Alla pics!

[Yugl]

http://ffxi.allakhazam.com/forum.htm...94539869947197

That's the guy's first post. I call him retarded, so he finds a post i made 6 months ago saying that they could situationally beat novio. Never mind the 80 int, and 55 skill we've gained since then. Also, he doesn't remember the blm nerf.

His statement is correct though. He makes the biconditional statement that the earring combo will beat novio's against resistant NMs. Rephrased, it reads "If and only if the NM is resistant, then the earring combo will beat Novio's+Moldy". This does not apply on NMs that do not resist. If no NMs exist that resist, then CH combo will never beat the novio combo. However, that does not make the statement any less true.

[Ezhno]

I found the Dancer forums thanks to your link! Four posts later, I think I'm done with Alla for another 4 years.

That Evisceration thread made me want to kill all of them, then myself.

[Byrthnoth]

Dancer lore in general is flawed, because many of the original dancers were in it more for the skirts than the game mechanics... like whoever made up the Saber Dance (50/40/30/20/10) myth. I also suspect Pyrrhic Kleos' information is incorrect. I have enough things that I want to check before that though.

[Nightfyre]

That Evisceration thread made me want to kill all of them, then myself.

One good thing came out of that thread at least, I discovered I'm not the only DNC who likes the idea of a RR/GH atma setup.

[Vlorsutes]

Alla takes a very hands off approach to moderation, and has a policy of not banning stupid.

Well, considering that this deals a lot with my outlook on things, there have been people in the past that I've wanted to ban just cause they were being stupid, but given that there are stringent rules that we have as far as what constitutes ban worthy and what doesn't, most of the time my hands are tied. The rules are handed down from our higher-ups, so they aren't things that can easily or readily be changed. It ends up being a situation of just keeping an eye on potential bad seeds and just wait to see if they'll break any rules. Then I have to go through the warning procedure and hope he/she calms down, or eventually ban them if they don't. I can't lay down a heaping helping of Isla banning the moment a problem child pops up.

[isladar]

Then I have to go through the warning procedure and hope he/she calms down, or eventually ban them if they don't. I can't lay down a heaping helping of Isla banning the moment a problem child pops up.

I guess that really reflects Zam owning the boards versus a linkshell website that blew the fuck up, so I see what you're saying. It must be frustrating as fuck, especially since as I recall you can pay money to be a premium user; that must be hell trying to enforce a decent forum environment when people think their $10 or whatever grants them the right to be retarded. Thanks for commenting, though, it's neat to read your perspective.

Oh, in case you were wondering: absolute power fucking rocks. Just throwin' that out there.

[rog]

It must be frustrating as fuck, especially since as I recall you can pay money to be a premium user; that must be hell trying to enforce a decent forum environment when people think their $10 or whatever grants them the right to be retarded. Thanks for commenting, though, it's neat to read your perspective.

Yeah, they don't care whether someone has premium or not. I pay for premium, and have also bought it for 3 others in the last year alone, and pikko still wanted to ban me for something as silly as this. I mean, maybe some of them consider it, but i doubt it, and it certainly doesn't give you a free pass.

[isladar]

Paying just seems like a potential conflict of interest to me, I guess. The different culture is really telling though. I know when I was first modded I was told, "here's the rules, enforce them, ask if you have anything that rides the line, but use your fucking judgment".

[rog]

Paying just seems like a potential conflict of interest to me, I guess. The different culture is really telling though. I know when I was first modded I was told, "here's the rules, enforce them, ask if you have anything that rides the line, but use your fucking judgment".

It probably helps that the admins don't get paid much.

[Yugl]

The moral of the story is we need to bribe mods to avoid bans?

[Viq]

It must be frustrating as fuck, especially since as I recall you can pay money to be a premium user; that must be hell trying to enforce a decent forum environment when people think their $10 or whatever grants them the right to be retarded.

Just to play a little Devil's Advocate, how different is the mentality of someone that pays for a subscription to Zam compared to someone that donates to BG?

[S N K]

Paying just seems like a potential conflict of interest to me, I guess. The different culture is really telling though. I know when I was first modded I was told, "here's the rules, enforce them, ask if you have anything that rides the line, but use your fucking judgment".

Now see that's excatly how's it's handled on my forums.

[Hyan]

It must be frustrating as fuck, especially since as I recall you can pay money to be a premium user; that must be hell trying to enforce a decent forum environment when people think their $10 or whatever grants them the right to be retarded.

That's not even bad, but the karma system, holy shit. If you are guru everything you say is Right. You have your own little fanbase that follows you around rating you up and your opponents down, and what is the result? A prick with a mindset that he needs not argue seriously with anything lower than a Sage because he has kissed enough asses to get rate ups for a few months, saying only shit that everyone will surely agree with.

[Dooom]

I blame karma for melee rdms.

:3

[Nightfyre]

I've found the other end of the spectrum to be annoying tbh: the (relatively common) posters who are more or less content with their ignorance of even basic mechanics, ie the meat of this thread's content. Haven't really had any issues with sages or gurus, but I only read a limited number of threads, much less post responses to them.

Definitely not a fan of the karma system though.

[arus2001]

That's not even bad, but the karma system, holy shit. If you are guru everything you say is Right. You have your own little fanbase that follows you around rating you up and your opponents down, and what is the result? A prick with a mindset that he needs not argue seriously with anything lower than a Sage because he has kissed enough asses to get rate ups for a few months, saying only shit that everyone will surely agree with.

Sounds like you don't really know how karma works there. While there is a slight decay added per post, basically if someone gets all their shit bumped up to excellent within their first 30 posts or so, all their posts will start out that way and assuming no rate bombs on everything thereafter until they hit 100 or so, you get the illusion they have some band of flunkies following them around. Some sages I see always start at good when checking fresh posts. Personally, I worry more about the +1 crowd, circle jerk club, or whatever you wanna call the (usually yellow) people always seemingly at Excellent when being your typical internet douchebag. Of course, they always claim to not care about karma, but boy you can see the directions slide when they smell opportunity. In small part, I'm not really sure this thread helps that, either, but I guess it depends on WHY something gets linked. Being an idiot is one thing, but getting uppity because a sage disagreed with something like job balance almost seems... whiny. I still remember pissing off some BSTs there, though. Got camped for weeks.

Either way, if you really care about the karma system that much, then unless you're gonna try to abuse it with socks or collaborating rate ups, you need to do a better job in presenting your message even if you think just trying to be helpful is enough. The slightest hint of aggression or perceived arrogance can quickly backfire, and even if you don't get gangbanged on karma, you might wind up getting a lot of angry posts thrown at you instead. Needless to say, some posters also get off on citing something you may've said 6 months ago just to try and prove some point. When you hit that phase, it's probably safe to assume you've began some kind of reputation, be it good or bad.

Rambled way too much on this, though. Treat people how you want to be treated. I know it's a virtue often lost to internet anonymity, but it's how I roll here, there, or any forum I've ever visited, really. I know I've had my strongly worded arguments from time to time, and sometimes the mood here isn't always to my liking, but I've come to attribute that more to me being a white knight personality.

[Hyan]

Either way, if you really care about the karma system that much, then unless you're gonna try to abuse it with socks or collaborating rate ups, you need to do a better job in presenting your message even if you think just trying to be helpful is enough. The slightest hint of aggression or perceived arrogance can quickly backfire, and even if you don't get gangbanged on karma, you might wind up getting a lot of angry posts thrown at you instead.

That is exactly one of the major annoyances of the system. Especially when people give more merit for how something is said rather than what is said. I doubt any of the top posters here would have anything more than a Scholar status in ZAM, just because they come off as assholes (who also know what they're talking about, unlike the ones getting rated up).

But it just doesn't end there! It doesn't always even matter how you come across, as if your argument doesn't agree with the opinion of the majority you get rated down. It is much easier to argue on the side of the majority and get rate ups no matter what you say than be on the unpopular side and get rate ups when you are presenting a good argument. These people don't rate themselves "fairly" and rationally. Bias determines the outcome, not your argument or the way you present it. Take the unpopular side, and you won't get past Scholar.

Rambled way too much on this, though. Treat people how you want to be treated. I know it's a virtue often lost to internet anonymity, but it's how I roll here, there, or any forum I've ever visited, really.

At some point, you just stop caring... since it won't really get you anywhere. It's not like you are treated the same way as others. Nowadays I just don't bother anymore.

In other words, it doesn't matter what is right and what is wrong, what matters is how much dick you can suck.

[S N K]

I blame Seriha for melee rdms.

:3

*fixed

[rog]

Sounds like you don't really know how karma works there. While there is a slight decay added per post, basically if someone gets all their shit bumped up to excellent within their first 30 posts or so, all their posts will start out that way and assuming no rate bombs on everything thereafter until they hit 100 or so, you get the illusion they have some band of flunkies following them around. Some sages I see always start at good when checking fresh posts.

Nah, the problem is that it is virtually impossible to change someone's karma once they have more than a few thousand posts (let alone 20k+...). It would literally take over 100k rate ups, over a short period of time, for me to get guru. Mean while someone with 16 posts could get guru in something like 20 rate ups. And every time you post, you rate yourself 2x at your base karma, posting more just cements you in place.

[arus2001]

Nah, the problem is that it is virtually impossible to change someone's karma once they have more than a few thousand posts (let alone 20k+...). It would literally take over 100k rate ups, over a short period of time, for me to get guru. Mean while someone with 16 posts could get guru in something like 20 rate ups. And every time you post, you rate yourself 2x at your base karma, posting more just cements you in place.

It's possible they changed the mechanics some over the years. I remember when numbers were visible, like every 10 posts nothing happened with rates, I'd always seem to go down .01 since I'd go through my post history now and then just to check up on threads I maybe forgot about. For all I know, someone could've been finding my old shit and being naughty, but I also thought they had something set up where rates on posts X days old (At least 30 days) don't count toward your total.

At some point, you just stop caring... since it won't really get you anywhere. It's not like you are treated the same way as others. Nowadays I just don't bother anymore.

I dare say that if you didn't care, you wouldn't have brought it up. Believe it or not, sometimes there are people with dissenting opinions that aren't sitting in the sub-default basement. Could it be presentation? Could it be a degree of majorities? I dunno, but to be honest, what do you have to benefit from being a dick other than possibly hinting at personal frustration or playing the troll card? If people wanna preach a cut-throat no sympathy environment here, why is it surprising if similar happens there in a different way? I know I'd love for more active moderation on Alla, but when in Rome...

I blame Seriha for melee rdms.

*fixed

Digging up their recent stuff, it seems like their opinion is melee isn't worth it as is. I can't say I disagree, but I guess RDM's one of those jobs that wins the joy of everybody having a preferred way to play it. Most recent topic they started in the Feedback forum was late July, and it didn't even involve RDM. They do seem to spring up in other RDM topics where people try to put their spin on things, but it seems to either focus on telling people their ideas are bad (and some truly are) or to tell the anti-melee crowd that inevitably funnels in to STFU in far more words. Is there something else I'm missing? Because according to one of SNK's older posts here, they're not all there, but... well, they could be worse?