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There's a big difference between deleting a heart-felt tribute to a former co-worker that in no way stepped on any toes...|
Originally Posted by LISAR
The policy protects both the employees and the company. It's is a very sound logical policy being enforced inf ll to prevent any toes form being stepped on.
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...and forging Richard Garriott's signature on a libelous document.
Protect NCSoft from their own destructive impulses. Anything beyond that is insulting to all involved
There is no such thing as an "innocent bystander"
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Your name is BigFish but you've clearly lived in a small bowl.
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Originally Posted by BigFish
There's a big difference between deleting a heart-felt tribute to a former co-worker that in no way stepped on any toes...
...and forging Richard Garriot's signature on a libelous document. Protect NCSoft from their own destructive impulses. Anything beyond that is insulting to all involved |
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No comment policy on personnel changes is standard policy when dealing with customers in most industries, IME. Mostly because if you don't have one, the absense of a reason why rapidly becomes a little slanderous. For example:|
Originally Posted by BigFish
The company policy is quickly becoming the iron grip of a thinly disguised military dictatorship. It's certainly not a policy most western MMO customers are comfortable with
If I'd have joined the game today instead of 2006, they wouldn't have gotten anything after my free month Please make sure that the higher-ups are aware that there is displeasure amongst the end users of their product |
Today we let go of three people. Alice, Bob and Charlie.
Alice has finally completed the third stage of Transcendence and has gone to live in the metauniverse as a benevolent spirit guarding our lives and hopes.
Charlie was due to take an extended leave of absence to finish two more doctorates before he was scheduled to take up his position as the new head of the Mission to Mars project, in light of his recent discoveries in the field of cancer research, he has instead opted for a more permenant departure that he can share and explain his findings with the medical community before having to leave in his rocket. On a related note, look out for Charlie branded personal jetpacks on sale next week in Walmart.
Bob left too.
Soul of Virtue
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If you mean I've never been a corporate cubicle drone? Then, yes|
Originally Posted by LISAR
Your name is BigFish but you've clearly lived in a small bowl.
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Thank the heavens!
There is no such thing as an "innocent bystander"
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Wouldn't that be due to the fact that Bob either wasn't putting in the effort or wasn't with the company long enough to garner any huge awards?|
Originally Posted by Raynebow
No comment policy on personnel changes is standard policy when dealing with customers in most industries, IME. Mostly because if you don't have one, the absense of a reason why rapidly becomes a little slanderous. For example:
Today we let go of three people. Alice, Bob and Charlie. Alice has finally completed the third stage of Transcendence and has gone to live in the metauniverse as a benevolent spirit guarding our lives and hopes. Charlie was due to take an extended leave of absence to finish two more doctorates before he was scheduled to take up his position as the new head of the Mission to Mars project, in light of his recent discoveries in the field of cancer research, he has instead opted for a more permenant departure that he can share and explain his findings with the medical community before having to leave in his rocket. On a related note, look out for Charlie branded personal jetpacks on sale next week in Walmart. Bob left too. |
Two words: Big deal
There is no such thing as an "innocent bystander"
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It can be made into one easily enough.
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Originally Posted by BigFish
Wouldn't that be due to the fact that Bob either wasn't putting in the effort or wasn't with the company long enough to garner any huge awards?
Two words: Big deal |
Corporate obfuscational triple-speak does no one any good outside of the cold, hardened hearts of hive-minded supervisor types and their toadies
You are certainly welcome to stand up for it, to your shame
There is no such thing as an "innocent bystander"
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Shouldn't a big, bad corporation have the courage to slap down frivolous lawsuits?
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Originally Posted by LISAR
It can be made into one easily enough.
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There is no such thing as an "innocent bystander"
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Originally Posted by BigFish
Corporate obfuscational triple-speak does no one any good outside of the cold, hardened hearts of hive-minded supervisor types and their toadies
You are certainly welcome to stand up for it, to your shame |
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Originally Posted by BigFish
Shouldn't a big, bad corporation have the courage to slap down frivolous lawsuits?
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Give it up, LISAR. Dude's not gonna change his opinion, and engaging him is just gonna result in him posting more nonsense rhetoric.
Positron: "There are no bugs [in City of Heroes], just varying degrees of features."
Well, whomever they are, in whatever capacity they served, all I can say is this:
THANK YOU FOR YOUR CONTRIBUTION to the best game ever, and good luck in whatever it is you decide to do going forward. Your work will not be forgotten.
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I *did* recently read an interview with Mr. Emmert where he basically admitted that their approach to MMOs was rather...flawed (to put it diplomatically) and so they were taking a completely new tack with NWN. In a fit of purely wild speculation, it may be one reason he reestablished contact with the Inestimable Mr. Bruce.
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Originally Posted by Golden Girl
Don't pre-judge it - it could turn out to be Jack's masterpiece
 |
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As I've stated before, there is such a thing as privacy law in the employment sector... and those privacy laws have teeth. Before you blather on about what you think is frivolous or not, and how you think reality should be, why don't you take a moment to find out how the world IS.|
Originally Posted by BigFish
Shouldn't a big, bad corporation have the courage to slap down frivolous lawsuits?
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Employers CANNOT volunteer information about former employees and their means of departure, except to those people that have a legitimate request. Ever have a prospective employer ASK you if it's OK to contact your current or past employers? That's why--to get the authorization they need to get some disclosure (and that disclosure is STILL going to be very limited in information.)
Employees that get severance packages often sign non-disclosure agreements to keep all terms of the departure private. This again protects all parties, not just the big bad evil corporation. If Joe talks about why he left, and Jill doesn't explain why she left in the same layoff, Joe's disclosure taints Jill's right to privacy. The laws are written to assure that the employee's right to privacy are respected. Period.
The important thing to remember here is that regardless of any anxiety we the community may feel- we aren't the ones wronged here and we aren't the ones that deserve anything. There are 8-9 people that are out of a job in a tough economy and many of them will want to have some control over how that information is shared and with who. It's their life- their dignity- and their future. Putting demands for disclosure to ease our anxiety is rather inconsiderate, in comparison.
Chase_Arcanum is 100% correct.
And having a 'no comment' policy on employee departures is not heartless, it's just a corporate policy which protects both the corporation and the employees.
Imagine if one of our favored Devs was fired for doing something inappropriate at work, like running an Internet Ponzi scheme while at work. If Paragon Studios said, "We fired the Dev known as Miss Liberty because she was running a Ponzi Scheme at work through our computers," then Paragon opens itself up to a slander, loss-of-reputation lawsuit. And regardless of the merits and whether they could fend off that lawsuit or not, it would be a drain of time and resources.
If someone left on amicable terms but another was fired for malfeasance, how would it look if they said, "We're sorry to see Moonfire go, she was the best Developer we ever had! And oh, Miss Liberty is gone, too, and we have nothing more to say about *that*."
It would prejudice one 'fire' over the other if they said nice things about the amicable departures but were silent over the inimical ones.
Saying nothing is the best option for everyone involved. And customer sentiment for a particular employee doesn't change anything. Customer sentiment doesn't change the lack of a right to know... the customer doesn't have that right, regardless of sentiment.
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Keeping personnel matters within the company is SOP for any company you care to name; a lot of companies have employees sign NDAs to that effect. They are not "hiding from controversy," they're behaving like adults do.|
Originally Posted by Knightfox
Yet another example of this company hiding from controversy. The attitude that is building over there is causing me a great deal concern. I'm already disgusted that we seem to have to pay for costume pieces from here on, and the stone wall is getting old quick.
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We are not owed direct access to the inner workings of their hirings, firings, dismissals and partings of way.
It was fun.
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Three more words: Not our business.|
Originally Posted by BigFish
Wouldn't that be due to the fact that Bob either wasn't putting in the effort or wasn't with the company long enough to garner any huge awards?
Two words: Big deal |
We are not stakeholders, board members, fellow employees or management. It's not our concern. Sure, it's nice to know, but we don't have a RIGHT to know, and acting like this is 1984 because Paragon Studios is protecting itself AND its employees -- like any good company does -- is naive.
It was fun.
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It still doesn't mean they can't acknowledge that someone is gone, especially when the community was wondering if it were true. You can at least do that without going into details. This iron fist approach is rapidly eroding my patience.
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Originally Posted by FelicityBane
Three more words: Not our business.
We are not stakeholders, board members, fellow employees or management. It's not our concern. Sure, it's nice to know, but we don't have a RIGHT to know, and acting like this is 1984 because Paragon Studios is protecting itself AND its employees -- like any good company does -- is naive. |
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Iron fist?|
Originally Posted by Knightfox
This iron fist approach is rapidly eroding my patience.
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lol
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Feelings being neither right nor wrong, this feels like when you hear of a plane crash and your close relative was on a flight that day. You try their cell and there's no answer and the airline won't release the names of the passengers.
Sometimes you don't get closure. Things just ripped from you and your left to either get stuck in an obssessive cycle or you move on.
Mr. Bruce, I salute you and thank you for all of your work that went into making this a city I'm happy to reside in.
To the unknown red shirts who just landed in the away party I thank you for your dedication to our city.
May opportunity knock often and may the best of your past be the worst of your futures.
~Shadow
Comic and Hero/Villain Culture
Saturday January 29th, 2005 (12:37 PM) ~ Monday August 9th, 2010
Those Who Lived It Will Remember Long after your Ban Hammer Crumbles and the servers flicker dead.
We Will Remember This One Moment In Time! ~ Shadow Ravenwolf
While it is obvious that the communication with us has recently become a great deal stricter, this might have more to do with legal issues than at 1st appears. For all we know there is some internal conflict and BaB's has requested a hush hush.
If that is the case then removing Jay's post was 100% understandable.
Also, the recent slamming in court that NCSoft recieved may be playing a bigger role in why this new policy is being held onto for dear life. It very well could result in the closure of the game we all love, if they had to deal with another one.
While I wish things could still be as open as they used to be when it comes to Dev coming and going, I respect that there are bigger things at stake here.
Once I started thinking about it in depth. We've never really been informed formally when a Developer leaves, except for Jack. We are however informed when OCR has a changing of the guard, as they are they ones directly in contact with us.
Maestro Mavius - Infinity
Capt. Biohazrd - PCSAR
Talsor Tech - Talsorian Guard
Keep Calm & Chive On!
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Originally Posted by Knightfox
It still doesn't mean they can't acknowledge that someone is gone, especially when the community was wondering if it were true. You can at least do that without going into details. This iron fist approach is rapidly eroding my patience.
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A simple "We are able to confirm that Developer X no longer works for Paragon Studios: We thank them for all their effort and hard work during their time with us and wish them well for the future. We will not be discussing their departure in further detail and we hope the community understands our reasons for this," would have been sufficient without causing any of the problems some have highlighted.
I appreciate it's not a cut and dried issue, but the official responses are rather lacking.
Thelonious Monk
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Really?|
Originally Posted by Shadow Ravenwolf
Feelings being neither right nor wrong, this feels like when you hear of a plane crash and your close relative was on a flight that day. You try their cell and there's no answer and the airline won't release the names of the passengers.
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REALLY?
You're going to equate one of the development team members of a video game you play being laid off to a loved one possibly dying in a plane crash? I liked BABs as a dev, generally enjoyed his presence just as much as anyone else around here did, and if I had my way he'd still be here. But between this post and people actually holding a vigil at the man's in-game character location, I'm worried that some of y'all take this stuff a little overboard. O.o
Positron: "There are no bugs [in City of Heroes], just varying degrees of features."
Quote:
Fixed.
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Originally Posted by Scarlet Shocker
Very sad news for all those concerned who are now looking for work.
I am not ready to cry doom, far from it. This simply seems typical of any corporation's generally ruthless attitude to their greatest resource. They seem to be very quick to wield the axe whenever it's deemed necessary. |
@Glass Goblin - Writer, brainstormer, storyteller, hero
Though nothing will drive them away
We can beat them, just for one day
We can be heroes, just for one day
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Thanks for letting us know. I understand why you have the policy (Raynbow gave a great example), but also hope that both Jay and everyone else at the company know that we appreciated his sentiments.|
Originally Posted by theOcho
Jay was unaware that his post was a violation of company policy and it had to be removed. This had nothing to do with the contents of his post, but no commentary on personnel matters is allowed.
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Originally Posted by Goliath Bird Eater
You're going to equate one of the development team members of a video game you play being laid off to a loved one possibly dying in a plane crash? I liked BABs as a dev, generally enjoyed his presence just as much as anyone else around here did, and if I had my way he'd still be here. But between this post and people actually holding a vigil at the man's in-game character location, I'm worried that some of y'all take this stuff WAAAAAAAAAAAAY too seriously. O.o
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Please try my custom mission arcs!
Legacy of a Rogue (ID 459586, Entry for Dr. Aeon's Third Challenge)
Death for Dollars! (ID 1050)
Dr. Duplicate's Dastardly Dare (ID 1218)
Win the Past, Own the Future (ID 1429)
If I'd have joined the game today instead of 2006, they wouldn't have gotten anything after my free month
Please make sure that the higher-ups are aware that there is displeasure amongst the end users of their product