Forum Feedback So..

[Safin]

Seems like guys here have a habit of jumping up at the first opportunity to bash TE admins.

well frankly we have grown accustomed to that.

Now lets get some facts straight(they are pretty straight anyway, i will make them even more)

1) The only things that we allow are links to blogs. And that is also reviewed. Its clearly stated in our rules.Bottle has already given the link above. We review all links case by case.

2) Under no circumstances are we allowing any threads advertising your site. And sorry we are not making any exceptions, we haven't before, we aren't going to do so now. Just because you have worked hard on a site and you are old member, we make an exception for you, then we have some 1k regular members, we start making an exception for all of them and all we will have is 1k links in advertising. Btw when te started no one allowed us to do it also. You want traffic on your site, advertise in directories, go and ask opinions on web design forums and places where this is allowed(you will be surprised to know that even those places have pretty strict rules)

3) Go and do it on other sites if you guys think we are hard on this. No site allows this..

here is the uber thread now

Hey guys,

A New gaming site has launched..

Looks amazing ..

And what they say their gonna do is even more amazing!

Welcome to the IndianGamersLeague.com - India's Largest Gaming Community! !!

Check it out!!

wow...

so i have this next day

A new bla blah site launched

biggest in World

great looks style, come join

Well bottom line we are not allowing it.

4)

Friendly Advice :

Just because TE is a bit famous. Don't let it go to your heads.

so nice of you. Thanks for the advice. You will be happy to know that we never allow things to get in our head cos we have work to do at places other than TE or websites.

5)

I dont need an TE Admin/Mods permission to make a New Post now do I? Or did I miss that in the rules?

I guess you start looking at the announcements we make in the announcement section. No need to be sarcastic.

6)

But seems like your greed took over ur senses.

Just coz you guys have got a decent amount of money (I know the exact amount) from Reliance for that Banner up to

Pal, lemme tell you that prior to this reliance ad we have rejected, got it.. rejected.. advertising campaigns from heavyweight sites paying a lot more than reliance. We look at the advertising and then decide if we want to have it. (and this is paid advertising not some freebies) As far as greed goes, the admins have paid out of our pockets for pretty long time for TE. And we won't shy away from doing the same if needed again. There are some standards we maintain on TE and those won't be broken.(And one of them is not allowing (wow ..great site! threads)).

 

[Blade_Runner]

You consider that nitpicking? Just great! Don't throw irrelevant numbers like 10k members out to me dude, what's relevant is how many are active (defined by those who logged in at least once in the last 30 days)? Anyway, it's clear no "member" has and will complain about links in signatures unless they're striving to become a mod or admin. TE gets my support most of the time, but I'm sorry I stand for what's right and when something wrong happens, I will not stand for it.

Either way, this is your site/forum - no more nitpicking and nonsense from the inspector!

The 10k number isn't irrelevant mate. Not everyone likes to post, there are a lot of lurker, one post wonders etc. And heck you find outgoing links to commercial sites even in siggy's of people who don't post. Only yesterday i edited someone's signature for this very same reason. It had 3 outgoing links to commercial sites and the guy did not even have 15 posts to his credit. So it's not only a question of who are active. Also you might be aware that a lot of first timers come through google, so while regular members look at active topics these people these people often go through old topics/threads. It's a good thing to know that we have your support however i fail to see how could you comment on the situation without even once investigating ADi's claim that his site is of non commercial nature. The server rental biz model not doing well claim not withstanding. Or is this some sort of a prejudice against admins and staff that we are always the bad guys and the lone member is some messiah fighting for betterment of the members ? Look mate i respect your posts/suggestions but subtle sarcasm and prejudice is something no one likes.

Edit: I see that the admin has clarified, so no point in me "bickering" about what's right and what's wrong. It's pretty pointless, the prejudice stays anyway.

 

[Josh]

There are some standards we maintain on TE and those won't be broken.

Who are WE in this case ? I mean is it the owners decision or you guys take collective decisions ?? If they are only the owners who take decisions then probably they need to rethink on some things, including helping other communities grow. Not that they are eating into TE's market. Since Funenclave was a spinoff from TE, you guys never left a place not to advertise it.

I am just saying that if the community interests are not conflicting with TE then they can allow members to promote via a thread.

I hope this thread does not disappear like the other one did.

 

[Aditya]

Mods, please Lock this thread.

This is going nowhere.

Sorry for the trouble.

 

[paws]

To be honest, i feel the said gaming site cant be termed as non-profit site as long as it has some sort of money making links, line online stores. It does not matter whether its a good business model or not. Besides this i think (not sure) even non profit site links are not allowed. TE have been built by hardwork/money of admins. If someone wants to promote a site, he should go through what TE went through. I am here since the days of old TA (not many ppl will know whats that). But when it comes to upholding standards, present TE admins preferred to move on their own rather than cribbing about unfairness. Bottomline, if u feel u r treated unfairly, have courage and ability to move with it, else u might just have to live with it.

 

[Safin]

Who are WE in this case ?

We in this case are the people of TE staff.

And helping other communities.. hmm. As i said above, we are not allowing threads for this purpose. You might not agree with us on that and we(i) respect that.

I am just saying that if the community interests are not conflicting with TE then they can allow members to promote via a thread.

So we can have a guys starting a shopping site, graphics site, gaming site, celeb site, and ....and we allow everyone of them to advertise their sites.

As of now this is not happening. If we change this later, you will come to know via the announcement section

The thread starter has requested that the thread be deleted. I will not delete it just yet but it will be locked soon.

 

[Aditya]

Thanks. Only Lock it if you wish.

Safin, Ill talk to you about Advertisement soon.

 

[superczar]

Hey guys,

A New gaming site has launched..

Looks amazing ..

And what they say their gonna do is even more amazing!

Welcome to the IndianGamersLeague.com - India's Largest Gaming Community! !!

Check it out!!

Sorry Adi; no offense but Profit or non-profit, this looks like blatant (and rather crass) advertising to me!

From a 3rd party neutral POV, frankly, If I were to see this as a mail in my inbox, it wouldn't have taken me a second to send it to trash or even mark it as Spam...

LOL, if you wanted to entice people to visit the site, at least draft a better note to use wherever you want to post it

 

[KiD0M4N]

I hate replying to these kinds of threads but since my Name is mentioned in the thread, I will take the liberty to do so.

@TE staff: Guys, can you imagine what would happen if all members were to leave and only you guys are left. Many of the regulars "Create" content which DRIVES people onto the site. A nice theme (no offense Safin, just pointing the obv fact, that TE has awesome themes) and excellent moderation wont drive people into the site, CONTENT will.

I agree, the STYLE and the CONTENT of the OP was not helpful. It could have been done in a much more sophisticated way and would probably have passed under the scanner of the mods.

But the direction this is headed is not correct. You guys proud yourshelves because of the transparency in operations of TE, let the transparency show itself to the "COMMUNITY" as without them, it would be just a VERY expensive hosting account.

Thats my 2cents.

Ad1, you should have talked to Staff before creating that thread. From what i learnt from some mods, it would have been a pleasure for them to help you kick start the site. Particularly after you had issues with our clan website (which was and is NON-PROFIT btw, no google ads in front page even, IIRC) you should learn and live. Not make the same errors again and again.

Regards,

Karan

 

[Josh]

Very rightly said Karan. Very true i must say.

You have spelled out exactly what i am feeling. TE is going the wrong way. This is a Community and it does not take long for quality people to leave. Ownership and moderation are two seperate things and i feel they are getting mixed here. I mean i am truly amazed by the number of admin/moderators jumping to answer in this thread , while the other more important thread was promptly deleted. I mean is this the respect you guys show to a more senior member? And to put it in Safin's word - "deleted thread without owners approval".

With the number of senior guys leaving TE i think you guys take a notice and pull up your socks.

 

[paws]

I fail to understand how anyone gets a right to advt their site without even talking to admins on any other site. Admins on TE have spent from their pockets when the site started. Not many ppl came forward to share the expenses. Now when its doing good, how can anyone think of grabbing the share of fruits of TE.

Agreed the site depends on its users. But then all of us spending time at TE got to increase his/her knowledge. That i guess is enough return on our contribution to TE community.

Lastly TE depends on advt for its survival. If admins wants people (member or not) to pay for advt, then i doubt if its against the spirit of TE. Isnt it just making TE financially sound.

Lets face it admins here are not charity organisation. If they feel its time to get some profit while ensuring the survival of TE, they well are entitled to do so.

 

[Safin]

TE is a community site and we all know that.

We are not passing any judgements on people. Fact of the matter is that we have a case here where a thread is created to advertise. Helping community doesn't mean promote them by having "here is my site" thread.

We help the people here by

1) providing them a good medium in TE

2) Providing as soon as we can(which is pretty late for most of you) unique features to the community(rig, market)

3) And listening to them and doing things which look right in the long run. Eg, witht he FE split, we didn't even plan to have any general talk section, but since you guys objected and since the staff also felt that we would be forcing member by not having that, we went along with that idea.

Having said all that, not everything that some guys suggest can be put up. And what you want right now is a no go. I have already said that if we create a precedence of "i have created my site, come join" kind of threads, there will be 10 more very soon. If we lock them, there will be 10 more complaints.

But the direction this is headed is not correct. You guys proud yourshelves because of the transparency in operations of TE, let the transparency show itself to the "COMMUNITY" as without them, it would be just a VERY expensive hosting account.

Karan, i am stumped by what you have posted. In what way are we not transparent? Actually i don't think we have done anything right now which would fall under the "heading" of underhand dealings. If you meant we discuss hosting issues with the community, well i don't see why the community needs to know. One of the first things we decided was not to ever accept donations or favours from the members(however good the intentions) We will keep the costs and all among ourselves. As far as framing rules go, a staff is chosen to do that. Admins don't frame rules btw.

If what you call transparency not being followed is about any of the staff issues, i don't see why we can't sort our issues within the staff section, rather than post outside. All the members of TE staff are mature young people and if you can't sort your issues within the staff i don't see how posting and talking in the whole forums will help solve them.

Anyway i am a bit baffled by your post on transparency. Can you elaborate on it.

 

[Khimera]

A little OT but........This thread is a perfect example for "living a virtual life". Am sure everybody (that includes me ) who have contributed for this thread will have a smile on their face thinking about it 5-10 yrs from now unless, you still continue to live the virtual life . TE is not the life. life is not TE. Community should know it. Admins and Mods should know it . just my two cents worth

 

[Josh]

^^ He he nice one.

Oops just forget it. No issues here.

 

[KiD0M4N]

TE is a community site and we all know that.

We are not passing any judgements on people. Fact of the matter is that we have a case here where a thread is created to advertise. Helping community doesn't mean promote them by having "here is my site" thread.

We help the people here by

1) providing them a good medium in TE

2) Providing as soon as we can(which is pretty late for most of you) unique features to the community(rig, market)

3) And listening to them and doing things which look right in the long run. Eg, witht he FE split, we didn't even plan to have any general talk section, but since you guys objected and since the staff also felt that we would be forcing member by not having that, we went along with that idea.

Having said all that, not everything that some guys suggest can be put up. And what you want right now is a no go. I have already said that if we create a precedence of "i have created my site, come join" kind of threads, there will be 10 more very soon. If we lock them, there will be 10 more complaints.



Karan, i am stumped by what you have posted. In what way are we not transparent? Actually i don't think we have done anything right now which would fall under the "heading" of underhand dealings. If you meant we discuss hosting issues with the community, well i don't see why the community needs to know. One of the first things we decided was not to ever accept donations or favours from the members(however good the intentions) We will keep the costs and all among ourselves. As far as framing rules go, a staff is chosen to do that. Admins don't frame rules btw.

If what you call transparency not being followed is about any of the staff issues, i don't see why we can't sort our issues within the staff section, rather than post outside. All the members of TE staff are mature young people and if you can't sort your issues within the staff i don't see how posting and talking in the whole forums will help solve them.

Anyway i am a bit baffled by your post on transparency. Can you elaborate on it.

Yup sure

People have a habit of reading wrongly into my posts/talks.

I MEANT, let it show through. It should not happen that even 5% people are having doubts about the operations.

Ok tell me... its a open truth that there are private "staff" only forums and from what Darky had posted, there are even more hidden sections (or something like that.)

Are you confident that you could allow one wild card entry into the staff forums to one elected member to go look around. Ofcourse, nothing TE-hosting related would be there... rather, just to see, how TE works? If you can without majorly reworking the private forums, I admit: i was totally wrong. If not, time to reflect upon yourself.

All this doubt regarding advertising... why? Because even the older members are not aware of what exactly the reasons are. I wont even try to suggest you to share hosting costs and other stuff with generic members. What i am saying is, post why you dont want people to advertise.

I was pissed at Ad1 when I saw that thread. This is not done. How would you feel if someone came and said... "Dude look, new site Awesome looks... etc, etc." I would feel pissed.

Ad1 was aware that this incident was repeated earlier when one of his friends (hardik) had attempted such a episode long while back.

Therefore i posted, what he should have done ideally.

Bottom line: I DONT KNOW ENUF TO even raise a finger nail at what goes inside staff and how TE operates. I have been lead to believe multiple times that there is a very trasparent structure to the operations of TE. And i believe it.

Just we need someone to act as a MATURE mod and say why it happened. I agree it is tedious task, but we would avoid such ugly incidents right? I guess only XT should be allowed to answer to these threads If you know what i mean.

 

[TheMask]

Ok tell me... its a open truth that there are private "staff" only forums and from what Darky had posted, there are even more hidden sections (or something like that.)

Now that u have brought it up, lemme clear once for all. U've just heard one side of the story, (if u have heard that is), but there is another side too, which you wont hear from any of the staff. All i can say is there has been a BIG misunderstanding over the way certain things were implemented in staff. There was an announcement, but as always, most of us had missed it. Hence all the confusion.

Are you confident that you could allow one wild card entry into the staff forums to one elected member to go look around. Ofcourse, nothing TE-hosting related would be there... rather, just to see, how TE works? If you can without majorly reworking the private forums, I admit: i was totally wrong. If not, time to reflect upon yourself.

Er.. dont get ur point. We've inducted ppl into staff who've been actively helping us out with TE. Dipdude, Switch n Rave weren't even global mods on TE in the beginnig. Had we been soo secretive group of staff (like u seem to project in ur words), there wud NOT have been any more inclusions into the staff. Heck, check this - http://www.techenclave.com/forums/members/radon.html. Radon hasnt even visited TE in the last few months. Yet, he's still there in staff. WHy? Simply coz he's been associated with TE and had helped us a lot b4 he got busy with his studies. So, dont question the integrity of the site. And jsut coz u DARE us to let a member 'in' doesnt get one a special entry. It doesnt work that way.

Just we need someone to act as a MATURE mod and say why it happened. I agree it is tedious task, but we would avoid such ugly incidents right? I guess only XT should be allowed to answer to these threads If you know what i mean.

Dude! We are jsut humble beings too. Why cant u accept that!!! Why is that ONLY the mods shud act MATURE? Isnt it a responsibility on the members' part to act a li'l MATURE too? EVERYTIME there is a trivial issue, it has been BLOWN OUT OF PROPORTION.

to conclude, blady summed it up pretty much all of it:

Despite knowing this and rather than supporting us, there are controversies and threads about trivial matters.And surprisingly its the same people time and again.

 

[dipdude]

@ Adi no offense mate but this was the PM that was sent to you. As Czar said the way you started the thread from a 3rd POV was totally wrong.

Hi Adi,

Just found out that you are the Admin of the site in question.

The way you have started the thread from a view of third person is sending wrong signals to all of us -

A New gaming site has launched..

Looks amazing ..

And what they say their gonna do is even more amazing!

As an Admin you would be well versed with future of your site so all this talk of what they say looks out of place.

If you are interested in Advertising on TE then please click this link else feel free to PM the Admins for details on the same.

Also we would request you to not post or carry links to your site either in your posts or your siggy as it would be deemed as an Advertisement.

Hope you would understand. Thanks.

Sincerely,

TE Staff

@ Others - This is our current stand with regards to links in siggys especially folks creating threads solely to announce their portals on TE.

Effective from midnight today (30th August) TechEnclave will not allow signature advertising of external shops/e-stores/competing sites. This includes image links, text links and plain text ads. Those of you who wish to advertise your sites can do so by purchasing any of our advertising plan that suits you.

To sum it up all it says is - links if at all allowed would have to fulfill these basic criteria -

Blogs, Non-competing & Non-commercial sites would be dealt with on a case by case basis.

Now coming to Adi's site - There is no denying it is a clan based gaming portal, in the same vein there is no denying its estore roots nor can you ignore the forum index page - check out the section headers



So basically it was flouting all the Ad related rules -

• Its not a Blog/Personal Journal.
  
• Its not a Non-Commercial Site.
  
• Its not a Non-Competing Site.
  

As Staff we have to equitable and apply rules without bias or prejudice. So the thread in question has been dealt in same way as others before it.

If we had allowed that thread then we would have wronged all other tech forums/estores/gaming portals in India.

------------

PS: Adi i sincerely hope your doubt on why that thread was taken out is resolved by now. About a parallel discussion in this thread - i would post if need be. For now Adi's concern is paramount and needs to be resolved.

 

[Safin]

Ok tell me... its a open truth that there are private "staff" only forums and from what Darky had posted, there are even more hidden sections (or something like that.)

Any forum has staff only forums which are meant for staff to see and not everyone else.

Are you confident that you could allow one wild card entry into the staff forums to one elected member to go look around. Ofcourse, nothing TE-hosting related would be there... rather, just to see, how TE works? If you can without majorly reworking the private forums, I admit: i was totally wrong. If not, time to reflect upon yourself.

Which site ever will allow elected members to become staff members to have a look inside staff section. Its plain ridiculous if we are to allow everyone who is elected to see staff.

Let me make myself very clear now. I wanted to hear everyone out, and i think everyone has had his say also.

The staff members on TE are the oldest, senior most people on this board. period. We have been around since the days of thinkdigit(old phpbb) This is not arrogance, I just want to get this message across that when you talk of senior guys, then we have them in plenty. And every one of them takes part in what happens on TE and where its to go. The members that have proved their worth go on to join us as TE staff(rave, dipdude, switch) and then they also join us in taking decisions.

having said that we always hear from the community and do things which the community likes. However if the staff section is going to be open for all, then we won't need a staff section at all. Staff section will always be open only to staff. We recruit members from TE as staff and its a post which comes with responsibility of keeping what goes on in staff within staff and helping and spreading TE.

You mentioned that darky mentioned something about hidden sections. First of all darky mentioning it outside the staff was anyway a bad idea on his part, we can only respect his decisions as he is also our senior member.

Ok thats about it.

 

[R3D-D3V1L]

A sincere request to everyone who has posted on this thread:

Please STOP it..Things are being unnecessarily blown out of proportion and trust we this is not giving the right vibes to some of the new members..It not good for me, not for either of you and definitely not for the TE family..

And guys, pls remember that the rules were not made just today..They've been there & no one, doesn't matter how senior or venerable he/she is on the forum, has any right to violate them..Moreover the worst part is when the individual concerned has posted to lock this thread & even mentioned that he'd talk to admins for appropriate advertising options on TE (hence admitting a mistake he made) then why are people still dragging this topic!!

Pls STOP this now!!

 

[Kumar]

After reading the whole thread,there is one thing i think people must understand.

Whatever decisions mods and admins take,they take them for the good of the community.They don't just go about making rules without giving them a good thought.

In this regard,im all with the admins.For a community to work,there must be some rules which are set by the admins (which are taken in good faith even if they seem unjustified to you) and which must be followed.

Kuamr