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ResetEra Ownership Update
- Thread starter Cerium
- Start date
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Another bait. Oh well. If this is how you are going to treat your community, then I guess I am wasting my time in this discussion. Enjoy your alt-right adjacent wasteland.
Thanks for the clarification on that.
On another note, as you are the GM. When did you get first notified of the intention to sell? From the reaction of the mods so far it seems they were notified of the sale itself a couple days ago.
But considering the process was said to have taken months, were you as GM notified earlier?
And on that note, with Cerium stating that the pressure of being the sole owner is what led to the sale. Have there been any discussions with him about sharing ownership with you/members of the admin team to alleviate that pressure? As in, has Cerium made any effort with regards to keeping the forum in the community's hands, but things simply didn't work out?
Ok... I'm out of this thread. This is one of the most derail threads I've ever read. This have became a fighting ring over some guy name Chris and some mods... things that don't are relevant to the discussion. I mean, we all got screw by a dude how is rich. Cool for him I guess.
I don't know why this forum is supposed to police someone breaching the privacy of some discord. That seems like it should be up to that particular discord to deal with, not this forum. Unless, of course, that discord is viewed as an extension of this site, which would make it even more egregious for staff to shit talk users in front of other members. I don't think this principle you folks invented actually stands up to scrutiny. How the heck can you consider something "off-site" drama when it entirely revolves around a staff member shit talking users in an era-affiliated discord in front of other era members. Why is the big crime here sharing a screenshot rather than a staff member visibly acting in a manner that reflects poorly on the site? We're not talking about a staff member being rude or objectional for a reason totally detached from their role as staff - the speech in question was directly related to their position as a moderator.
I love you entp idiots but pls sometimes you need to learn to.. shut thine mouths and calm them keyboard flippers! always getting into so much trouble.
i will guess chris was an intp although i haven't really paid attention to him specifically despite wandering in and out sales threads at times lol
i hope moba lets me monetize my many mbti and astrological powers in the future. :3
I'm just surprised that something like Resetera can even be worth so much in its current state.
Aside from the users, and monthly server costs, it's basically an off the shelf forum - with very little customisation.
It's not as if Resetera is the equivalent of Facebook where that site tries to reinvent the wheel.
Speaking of Facebook... It's not as if Cerium is even in the same league as Zuckerberg.
Zuckerberg has been handling an obscene amount of stress since the age of 19. Facebook also has millions of users.
So I don't know how the owner(s) of Resetera couldn't handle a bit of stress from running a forum that doesn't even have 100,000 users.
I think all of this just comes across as being incredibly weak. Cerium and the mods should have done better.
As a business owner... Imagine getting a profit of $500k per year... I'd have spent that money on improving the infrastructure and services (whatever guise they took). That's how I would have been able to demonstrate that I truly cared about the business.
Aside from the users, and monthly server costs, it's basically an off the shelf forum - with very little customisation.
It's not as if Resetera is the equivalent of Facebook where that site tries to reinvent the wheel.
Speaking of Facebook... It's not as if Cerium is even in the same league as Zuckerberg.
Zuckerberg has been handling an obscene amount of stress since the age of 19. Facebook also has millions of users.
So I don't know how the owner(s) of Resetera couldn't handle a bit of stress from running a forum that doesn't even have 100,000 users.
I think all of this just comes across as being incredibly weak. Cerium and the mods should have done better.
As a business owner... Imagine getting a profit of $500k per year... I'd have spent that money on improving the infrastructure and services (whatever guise they took). That's how I would have been able to demonstrate that I truly cared about the business.
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I assume you're referring to BrunoMB's ban for their tweet? Not sure why you're bringing them up when they aren't the one who took screenshots of the aforementioned discord posts or shared then on era so their initial ban and subsequent ban reversal is irrelevant to the discussion at hand and is an attempt to try and deflect.
BrunoMB was unbanned because after multiple days of deliberation it was decided that in wake of everything that happened, reversing the ban was what was best for this site and community. If you feel the ban never should have happened in the first place you're more than fine to feel that way but just as how it was felt by many on staff the ban initial ban was justified early on, the same was said by others on staff and thus the reversal made.
None of that changes in regards to what I've previously said about discord screenshots and sharing and BrunoMB and public Twitter posts have absolutely nothing to do with discord.
Era isn't a private space, while there are restrictions to join and post, the site is completely public and viewable to anyone to wants. With the exception of private messages, posts are era are completely public and there's no expectations of post privacy. Same as Twitter and other sites. If you want to era for talk negatively about certain, unrelated/off site users feel free but you will likely be subject to moderation.
If you want to create a discord server where you talk negatively about era staff or post negative comments about era staff in an existing server then please, be my guest. What you do in private affects me in no way at all and I can promise you nothing you or anyone else could say in said hypothetical discord's is something that I haven't already heard dozens/hundreds of times already in nearly every era related discord.
If someone were to take a screenshot of one of your hypothetical posts in a private discord that were of negative things about staff and posted in on era, that user would be actioned just the same too. I've personally seen people actioned for that numerous times as a user and as a staff member and personally banned people as staff for posting screenshots of other era users on discord when it was used to attack and contribute to offsite drama.
If you want to be taken seriously and sincerely and not as posting in bad faith and having an axe to grind maybe don't accuse staff or people replying to you as posting "bait" and deflecting and accusing staff the forum as a whole being "alt-right adjacent".
You're only embarrassing yourself and doing a huge disservice to the many posters who have expressed legitimate staff and site grievance in appropriate, non inflammatory and non hyperbolic ways.
I really didn't wanted to drag this out, but let me correct you on something, on here I mean this thread. This thread is not visible to anyone who is not logged in. So essentially same as discord. And calling era alt-right adjacent post the sale is as much fact as calling sky is blue. And if that post isn't epitome of "bad faith" bait, I don't know what it is.
But, Vulpix, ERA just became "alt-right adjacent" due to the sale. A cursory look at the other forums owned by the corp is... unfortunately elucidating.
Ironically, even 4chinners hate MOBAs. They even have a specific term for them, which, like most of their specific terms, cannot be reproduced in polite company.
You are incorrect, this thread is as public as every other public thread on this site. I, along with anyone easily see this thread as a lurker. I would know, I tested this out just now logged out. The thread is simply located in the announcements sub forum that any lurker or visitor to the site can access.
If you want physical proof then here:
So no, this thread is nothing at all like the discord situation and you trying to claim it is is ridiculous.
some people in the stonks threads already do i bet!
maybe they can Buy It Back.
For the People.
User Banned (permanent): trolling
Aw love you too!
For a parting message to you all in this thread I will again post my "Honest and Unbiased" opinion about the team here. Hope you enjoy the read 😁.
Oh sorry, you are right. I was confusing it to the user feedback thread that I was not able find when I was browsing it on my other device. I take back what I said about this being a private space.You are incorrect, this thread is as public as every other public thread on this site. I, along with anyone easily see this thread as a lurker. I would know, I tested this out just now logged out. The thread is simply located in the announcements sub forum that any lurker or visitor to the site can access.
If you want physical proof then here:
So no, this thread is nothing at all like the discord situation and you trying to claim it is is ridiculous.
No, this is a pretty stupid thing to say. As someone trying to get valid criticism heard in here, can you knock this off?
Wait, doesn't this predicate on the idea that these communities meaningfully contributed to revenue more than whatever new membership replacing them will (maybe BECAUSE they are now gone)?
Wish we knew more about the numbers, the traffic, the financials. If there was an exponential growth path. But mostly because I am nosey. I personally don't feel entitled to that information.
Tbf with what is happening off site it probably should be. Seems the newsworthy period has probably passed
So you're fine someone got a hold of all your discord discussions that were meant to be private and aired it out to the public using your worst posts against you as a harassment and it's fair game if it leaks? Because I think that's kind of that level discussion which no one wants and absolutely no one likes it which is why I find the people trying to defend the actions of leaking them strange.
I think people like to use this kind of argument for trying to justify that kind of behaviour of leaking discord messages but despite the Era names they're private. It's a completely separate community invite only discord, completely unseen by people not invited and it's own sets of rules in place which clearly states "No screenshotting", the promises that whatever is discussed does not spill onto Era (which is funny given the harassment talks I'll explain below) - The reality is that having been in various Era Discords - Absolutely ZERO of them tolerate screenshotting behavior because noone likes this and I've witnessed mass bans because discords community is built on trust and that is entirely broken, (funny how people say this stuff here as if it doesn't apply to discords either).
Which is why back to the discussion of whatever discussed does not spill onto Era - Which is that the Mod, did not even participate in the MC threads at the point in time yet, her name and post specifically was dragged into the MC threads as conspiracy of targeted campaigns by mods and the PS community itself (the screenshot didn't only take a picture of her post but other as well who said nothing and that includes the other screenshot of another poster) and my earlier mention about "spilling into Era" relevance is that includes targeted campaigns that never even happened, disagreements with posters stay within the discord so this community made a bunch of conspiracy about being targeted based on a screenshot of a mod venting her frustrations about a community she never even participated in.
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I used a private email to get in this site. Selling access to it without my permission is extremely unappreciated.
The discord being private is a lame excuse. I get it in a sense, in every workplace ir we all bitch about each other and we all need to vent to each other but ultimately you're responsible for what you say. If your words get back to the person you're talking about you need to own up to that shit.
If you're posting it to a discord with a large number of people many of whom talk actively with the person you're shit talking about then you're just asking for it to get out. Frankly it's pretty typical bullying behaviour (starting another group to bitch about others behind their back to people they know).
If you're someone in a position of relative power it only makes things worse.
If you're posting it to a discord with a large number of people many of whom talk actively with the person you're shit talking about then you're just asking for it to get out. Frankly it's pretty typical bullying behaviour (starting another group to bitch about others behind their back to people they know).
If you're someone in a position of relative power it only makes things worse.
I can see how going out of your way to pull a quote from someone to hold against them, can look like little more than vindictive muckraking.
Many people talk shit about other people in some setting with a degree of 'safety', and I can understand the gist of it feeling unfair that these standards are being imposed unfairly and unevenly (scoring a gotcha screencap on a discord is not something being done to everyone).
The real problem is that when people catch a glimpse of community leaders talking like that, it's inevitable that a feeling sets in that everyone in the leadership in-group is talking like that, whether it's reality or not - and the leadership here has not had a good track record of clearly communicating the contrary.
I though reset era was registered as an LLC with multiple people tied to it? What happened with that?
That's also the weirdest part for me.
Why would you actively buy all shares if the job was that stressful and mentally draining ?
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well looking back at GAF and GAFs worth back in the day, it was a logical conclusion that this place would become worth something too. It was a gambit with not so high stakes.
Captialism baby! Sees they can make a profit off of it eventually so buys it all back. This is why establishing a community is actually owned by the community is so important. Someone solely owns something like this, that individual, especially in the system most of us live in, will probably sell it if it gets popular enough. I think it sucks but what can ya do? :(
So scenario A:
He bought it all to be the sole owner and without looking at other alternatives like sharing the site, he now sold it because of the pressure of being a sole owner.
Scenario B:
He bought it all to be the sole owner. Got bored or maybe outside pressure from family/friends to sell it and came a great opportunity for big profit and getting rich.
…
Because you can suck it up and sell it for 4.5 mil a couple of years later.
I wonder how much it cost to buy out the other's stakes, what were the financials like at the time etc.
Fuck, $500,000 in a year alone would be a life changing amount. Not never work again money maybe but it would be massive for most people.
The amount of Scotch eggs you could buy with that...you'd be the Scotch egg King.
uh the sister forums which are now attached to era by extension of the sale are definitely propagating alt right talking points a lot of the time.
alt right adjacent is a pretty accurate description now
You don't buy a company if you don't plan to make a profit from it at some point. It's that simple.
The guy made his move and it has paid off really well, end of the story.
I've read through (most) of the thread now and I want to organize my thoughts about the OP and the acquisition into one post. At least, because I'm seeing some pretty wild generalizations about "those people saying mods should get paid", feeling like I'm at least indirectly being called a terrible person for criticizing these decisions, and so I want to at least clarify what I'm arguing for.
1. Cerium - Can we leave him alone? I have never spoken to him, and in all likelihood never will. He kept an extremely low profile on this site and that was probably for the best (the previous guy had too much of a pathetic cult of personality around him). His decision to sell the site is what's consequential here, and we can't undo that. All we can do is look at what's coming ahead.
2. The acquisition - I was here when this site started, and I felt like I was "in the room where it happened" when people I knew in my communities stood up and took up volunteer roles in the formation of this website. That was a valiant effort. I was in Hecht's hair about some bullshit before this place even had a name. I still sometimes find the old logo files I designed and pitched in when this place had nothing. The understatement of this thread, possibly one we can all agree on, is that this place has not been what it used to be, when it comes to community.
Before we even talk specifics of what it sold for, or who it specifically sold to - the plain fact is that signing this site over to any third party that had nothing to do with the site until yesterday, is like putting it in writing that the community we knew is officially over. I understand that "nothing is changing with the staff and admins", but at the same time, what many hoped and assumed would happen when the site became profitable is that it got reinvested back into the site and the community. For some reason, that is not what the original stakeholder chose to do (beyond site upgrades and such), and you must understand why it's so disappointing and seemingly out of reach now that those decisions are out of our hands.
Maybe the high of 2017 was never meant to last, but I don't think you can just acquire a community, either. Do they even know the first thing about this place? We are looking to the remaining leadership to make sense of this, because "nothing is going to change" doesn't sound like a realistic promise. Please understand that there is high uncertainty in this move.
3. "Pay the mods" - I have pushed this issue for a long time, and my first reaction to the sale was "are the mods going to get paid now?" It's taken me a couple of days to process the pushback from (most of the) staff, as well as the fact that at least one mod did resign over this.
To be clear, I'm baffled by the response. As a community we're quick to see the issues with unpaid internships, underpaying women/minorities in various industries, and exploitative business practices in general. I believe it's a basic fact that businesses should pay their employees, and that's something that still has not really been answered for in 4,000-ish posts. Why should MOBA Networks, a company generating profits for shareholders, not pay its own employees? Why should anybody agree to generate profits for shareholders for free? There isn't enough "love of the community" to make sense of that.
Even if you truly believed Cerium and ResetEra LLC deserved any of our unpaid time as volunteers - because we felt we were all in this together as a community, because we believed in the mission statement, because there was enough benefit of the doubt about the financials and feasibility of paying fair wages -
how could this not change now? The financial information is crystal clear. The acquiring company has no real commitment to our mission statement, and perhaps does not even intend on reinvesting in the community, the way we would have envisioned in 2017. And they have even more resources than Cerium did. We have to reevaluate the equation of fairness here.
But let me back up, because I do want to highlight one post by Android Sophia that did sway my opinion a little from where I was at. I know Sophia a little bit from one community, and I can recognize that for her, volunteering as a mod was a unique opportunity that she values, and I'm happy she got something out of it. If volunteering was able to open a door for her into something that nurtured and inspired her, that door should never be closed. But on the other hand, if Sophia could have gotten the same experience AND gotten paid for it, would she have said no? I don't know, but it doesn't seem impossible.
There are also people who could potentially serve this community, but can't or aren't going to spare the time for it without at least some compensation they can use to help their bills, rent, or food situation. That's not being greedy or "motivated by money", it's rightfully demanding fairness, and that's the reality of many capable people who are struggling or exhausted from their regular jobs. If we want to maintain that moderation prioritize diverse backgrounds and perspectives, then payment for their time should at least be on the table. But when you all collectively decided that all moderators will only be volunteers, why would the company ever pay a newcomer? That door then stays shut. This is a defining moment for this website, and while I have read and re-read how the moderators feel about the situation, it really seems like a big mistake is being made.
1. Cerium - Can we leave him alone? I have never spoken to him, and in all likelihood never will. He kept an extremely low profile on this site and that was probably for the best (the previous guy had too much of a pathetic cult of personality around him). His decision to sell the site is what's consequential here, and we can't undo that. All we can do is look at what's coming ahead.
2. The acquisition - I was here when this site started, and I felt like I was "in the room where it happened" when people I knew in my communities stood up and took up volunteer roles in the formation of this website. That was a valiant effort. I was in Hecht's hair about some bullshit before this place even had a name. I still sometimes find the old logo files I designed and pitched in when this place had nothing. The understatement of this thread, possibly one we can all agree on, is that this place has not been what it used to be, when it comes to community.
Before we even talk specifics of what it sold for, or who it specifically sold to - the plain fact is that signing this site over to any third party that had nothing to do with the site until yesterday, is like putting it in writing that the community we knew is officially over. I understand that "nothing is changing with the staff and admins", but at the same time, what many hoped and assumed would happen when the site became profitable is that it got reinvested back into the site and the community. For some reason, that is not what the original stakeholder chose to do (beyond site upgrades and such), and you must understand why it's so disappointing and seemingly out of reach now that those decisions are out of our hands.
Maybe the high of 2017 was never meant to last, but I don't think you can just acquire a community, either. Do they even know the first thing about this place? We are looking to the remaining leadership to make sense of this, because "nothing is going to change" doesn't sound like a realistic promise. Please understand that there is high uncertainty in this move.
3. "Pay the mods" - I have pushed this issue for a long time, and my first reaction to the sale was "are the mods going to get paid now?" It's taken me a couple of days to process the pushback from (most of the) staff, as well as the fact that at least one mod did resign over this.
To be clear, I'm baffled by the response. As a community we're quick to see the issues with unpaid internships, underpaying women/minorities in various industries, and exploitative business practices in general. I believe it's a basic fact that businesses should pay their employees, and that's something that still has not really been answered for in 4,000-ish posts. Why should MOBA Networks, a company generating profits for shareholders, not pay its own employees? Why should anybody agree to generate profits for shareholders for free? There isn't enough "love of the community" to make sense of that.
Even if you truly believed Cerium and ResetEra LLC deserved any of our unpaid time as volunteers - because we felt we were all in this together as a community, because we believed in the mission statement, because there was enough benefit of the doubt about the financials and feasibility of paying fair wages -
how could this not change now? The financial information is crystal clear. The acquiring company has no real commitment to our mission statement, and perhaps does not even intend on reinvesting in the community, the way we would have envisioned in 2017. And they have even more resources than Cerium did. We have to reevaluate the equation of fairness here.
But let me back up, because I do want to highlight one post by Android Sophia that did sway my opinion a little from where I was at. I know Sophia a little bit from one community, and I can recognize that for her, volunteering as a mod was a unique opportunity that she values, and I'm happy she got something out of it. If volunteering was able to open a door for her into something that nurtured and inspired her, that door should never be closed. But on the other hand, if Sophia could have gotten the same experience AND gotten paid for it, would she have said no? I don't know, but it doesn't seem impossible.
There are also people who could potentially serve this community, but can't or aren't going to spare the time for it without at least some compensation they can use to help their bills, rent, or food situation. That's not being greedy or "motivated by money", it's rightfully demanding fairness, and that's the reality of many capable people who are struggling or exhausted from their regular jobs. If we want to maintain that moderation prioritize diverse backgrounds and perspectives, then payment for their time should at least be on the table. But when you all collectively decided that all moderators will only be volunteers, why would the company ever pay a newcomer? That door then stays shut. This is a defining moment for this website, and while I have read and re-read how the moderators feel about the situation, it really seems like a big mistake is being made.
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