"Mess" on twcenter.net

[FrauGloer]

Hey everyone! I don't know where else to put this, so I'll just ask here:

I just visited twcenter.net for some board-browsing, but then I saw that there seems to be something like a mod-war going on there. I never noticed what someone called "that mess here". Would someone of the guys who frequent both the ORG and TWC care to tell me what has happened to make that informative site go down just minutes ago?

I find it rather sad that personal quarrels over a game can cause so much trouble...

I liked that site...

[TB666]

It is quite simple.
The entire staff and 70% moderators at TWC got fired yesterday by the guys that own the server.
The staff got no explanations nor any warning.
Instead they installed a member that was banned for flaming and other things to be sole-admin.
The moderators that were left resigned, me inclueded because we either disagreed or refused to serve under that incompetent fool(my reason).
The other members started speaking up against this and in return they got banned.
Then more of us got furious by this behavior and started attacking the admin for his incompetence and in return we got banned as well.
Right now the situation is chaotic to say the least.
There are only 3 moderators(inclueding the admin himself) for that entire forum.
And one of the moderators got appointed yesterday.
That moderator is a known CA-basher and loves to flame other people and was gonna get banned as well but thanks to the IQ of the admin he is now a moderator instead.
To put it simple, TWC is dead.

But a new site is in the making by the old staff members and it will be like TWC before this whole mess started.

[FrauGloer]

Ouch! How stupid...

Well, I'm glad "the good guys" don't let themselves down and are creating a new, clean site!

Thanks for clearing it up for me!

[TB666]

You are welcome dude

[the Black Prince]

TWC is owned by Ogres Net, but until recently has been run by community members as site admins.

Recently ON have been meddling more and more in the running of their sites, which has caused issues on other boards, not just TWC. Suggested changes to administraotr access, reducing the number of administrators to three have angered staff on several ON forums, but would have hit TWC hardest, since we had about 8 admin. But lets face it, we were a massive site.

For unexplained reasons, a former moderator, who was for a time banned for Terms of Service violations, is known to be incompetant, was a known spammer and flamer and has no technical ability is now the sole admin of this massive site. His installtion into this role involved all other admin and most other staff members being sacked without warning or explanation. all but 1 of the remaining moderators then began resigning. Many other leading community members have been banned for being openly critical of this action.

TWC, an incredibly busy site with thousands of members, and usually 150+ logged in at any one time quite simply began to fall apart. Spam and flame became rampant. A new moderator was appointed, one i might add who is a known CA basher, but 2 mods and 1 admin cannot run a site that big even if they're online 24/7.

This state of affairs was reported to the network administrators, who have taken the advice to temporarily close the board while they try and work out what exactly to do.

With TWC's entire corps of experienced moderators and administrators gone, even should they be offered their jobs back, its unlikely any of them will want to work with someone who has been readily labelled as TWC's most hated member, and now site administrator. When you consider that those people sacked include TWCs most reputable, respected and well-known members, with great links to other community sites, and to CA, its fair to say TWC will not be able to recover from the mismanagement its suffered at the hands of its Network. I know of some mod teams who are already planning to leave the site, and with the lack of support teams are likely to get from the remaining staff, i imagine more will follow suit.

Its a great pity to see this happen to a website i used to run, and have dedicated almost 4 years of my life too, but there it goes. The people who own the server clearly want TWC to be a small nondescript unoriginal and boring fansite with a draconian staff team that nobody would want or need to visit, and thats the way its heading right now.

My advice to any other TWC members,stay here on the Org, and wait for news of the replacement site thats apparently being planned by the recently deposed site admin team.

[Andres]

[TB666]

It's quite amazing how fast an empire can fall when a bad leader becomes in charge

[Stig]

I never liked TWC, but this is just sick ... so how old where the guys that owned the server and thought they could be funny? 13?

[PixelTrixel]

:) hehe yes thats right

[drone]

Apparently, I need to visit the Entrance Hall more often.

I lurked at TWC a while back, but the Org seemed like a simpler place, and I'm just a simple guy, so I joined here instead. But it would be a shame to lose a large subset of the TW community, variety and "competition" is a good thing overall.

Glad you guys got everything sorted out, and hope the pieces aren't too hard to put back together. Good luck!

(off to ponder the Org's relationship with Telefragged...)

[caravel]

Instead they installed a member that was banned for flaming and other things to be sole-admin.

Sounds like a coup to me. That individual must have been whispering in the ears of the owners of the hosting for months, either that or they're the best of friends offline and have been planning this for a while. Whoever they are they don't sound particularly mature. This has happened before on other messageboards, it's because they recruit the wrong type of people and/or their server is controlled by an insecure individual. By insecure I mean a third party that is not directly involved with the site. Such people are vulnerable to the manipulation and whisperings, because they don't understand enough about the workings or organisation of the forums. Sorry to hear it's turned out like this. I hope the decent admins and mods that were kicked out unfairly can make a go at another site, avoiding any more infighting, which always destroys a messageboard.

[TB666]

Sounds like a coup to me.

It is a coup IMO.
They have tried changing TWC before but because of massive uproar they backed down.
However it has gone too far this time and the damage is done.
The mods and modders for TW are leaving and the members had enough, CA will certainly not visit and post in the forum when there is a CA-basher in charge of the TW forums.
As the Black Prince said, wait until the new site is up.

[Lusted]

Yup Ogres Net have destroyed TWC, but they have not destroyed the community. The old staff are already getting a new site up and running. We should have it up and running soon.

I've already got CA support for the new forum, and most of the mods will probably leave TWc and set up at our new forum as we can offer them hosting for their mods.

[Antagonist]

Bizarre situation...

I can only feel for the people who commited so much of their energy and time to that website, it's a disgrace to see it ruined like this.

I especially worry about the mod community, which was particularly vibrant there and saw dozens, even a hundred projects start up over the last year alone. I was helping out with one project that didn't even have it's own development forum at this point, all their research may well be lost now...

Thanks to TWC people like TB666, tBP and Lusted for explaining what's going on.
I look forward to hearing about the new site.

Antagonist

[Ben259]

Well I cant speak for the team Roma Surrectum, but personally i find what happened at TWC disgraceful. This was a very popular site with tons of quality content and great members and projects.

Hopefully the members "in exile" will keep the community alive and all the talented people keep on working hard to produce amazing stuff.

Hopefully we can get our stuff back....


Ben,
Member of Roma Surrectum mod

[jegui]

I've already got CA support for the new forum, and most of the mods will probably leave TWc and set up at our new forum as we can offer them hosting for their mods.

it's good to hear that... At least I'll be able to keep playing LTC 2.x... pitty that my post count and 2 year contribution to TWC is down to one post in here

ps- TWC is not even running now, that's bad.

[Omnissiah]

This whole situation is so baffling. I'm a member of several boards that have had the occasional political meltdown (adultswim.com, theforce.net, etc), but the thermonuclear fury on TWC (talk about total war!) is just weird.

What is up with ON's lunatic binge? I mean, if they want to change the site's format, that's fine...it's their website, they can do whatever they want to it. But this ironfisted, crypto-fascist whack-a-mole nonsense seems intentionally designed to disrespect and annoy their own customers! Where'd these guys study business administration? In clown college?

And Horsearcher's little Benedict Arnold move is weird too. I've dealt with Archer several times, and he's never been anything other than helpful and polite with me. I always thought him to be a friendly and even-keeled chap. These cybercommunist antics seem totally out of character for him.

It's just too weird. I can't get past the feeling that this whole fiasco is some kind of hoax, or a very unfunny joke.


It's too bad, I really liked that site. Oh well, viva la org!

[antiochus epiphanes]

but the thermonuclear fury on TWC (talk about total war!) is just weird.

What is up with ON's lunatic binge? I mean, if they want to change the site's format, that's fine...it's their website, they can do whatever they want to it. But this ironfisted, crypto-fascist whack-a-mole nonsense seems intentionally designed to disrespect and annoy their own customers! Where'd these guys study business administration? In clown college?

haha thats good, i think ill make that my sigg haha

[Omnissiah]

haha thats good, i think ill make that my sigg haha

Wow, immortalized on my first post! Whoop whoop!