Of all the days this week, this turned out to be the most boring :)
Of course, this was the day I wrote my infamous article, "All the big sites suck" piece, ( at least that's what was told to me, which I still don't understand) where I point out a very simple fact (That's not a pun) that all of these big sites banding together is not for the best of the rest of the community, but in fact will lead to a lot of the small site's demise. I also pointed out that all that will happen is the big site's will end up promoting themselves.

Well.... Lockeye posted something with enough holes that you could drive a truck through, told everyone that all the "elite" sites were enraged at me for pointing out their lack of Community spirit ( oddly enough, they weren't enraged enough to let me know personally) and then followed with a "kinder and gentler" community spirit speech, one that he promptly broke a few times himself the following few days.

This was all based of course on the Top Ten List from Extreme StarCraft, which promptly gets our First Award, The Jam Tart of the Week Award, not only for NOT backing behind their own feature, and basically telling everyone to stick it where the sun doesn't shine, but also for (very) quietly canceling the Top Ten completely. I'm sure that all of the big site's that dropped out are walking around congratulating themselves, especially a certain someone who needs a air compressor hose jammed up his nose so he can inflate his head a little more, but once again, everyone else suffers. I guess it didn't occur to certain people that the Top Ten served a purpose exactly like the news contest that Tarsonis once ran.( Oh yeah, I know there's a huge irony there) It was the only regular feature where smaller sites could "strut their stuff" and get mentioned on a regular basis, and medium sites could become more noticed, compete favorably and continue to grow. ( Hello StarCraft Network ) Congrats guys. Nice Job.

Oh, a effort has been done by a couple of the sites, but they are so halfed assed, you can't help but wonder if it was just a attempt to say "Hey, I did my part for the Community" without really doing anything.

The sad thing is that I was right so far. I did say that all they would end up doing is promoting themselves. And several announced that they were gonna do something, (one site was even daft enough to say for the Community) they were all gonna band together to heavily promote a tournament site, to make it the most dominant and well known out there, and the tournament? The ISL, which is part of... Simple.Craft

It would be just stating the obvious what kind of effect this will have on other tournaments, especially run by smaller sites, so I have to give the "elite" the "Damn, We Should Have Thought Things Thru a Little More" Award for coming up with one of the best ideas, and going exactly the wrong way about it. Since I have done nothing but give out negatives, I should at least point out a few solutions:

1. - Just having the top 5 or so sites coming out at the start was bound to have bought out the resentment from everyone else (and I do mean not just me) An attempt at least to get medium and smaller sites to be a part of the initial group would have gone a LONG way. The fact that there was none spoke volumes to me, and I'm sure, judging from the comments I got back, it did to a lot of people (well, 20 actually who wrote to me, plus the ICQs) The fact that a lot of sites posted about my first article, and I don't seem to recall anyone actually disagreeing with it also should have been a sign. (With one notable exception of course) Funny, the thing that pops in my head is what my mother always taught me, "First appearances always count."

2) - Anybody but Lockeye! To have Simple.Craft as part of it was fine. But to have Lockeye as the "front man" was one of the worst possible choices, because though Lockeye has quite a few fans, A lot of people just can't stand him. You wouldn't believe how many people I talked to this week that had "I hate him" somewhere in the conversation. And this was by webmasters and other people of the "Community" as well! The fact that Lockeye has been known to engage in personal Vendettas doesn't help matters one little bit either. From the start, you should have found someone to be your spokesperson who was well RESPECTED among ALL the community. (And there are several who come to mind, including a couple from the "elite" group) The net result from all of this? The Community didn't exactly come together did it? In fact, it split apart wider, and judging by the attacks from other sites on Lockeye now, it seems to just get worst. ( I have to include myself in this as well )

3) - There was no "offering to the Gods". A rather strange statement, but what it means was there was nothing to back up your statement. It would have been real nice if there was something more than a statement that the large sites had banded together to help the community. A little something to back it up maybe? A piece of Internet paper with what you wanted to do and how you were gonna do it? One of the sites sponsoring a forum or "completely free" poster. Or how about if, after you announce it, actually taking a minute to email some sites asking them to join, no matter who it was, or what your personal beef was. Hell, email as many as you could. All I wanted (and I'm sure quite a few others did as well) was proof. It didn't have to be huge, but that's all we needed. One did, for a few days, but then canceled it. At least they made a attempt. Remember guys, actions speak louder than words.

4) - Come on, surely you could have come up with a better name. Calling yourselves the "elite" is all fine and dandy, but some people have a problem with confusing the word "elite" with the word "elitist".

The really interesting thing about all this, is after rereading what I had just wrote, if just a couple of these suggestions I just made had been done from the start, I would have joined. And yes, even if Lockeye was still the "king" or webmaster or whatever. There is nothing wrong with the concept of trying to bind the community together as one, hell, I'm all for it myself. But damn, the way it was done...

So, can it be saved? The short answer is no. Too many people have developed too much dislike for each other over the last week. The best thing is to scrap the entire idea right now, rethink it, and to start all over again from scratch. If you truly want what you say you want, then it's worth the effort. At the risk of public humiliation, or at least ridicule from other sites, I point you to to the old "small site alliance, which is a "community" that I am a member of. In the 3 weeks of existence, I have to say that though I never knew them before we joined, I'm glad I do now. I count them as allies and friends, and I think we can all agree that's what we all want the entire StarCraft Community to be. Allies and friends.

shiva

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