Webmaster you wrote (sorry, haven't been able to figure out how to quote...)

Pat,

My lack of communication is a result of me spending my little available time to make tangible changes to the website, rather than just talking.    I figured with my absence and the gross resentment it caused that little, if any, of what I could say would appease you guys.  I became more convinced of this by the rather harsh responses that immediately followed the "maxminis will stay maxminis for now" post.  So I went to work making improvements and gave up trying to explain myself to the army of critics.  It seemed the best use of my available time to funnel my energies into "doing" rather than "saying".

Clearly this approach has not worked.  I have angered a number of important people like yourself, doubt, fenris, aesoph, kiddoc, and others.  I am at a loss about how to repair the damage.   If you think it will help, get all of maxminis vets to ask me whatever questions they want in a single thread.  I will answer each one.  Make sure to get them all, even the nasty ones, as I don't want there to be any lingering resentment or unanswered questions.

Webmaster:

Thanks for taking this on.

First, I want to clear things up from my perspective.  As Chris Groves wrote a few weeks back (just prior to the new forum coming up), I'm here for fun.  I've had fun since I found MaxMinis, and I hope to continue to have fun.  Some major games (i.e. Magic) have such a huge online community that it makes logical sense that there are several online sites that provide a different flavor to different kinds of people.

I didn't (and don't still) think that the online community for WotC miniatures games has grown to the point that multiple fan sites will be healthier than a single site.  I posted and posted and posted about this at the start of July when things began to unravel.  I still feel this way.  However, the community has now clearly split.  There are several people who are now splitting time, but the vast majority of active posters to sticking with one site or the other. 

I like many others, were alarmed by one of the posts you made last (March?) that was revealed in July.  In this post you presented a vision for MaxMinis which would change the name of the site, create sections for any/all games, and fund this via making this site a commercial entity.

Upgrades in speed, and forum type:  nothing wrong with that (though I liked the simplicity of the snitz forums, though I'm likely in the minority on that).  Upgrades, and a public campaign to attract new members as a precursor to a commercial site?  I'm not nearly as comfortable with that.

I'll be letting people know about your request, and I hope that any and all who post continue to be polite.

Fundamentally, I would like to understand what your current vision for this site is.  Is it to be a fan run site, for trading and discussion of WotC miniatures games with organic growth ala the previous 2.5years?  Is it to become a commercial site where banner adds rule the day, and decisions are made on the basis of how to insure the profitabilty of the site?  Are the two mutually exclusive?  I don't know, i'll let you address it.

Pat E

I would like to know what your Cureent invovment is with Minitures games?

Do you play any minitures gamess? witch ones? Somone told me that you sold your entire DDM colletion a year ago, is this true?

Thanks

C

OK, I have a question.

Why did you, after what seemed to be decent progress between Jai/Groves/Kevin, throw their vision of the new online community out the window?

Their vision was something that a good majority of the community wanted and supported: A harder, better, faster, stronger site where a great community of people could get together and have a good time talking about miniatures.  Then you decide to nix this (re: their) idea and go off to do your "own thing"  This is where the 'resentment' started.  As, for the most part, the community saw that as you telling us that you don't care about us or what we want, or that you did, but only when playing by your rules.

When originally asked about it, you snubbed us some more by pointing fingers and skirting around the actual answer to the question.  And that kind of conduct *usually* does not reflect well on your character in the online world, it shows that you know we are right but don't want to admit it.  So I'll ask it again just to make sure.

Why did you, after what seemed to be decent progress between Jai/Groves/Kevin, throw their vision of the new online community out the window?

Yepper, Vash has a good noggin with all sorts of thinking bits....that one is the main question.  You might even call it the $64 million dollar question.

My question(s) are when ie there going to be an explination to make quotes and change sigs.  Don't know if this was adressed or not so it may be part or the redunant dept's department of redunance....

Hoo-ray fun

Why did you, after what seemed to be decent progress between Jai/Groves/Kevin, throw their vision of the new online community out the window?

Then you decide to nix this (re: their) idea and go off to do your "own thing"  [...] When originally asked about it, you snubbed us some more [...] it shows that you know we are right but don't want to admit it.

Don't know how to quote, so pardon the sloppiness here.

Vash said:  " I don't need you or any other member of either board telling me if my question is good or not.  Nor do I need them putting motives into my mouth."

For the record, I just want to say that I in no way meant to imply what Vash's motives are or might be, and I apologize to Vash if it came off like I was trying to put words in his mouth.  I have no idea what Vash intends, nor is it any of my business.  My only point was that someone *could* choose to try and make an argument about Vash's question based on the larger context of discussion here and at Hordelings, but that the larger discussion is an entirely separate issue from Vash's *specific* question, and the specific words he chose to use in framing it.

To reiterate: apologies to Vash if I sounded like I was trying to speak for him.  I was not.

I'd love to discuss this more, since I think it brings up very interesting issues regarding use of language (interesting to me anyway)...but unfortunately, I have little time.  Again, I don't know how to quote, so excuse the lack of elegance. 

Wayne: "It isn't the underlying question to which I object."

Yeah, I do understand that.  It's more the *framing* of the question, right?  Again, I understand your objection, I just don't think that Vash framed the question in an unfair way.  It may not be the *easiest* way for Webmaster, but that wasn't a requisite.

Wayne: "First, the intentionally combative framing of the question. Note that the poster took several paragraphs to present a question that I'd be willing to bet someone without an agenda could ask in two sentences. "

You may win that bet--however that doesn't make Vash guilty of having an agenda, nor does it make the question, nor its framing, unfit for its purpose.

Wayne: "Second, that so many posters are lauding this behavior as 'diplomatic.'"

You may or may not be right in your evaluation.  Doesn't really matter here. Diplomatic or not, I think the framing of Vash's question meets the standards set by this board generally, and by Webmaster in his his invitation.

Wayne: "It doesn't matter, BTW, that the Webmaster invited "nasty" questions. I fully agree that if you pull a Gary Hart -- too obscure? -- you should be ready for the consequences. What's galling is the air of smugness and fait accompli division that comes through in the text."

That's a separate issue from the framing of the question.  The syntax is fair, and does not sabotage discourse--neither does, for the record, the "do you still beat your wife" question.  It's only unfair if you're only allowed a "yes" or "no" response. 

Wayne: "Ask yourself this: What possible answer could the Webmaster give to the question presented, given the tone of its presenting, that would make any difference whatsoever to the questioner?"

Webmaster does not have to answer to tone, nor does he have to make a difference to the questioner.  In other words, he just has to answer the question as it is framed--he doesn't have to *satisfy* the questioner.

Gotta run.

Webmaster/Host:

You asked for this thread.  I invited anyone and everyone to post their questions.  You indicated that you didn't care about the vitriol, but that you wanted to get things out in the open.

Many people declined to participate.  But there are some important ones written here that we are all waiting for an answer.

It has been a week.  Perhaps you were waiting for all the questions to be posted before you gave any answers.  I think enough time has now elapsed.

I fear the door is closing...

Pat E

OK one of the mods apparently moved it back into the admin forum, but here's what I said on March 20th:

Hey guys, I am here! Personally, I am thinking that maxminis needs to branch out beyond DDM and expand beyond miniatures to continue to exist and grow indefinitely. Such expansion would require efforts in the areas of programming, site management, design, and marketing, not to mention cash.

I am proposing:

moving to a more generalized format similar to enworld.

changing service providers or hosting by one of us to allow for rapid site expansion. the fastest forum out there for gamers. Doing what it takes to absolutely minimize load times.

a generalized have/want list that admins can add games to as they are released, not just miniature games but any game the admins deem relevant to the gamer community

a focus on competitive strategies for newly released games. A strong point of maxminis seems to be that we have some of the very best strategists here on a daily basis. I suspect the quality strategy tips is a key draw to the site. This may involve starting monthly articles or blogs.

a change in the site name to reflect the more generalized nature of the new site, with maxminis.com redirecting to it

users from this site attending game conventions worldwide and promoting the site at the conventions with t-shirts and flyers, and by holding tournaments with prizes paid for by the site.

Taking out ads in magazines such as Dragon, Dungeon, Pokemon, etc... to attract fresh faces to the site.

making the forums google-friendly. Right now its hard to find maxminis.com if you do a search about DDM, SWM, AA, etc..

adding banner ads and selling them to gamer companies (i.e., no generic ad services).

a sharing of the revenue the site generates among the people making the site work. Right now the site doesnt generate any revenue, but I think it has the critical mass to do so and this ability will snowball as the site branches out. Jai and I will also work out sharing ownership.

Id like to contribute cash and some time spent on user interface design. The general site structure I will leave up to Those That Know Better (you guys).

OK now I am done on the soapbox, time for you guys to voice your thoughts.

First off think about the context in which I wrote this.  It was written to admins and it was my first pass (written in a few minutes) to address some key points that were relevant to the admins, who were already aware of other issues.  Note this section:

"adding banner ads and selling them to gamer companies (i.e., no generic ad services)."

This is the line that probably got you wondering.  But keep in mind the line that follows it:

"a sharing of the revenue the site generates among the people making the site work. Right now the site doesnt generate any revenue, but I think it has the critical mass to do so and this ability will snowball as the site branches out. Jai and I will also work out sharing ownership."

Jai had complained before about "losing motivation", and I figured he was not the only one, so I proposed we generate some revenue and share it "among the people that make the site work"-  i.e., Jai and the admins that put a lot of work in.

A second reason for proposing to generate some revenue was to pay for improved hosting.  Its sort of like if you walk into a travel agency and say "I want to go to New Orleans".  they say "well, how much do you have" and you say "I have $12.50".  The travel agent says "OK I'll book you on a bus to New Orleans".  "But I want to get there in time for Mardi Gras!  I want to fly"  and the agent says, "I'm sorry sir, but $12.50 can't buy you a plane ticket"

Same deal with web hosting.  You want performance you have to pay.  I didn't mind footing the bill for the past 3 years, but when there was talk of "we need to go faster", I knew we'd need another source of revenue to pay for the substantial cost increase for a dedicated server.

Consider this for a moment: If I was so interested in trying to make a buck off maxminis, why would I wait 3 years before putting some ads on it?  Why would I pay the hosting bill for maxminis for 3 years without putting at least 1 ad on it?  Fact is, I never expected to make any money off maxminis and I would prefer to keep it as non-commercial as possible, BUT I would like it to take care of its own costs.

I play d&d minis, star wars minis, dreamblade, and heroclix.  I stopped collecting DDM a while ago and sold my collection to raise some money to pay for maxminis hosting costs.  Frankly I got tired of DDM for a while, but I'm looking forward to the upcoming set with its fiends (the hell scenario was always my favorite in D&D)

There are a lot of assumptions in that statement.Â

"after what seemed to be decent progress between Jai/Groves/Kevin"

You make it sound as if a large project was nearing completion and I killed it.  The facts of the matter are that Chris wrote up a conversion document and Jai/Kevin worked on some scripts to dump the maxminis database into hordelings.  These activities happened near the end of May.Â

"throw their vision of the new online community out the window?"

I stated in the following thread simply that maxminis would stay maxminis *for now*.
http://www.maxminis.com/Forums/tabid/104/view/topic/forumid/55/postid/447669/Default.aspx

I never said a merger was out of the question.  I had to make a clear statement however about the current plan for maxminis because Jai had walked away from the discussion that him, Kevin, and Chris were having and posted this to the general community:
http://www.maxminis.com/Forums/tabid/104/forumid/55/postid/447176/view/topic/Default.aspx

I'm not really clear on why he did this, considering that just 3 days before he said he was going to write up a response to some of the questions I had to their proposal.  So I wrote the "maxminis will stay maxminis for now" post to clarify that nothing had yet solidified in the way Jai had suggested in his post.

"Their vision was something that a good majority of the community wanted and supported: A harder, better, faster, stronger site"

Their proposal was about as vague as the statement above, and that was the key sticking point for me.  Who doesn't want all those things?  We all do.  But you need a plan filled with specific, tangible, actionable items.Â

Why would merging the two sites improve their speed (a key issue with many people)?
What new features would be in the site that aren't already in maxminis?
Whats the hosting company?  Can we trust them?  What about overages?
Whose credit card is being charged?
Why merge maxminis into hordelings?  Why not merge hordelings into maxminis?  Whats the logic?
Whats the ownership breakdown?  Who is the key decision maker?
Whats the timeline?
Whose responsible for implementing which features?
Where are the blogs?  The articles?
Are the features people are requesting really in the plan?

I wrote a few of my questions I had in a marked up version of the design document and sent it back to them, and I think we were starting to get a dialogue to get my questions answered.  When Jai posted the message above, however, he forced me into making an immediate decision.  And at the time, with the vague plan that was presented to me, I felt maxminis should stay maxminis.

Webmaster:

 

Thanks for your responses thus far.  It seems as though communication on all sides was lacking.  From what I have seen, the development of MaxMinis 2.0 was further along than you describe.  It was also my understanding that after the merger, the new site would repalce both MaxMinis and Hordeings, so it wasn't so much a MaxMinis vs. Hordelings kind of debate.  Itw as taking the resources of the admins of 2 sites, and having them abandon both sites in favor of a single unifying site.  It still sounds good to me.

 

The only other thing that i can ask at this time relates to the end of jai's presence here.  Why did you lock out his Admin privledges without fully communicating why you were doing it?  That moment seems to be when the schism occurred, that those in favor of the unified site seemed to feel that they were being told clearly:  NO.  That might not have been the intent.  Maybe it was.

I'm happy to read that efforts to commercialize the site will be limited (and not modled after sites like TCGPlayer).  I hope that the community here continues to grow, but I find myself with less and less to say on teh site...  :-(

Pat E