BGG Looking for Admins for VideoGame.Geekdo.com

I'm still trying to figure out what the impact of this will be for board gaming's little corner of the world, but I have yet to think up a positive aspect to it.

Announced at 10:12pm on a Friday night, right after the pledge drive ended.

Business is business.

S.

Jeez. They're about 12 years too late for this innovation. As much as Gamespot sucks, they have them beat in spades.

They need 0.2% of the video game market share to double their revenue.

It's a good financial move and I don't blame them, but at this point Boardgame's big brother has moved back into the house and I think it's hand-me-downs from here on out.

The timing of the announcement was not terribly classy. I'm surprised they aren't getting negative feedback from it.

S.

Coming soon: ISaveMyPeeInJars.Geekdo.com

Because there aren't enough forums online for nine-year-olds with Tourette's and personality disorders?

Jesus christ, you think BGG has annoying trolls and the lax admining is a problem there? The videogame forums will be an absolute disgusting nightmare if they are even slightly successful. Have they ever seen a videogame forum? Go to gamefaqs.com, gamespot.com, ign. They are horrible, horrible places even if they are heavily moderated. Much less then kind of moderation Aldie et al are used to.

It will be an eye opener. More likely it will completely fail--there are already sites for this niche. See giantbomb.com or gamespot.com

I'm guessing that the idea is to deliver BGG's large user base to the kinds of advertisers that currently sponsor Gamespot. It's not about getting new users, necessarily.

If this is a runaway success, will all new videogames feature "Christian" microbadges as unlockable achievements?

BGG's forum rules:

• Do not abuse, harass, mock, insult, stalk, demean, threaten, belittle, or otherwise attack other users or groups of users, directly or indirectly, explicitly or implicitly, even if they started it, they deserve it, or they are public figures or people who can take it.
• Do not swear too much.
• Do not post images that are explicitly sexual, contain gratuitous nudity, or graphic violence.
• Do not spam, flood, or otherwise be a nuisance.
• Do not use excessive signatures for posts. A word or two is acceptable. Using images as a signature hurts the readability of the site and is prohibited. Posting ads or links as part of a signature is likewise prohibited.
• Do not post a bunch of links to your off-site blog/webstore/etc.
• Do not complain about inappropriate posts by other users--flag them instead.
• Do not quote inappropriate posts in your replies--this defeats the purpose of the user flagging system.
• Do not troll. Wikipedia defines an internet troll as "someone who posts controversial and irrelevant or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum or chat room, with the intention of provoking other users into an emotional response or to generally disrupt normal on-topic discussion."
• Do not accuse someone of trolling. Calling someone a troll, even if it could be considered justified, never helps and often can exacerbate a situation.
• We have a dedicated Religion, Sex, and Politics forum. Discussion of these topics outside of this forum can be considered disruptive posting and is not permitted.
• Do not talk about who is in your hide list - This is a zero-tolerance offense and will result in immediate restrictions placed on your posting privileges.
• Do not post information that allows others to purchase complete unofficial replications of a game or other works protected by copyright without the permission of that game's designer/publisher.
• Do not list your games for sale in the forum--use the marketplace instead.
• If you are selling many games, it may be more appropriate to use the forums to promote those sales, but you are expected to execute that sale through the BGG marketplace, and thus pay BGG its 3% commission on the transaction.
• Do not post links for "Hot Deals" that give you money or credit for referrals
.

• If you don't like something (a game, a publisher, a whole genre, a feature of the site, etc), it is OK to say so, but don't harp on it endlessly--there are games you like, right? Talk about those.
• Do not discuss ways to block ads. We depend on ads for the revenue necessary to maintain the site. We offer members who donate $25 the option of disabling any and all ads on the site. Discussion of unauthorized ways to block site ads is prohibited.
• Threads which degenerate into flame wars will be locked by moderators, regardless of who is at fault.

As applied to videogame.geekdo.com:

• HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA

Gary Sax wrote:

Jesus christ, you think BGG has annoying trolls and the lax admining is a problem there? The videogame forums will be an absolute disgusting nightmare if they are even slightly successful. Have they ever seen a videogame forum? Go to gamefaqs.com, gamespot.com, ign. They are horrible, horrible places even if they are heavily moderated. Much less then kind of moderation Aldie et al are used to.

It will be an eye opener. More likely it will completely fail--there are already sites for this niche. See giantbomb.com or gamespot.com

Exactly. Not only that, bannings will become commonplace. Then TOS will be just another forum on the interwebs.

Exactly Bullwinkle

Bullwinkle wrote:

BGG's forum rules:

• Do not abuse, harass, mock, insult, stalk, demean, threaten, belittle, or otherwise attack other users or groups of users, directly or indirectly, explicitly or implicitly, even if they started it, they deserve it, or they are public figures or people who can take it.
• Do not swear too much.
• Do not post images that are explicitly sexual, contain gratuitous nudity, or graphic violence.
• Do not spam, flood, or otherwise be a nuisance.
• Do not use excessive signatures for posts. A word or two is acceptable. Using images as a signature hurts the readability of the site and is prohibited. Posting ads or links as part of a signature is likewise prohibited.
• Do not post a bunch of links to your off-site blog/webstore/etc.
• Do not complain about inappropriate posts by other users--flag them instead.
• Do not quote inappropriate posts in your replies--this defeats the purpose of the user flagging system.
• Do not troll. Wikipedia defines an internet troll as "someone who posts controversial and irrelevant or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum or chat room, with the intention of provoking other users into an emotional response or to generally disrupt normal on-topic discussion."
• Do not accuse someone of trolling. Calling someone a troll, even if it could be considered justified, never helps and often can exacerbate a situation.
• We have a dedicated Religion, Sex, and Politics forum. Discussion of these topics outside of this forum can be considered disruptive posting and is not permitted.
• Do not talk about who is in your hide list - This is a zero-tolerance offense and will result in immediate restrictions placed on your posting privileges.
• Do not post information that allows others to purchase complete unofficial replications of a game or other works protected by copyright without the permission of that game's designer/publisher.
• Do not list your games for sale in the forum--use the marketplace instead.
• If you are selling many games, it may be more appropriate to use the forums to promote those sales, but you are expected to execute that sale through the BGG marketplace, and thus pay BGG its 3% commission on the transaction.
• Do not post links for "Hot Deals" that give you money or credit for referrals
.

• If you don't like something (a game, a publisher, a whole genre, a feature of the site, etc), it is OK to say so, but don't harp on it endlessly--there are games you like, right? Talk about those.
• Do not discuss ways to block ads. We depend on ads for the revenue necessary to maintain the site. We offer members who donate $25 the option of disabling any and all ads on the site. Discussion of unauthorized ways to block site ads is prohibited.
• Threads which degenerate into flame wars will be locked by moderators, regardless of who is at fault.

As applied to videogame.geekdo.com:

• HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAA

Hear hear.

This has to be one of the dumbest moves I have seen since "New" Coke.

Sagrilarus wrote:

I'm surprised they aren't getting negative feedback from it.

The Cult of Aldie isn't big on criticizing their Fearless Leader. That guy could post some sort of horrible racist, anarchist, Nazi, socialist, misogynist rant and he'd still get 75 thumbs and 3.58 GeekGold for it.

Gary Sax wrote:
" Jesus christ, you think BGG has annoying trolls and the lax admining is a problem there? The videogame forums will be an absolute disgusting nightmare if they are even slightly successful. Have they ever seen a videogame forum? Go to gamefaqs.com, gamespot.com, ign. They are horrible, horrible places even if they are heavily moderated. Much less then kind of moderation Aldie et al are used to.
It will be an eye opener. More likely it will completely fail--there are already sites for this niche. See giantbomb.com or gamespot.com"
Poetic justice.

I actually think this is a good move.

I guess about 75% of BGG users also play video games and that'll naturally be the first audience VGG is going to attract. The site might also attract outsiders who want to keep track of their video game collection and rate games, i.e. the OCD type, who are generally passive aggressive. I believe the site will hardly draw in teenage internet meanies, and if it does, a good percentage will leave the site intimidated by the GUI and finding themselves unable to post.

(I personally don't see the merit in keeping track of virtual property.)

So for the already existing fanboys this'll make the whole "geekdo" enterprise more interesting, which will make itself noticed by more donations. No matter what, "geekdo" will grow by the inclusion of video games, even if only a little. Since the BGG programmers apparently are paid by the year and not by the hour, this is a win anyway.

I'm wondering if Barnes is banned from all "geekdo" sites by default.

I can't wait for the inevitable controversies:

1. If I go online but don't find a match, do I record a play?
2. If I downloaded the game but don't have a physical copy, do I own it?
3. What's up with videogamer9378, he recorded 187,328 plays of Unreal on 2009/10/28, he must be amazing!
4. I wrote a guess-the-number game in GWBASIC, where's my Game Designer badge?