[hoconnor6605]

I'll be the first to say that I wasn't perfect in all my judgement calls when it came to modding, and if any of those decisions hurt anybody, I am truely sorry. I was always doing what I thought was best for the site, (which didn't necessarily make it right and I don't want it to seem like a justification)

I don't expect mods to be perfect. No one is. My beef with you (and Ming) was the complaints you are addressing here were not addressed (or worse, addressed as something altogether different), at least publicly. Now that you've addressed it, no worries. Hopefully the current administration can learn from the experience for determining how to approach Civ 5's on-topic.

As for someone who stopped posting in CIV on-topic here, I've already stated I was one. (Given my contributions to Civ III here and at CFC, I don't think it's a stretch to say that was a loss of on-topic content for this site... and it may have even hurt the OT traffic wise as I tend to put OT'ers to sleep )

[teodaschwartia]

I still believe the downfall was due more to lack of on topic content and the inability to find downloads on the site than any moderation issues. We were losing on-topic posters well before we loosened up here. We didn't cater to the modders and they found another home. I'm not saying it didn't contribute, but to lay the blame mostly there is putting your head in the sand and I hope the new management doesn't think that was the major cause, because if so, things will never get better.

[hellencomstar]

I blame Civ III.

I like blaming CivIII for all sorts of things

[AnriXuinriZ]

I blame Civ III.

Funny and true.

[Uninkipsyncp]

That was probably part of the problem.. A lot of the people here hated it so bad that they gave up on it quite quickly. So the modders weren't the center of universe since there was no one around to suck up to their oversized egos. They refused to believe just how bad a game it was and went someone else for adulation. The game was horrible, and for many of us who lacked the equipment to upgrade, it removed the incentive.

[vesiasmepay]

I don't have the server statistics, but my guess would be the real heyday of Poly was Civ III PTW.

Civ III may not have been the game you liked to play, but it did this site a lot of good.

[Storwaytozy]

The magic mix of silly thread titles, poster drama and all out thread war.

Basically, the last week has been most entertaining to read.

[OpVJokl8]

Civ 3 sucked! I hate it. I think we should have a massive rally and burn all copies.

I'm with you on that!

[bZEUWO4F]

The very fact that MOBIUS isn't perma-banned speaks to leniency here.

[alenbarbaf]

Using tools. The one thing I miss not being a mod was using the who's where screen. For those that don't know, it's a simple app that shows every user on the site and what page they're on. People wondered sometimes how we knew what they were doing so fast. It was easy. It would show "asher posting in "rah's an ass" or "asher is viewing, gay men can't handle it"
It's amazing how much easier it is to focus in on possible problem areas when you can track you trouble makers so easily. The other tools I'm not going to discuss but the who's where was my favorite.

****!

[quack!]

I wouldn't read any of them so I didn't have to moderate any of them and hopefully by the time I got round to seeing something it'd all have blown over on its own.

[babopeddy]

EON (for me anyway) only got special treatment from me in the CIV II MP forum and in the OT. Both places where chest thumping is a requirement. The reason was entertainment and increased traffic. The civ II MP forum was mainly a ghost town, any traffic was appreciated. And MP players weren't chased away because of EON's rantings. NOTE: EON probably served more time banned than almost any other poster so please don't think he got a total free ride because he didn't.

In the OT him and his dozens of DLs provided a vast amount of amusement and anyone that took him seriously was an idiot. The arguements that he had with himself would draw 1000's of views and posts.

I was a touch uncomfortable with what he did in the other on topic area. I was not a specific mod in those forums but I won't totally absolve myself from responsibility. But he was so absurd that other posters ripped him a new hole. I figured that he was too over the top for anyone to take seriously enough to leave because of it. I don't know who he chased specifically. I thought the entertainment value far exceeded any risk in that area. I could have been wrong. If anyone did leave because of that i guess i was wrong, but that really hadn't been demonstrated. It's a judgement call. I'll be the first to say that I wasn't perfect in all my judgement calls when it came to modding, and if any of those decisions hurt anybody, I am truely sorry. I was always doing what I thought was best for the site, (which didn't necessarily make it right and I don't want it to seem like a justification)

Content and Traffic are the lifeline of websites, sometimes you have to make compromises, sometimes you make mistakes. You admit you're wrong on some and move on. But deep in my heart, I don't think how EON was treated had anything to do with the decrease in traffic here but after reading all the comments about it from other posters makes me think I was indeed wrong about that.

I don't know if you will count that as an apology. (i guarentee it was more sincere than others that have been posted recently and I hope you see just how torn I was on the issue) For the record, I really didn't like him and played 3 CIV II MP games with him. My record was 1-2. I played one CIV IV game with him where he promptly declared war on three different civs then claimed we ganged up on him and quit.

I dont believe that Poly's decline had anything to do with EoN's "preferential treatment", insufficient or ineffective moderating, or voodoo. I was a pretty heavy poster in the CIV3 forums at the time and while I thought EoN was an ass I wouldnt have left because of it. Better threads were just a click away for me to rant in . As far as I'm concerned the moderating level in the CIV3 forums was fine. A character named "Ming", or some other equally absurd name, would appear when disagreements were blowing up into wars and utter the magic words "chill or be banned" and all would quieten down for a few minutes. Eventually I followed the Mingster back to his den and began disagreeing with Boris Gudonov on off- as well as on-topic threads.

OTOH, I'm aware of at least one prolific poster who I think did leave the CIV3 forums because of the minimalist moderating style. He went to CFC where he took pleasure in telling noobs what they couldnt do (despite not being a mod himself). I think CFC's younger crowd just suited him better just as it didnt suit me.

Personally, I think the real culprit was Poly's poor upload/download system. I think my association with Poly is fairly typical of the progression that occurs for a noob. I first came to the Greek Civ Site (probably because the was the top link from the crappy search engines) looking for a fix/patch. Later, when it was Poly I looked for advice on how to mod, started mod-ing the games, and looked for other mods. Finally, I got entered into on-topic discussions about game development , strategy, etc.

What became clear during my mod-ing stage was something we all know, if you want to find a mod you go to CFC. (strangely, I dont find that to be true today since CFC's mod section is now so big that it's unworkable). Despite being active at Poly and not at CFC (I think I have only 20 posts at CFC that are all related to my graphics mods), I still posted my mods there first before here.

Based on my experience, I think that noobs will tend to go to sites that have 'stuff' available for download. Once there, they will tend to stay. You and your brother (and the other mods) are not responsible for polys decline. My only doubt is whether something could have prevented "Pandagate".