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nickmodaily · 02-09-2011, 02:13 AM

True "communities" don't make you prove your worth before letting you become a member.

Imagine a large gated community with 16 fool steel walls with barbed wire along the top. At the front gate five men are standing there ready to judge you on whether you're worthy to enter and be a part of the neighborhood. If you were looking for a new home, would you really stop and allow yourself to be subjected to that? Or would you keep on driving and look for a more inviting atmosphere?

I understand that Sarku hates freeloaders, but I think it's something that he needs to get past in order to make this website successful. You're going to have a hard time finding people to join this community if you don't let them have a look inside first. They're not going to know what they are missing out on unless you let them see the benefits of joining. They're going to keep on driving.

Sarku, you should really try to put your hate of freeloaders aside and figure out what's best for the site.

D153453D · 02-09-2011, 02:20 AM

At first i was like WTF!? And then I was like, Ah, intersesting point! What it comes down to is Sarku has been here from the beginning so he ultimately has a better understanding of its users and traffic then any of us. You have a nice point, but he's has a ton of experience with freeloaders and has had to deal with leachers for a lot longer than any of us.

Having said that, I do think he knows what he's doing, but I understand where you're coming from.

nickmodaily · (This post was last modified: 02-09-2011 03:15 AM by nickmodaily.)

First, let me say that I think your expansion rocks. You did a fantastic job and I commend your willingness to provide it free to everyone. You're a true LNOE fan. I have a lot of respect for you.

As for this new rule, I just know of other sites that don't have this rule and they do really well for themselves. Heroscapers.com is a great example. Being able to see what's going on before joining is a big selling point when trying to get people to join.

Also, just because people don't post often doesn't mean that they aren't part of the community. I've been a part of Heroscapers.com since it first started. I don't post often, but I am on there regularly reading posts. I will occasionally chime in, but for the most part, what I want to say has already been said so I keep quiet.

Sarku has the right to do what he wants, but I don't think it will increase the membership in this website. I think it will detract people from joining.

Oh, I forgot to add...am I worthy yet? Zombie03

**Old Dwarf** · (This post was last modified: 02-09-2011 03:36 AM by Old Dwarf.)

Wrong,we have been flooded with new members making a series of 1-4 word replys posts to simply
up their post count to get to 10 grab the Downloads & leave.These post often are to threads that
are months old &/or simply add nothing to discussion except to waste members time.

Complaints by the membership have motivated the new policy.The 11 posts to downloads did create an
an inducement to this behavior & thus policy was revised.The new Rules encourage "real"posts & contributions,
it's not necessary now to reach a certain number to get to the Downloads,just a little participation in the Forum.

This site is intended to be a Fan community where members can share their interest & questions about FFP Games,
members who don't post are welcomed & the only requirment to gain acess to the full Forum is simply to make
an introductory post.The Download Section is a bonus for active members similar Sections on other Fan forums
are often tied to making a donation,TZG is free.

How this will effect membership is to be seen,many will be glad to see the glut of "crap posts" stopped
& people who have joined just to get the Downloads & then skip weren't really members to begin with.

OD

PLEASE NOTE-I have move this Thread out of The Morgue as that Topic is dedicated to requests for the Download Section.

OD

**Sarku** · 02-09-2011, 03:34 AM

I was working on a reply, but I couldn't have said it better myself... Thanks OD!!!

gavindowning · 02-09-2011, 04:47 AM

I can see the OP's point, Sarku (though I agree that the tone was perhaps a bit overly confrontational), in that I think what drew me here in the first place was the free material, but then I remained because of the community. I also don't pipe up a ton myself, though I check the boards daily, and try to help out where I can.

I also TOTALLY get where you're coming from, too, though. And I'm very glad to see the rule-change instituted, since there was an awful lot of resurrection of old threads as people tried to reach the magic number.

In the end, it's your board, and I'll support whatever decision you make 100%, but as a compromise suggestion, perhaps a couple of freebies could be made available for anyone dropping by the site, to give them a taste of what they could earn by contributing to the community here, with the majority of them held only for those who are deemed to be contributors?

**Sarku** · 02-09-2011, 05:15 AM

Well... Members are members again. They still need to be granted download access but at least they can see the boards again... Who knows, maybe they'll post shit worth reading and they might even get access sooner than 11 posts...

02-09-2011, 06:03 AM

Ok my 2 cents... (I do this a lot don't I?)

Simply put: We want a community of participants. Not a HUGE members list full of 100's of people who came in once, downloaded everything, and never returned (and likely never will). If there are people who can't or don't want to appreciate that, then we don't want them here anyway.

The crap posts piss me off because they take a load of time to go through because you don't know it's crap till you see it. I don't have the time to read 1000 posts of LOL because I didn't know it was just a LOL to up a post count. you get 10 freeloaders in in a day, at a post count of 11, 11x10= 110 crap posts I have to wade through to read the ones I want to read. And in the last few days alone we had more than 10 new people and several of them posted crap.

So it is a simple choice: Piss off the regular members and supporters of the site (risking them getting fed up and leaving) to get more people crap posting and downloading without giving so much as a decent hello... or lock it down, take in new members who are more interested in a community than free downloads and make sure we keep who we have.

It is always better to have 5 good friends alone, than a million acquaintances who care nothing for you. It isn't about how many people we can get, it is about the quality of the ones we have.

Enough said.

vikinglad · 02-09-2011, 07:01 AM

What Gothic said! Wading through all of the thread corpses generated by the recent rush of "Word!" posts has been lame the last few days. Making the downloads available to everyone would make those posts go away, but Sarku would be paying out the yang for bandwidth. I appreciate this site so much. Stuff is just all up in the air right now because of D's expansion. I think it will calm down soon.

D153453D · 02-09-2011, 07:17 AM

(02-09-2011 07:01 AM)vikinglad Wrote: What Gothic said! Wading through all of the thread corpses generated by the recent rush of "Word!" posts has been lame the last few days. Making the downloads available to everyone would make those posts go away, but Sarku would be paying out the yang for bandwidth. I appreciate this site so much. Stuff is just all up in the air right now because of D's expansion. I think it will calm down soon.

Ok, that'll I'll take 20 lashings or 5 minutes of watching The Real Housewives of New Jersy. Your choice!

(Please be lashings... please be lashings...)