This choice might surprise some, but not after you hear the facts. Over the past year, Sir/FatherC/Ian has been all over tso, and SL, and usually in the middle of some dramma or other. Beginning the year as a small time simolean dealer, he made a name (and drammatically changed gameplay) by acquiring zillions of trial accounts and selling them to mafia’s etc. He used Nyk’s mazebot, but drew the ire of the simolean dealers by reviewing the new version of the mazebot straight out of the chute. Not long after, he made a name for himself by using his trial accounts to acquire piles of rare cannons, flooding the market. But he really started making news when he joined Mr-President’s administration as Press Secretary…

As Press Secretary for the Alphaville Government (AVG), Sir initially led the defense of Mr-President against charges of fixing the election and groping an innocent intern (and even organized a smear campaign against Ashley), but when Sir caught Mr-P in the White House, alone with Angelique Fontaine (Angelina Becquerel in SL), it was more than he could bear, and he resigned his position and turned on Mr-P. Later he formed the Simulated Soviet Union (SSU) with disgruntled members of the AVG, and led a griefing attack in which the AVG Capitol building was trashed. Fed up with the criticism he received for the SSU, he quit tso and moved to Second Life, and had a series of alts banned for griefing (including a bingo fire bombing episode) when he finally stabilized as Father Callahan and worked for the Herald as a reporter.

Father Callahan managed to be in the thick of the dramma surrounding the Second Jessie War, and it was his interview with Tank Levy that led to the big split between One Song and Tank and the end of their joint mega-mall project. Father Callahan was on the ground during the great Jessie Battle as well. His biggest scoop was perhaps the interview with Mimi Coral, after she was accused of being the terraforming terrorist and destroying 6 private sims.

Father Callahan was subsequently banned again from SL, and so returned to tso and set up shop in Dragon’s Cove, but with this return the real story turned out to be his reporting and the abuses of power by Stratics moderators, reportage which, given the thin excuses provided, led to his being banned from Stratics for a while.

Through it all Sir has been operating the Alphaville Gazzette, which is the leading source of real news about tso since the Herald moved operations to SL, and it is clearly the second best newspaper in blogspace!

For all this, we consider Sir/Father Callahan to be a bigger newsmaker than Ashley and Mr-President. But not quite number one… stay tuned for that.

It appears that the entire Stratics network was victimized by a defacing worm earlier today. No word yet on whether the worm is sophisiticated or just the work of a garden variety h4x0r script kiddy. For sure these worm writers need to think of more creative messages. We are awaiting further information, but given that the President of Stratics once told us to “go piss up a rope” I don’t think we will be the first to get the newz. –The Phantom

Above is what people accessing the Stratics Central site (and Sims Stratics) see as of this posting.

Just when you think the Stratics Thought Police have run out of speech to ban, a stratics user now claims that the following .sig was banned by the Mods:

I mean, I’ll be voting for Kerry too, but it would never occur to me to ban a siggy like that. Given that Stratics is really the only common space for discussion for tens of thousands of gamerz, this really raises serious issues about whether such draconian censorship is not violating a basic public responsibility one takes on when running such public discussion forums. Message from stratics mod follows.

Change of signature
From: Lyliane Dea
Received: 10/16/04 08:52 PM
Hello,

This is warning to modify your signature.

Political discussion isn’t allowed on the game forum, and are more suitable for the Off topic stratics forum.

Furthermore, supporting your own view in your signature is acceptable, however, attacking the other side is not.

Please modify your signature before posting again. Not complying could result on actions on your stratic account, and the removal of further posts done with that signature.

Have a nice day.

“Thats right, I received another “friendly warning” today, when I posted on a thread from Sir, letting him know to be careful. He posted 2 minutes after his own post. When I posted a minute after my post, it was deleted and I was warned for bumping and spamming the boards when all I did was add another sentence to what I was already talking about. Right after the friendly warning, I received an official warning. The official warning stated that I was previously warned for having a link to this site in my signature. I deleted it from my signature after I was warned. But my official warning came from me having a link to this site listed as my homepage in my bio…. wtf?? And that if I posted again, I would be banned. During this escapade, I was talking to Honeybuns on AIM lol. I asked her to please ban me because I was a stratics plus member, and decided I did not want to waste anymore good money to keep that site in operation. She said she could not ban me because I asked her, but if I posted again without removing the link to this site from my bio, then she would. So I posted in the City Hall saying Hi Honeybuns, how are you this evening…. and was banned lol.”

“…in interpreting the TOS clause about linking to content on other websites, we’ve tried to take a pretty liberal approach and only delete links that contain broadly offensive material (videos of beheading people in Iraq) or material that’s posted as a specific personal attack against an individual (a picture of someone giving an obscene gesture).

We do not have any interest in trying to control content on 3rd party websites, fansites or not. It’s up to the moderators of those sites to decide how they want to manage their sites.”

“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.

Sir sent me the emails with the pretexts under which Leah permanently banned him from Stratics, and I have to say that I ? even in my advanced state of jadedness ? I am shocked by the whole thing? But somewhat amused too. Following is the ban letter sent to the Sir. Loosen up the W, T, and F keys on your keyboards, set your emoticons to :O and prepare to enter the Stratics Zone!

Here is the final ban letter sent to Sir:

From: Leah
Received: 09/11/04 02:35 PM
I am quoting several of your posts that violate the RoC, specifically:

[sorry for the delay in reporting this -- earlier draft got nuked. The Good Father's fault I am sure. --Uri]

By: Father Callahan

According to Sims Stratics sub-Minister of Thought Control, Leah, and this notice on the SWG boards, Ex Senior Online Community Representative for TSO, Tigger is now working on the ‘Star Wars Galaxies’ project. Her new job is “Assistant Online Community Manager.” While we disagreed with Tigger about a lot, we wouldn’t wish a career at EA on anyone, so we are happy she has escaped to MUCH greener pastures. Go Tigger! And, while we didn’t feel free to say it when she worked here, now that we no longer have a professional relationship, the whole SL/AVH staff would like to get you into a chat room and say this: HAAAARRRR!!!

Press Release follows

Diane “Tiggs” Migliaccio’s Letter to the Community

Heya! My name is Diane Migliaccio however I go by the name of Tiggs (yes, I am a female gamer). I am the new Assistant Online Community Manager for Star Wars Galaxies and here to help make Kurt’s job a bit easier. Some of you may remember me from my previous positions held at Electronic Arts with the Ultima Online Volunteer program and The Sims Online Development team. *looks out and sees some familiar faces*.

For those that don’t know me I will give you some background information on myself. I was given the nickname Tigger (Tiggs) for being a hyper-active child, teenager and adult. The only people that refer to me as Diane are my parents and it is usually followed by me having done something wrong I am a workaholic that will surprise you at all hours with posts on the forums. Sleep is for the weak is my motto; though as I get older I am adding on an hour of sleep here and there. When I am not working I enjoy spending time with my children, our two black Labs, Gaming or floating around on our boat on Lake Travis taking in the sun.

I won’t bother going through the games I have played in the past since you have heard it all before. I will give you some background on my gaming style. *looks around cautiously* I love PVP and I am a power gamer. I do play Star Wars Galaxies when I can. Right now I am in the process of moving so I can’t play as often as I want to right now. However that will change and once I get settled in my characters will get the attention that they really need.

My last position before coming to Star Wars Galaxies was with The Sims Online in the role of Senior Online Community Representative and my main focus was the community. Wait!!! Before you huff and puff that The Sims Online is a very different game from Star Wars Galaxies; I have to say that the one thing that will always remain the same with any game is the passion that the community has. I have spent the last few days reading over all of the Star Wars Galaxy forums and that passion shines through. *psst… I hear you!!* You, like the previous communities I have dealt with, want to be heard or acknowledged so at least you know you are not posting in vain. I will try my best to acknowledge your posts even if it is a simple post that says “Great Idea” or “I will pass this on to the team”. I am very laid back and it takes a lot to make me “pounce”. All I ask is be constructive in your posts, agree to disagree and remember there is a human with feelings that wrote that post you are replying to and we will get along fine!

I am looking forward to getting to know you the community and extremely excited about working with some past co-workers/friends and the best people in this industry that are on the Star Wars Galaxies Team.

See you on the boards!!

Tiggs

Well, in the 5 days that have passed since the Second Life Herald published The Story on how links to links to the Second Life Herald have been prohibited on Stratics, the Stratics mods have turned their vengence machine against contributors to the Herald. In particular, Ian has been permanently banned (lol, like that will keep *him* away) and RB has been banned for 72 hours. Some details are in the comment section to the prohibited linking story, but I am gathering documentation for a more thorough report in the near future. Stay tuned… Meanwhile we encourage our readers to supply us with further reports on abusive and corrupt behavior by the Stratics mods (both sim stratics and other stratics boards).