#0 - Dec. 13, 2006, 11:08 p.m.
Once again, this is NOT my work, but do not remember the persons name that did write it. Thought id repost it, and keep the thread alive for those posting in it.
"Bit of a rant directed at Blizzard. If it doesn't tickle your fancy, feel free to move along. Or brandish your intellect by flaming, should the mood take you. I would never dream of turning down the priceless entertainment that is a forum goer making a fool of themselves for my amusement ^_^ But should you find you have something to say in support of or against my assertions here, please, feel free.
Blizzard has for some time now been developing a growing inability to handle negative feedback gracefully. It can be seen clearly in the way they manage these forums. I use the term manage loosely here, as what I'm talking about is actually an inability to manage the negative feedback a forum like this one can be home to.
To take one example, Blizzard has a growingly swift "delete thread" tendency whenever the community begins to unify around a single idea. Should the community here produce more then a handful of threads related to a single issue, Blizzard begins arbitrarily shooting these threads down, usually with no explanation given within the threads themselves. These sudden deletions only fuel the conspiracy theorists that dwell in these lands by making it appear that Blizzard doesn't want people to know, or speak about certain things.
Well, there is a bit of a conspiracy here. But nothing so magical as downed alien spacecraft or whether balloons in swamp gas. The "secret" is that Blizzard, at its core, has a child-like intolerance for negative feedback. I'll open with an example that veterans of these forums will remember.
A while back, when the Tier 2 set art was "previewed" by Blizzard, a great deal of negative feedback was received with regards to two of the sets in particular. The warrior "can opener" set, and the hunter "pink is for power" set. Accompanying this often constructive, but sometimes painfully frank negative feedback was a plethora of positive reaction to the general feel of this, the next Tier in Warcraft raiding achievements.
I wont name any names as it isn't really necessary and might just give Blizzard an excuse to "moderate" this thread, but a certain member of the development team who appears on these forums from time to time had what can only be called a "meltdown". In a surreal display that gave the impression of a child laying on the ground, pounding his fists and screaming, this individual proceeded to blast the entire online Warcraft community for their negative responses. So incapable of digesting what should have been a perfectly routine and expected mix of positive and negative reactions on the part of the community, this individual proceeded to threaten the community by never again "pushing" for previews of upcoming content.
(It should be noted here that this "push" was rather unremarkable, in that the Chinese WoW website already had this information available for anyone who wanted to see it. BEFORE the US community team managed to get us a preview.)
So heinous was this outburst that other members of the Community Management team actually had to step in and apologize for this individual. And for what? Because less then 100% of the community's feedback was positive. Imagine that.
This incident highlights exactly the kind of inability I speak of on the part of Blizzard to handle negative feedback. Now, onto a more current issue. The deletion of threads on these forums. Currently, Blizzard has presented the community with a kind of catch-22 situation when it comes to our ability to voice dissatisfaction with various elements of the game. On the one hand, Blizzard strongly discourages petitions and outright refuses to implement a time honored and tested method of researching and expressing public opinion: The Poll. That being the case, forum goers are forced to created their own threads instead of simply finding and participating in a thread featuring one of these convenient mediums for expression.
Heres where we run into a problem: The forums are vast. And, for the most part, the community has no interest in reading through 100 posts to find one about the topic they have in mind. To expect the community to do this is more then a little naive on Blizzard's part but that hasn't seemed to stop them. So, an individual with something to say creates a new thread about a topic. And here's where Blizzards apparent "game plan" for handling negative feedback springs into action. A moderator (usually never gracing the thread with his or her presence to explain their actions) does a quick check to see if any threads on that topic already exist. If this issue is already under debate elsewhere in the forum, the new thread is deleted without explanation. Just *POOF* gone.
"Well who CARES?! QQ More. The forums are congested as it is. We don't need 50 threads about the same thing." I can already hear people screaming this at their monitors. And they'd be right, except this method of thread removal isn't universal. Its not some general rule adhered to with reguards to all topics of discussion. It is very, very localized and usually pertains to only one kind of thread. The negative feedback thread. And thats just silly.
Blizzard is always content to sit back and let hundreds of "I like pie", "Lol @ casuals", "Paladins should be healing, not fighting", and "QQ more, warriors" threads amass. And why not? These threads allow the community to beat itself up. To bash it's own brains in. But as soon as you get more then two or three "Wow's graphics are pathetic" or "Seriously Blizzard, learn to network" threads the mod team jumps into action. Threads start disappearing one after another. The "Blizzard only like to hear positive feedback" line has been crossed.
And, to be fair, this method of PR makes sense. One post about an issue is a novelty. Something that can be brushed off as one person's opinion. But when 100 threads show up on the forum, Blizzard is suddenly faced with an image problem. When the majority of the forum-going community come together to voice a unified opinion, Blizzard breaks out the "delete thread" button and starts "touching up" their online image. Convenient, no?
So long as it doesn't LOOK like the majority of customers are dissatisfied about an issue, it must not be a big deal. Right? And Blizzard can make sure appearances favor them on the whole, by carefully pruning the forums on a daily basis. Lest the full voice of their community be heard, and seen by others.
This is why polls were never implemented on these forums. Far too direct and convenient a means for the community to voice a unified opinion. This is also why they frown on petitions. Sure, they claim these methods of collecting the general consensus of society are "unproductive". But then, if that were true, why are these same methods of data collection used so extensively in real life? Does Blizzard really think they understand society better then the rest of the world? Of course they don't. Its silly to expect more then an "I agree" from participants in a petition after a couple pages of a thread. Very little else is left to be said in most cases. To expect each member of the petition to add a unique 3 paragraph statement is pretty naive. But thats no reason to discourage the community from showing support one way or the other. If a simple "vote" is all that is needed to show that support, why discourage your community from showing it?
The truth is voting, polls, and petitions are discouraged or outright disallowed because they give the community a way of unifying. Its much easier to dismiss a single thread, and the participants within it. To ignore a problem when so few threads exist to make it publicly known is no challenge at all. But if Blizzard were to allow or even support polls and petitions, they would no longer be able to ignore the hot topics without making a public statement. One that would surely paint them in a bad light.
And to be honest, thats their right. They don't even have to host these forums if they don't want to. All they have to do is keep customers. If they can do that while making every effort to sabotage attempts made by those customers to voice their opinion in great numbers, then props to them. Castro would be proud. ;) Its just disappointing to see a company with Blizzard's pedigree stoop to such petty tactics. If your going to host a forum and reap the benefits of praise and constructive feedback that a forum can provide, then have the courage to accept the challenges that public scrutiny within that same medium can present to a gaming company.
Learn this Blizzard: There is value to be found in a mass of "I agree". What a simple "/signed" doesn't tell you in details, it makes up for in context. What you gain from allowing the community to simply "/nod" in approval gives depth to an issue, if not detail. "The graphics in this game need an update" suddenly becomes "The graphics in this game need an update, and by the way the majority of the community thinks its time you get to work on it". There is value to be found in simple agreement, in spite of what the CM's regularly claim."
