorry it is what it is. Dont like it then dont use it.”
This attitude is definitely the most frustrating. Any criticism results in a response like that, at least from at least one of the main leaders here. No one has answered me the half dozen or so times I’ve asked this question, but might as well ask it again. How is the “with us or against us” attitude good for this effort?
Grand Moff Boris wrote:
4. Finally, you didn't expect WotC to share their work with you before it came out, and you bought it anyway. We are offering this FOR FREE, and with a lot more thought, effort, and interest than WotC had in it. And you can't trust us? Well that is your decision. Nothing anyone says will change it, and further arguing with you about it only detracts from what we're doing.
It shouldn’t have to detract from anything (see first post as to why the leadership response got that one off on the wrong foot (admittedly I kept it on that foot for a while)). Actually providing rationales and justifications for action would only lend legitimacy to what you’re doing, but instead all we get are the responses to which I reffered in the first post. It would probably take much less time to explain than to say those things above anyway.