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This is post 1 of 2 addressing commentary from the moderation thread that I felt needed additional clarification from our end. I'm not putting these up to spark/invite debate but to be sure that, since this dead horse has once again been revived, we put it back to sleep again.
Comparison was made between our actions and SOE, with one of those "If SOE had done this ..." statements.
My first thought had been "this is and has been a dead horse, let it lie." After a bit however, I realized that it's been quite a while, and folks may have missed it, or chose to ignore it.
It absolutely doesn't matter what SOE would have done, or did, in similar situations.
We are not SOE. We are not a business of ANY sort. We provide a SERVICE at great expense to ourselves on several levels, yes, but we do not charge any fees for that service, we do not force people to pay to participate, we do not even come close to anything remotely resembling a profit from the sporadic donations that we receive. In order to make a profit, the donations would have to cover not only domain registration and hosting fees (they do, barely), but also office space, power, business licensing fees, taxes, registration fees for the board software, the software we use for site work, some of the costs of our hardware ... and salaries.
It doesn't even come close
Comparing how things are run here with how things are run with a VERY large international business has no meaning, no bearing whatsoever. You cease being a "customer" when you log out of EQ and come to this site. What you feel you, as a customer have a right to expect from SOE, you don't have a right to expect from here. You shouldn't. If you do, you're trivializing the accomplishment of that very large business, and way overblowing the importance of this small, privately owned community.
If you are unhappy with a business, you stop paying them, and they cut off your service. Finit. No money, no service. If you're unhappy here and for whatever reason your posting rights are removed, that's it ... your right to SPEAK in these forums is removed. Nothing stops you from reading the forums, nothing stops you from using the site that is the reason these forums were put in place - we're still paying for the bandwidth because we WANT to - not because we feel the need to perform "customer service" on something you get for free.
Just because both have "EverQuest" tied to them in some way, doesn't negate the fact that we're not them, and while you may be their customers, you're our guests, and that means we can/will and are entitled to, handle things differently around here.
Comparison was made between our actions and SOE, with one of those "If SOE had done this ..." statements.
My first thought had been "this is and has been a dead horse, let it lie." After a bit however, I realized that it's been quite a while, and folks may have missed it, or chose to ignore it.
It absolutely doesn't matter what SOE would have done, or did, in similar situations.
We are not SOE. We are not a business of ANY sort. We provide a SERVICE at great expense to ourselves on several levels, yes, but we do not charge any fees for that service, we do not force people to pay to participate, we do not even come close to anything remotely resembling a profit from the sporadic donations that we receive. In order to make a profit, the donations would have to cover not only domain registration and hosting fees (they do, barely), but also office space, power, business licensing fees, taxes, registration fees for the board software, the software we use for site work, some of the costs of our hardware ... and salaries.
It doesn't even come close
Comparing how things are run here with how things are run with a VERY large international business has no meaning, no bearing whatsoever. You cease being a "customer" when you log out of EQ and come to this site. What you feel you, as a customer have a right to expect from SOE, you don't have a right to expect from here. You shouldn't. If you do, you're trivializing the accomplishment of that very large business, and way overblowing the importance of this small, privately owned community.
If you are unhappy with a business, you stop paying them, and they cut off your service. Finit. No money, no service. If you're unhappy here and for whatever reason your posting rights are removed, that's it ... your right to SPEAK in these forums is removed. Nothing stops you from reading the forums, nothing stops you from using the site that is the reason these forums were put in place - we're still paying for the bandwidth because we WANT to - not because we feel the need to perform "customer service" on something you get for free.
Just because both have "EverQuest" tied to them in some way, doesn't negate the fact that we're not them, and while you may be their customers, you're our guests, and that means we can/will and are entitled to, handle things differently around here.
