UO Player Petition: Dump Stratics
by Alphaville Herald on 29/09/04 at 9:44 am
Seems as thought TSO Players aren’t the only ones who are fed up with the abuses of the Stratics Mods. I just came across the following petition asking that the UO discussion forums be moved out from under stratics control. The reasons are familiar (petition is reprinted below) and the comments by the signatories are worth reading as well. Here is a recent one:
“It’s a sad state of affairs the Stratics boards have come to. The moderators there act as if they are some special “UO God or Goddess” that is to be worshipped. They do not allow open discussion of ideals, but rather strictly define only postiive comments about themselves and EA. “
Hmm, did someone say that Brekke was in charge of UO too?
To: UO Players
Dear fellow Ultima Online players,
The time has come to send a petition to EA about the “Official” Ultima Online forums. As it stands, the Ultima Online forums are hosted with Stratics, a massive site with tons of content and numerous staff. The main problems with this is the fact half the time, the site is down, or unresponsive, or just pitifully slow.
Other problems which have been highlighted recently include the stratics’ advertisers putting spy ware and possible viruses on people’s pc’s, this isn’t the first time this has happened either. The stratics management is uninformed as to what’s classified as Spy ware and what isn’t, which is evident in Comm. Director’s own words, which stated…
“Assuming we’re talking about the same DoubleClick – DoubleClick is the leading maker of software used to deliver advertising (www.doubleclick.com). This isn’t spy ware (although some anti-spy ware programs will remove it), it’s simply a run-of-the mill cookie to decide what ad to serve to you when.”
But when you look up information on these cookies, each site you go to explicitly states..
“DoubleClick is a mainstream ad network that uses various ways, including spy ware cookies, to target advertising.
On line ad company DoubleClick used Web bugs that could communicate with cookies from its Web site. The cookies then revealed past on line behaviour, even home addresses, IP addresses, and phone numbers to the bugs, and the bugs sent that information straight back to DoubleClick.
There are also numerous stories circulating that people have been banned improperly due to personal vendettas by the Stratics Moderators and Admins. Emails sent to the admin address for complaints and concerns, 99% of the time, go unanswered. Complaints via private messaging to admins about other users using the private messaging feature to harass and insult, go unresolved. Stratics offers a lot to it’s users, but what people need is a board which is up 24/7, 365 days of the year and is run by professionals who are paid to do their job and don’t have personal grudges against the posters.
So what are we (The players) asking for? A board which is moderated by dedicated staff, who know ultima on line and are paid for their job as professional moderators. A board which is up 24/7, 365 days a year A board which actually loads in a reasonable time frame and doesn’t suffer from SQL Errors A board where the users privacy is protected and isn’t stolen by spy ware A board where the users don’t have to worry about viruses and spy ware. A board where harassment complaints are actioned apon A board where complaints and concerns sent to the proper authorities gets an ANSWER and a resolution if possible.
Jasmine
Sep 29th, 2004
I know nothing about UO, but I have a feeling you decided to try to trash it once I had a solid argument that it was more respectable than Sims Stratics.
I really think this is bullshit, I have heard from numerous people that “Oh, do NOT confuse TSO Stratics with UO Stratics because UO doesn’t do the crap that TSO Stratics does.” I would like to hope that anybody reading this has half a brain to relieze it was created specially to try to trash Brekkee.
toy
Sep 29th, 2004
I was in UO for 4 years, and did see a difference in the UO stratics board when EA bought out UO. It degraded to the point I left the boards, the same as I did when I played TSO. Now in SL the boards are much more open and actually have content people can learn from. Yes there’s rules and some do get a ban or a thread deleted. Perhaps its because to be in SL you must be 18? Either way, EA seems to denegrate anything it becomes involved in online.
Adam
Sep 29th, 2004
So when does the petition for TSO get started?
just a sim
Sep 29th, 2004
High time it gets started! The old boards were great.
urizenus
Sep 29th, 2004
“I would like to hope that anybody reading this has half a brain to relieze it was created specially to try to trash Brekkee.”
I don’t know the person who started that petition and I seriously doubt that I know any of the signatories. I found it when googling stratics mods and abuse. Also I should note that the petition could be old. I’ve sent an email to the initiator. If anyone has knowledge please let us know.
Mick Lite
Sep 29th, 2004
EA boards are always uber strict. They love when people praise them. Its not just on stratics but also EA anything. I play xbox live games by EA (EA imo, makes some of the best console sports games) but when you go to the forums for the games its just as bad.
Alix
Sep 29th, 2004
Even if they do move the forums away from Stratics…who’s to say these mods that are there now won’t end up as mods at the new boards? Screw the TSO boards! Hardly any of the TSO population reads it anymore anyway.
Sir aka Ian
Sep 29th, 2004
Like Mick pointed out…this is an EA game. I have viewed the UO board recently…you quoted what I said, but I was referring to how the mods don’t bring out their in game names (or atleast it sounds like it because the names are quite wierd)… Stratics just needs to clean up its act with EA games. Or atleast dump them with all this bad press (not just from the herald) but from all internet sites…just google/yahoo stratics abuse, you will get a ton of blogs and stuff like this
Jasmine
Sep 29th, 2004
So, I took some time out of my day to do some research, here is what I found:
Brekkee is a forum admin for UO stratics along with:
Bella Noire
Crazy Joe
Freyja
Blackheath
Nadia
That means everything that happens on UO stratics is reviewed by six different people. With six different people looking at the same situation if one is letting a friend slide by chances are the other five will speak up and let them know they cannot do that.
Furthur looking everything all six of those UO Admins do is reviewed by Joshua Rowan.
Brekkee is not in full control of UO stratics there are many people, cobwebs and nets that would prevent her from being “corrupt”.
Also everything Brekkee does as manager of sims stratics and everything Joshua Rowan does is looked at by Jhardian.
Jhardian is the man who runs the entirity of Stratics. He’s the one, who gets the plus accounts money, he is the main one incharge who created quite a successful gaming chat forum that is used by several major companies as their official forums. So if Brekkee is “corrupt” then so is Jhardian, then that means the Alphaville Herald or the Second Life Herald did not do their research and should have had the first article saying “Stratics as a Whole is Corrupt”. However it is glarigly obvious that this is not the case, which is why that article was never made.
The articles were made to target innocent people and harrass them, which is very wrong.
Also you are starting to say that it is EA’s fault their forums are bad, and your correct. I fully agree. EA has been complete and utter bullshit since the day they enterd the online world. With this being so true, then it isn’t the moderators and admins and managers who’s fault it is. They are blindly and, stupidly might I add, following EA games backasswards way of things.
If that proves to be true then it shows that then EA is the root of all the evil going on with the “corruption”.
Jasmine
Sep 29th, 2004
So, I took some time out of my day to do some research, here is what I found:
Brekkee is a forum admin for UO stratics along with:
Bella Noire
Crazy Joe
Freyja
Blackheath
Nadia
That means everything that happens on UO stratics is reviewed by six different people. With six different people looking at the same situation if one is letting a friend slide by chances are the other five will speak up and let them know they cannot do that.
Furthur looking everything all six of those UO Admins do is reviewed by Joshua Rowan.
Brekkee is not in full control of UO stratics there are many people, cobwebs and nets that would prevent her from being “corrupt”.
Also everything Brekkee does as manager of sims stratics and everything Joshua Rowan does is looked at by Jhardian.
Jhardian is the man who runs the entirity of Stratics. He’s the one, who gets the plus accounts money, he is the main one incharge who created quite a successful gaming chat forum that is used by several major companies as their official forums. So if Brekkee is “corrupt” then so is Jhardian, then that means the Alphaville Herald or the Second Life Herald did not do their research and should have had the first article saying “Stratics as a Whole is Corrupt”. However it is glarigly obvious that this is not the case, which is why that article was never made.
The articles were made to target innocent people and harrass them, which is very wrong.
Also you are starting to say that it is EA’s fault their forums are bad, and your correct. I fully agree. EA has been complete and utter bullshit since the day they enterd the online world. With this being so true, then it isn’t the moderators and admins and managers who’s fault it is. They are blindly and, stupidly might I add, following EA games backasswards way of things.
If that proves to be true then it shows that then EA is the root of all the evil going on with the “corruption”.
Maria LaVeaux
Sep 30th, 2004
A petition,there’s a well thought out idea, and given how responsive EA has been in the past to the complaints, suggestions, and input of it’s subscribers, we should expect action on this almost Immediatly.
Haven’t any of you been paying attention? Go ahead, Sign it if you like, they will ignore it as they have ignored every other complaint. The whole reason they went to Stratics in the first place is it will ruthlessly silence any dissenting opinions, leaving only insipid messages of peace and contentment to be posted.
EA does not care what complaints you have about their products or services. THEY will decide, according to their own agenda what will, or will not be done, and our voices ar nothing more than background noise to them.
If you want a change, Withdraw from EA, and look for another game world. That is the only way you will get it.
Maria.
Mafioso
Sep 30th, 2004
Jasmine, I do not have the time to type out a response to you right now, but you are obviously either 1) naive, or 2) posting with an agenda to protect yourself. You are thoroughly obsessed with the Herald pinning this issue on a particular person. Uri’s line about Brekke is just one line of the many-lined article, and I am glad he points these things out and then leaves it up to us to decide.
Tory
Sep 30th, 2004
Sad though it may be, this online petition isn’t going to do anything except give a measure of satisfaction to people who want to feel like they’ve DONE something and to frustrate others who stumbled across it.
Online petitions are inherently flawed. There is no way to know who is signing them or how many times. Also, a petition such as this will likely get many signatures from people who don’t even play UO, but dislike Stratics or EA or whatever.
I don’t know of any online petition ever getting results because of the flaws in the online petition system.
I think it’s a well worded petition and I applaud them for what they’re trying to do, but in the long run, it’s not going to matter. They’d be better served by having a write-in campaign and flooding EA with written testimony as to why Stratics is not the best place to host their forums. Shoot, they could even copy and paste the text of the petition and mail it in, but something like this isn’t going to get results.
Sad, but true.
TJ
Spiky
Sep 30th, 2004
Everyone need to just dump Stratics….I keep getting warning over nothing:
From: Leah
Received: 09/30/04 04:59 PM
I had to remove your post from City Hall.
Please refer to the RoC, specifically: