Michael Barnes: Still raising ire after sixteen years in exile

I find BGG so weird. As a resource for information about titles etc. it's great. As a content creator who wants to promote themselves its terrible. I no longer post there as I was fed up giving them free content for little benefit to me. Twice I had reviews rejected for no reason, change like a single word and resubmitted and then it was fine. That they have the store now, advertising and pretty much all the staff and moderators are unpaid volunteers gives me the boke.

BGG is largely a site about collecting now. Most discussions are about the look and feel, about availability and prices. That's fine, but it's a different hobby from the one I'm in. We just happen to share the same physical object. I get the feeling they would wig out if they saw the way I treat my games.

If your questions and comments are on that line of things then you'll do ok.

As for "say something nice" I wholeheartedly endorse that phrase when you start to type. As often as not someone spits something out without thinking that is rude. A momentary review of intention never hurts. That said, you can provide legit criticism in a nice way. Just brace for impact if you do it for the way the game looks.

thegiantbrain wrote: I find BGG so weird. As a resource for information about titles etc. it's great. As a content creator who wants to promote themselves its terrible. I no longer post there as I was fed up giving them free content for little benefit to me. Twice I had reviews rejected for no reason, change like a single word and resubmitted and then it was fine. That they have the store now, advertising and pretty much all the staff and moderators are unpaid volunteers gives me the boke.

The user base approving content has been ridiculous for years. It's not anyone with any real ability evaluating, just some rando looking for geekgold. It's an absolute crapshoot what will get approved or rejected, and it has been for as long as I can remember.

But I agree that the site is about consumption and "collecting" now. I use it to track my plays and games owned and to look up rules questions and that's largely it. Even before my ban I had decided that engaging in any conversations there was wasted time and had mostly stopped.

Legomancer wrote: The user base approving content has been ridiculous for years.

Free labor. That has always been the internet dream, a machine rolling money in, little or no overhead costs. That's why social media can exist.

My bigger concern is that the game is moving from nerds to the general public, which is fine, but it's falling into the deep part of the current where it looks like every other tabletop web site out there. In the past its strength was being the owner of the deep-thinking part of the subject.

I suppose they know what they're doing, where the money comes from.

Amazing.

Legomancer wrote:

thegiantbrain wrote:
The user base approving content has been ridiculous for years. It's not anyone with any real ability evaluating, just some rando looking for geekgold. It's an absolute crapshoot what will get approved or rejected, and it has been for as long as I can remember.

I submitted a new game that took nearly 3 weeks to get approved. It'd be easier to allow games to be instantly go live then edited if there's a problem I'd think but WTF knows.

I suppose the admins must carefully study a game like Busen Memo before allowing the BGG users to see it.

And the mod still fucked up the URL I requested for the game I submitted. Its like the mods are a basement of monkeys at typewriters sometimes.

Msample wrote: Its like the mods are a basement of monkeys at typewriters sometimes.

I mean, BGG is paying peanuts...

birdman37 wrote:

Msample wrote: Its like the mods are a basement of monkeys at typewriters sometimes.

I mean, BGG is paying peanuts...

media.tenor.com/2faFWy4oJvQAAAAC/kenny-were-the-millers.gif