Demoted by jolt

[Smudge]

Originally Posted by biffy

Smudge - of course it is, but if someone is disloyal in such a blatant way then it becomes difficult to trust them to carry out their other duties.

surely you should have taken him to a side, said what he did in your eyes was wrong and go on from there?

[Leshy]

Originally Posted by biffy

He obviously think he's done nothing wrong so we didn't have much in the way of alternatives open to us.

Passing a note down to PA Team saying: "When alch gets back, sack him" isn't exactly the first step in exploring any possible alternatives. From what I gather, at no point did you contact alch himself about his behaviour or discuss with him what the consequences of his actions could be.

Which is a flat-out bad display of people management skills. Especially considering you're dealing with people who volunteer a lot of free time to help out the company that pays your wages.

[biffy]

Leshy - If it was just the odd sly comment I'd agree with you. It wasn't.

[Leshy]

You're making it out as if he started some hatred-campaign against Jolt, which I personally have not seen. As such, I think you're vastly overestimating his influence on the public image of Jolt. We have a saying in the Netherlands that you shouldn't turn a mosquito into an elephant - I think you'll understand how it applies.

What is most ironic however, is that of all the possible outcomes to this situation, Jolt has chosen the one that gives them the largest amount of negative publicity, as well as losing them a dedicated volunteer. As much as I'll grant you that you had every right to deal with the situation in some way, you have done so in what I reckon is the poorest possible way, or at least close to it.

[Smudge]

Originally Posted by Leshy

You're making it out as if he started some hatred-campaign against Jolt, which I personally have not seen.

Yeh, we all know I started that one up!!!!

[Leshy]

Originally Posted by Smudge

Yeh, we all know I started that one up!!!!

YOU'RE FIRED.

[Zeus]

Originally Posted by Leshy

Passing a note down to PA Team saying: "When alch gets back, sack him" isn't exactly the first step in exploring any possible alternatives. From what I gather, at no point did you contact alch himself about his behaviour or discuss with him what the consequences of his actions could be.

Which is a flat-out bad display of people management skills. Especially considering you're dealing with people who volunteer a lot of free time to help out the company that pays your wages.

WTF!!!?

Alch...man, if this thread and the relating threads are true, then you have been treated extremely badly and I do believe disrespectfully.

IMHO Jolt should have been very happy about you making the petition page. The terrible handling of the BBW case was out in public, quickly filling the forums with rumours, lies and unfortunately many truths. Your petition gave Jolt a single place to address the situation and to some degree, limit the damage which had happened. It also brought the community together and gave them a single voice, which no mass-multi games company should ever try and destroy or stop. THE PETITION WOULD DO JOLT MORE GOOD THAN BAD.

Jolt created the situation, and I can certainly understand them questioning the actions taken, BBW is a good liar, I should know. But to then sack a dedicated volunteer, who gives freely to this community, over a very bad situation that Jolt themselves have created is quite frankly, seriously bad management. I can’t help thinking....."Blair, Iraq, WMD, thousands dead,...I did it in good will is my excuse." Badly handled and no one who caused it getting there hands slapped.

Then if Lechy's post above is correct in the procedure of the sacking, I’m sure the rest of PaTeam feel wanted by Jolt, appreciated for the hard work they do, secure that Jolt will back them up when needed and that if they mess-up, be immediately sacked. Alch didn’t even mess-up, he weather intentionally or not, was doing Jolt a favour by creating the petition. See it in the bigger picture, rather than the "he rallying people against Jolt" please and reconsider the sacking of someone so dedicated to helping the players and community, especially the new players whom you so desperately need.

He obviously really hurt by the sacking and feels it unjustified to have created this thread and the posts in it.

Respect Alch.

[Blacknova]

Sad...

I have an account with Nildram for broadband purposes, Nildram being Jolt's sister company (business half) for those who aren't aware, have had the account virtually since DSL inception.

This is the first time I've actually been tempted to break my account with them.

Nova

[Kal]

ok this will be my last post on the subject of the current anti jolt movement.

First the BBW case.

Earlier in the round before the BBW incident, I closed BBW, but was fored to reopen him when some of my evidence was found to be less good.

I then spent time building a very good case and closed him again with the agreement of all of PATeam. However BBW then complained to jolt on the grounds of admin abuse becuase myself and PATeam were out to get him - which to be fair to him wasn;t exactly unreaosnable. So jolt asked me for the evidence. I sent the a summary of what I thought were the more interesting aspects, rather than a full detailed report. I was also at the time busy in real life. Jolt deemed my evidence to be circumstantial and ordered BBW to be reopened. However once we then sent the full evidence he was immediatly closed again by jolt. BBW has since admitted cheating and in fact claims to still be cheating through using proxies - of course given his track record of lying who knows whats really going on.

So basically the first anti jolt mess was for no reason, had the community had confidence in PaTeams relationship with jolt then things would now be a lot better.

During the first anti jolt fiasco alch was quite publically anti jolt, enough to attract the atttention of geoff specifically when he was browwsing the forums - yes geoff does read them form time to time. And asked for alch to be removed form his psotiion via biffy. Being the mentor team co-manager I then had a lngthy discussion with geoff via email, the end result being that I saw geoff''s point and to an extent agreed, athough I do think alch was highly valauble, and not just to the mentor team. We could have there and then removed all of alch's access and cut him loose. Instead we waited until he returned becuase he was at the very least owed the respect of being told things to his face.

All of the recent events are unfortunate, buts what has happened has happened and cannot be changed. All we can do is learn from the mistakes, and not just the mistakes of jolt and PATeam, all of us are to quick to judge and lay the blame. I know I ask a lot when I ask people to have confidence in PATeam and jolt, but I truly believe that PA is on a rise at the moment. We have a larger number of paid planets at the moment, probably mathcing the PAX levels if not being over them. Jolt is impressed and we in PATeam are also. Jolt has even mentioend spending money, but then they look at the forums and start to wonder why should they advertise PA when as soon as someone comes and looks at the site they will see all theese threads about how badly it is doing. It is hard to market a product that is doing its best to self distruct.

Mistakes have been made by virtually everyone, all I ask is that PaTeam and jolt be given a chance to show how good the future of PA can be, and that the community bare in mind that things will take time, and there will be setbacks along the way.

[WebAngel]

Some people are posting saying they are the best PA player in the world or that they are the Pope. Posting is the first step to a dialog or a friendly argument. Don't you think as community manager that talking is very important? One cant be happy all the time... telling about the reasons of your feelings is the only way to fix some troubles.

Anyway, I knew it would happen and that Jolt would take over the mentor team, that was my motivation for leaving this team. My opinion is that Jolt and PA team are always very good at taking over the work of good wills and to make it their own while they are not able to do it themself. Maybe it looks rude but once more the facts are here, please show me that I can be wrong.... I am waiting that for so many rounds.

[mist]

mr zeus, given that your post contains a lot of "if this is true" type comments, i'm guessing you realise that the situation has been largely portrayed from alch's side. while i have to agree that things were missmanaged, i can also see why jolt felt action needed to be taken. ofc, the fact that at the time there was no solid jolt post about wasn't exactly helping, which leads me on to...

nice post kal, covers everything without giving any embarasing details, admits fault etc etc. seems very well done. one question tho - why you rather than geoff, biffy or A2?

-mist

[alch]

I then spent time building a very good case and closed him again with the agreement of all of PATeam. However BBW then complained to jolt on the grounds of admin abuse becuase myself and PATeam were out to get him - which to be fair to him wasn;t exactly unreaosnable. So jolt asked me for the evidence. I sent the a summary of what I thought were the more interesting aspects, rather than a full detailed report. I was also at the time busy in real life. Jolt deemed my evidence to be circumstantial and ordered BBW to be reopened. However once we then sent the full evidence he was immediatly closed again by jolt. BBW has since admitted cheating and in fact claims to still be cheating through using proxies - of course given his track record of lying who knows whats really going on.

you somehow fail to mention what biffy said earlier and also in pm with me, where he stated that BBW was reopened for few days because he has more than 1 paid accounts, and they didnt see it as a big deal while the whole community did see it as a big deal.

i didnt do a anti-jolt movment, i never regrouped the whole community against jolt and treathened any of the jolt admin nor the PATEAM, i just stated what seems to be injustive, while the MH are acting in certain way toward known cheater, a new and different treatement has been made toward BBW. combined with the lack of communication PATEAM and jolt seems to show in theses cases, speculation and rumours has been around and just made the whole case worse. I for myself didnt care about BBW, but i cared about the principle, that jolt was somehow interfering in something that is for me an injustice and just prove that the more $$ you have, the better treatment you get, now it might not be the case, but jolt has been successfull to show this at every possible event in this community, pushing the whole community to express their feeling in certain ways.

I for myself, have expressed my feeling toward jolt, never bashed them or never led a anti-jolt campaign, if you wish to know what is an hatred campaign, i am sure you can read lot of troll thread around this forums and see what some other people feel toward jolt, i was trying to make a point and show jolt what the community really think and feel about them, now if jolt cant take it and have to sack me for this then i understand this, i stated to biffy that i can understand why geoff didnt want me around after my complaints against jolt, tho they were all made for a good purpose, and if one of you think or try to prove otherwise, then you are just hypocrite because you all knew how much i love this game and the community,

I never intended to work for jolt, we agreed that the mentor team would be on a trial base for this round, if i would knew that i couldnt express my view if something spectacular like this would happened, then i for myself wouldnt have taken the mentor team to be official team, and if i would have stick to some people advice at beginning of this round and went to an unofficial mentor team, then all this problem wouldnt have occured, because no one could have sacked me from an idea which was raised by me at end of round11.

now i still hold myself the right to be unhappy, i still think that every human being can express his feeling in public, show what he think or feel, this way i can say that i can change people or show people whats wrong, i think the whole thing and the argument has been taken out of contest, geoff maybe have read the forum and when he finished he was so angry that he felt he has to sack someone, now how conveniant it is? we have this guy who is co-leading the mentor team with an official PATEAM member, so we can sack him because he wasnt nice with jolt, (again, he might forget to read why i started the whole movment which i still claim to have started because i LOVE This game and not trying to kill the game like you arrogantly stated in a pm 2 hours ago) so the result is, i am upset with jolt, i think you somehow read between the line and forget the real goal of the whole petition, if you have the g*ts to claim i am here to ruin the game and i have been leading the campaign to slag Jolt, then you are clearly off the contest, and for the people who still may wonder, i may have not been the only one in leading this movment to change thing, but i STILL take responsability and know what i have said.
i do not wish to apologize for something i feel i have done right, i have just expressed my feeling toward the company who is running a game i am paying for (at least past rounds) and next time please make sure that if you have team that are running under the PATEAM, or running to help the game, try to update the leader and the members of theses small groups that any expression on the forum that might hurt geoff/jolt feeling may lead to theses member/leaders to be sacked automatically from the team.

By the way, i have been contacted by a jolt liasion rep after i have been informed about me being sacked from the team.

[WebAngel]

btw such a behaviour toward people of such a good will who are the most active players in the game will only lead to the creation of alternative forum/mentors team/IRC network out of Jolt's control.
Basically the community can't be treated like inactive sheeps, they have some duty as clients they have to pay to play in return they have some rights and expectations.
Once already I have seen all the HCs of all the alliances telling "ok thats enough there wont be any ship in the universe till such or such issue is not sorted", I am sure that Jolt doesnt want to face again such an unhappy community... I bet that if they keep on with such a behaviour, they might regret it.

[biffy]

alch - nobody is questioning your right to express an opinion, just that there is a proper way to do it and you stepped way over the line as someone who does have some official ties to the game.

With regards to BBW the fact he had purchased a lot of accounts made it important to get the right decision, which is what we arrived at in the end. I'm pretty confident we would have got that same decision regardless of all the posts made on the forum, but unfortunately someone in PA Team thought they were doing the right thing by leaking the information out before the process was complete.

[WebAngel]

Originally Posted by biffy

alch - nobody is questioning your right to express an opinion, just that there is a proper way to do it and you stepped way over the line as someone who does have some official ties to the game.
....

alch has not signed anything with Jolt or PA, I cant see any official tie but his love and dedication to the game. Of course he made a remark that had to be constructive over all and Jolt has not seen it like this, whose fault? Two wrong will never make one right....

[alch]

alch - nobody is questioning your right to express an opinion, just that there is a proper way to do it and you stepped way over the line as someone who does have some official ties to the game.

unofficially you may claim i had official tie to the game, i have nowhere been stated i am officialy a Planetarion team member, and i have not signed on anything saying i am tied to the game and therefore i cannot express my own views toward the company who think is running my team.
There was no tie between me and jolt, therefore i cant see how the hell a guy named geoff which i never knew about his existence can order to demote me from my own team, while PATEAM said it was on a trial basis.

Now you can say that having the @planetarion.com extension right to my name may make myself official, but you are wrong that wont make my views or my opinion in any way official, and i can count you lot of people who have the extension of @planetarion.com right to their name and are expressing more extreme view toward the company who is paying you.

i never signed on anything, i was never warned about the fact i am representing Jolt, i have never been paid, everything i made was volunteer therefore i never any tie with anyone of you in Jolt.

The only time i have spoken to you was when i sent you the banner i made for PA, which again doesnt tie me to your company, it was made by free will in order to help the game i am paying for and playing.

thanks you

[Fyodor]

Originally Posted by biffy

alch - nobody is questioning your right to express an opinion, just that there is a proper way to do it and you stepped way over the line as someone who does have some official ties to the game.

If alch didnt do it, would anyone else have stepped up and done the right thing?

[Chaos]

Jolt , I hardly think anything you can say or do will make you look anything but the bad guys in this thread.

How about you stop for a second, and try to listen to ppl for once?

You don't have a monopoly here. there are several other free more or less completely identical games out there. all you have is a dedicated community. that's your only commodity. we're the only thing bringing new players into this game. be tolerant with ppl. there are strong emotions assosiated with this game. try to figure us out, don't force your way on us. You can't win that way.

[mist]

again, i've got to start my post by pointing out that i don't agree with how jolt have acted. this probably indicates where i'm going with it :/

however. claiming that you didn't know you were representing planetarion is either a display of stupidity or great naivity. whether the mentor's project was official or unofficial is rather beside the point. if you're running a front of house service which the game is refering people to then it's got to be fairly obvious that your actions reflect directly on the game.

if i tell some newbie that jolt are evil, the spawn of satan etc etc then they may or may not listen to what i say, and odds are they'll not take me too seriously. however, if they're sent to you for help with the game, and you start telling them that jolt will let you cheat for whatever price then that's going to reflect baddly on the game. this feels rather like stating the obvious.

as for whether you signed something or not. afaik only people with access to sensetive info are required to sign anything to be in the pateam, which would mean anyone with financial info, anyone with server access and possibly anyone with multi hunter tool access. given that the mentors had none of these it's not shocking that you wern't asked to sign something. what would have been the point?

by all means attack jolt for their management of your actions. personally, i believe that your admission that you were wrong about the tv etc etc would have been much more useful to them than this negative publicity. however please don't tell us that you had no idea that your actions reflected on planetarion.

about the only thing your actions at the moment are achieving is making a sensible solution harder to reach.

-mist

[Mushroom]

alch, to be fair, you've not had any less expected of you than anyone else that's worked for the game on a volunteer basis before.
The mods aren't generally directly PAteam but they are expected to have a degree of 'collective responsibility' - the same goes for #planetarion ops and other people who work for PA below the team.
I remember an incident last year when a certain #pa op was dismissed for similarly speaking out. They hadn't signed anything to join themselves with PA, they weren't being paid, they weren't listed as PATeam or anything like that, but the same applied to them. It doesn't help in any business situation to have people who are supposed to be working for you speaking out against you, and it's the same for any company anywhere, whether it's paid work or volunteer work, and i don't think the fact that you weren't officially tied in a written sense to Jolt or PA changes that at all. You still knew you were working, albeit voluntarily, for PA, and you chose to speak out against it instead of speaking to the people internally who could have had a hand in changing things, as would have been the 'proper' course of action for someone in your situation.
It's tough being caught in businesslike rules when you aren't getting paid for what you do, but it's been the same for many before you, and continues to be the same now. At the end of the day, Jolt are running a business and they can't do with loose cannons giving them problems further down the line, and neither could Fifth Season before them.

[alch]

so the whole argument is about me stating in an humorusly way that sending a TV to jolt might help the process.
if geoff and co are putting their grip on this part of thread i have made out of my dozen thread out there, then its rather silly, i allready stated to you that this part might have been inappropriate, but i wont apologize for my overall view that jolt acted in a wrong way.
and i do understand why geoff did want to sack me.
i never said i dont understand it, the minute i went on with this whole movment of "lets help the community", i knew that i am endangering my position.
And about the post of my saying i am not official, i know what is your point regarding the mentor team being official and all that, you could at least be able to find out that its all sarcasm regarding the whole situation, if you take all my thread and my opinion about the petition, (apart the TV thread which was a cinical remark, but if @ jolt , humour cant be taken then i apologize for being funny sometime) then you will find out that i was making constructive remark toward jolt behavior, now if jolt has a problem with this, i respect this, they can always come and talk to me about this (at least i would have appreciate one of jolt rep talking to me before getting me sacked from Mentor team) or warn me, but the minute you come and say " hey alch you are out because geoff is pissed with the way you handled and raised your voice on BBW matter" then i think you miss the whole point.

[WebAngel]

Originally Posted by Mushroom

alch, to be fair, you've not had any less expected of you than anyone else that's worked for the game on a volunteer basis before.
The mods aren't generally directly PAteam but they are expected to have a degree of 'collective responsibility' - the same goes for #planetarion ops and other people who work for PA below the team.
I remember an incident last year when a certain #pa op was dismissed for similarly speaking out. They hadn't signed anything to join themselves with PA, they weren't being paid, they weren't listed as PATeam or anything like that, but the same applied to them. It doesn't help in any business situation to have people who are supposed to be working for you speaking out against you, and it's the same for any company anywhere, whether it's paid work or volunteer work, and i don't think the fact that you weren't officially tied in a written sense to Jolt or PA changes that at all. You still knew you were working, albeit voluntarily, for PA, and you chose to speak out against it instead of speaking to the people internally who could have had a hand in changing things, as would have been the 'proper' course of action for someone in your situation.
It's tough being caught in businesslike rules when you aren't getting paid for what you do, but it's been the same for many before you, and continues to be the same now. At the end of the day, Jolt are running a business and they can't do with loose cannons giving them problems further down the line, and neither could Fifth Season before them.

Many times in #planetarion some bad things have been told toward Jolt or Spinner or me or anybody even when some moderators were in the channel, nobody has never been kicked or anything for that, telling your opinion is a right! Concerning the 'collective responsibility' you are not objective here since talking about not closing a planet of a cheater is by definition a collective responsability unless this attitude is allowed but then again this has to be clear for all. The ''collective responsibility'' is not always one way (the one of Jolt) but might also be the one of the players (community). Based on that remark, I can't see your point.

[Chaos]

alch is the first person I've felt actualy wanted to try to help PA get back on the right track.
Jolt get's some crisism. and they boot him. and all you guys can do is attack alch for details and stupid things that doesn't realy mather in the big picture.

alch made an effort. risked his own neck to try to help our community. I can't say I've seen any of you do anything lately.

Perhaps Jolt should appoint someone that has actualy played this game to be a liaison, instead of this biffy whom I've never even heard of before. perhaps then the community could get heard.

That PA has had an upturn of paying customers this round has nothing todo with Jolt or PA Team.
continue this way and you'll be back downhill next round.

[mist]

oi, leave biffy alone. this is hardly his fault. the way things seem to be painted, geoff (head cheese) makes decisions and then biffy catches the backlash. so shouing about him really does't achieve a lot

-mist

[Mushroom]

Originally Posted by WebAngel

Many times in #planetarion some bad things have been told toward Jolt or Spinner or me or anybody even when some moderators were in the channel, nobody has never been kicked or anything for that, telling your opinion is a right!

Yes, indeed.
But if one of the moderators or ops said something contradictory to Spinner or Jolt, the chances are that it was at least discussed behind the scenes afterwards. Normal users criticising the establishment isn't a kickable offense, naturally - it's almost expected! However, this is not the same for people who are meant to be working for the game.

Concerning the 'collective responsibility' you are not objective here since talking about not closing a planet of a cheater is by definition a collective responsability unless this attitude is allowed but then again this has to be clear for all. The ''collective responsibility'' is not always one way (the one of Jolt) but might also be the one of the players (community). Based on that remark, I can't see your point.

The 'collective responsibility' of which i speak is a term borrowed from politics... put in the context of government, if someone working for government disagrees with a governmental decision they are obliged to either try and sort it out within the governmental system or resign over it. They are not expected to speak out against decisions openly while working for the same system - anyone doing so could expect to be dismissed.
Putting it back into the context of PA, alch disagreed with the way Jolt handled the BBW episode, and instead of trying to sort it out within PA's structure OR resigning in protest at it and THEN going on about it, he stayed in his place and openly criticised the workings of Jolt in public, and then, surprise surprise, he was dismissed.
I'm pretty damn sure the same would happen in any firm. It's not that Jolt doesn't need criticising if there's a view that it's done something wrong, it's that people within its apparatus should try and fix it from within, or leave and protest about it from outside, rather than attempting to do both.

[Chaos]

Yes cuz Jolt are more than willing to listen.
ofc. cristicising them in private would work so much better.

I mean it's not like they haven't listened to us before.

oh wait!

[Mushroom]

Originally Posted by Chaos

Yes cuz Jolt are more than willing to listen.
ofc. cristicising them in private would work so much better.

I mean it's not like they haven't listened to us before.

oh wait!

Yes, believe it or not Jolt actually want this game to work
Any person who works for PA in some form or other is welcome to pass suggestions or criticisms to their team leader, who can in turn pass them onto Jolt. Information goes upwards and downwards, or at least the capacity is there if PA staff want to use it.
Of course major developments won't always come out of this, but they can be put to Jolt and PAteam in general so that we at least know a particular viewpoint exists.
The same goes for suggestions from players - they will be looked at and taken into consideration and some might be implemented in some form, but at the end of the day Jolt sets the direction that the game goes in.

[Wandows]

Originally Posted by biffy

Smudge - of course it is, but if someone is disloyal in such a blatant way then it becomes difficult to trust them to carry out their other duties.

so what you are basicly saying is that you only want drones in PaTeam who do whatever you tell them to do eventhough its screwing the game you infest money in? You really show some caring for the community... NOT. ! Way to go!!!!

alch is a great guy and only a moron would sack him for this (after all he has done for the game this round). The fact he was talking about the screwup you obviously made with BBW has nothing to do with his function in PaTeam... as PaTeam ppl are (i hope atleast) supposed to support the community of the game where they can and point you/jolt to things that need your attention. And if you keep ignoring all the signals you got that you are only killing whats left of this game... you are just a sad bunch of losers

[Recluse]

This is so stupid. I mean, it screams "1984" Big Brother got mad becuase alch commited a thought crime. Far be it from big brother to admit that alch could be right.

[alch]

By the way, i have very sensitive info, right now, holding it here, showing that some of the PATEAM were acting as double agent, and giving me the impression that i got kicked because of some internal politics, lack of support, and a attempt of hijack of the team and some other dirty reasons, i really dont want to show it on Forums, because it could be the thing that will kill PATEAM completly, but i wish to show this to biffy, as i feel i still hold responsability for the community, and letting scum in the TEAM is something i cannot live with...

[Leviathan]

Originally Posted by biffy

He obviously think he's done nothing wrong so we didn't have much in the way of alternatives open to us.

There are always alternative, a proper disciplinary procedure for one. Plus, you and Jolt aren't doing yourself any favours by airing your dirty laundry in public.

Do you guys wnat all your customers to think you are a bunch of power mad little Napoleons? Because if you don't you all need some lessons in customer and employee relations, fast!

[wakey]

Biffy: having reread the thread on the BBW situation its clearly obviouse that alch comment is said in a light hearted fashion. Again its a case of Jolt being over sensative and as such taking it out of context much like you yourself did/are with something I posted yesterday.

And when will you realise and admit EVERYTHING to do with the events surrounding the BBW case is actually YOUR (Jolt as a collective) fault. Your the ones whom decided to have the account reopened, your then the ones whom decided to keep something that big under wraps and hence your the ones to blame when details leaked out and took a life of their own. The community (and the volenteers are every much part of that as normal players as we are players and we are emotionally attached to the game) had no idea what the truth was but all we had to go on was the rumors. Now rumours pass around pretty quickly and end up becoming fact to most people UNLESS either a frank and honest explanation is either given before the rumour breaks or almost immediatly which JOLT didnt do. It took you along time to respond by then your brief explanation wasnt enough. it simply seemed like you were attempting to justify being persuaded to reopen the account either cos BBW had sent gifts to you or because he had paid for alot of accounts.

Now when things like this errupt Jolt have to expect the whole community to be up in arms about it no matter what their position. While Jolt want the game to be successful for finacial reasons, we the community want it to be successful because we have an emotional attachment to the game, decisions which go against what we believe the game is about whill get us rilied up, sometimes for no reason such as small changes in gameplay that are needed to be made and we are just too stuck in the past to realise but at times its for valid reasons like this when a decsions go against everything thats been done before and laid out in the EULA. These are the things if your going to 'break' you have to make sure its a good reason to do so and you have to be fully open to letting the community know the reasons.

Anyway Jolt need to wake up and realise this game is all about the community, you have to serve the community and you have to make them feel involved. This means not being as secretive on every single issue, if something major happens you HAVE TO announce it before it breaks, if something that promised isnt going to happen you have to be open about why its not going to happen and most importantly we need kept informed of the future (not asking for details of features, just details of how dvelopment is going, what are the plans for the next roudn ect, for example thers been some rumours that with mit leaving the new php version that was due for r11, and then delayed to r12 has all but been dropped and r12 will be another upgrade of this round. If thats the case its something the community needs told via these forums and the portal and we need to know the reason not just a quick "due to circumstances the r12 will be an upgrade of r11"). Yes doing these things will see some backlash from players as no-one likes reading dissapointing news but atleast by informing the community your saying "you are important to us and we do care" rather than Jolt being the faceless entities they are which never say anything of any relevence and whom seem to care very little for the community which in turn translates to not caring about the game as the communitie s abig part of it

And for certain Jolt shouldnt be sacking people whom help the game improve just cos they are critical of Jolt . One of my biggest problems I had with PATeam when I was part of it was the way it was made up of so many 'brown nosers' whom would always agree with anyone whom could further their progress through the ranks. Those willing to speak up were all so often frozen out which is simply wrong, if anything you need more people willing to speak their minds without them being fearful of their jobs. If people cant and wont raise issues nothing will vere get better, you simply need people who are passionate and willing to have their own pov and willing to put that pov across. Only then can the game truely improve because only then is the input useful

[Smudge]

Sorru if this doesnt make sense, just woke up and read whats been posted since sleepy time

Alch, I take it you didnt sign anyform of NDA, as your not PATeam, Creator, etc etc. You are therefore, able to post any information on these forums which you please to, wether Jolt like it or not. Since I havnt said it clearly enough in my posts before, Jolt have acted like school children.

Example

A Group of Friends called Planetarion all have run out of money to run a club.
Another, bigger group of friends, called Jolt, take them over
One of the Planetarion friends think that something is wrong and they say something
Jolt dont like what there saying, so they kick them out

The above situation, however somewhat simplified, is what has happened. Jolt need to reliase, as has been stated before, Planetarion is in many peoples eyes not just a game, but its something which builds friendships, and many people take this friendship outside of the game and IRC and meet up in real life. Around 30 people will be converging on London next weekend for J3, with around 5 people I think flying in from Europe. You hve the i-series events, which even thou Planetarion isnt officialy listed, some people from Planetarion still attend, which again is meeting up outside the community.

If Jolt are going to carry on with this, ie kicking people out of there posistions, as they have said or thought about something anti Jolt, tbh they should support Planetarion and try and find a new buyer, as the community wont come back.

[Zeus]

Originally Posted by mist

mr zeus, given that your post contains a lot of "if this is true" type comments, i'm guessing you realise that the situation has been largely portrayed from alch's side. while i have to agree that things were missmanaged, i can also see why jolt felt action needed to be taken. ofc, the fact that at the time there was no solid jolt post about wasn't exactly helping, which leads me on to...


-mist

my post contains the "if this is true" comment due to the fact that a lot of post on the forums are chinese wispers and quite often tend to become distorted or the truth twisted. I dont believe the post are not true, but I personally dont know the total facts of the handling of BBW or Alch, only whats on the forums. And as I can only post opinions on what I read on the forums, hense the "if this is true" comment, it was in no way too doubt Alchs thread or what anyone else has said on the case.

[Smudge]

Tbh this matter needs to be sorted out asap, before any more damage is done to the reputation of PA, and to an extent Jolt (Yes, on this post II am trying to be pro-Jolt to try and sort this out, but dont be getting used to it thou ). One of the most simplest ways to do with, simply, would to be re-instate Alch and for both parties to come to some sort of agreement for both parties to be able to do what they want, but have boundaries for control. Also, there should be some form of mediator between the two so something is actually is reached. Wether alch would want to go back is a question only he can answer thou.....

edit :: using correct words!!

[alch]

after looking at new fact and new proof i am holding right now and i will firstly hand to A2 and biffy, i am very very unsure if i really would like to come back to any position in the ranks of PA (semi-official and in the case that jolt would like to re-instate me)

[Smudge]

Well theres your response alch, the rest is up for Jolt now. They burnt the bridge, they have to rebuild it

[wakey]

As i've just said to alch on irc what i'm finding really strange having reread the BBW thread a few times is the way Jolt are focusing on whats really one small part of the thread. Theres a single line that seems to have got them annoyed which seems to come off as a very lighthearted comment that had no real malice in it, just the type of comment you make to lighten the mood when talking to friends.

They seem to forget that in fact alch was supporting them until Karm pretty much made it official that the rumour was pretty much true. At this point it does seem failry understandable that people who care about this game would get behind movements to try and get the messy situation sorted. Jolt simply seem unable to take critism, no matter how much support people give them they get hung up as soon as you use any word which is negative towards them and they instantly label you as anti-jolt. They did it to alch with this situation and they did it to me yesterday over half a sentance in a collection of posts that were ultimatly praising Jolt's achievements but pointing out how lack of communication was causing unrest, and I think we can probally assume theres either been others or will be others whom will be in the same situation.

[Kjeldoran]

I can only personally pld the decision of Jolt to sack alch because that means he'll have even more time for other more important things he's involved with. Alch knows what I'm talking about. so thankyou Jolt, for showing and proving something we all knew.

rgds Kj

[Smudge]

Which is what I said in my post a couple of ones up. Jolt cant take any negative critisism (sp?), and this is stupid as you will have to take the bad with the good in any situation.

[Nadar]

Originally Posted by biffy

but if someone is disloyal in such a blatant way then it becomes difficult to trust them to carry out their other duties.

Maybe he was disloyal to Jolt, but doubt he was disloyal to PA. Two different things that is.

[Smudge]

Indeed. The Line must be drawn with the difference of representing PA as a fan/player and Jolt as a an "employee"

[biffy]

And when will you realise and admit EVERYTHING to do with the events surrounding the BBW case is actually YOUR (Jolt as a collective) fault.

Let me stop you there.

It's not unsual for organisations to have internal disagreements, which is what the BBW situation was. I personally disagreed with the call to re-open him myself but I did it because I could see why it would be arguably fair to do so until the evidence was so overwhelming that it could not be explained away by someone such as him. It was a matter that could have been resolved internally and actually was when you consider it was a member of the multi-hunter team who provided the information that resulted in the re-closing of his account.

The forum aftermath was due to someone in PA Team having some misguided belief that leaking it to the general Planetarion playing public would be a good idea. All it did was put PA Team in a difficult situation and cause a load of anti-Jolt feeling because it was hyped up as some big crisis that it wasn't. Whilst the PA community might wish for knowledge of all PA Team and Jolt discussions this simply isn't going to happen. We regularly talk about various topics, be they suggestions from the community / Jolt or issues arising in the game. Between myself, PA Team and Spinner we often have different takes on them, sometimes exchanging heated words, other times laughing, but usually coming to a consensus. These are however private discussions that are necessary for the running of the game and when people don't respect that privacy it is very disappointing. So perhaps it is our fault in that respect, because we put our faith in someone who couldn't behave in an adult manner.

[Smudge]

Well the spread of it going from Internally to externally has shown how strongly people think about things, ie PA Team, there role, Jolt etc

[wakey]

The thing is Biffy things like this always get out and you should have known that. All it takes is one person in the know to say something or happen to have a friend see whats going on (which is easy on irc) and it out . And lets be honest PATeam has never been the most secure group, theres a fair few people in it whom arent there with the view to help the game but instead there so they can brag to their friends with part of that bragging being the leaking of info.

And yes i understand not all info can be made available BUT alot more than currently is can, after all currently you dont supply any info on events unless you have to and by which time you could basically post anything because no-ones going to listen because thr rumours have taken hold and are considered fact.. You cant simply sit there not giving any infomation to the community and then complain when people get the impretion that Jolt couldnt care less about the game and also complain about the anti Jolt rumours that spring up out of whats probally incocent events.

Its like the way when celebs have secrets, you can be like David Beckham and know they are coming out but ignore them and let the people spin it or you can upfront and beat them to the punch so you can make sure the truth is heard before rumours spin it out of control (will young and that bloke out of boyzone jump out as people whom the press were going to out but whom both made sure they got in first so lies couldnt be spun)

And lets be honest the BBW situation didnt cause the anti jolt feeling, its the lack of contact Jolt have with the community and the way they restict the info PATeam can pass on. The lack of information coupled with the promises that werent met gives people the view you dont care and all the BBW situation did was bring this to a head. If anything the event was actually a good thing because at this point the community is as together as it has been in a long time and if Jolt/PATeam manage the situation correctly it can only be a good thing, its just a shame that atm your doing everything wrong and making things worse.

[Smudge]

Agreed wakey, this has bought the community together a great deal, just a shame its for all the wrong reasons. I spoke to biffy earlier and he said that if alch appreicaites ( in Jolts eyes ), then would "consider" re-instatement, if thats what alch wants / wanted to do.

[Nadar]

Originally Posted by wakey

And lets be honest the BBW situation didnt cause the anti jolt feeling, its the lack of contact Jolt have with the community and the way they restict the info PATeam can pass on.

Indeed

[mist]

agreed on the lack of contact.

however, i disagree that the bbw thingy was an internal matter. whether those planets were open or not affected the game's status, as well as possibly creating 'case law' for the future.

while i have to agree that leaking the decision to the public was a bad idea, i also have to believe that it shouldn't have been neccessary. if jolt are going to do something which is counter the eula, which imo it was, then it's their duty to tell people. the fact that their duty was done by someone leaking suggests an underlying problem with lack of contact, imo.

-mist

[biffy]

The point would be that it, following contact from BBW, it was felt by Jolt that the account wasn't guilty in the first place, so it shouldn't have been closed. Therefore the EULA was not broken by re-opening him whilst a further investigation was carried out.

[Smudge]

So Jolt went against the decision of the multi hunter(s)?