Let's get our affairs in order, shall we?

[sanchez]

Maybe if all the effort going into this handwringing instead went to giving Marol the appreciation and support he deserves for all the work he's done for all of us over the years, for free, on his own time, despite endless complaining, he might decide to come back. Or at least feel better about the time already spent.

Doug, this new group you're controlling is English-only?

[SekoETC]

If there's no one left who could send a message to all players, I could add a message on the login page through translations, if you think it would make a difference.

[Solfius]

Maybe if all the effort going into this handwringing instead went to giving Marol the appreciation and support he deserves for all the work he's done for all of us over the years, for free, on his own time, despite endless complaining, he might decide to come back. Or at least feel better about the time already spent.

I thought the reason he left was some kind of harassment from other Polish players

[SekoETC]

Sanchez, I wasn't aware of Marol going through any abuse or dissing until he mentioned it here, and I assume that most of the English community also has/had no idea there is something wrong. We still don't know who are those people who have been disrespectful towards him, but it should be clear that the majority of people appreciate his work and he should know that too. He said that he's not going to come back until the people who dissed him are banned or choose to quit the game, well, it seems that the staff has no authority to ban people over talking shit, and while the players (at least the non-Polish players) have no idea who the bad guys are, we can't express our loathing towards them, at least not directly.

[formerly known as hf]

Cantr isn't gonna crumble into the ground overnight.

I appreciate Doug's idea of setting up a contingency - in the recent past, people have gone to the IRC or the old yahoo group to get info during blackouts - having something more organised might help.

Either way, let's not get panicked about this. I do think we should probably start to take seriously the ongoing suggestions that the forums be maintained sperately, as long as this doesn't snowball into an 'oh my, cantr's about to go kaput' furore.

[Doug R.]

Doug, this new group you're controlling is English-only?

The default language is English. If other language groups think this is a good idea and want to start their own in their own language, that's great.

[Doug R.]

He said that he's not going to come back until the people who dissed him are banned or choose to quit the game, well, it seems that the staff has no authority to ban people over talking shit, and while the players (at least the non-Polish players) have no idea who the bad guys are, we can't express our loathing towards them, at least not directly.

While Marol's public comments would seem to indicate this, I have been privately informed that he is only seeking a forum/irc ban and -maybe- a temporary game ban.

[Doug R.]

as long as this doesn't snowball into an 'oh my, cantr's about to go kaput' furore.

Even if that's what it takes to get something positive accomplished? I can't speak for other English-speaking countries, but here in America, we don't accomplish anything until the bombs (or planes) hit our soil or property. It's all handwaving until then.

But now I'm going off my own topic.

[formerly known as hf]

as long as this doesn't snowball into an 'oh my, cantr's about to go kaput' furore.

Even if that's what it takes to get something positive accomplished? I can't speak for other English-speaking countries, but here in America, we don't accomplish anything until the bombs (or planes) hit our soil or property. It's all handwaving until then.

But now I'm going off my own topic.

To be honest, that's why I began posting about moving the forums. I'm well aware how much it takes to get people off their arses, and a bit of a scare might help motivate people.

The problem is, that motivation needs to be organised. I like the move to make a yahoo fall-back group, but what I'd really like to see, if people are really that worried (and I know some have been worried for some time, they have reason to be moreso now) is a concerted effort to make what we have, in terms of the forums and IRC, as safe as possible.

[Doug R.]

IRC is already safe (i.e. off-server), but accessibility is a problem. I still maintain that IRC is one of the last bastions of public user-unfriendliness left in the computer world, a place that relies on codes to work like an old DOS machine. If the link to the IRC goes down on the Cantr main page, I don't have a clue as to how to find and access it.

Moving the forums needs staff participation, and we have no more staff (for now). When we do get enough staff to move the forums, the crisis will have averted, and it will be business as usual. That's the rub.

[Darkle-ish]

Joined the yahoo group.. Here's to hoping it won't be needed.

[sanchez]

Consistent neglect of the non-English half of the Cantr world is largely why there is a problem now. The Polish players have been roughly equal in numbers to English for a long time, yet Polish speakers are severely underrepresented on staff. There are zero Polish speakers in the Communications Department, for example. So the task of moderating the forums for hundreds of Polish players falls on the shoulders of the already overburdened and undermanned Polish PD, and of course on Marol, who already in addition to running the game for us in ProgD, also takes up the slack for every other department. There exist Polish irc chans, too, but those suffer from the same lack of designated moderators, and a new segregated yahoo group would not solve this, and Doug taking on the role of English CD himself doesn't seem much improvement either. To the credit of many Polish players, there is a good bit of moderation via community standards. However as in any group, there are trolls and people who cannot see much farther than the inside of their own a**. Recently, two such players took issue with the way Marol moderated a forum thread and responded in a series of abusive PMs and reposts of locked threads. Short of GAC getting involved and dealing with these players, the rest of us could hope to drown this sort of negativity with an outpouring of Thanks and Appreciation for Marol. And if you don't like how things work, you can click the link on the bottom of your charpage and donate your own time, or at least remember that the volunteers on staff are all actually trying to make the game better.

The default language is English.

Is this really the the right message to send to half our Cantr community?

[formerly known as hf]

It's not 'consistent neglect', at least not from the CD.

We asked very early on for a Polish CD member.
There's posts from myself and Surly from back in 2005 asking if the then current Polish staff members could advertise for CD applications, as we couldn't do it ourselves (obviously) and it was resulting in either Polish players asking for moderation by posting in the English forums, or staff using their time on it.
If I remember rightly, we did have a couple of short-lived Polish CD members, and no interest since it seems.
Edit: Raist and scorup. Raist dropped, scorup has been inactive for some time.

The members we did have dropped, and I personally haven't heard much of a fuss until now - I knew Polish staff members were taking CD duties, but hadn't heard many complaints. The community seems to self-manage just like the English community with its own IRC etc. If there is a need for moreorganisation, as you suggest, then all you need to do is ask people from the Polish community to step forward. As we don't speak Polish, we can't do that.

If people from the community want to step forward as CD members, they'll surely be welcome.

English might not be default for the game, but it is, unfortunetely, for the staff. Fluency isn't required, just basic knowledge beyond online translators should be fine.

[Tiamo]

Sanchez,

the Yahoo group is kind of a last resort. You cannot make that multi-lingual, so you will have to choose the language that is (more or less) understood by as many players as possible. This must be English.

I agree with you that the Polish seem underrepresented in the (active) staff. But, as polish isn't a language spoken or even understood by many non-polish people, it is the responsibility of the language group itself to put forward people who can and will perform moderation and other staff tasks, so those people can be incorporated in the staff.

[sanchez]

It's not 'consistent neglect', at least not from the CD.

That's not actually true. It was only some months ago that PD, who represent all language groups out of necessity, with or without help from LD, were given access to all the language forums. Prior to that only groups like the Spanish who were lucky enough to have CD, and ProgD, members who understood them got any attention. And there's still serious lack of moderation in many forums, though PD is now trying to edit potential CRBs, etc. In fact, it was also only in the past couple of months that RD was given access to the Polish Suggestions forum by CD, despite the fact that the forum was created ages ago.