Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Yeah it's like their jobs depend on in-store sales or something?

It's most likely that the RedShirt the Op talked to prefers Warseer the same way we prefer Dakka. I'm surprised he felt comfortable talking about Warseer when I'd imagine he had been told to talk up gamesworkshop.com as a web resource. It you're at work you should be talking business after all.

I personally have never heard a GW employee bad mouth Dakka, indeed I've discussed armies and conversions seen here with them.

Like allot of GW Redshirts complaint anecdotes I think allot of it comes down to meeting a low paid schmo who might be having an off day/TFG.

Dakka is part of the free world, with people discussing freely GW products. Enough reason for GW employees "with the right attitude" to hate Dakka
And yeah, tell your employees that GW is one of the few companies without an official facebook page.

I've known a few GW employees in my time (3! ) and when you talk to them in the pub after work, then a lot of them are critical of some of GW's policies. They like their jobs, so of course they're going to be professional and toe the line at work, and grin and bear it.

When it comes to GW, I'm open minded. I had a lot of fun with GW stuff over the years before I switched allegiance to FOW, so I'm not overly critical of them. Yeah, I don't like their price rises and so forth, but occasionally they do some fantastic models (dark elves and these new imperial knights) so I give praise and criticism in equal measure.

Don't want to blow smoke up dakka's collective rear, but I find most people to have that view.

Waits for gold star and pat on head

Well, this is not a problem in Germany. Red shirts are not really very good in English, at least, most of them. So they look at the German (un-)funworld.de.

For me, Dakka is the best forum out there when it comes to 40k and related topics.

 wuestenfux wrote:
Well, this is not a problem in Germany. Red shirts are not really very good in English, at least, most of them. So they look at the German (un-)funworld.de.

For me, Dakka is the best forum out there when it comes to 40k and related topics.

I just had a look at funworld.de...

Are you sure this is where German Redshirts hang out?

 Allod wrote:

 wuestenfux wrote:
Well, this is not a problem in Germany. Red shirts are not really very good in English, at least, most of them. So they look at the German (un-)funworld.de.

For me, Dakka is the best forum out there when it comes to 40k and related topics.

I just had a look at funworld.de...

Are you sure this is where German Redshirts hang out?

Actually there is no other forum around. But I never had a discussion with a red shirt in which funworld.de played a role. These guys want to have it cineastic.

Don't you mean GW-fanworld.de?

Funworld.de seems to cater to a different crowd, but then again, I don't know too many German Redshirts.

Just typed in Funworld.de, I got what looks like a German Male Escort site. People Auktion and all. Well this is very revealing about the German GW employees!

My local GW manager doesn't hate Dakka, he didn't criticise me for using it when he asked me how I knew about new releases but he did say he used to be on Dakka until everyone started flaming at GW (In his opinion unfairly. His real opinion, no script) so now he goes to Warseer. He says it's a little more friendly there, for the life of me I can't understand that! We are LOVELY over here on Dakka aren't we Lads and the occasional Ladet!

I have never mentioned Dakka to a GW staff member. Then again i have not been into one in a few years.
But it would not surprise us. So much of what goes on here is anti-GW in its actions.
Bashing the rules/games
Improving on the rules (and there by showing that GW products are not perfect)
Failcast
Other, alternative, and often better games are well discussed.
Cheaper GW modewls
Veterans
etc.....

Face it, Dakka is one big mass of ant GW

Well, it isn't.

There is a widespread amount of anti-GW opinion, based on thoughts vis-a-vis GW such as the things you have mentioned. A lot of that is reasonable if vehement, because let's face it, GW has actually done a lot of the things people complain about.

There is also a widespread amount of pro-GW opinion, based on things like Escalation, the Imperial Knight and other models, that people like.

Then there are lots of people getting on with painting and modelling projects and advice, other game systems, and so on.

 azreal13 wrote:
but, even having been on the receiving end occasionally, the moderation is fair and fairly effective.

For me, this is where DakkaDakka shines; really good moderation.

Warseer isn't all sunshine and roses either. I frequent that site as well and there's a whole subsection dedicated to general GW talk that''s usually "complain about prices/company".

That is a bit weird though that they're so vehement against this site, but then again its GW so I expect they would be against anything that offers a viewpoint other than GW is great, the games are great, the miniatures are great, everything is great why don't you buy a new Imperial Knight and some more paints?

er...if you've got minis on a table why are you talking about Dakka. Shut up and play boy! AS my daughter would say, win or you're out of the family!

 Swastakowey wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:

 Swastakowey wrote:
A lot of people I play with think the same of dakka. I can see why. Im here because once you weed out the annoying ones its not too bad... and I got lots of spare time at work these days.

"The members of dakka are close minded simpletons" was one persons kind way of saying it haha.

Its just some of the more common posters are very negative and can be offensive (without breaking the rules offensive). I simply say its the internet, could be worse, go look at you tube.

But id like to hear what people have to say on GW employees thinking that way. If they do.

I find it odd that people are comfortable making such sweeping generalisations about the largest online wargaming community in the planet.

But, meh.

The few ruin it for the many I think.

Says the poster whose user name is almost Swastika...

GW does get kicked like a rented mule here, so it's not surprising that they don't post here often. It's a shame as I really like the game and their setting. I'd like to know their actual thought behind killing products like bloodbowl and BFG and launching Escalation.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Kavik_Whitescar wrote:

wufai wrote:
I don't think GW employees are trained to hate dakka, but they have every reason not to steer their customers to it.

Store managers's salary/bonus largely depends on store sales, so much so they will sad face you when you told them they ordered from GW online and have it sent to their store for free pickup. So why would they steer their customers to a forum where
1. There is so much negativity about GW and its expensive products
2. Everyone here is posting where you can get CHEAPER GW models

Not to mention Trading and selling huge lots here for upwards of 50% of retail

It's not even a drop in the bucket of GW sales. I'd be surprised if they even bat their eyes at it.

Ebay, however...

 Allod wrote:
Don't you mean GW-fanworld.de?

Funworld.de seems to cater to a different crowd, but then again, I don't know too many German Redshirts.

Of course I meant GW-fanworld.de. Not sure if red shirts are also there.

I am disappointed that GW's Fanworld isn't Funworld.

Dakka tends to be a wonderful place to find out about wargames companies that aren't GW.

Warseer, less so. There was at one point, a thriving Mantic community on Warseer that got moderated into oblivion.. had a lot of my posts deleted for "advertising" when all I was doing was posting pics of new releases in a news and rumour thread. Whole threads and chunks of threads of perfectly reasonable discussion would suddenly vanish with no explanation.


Eventually, everyone left en-masse and joined the new mantic forums instead.

 scarletsquig wrote:
Dakka tends to be a wonderful place to find out about wargames companies that aren't GW.

Warseer, less so. There was at one point, a thriving Mantic community on Warseer that got moderated into oblivion.. had a lot of my posts deleted for "advertising" when all I was doing was posting pics of new releases in a news and rumour thread. Whole threads and chunks of threads of perfectly reasonable discussion would suddenly vanish with no explanation.


Eventually, everyone left en-masse and joined the new mantic forums instead.

Score one for Mantic then. Warseer's moderation is in a sad, sorry state. Moderation is key to a healthy forum, and as I have said, Dakka does it right most of the time. Encourage free discussion, keep the topics clean and ineligible, promote reasonable manners both through warnings and, more importantly, modeling appropriate behavior.

Consequently I find that the level of discussion on DakkaDakka is a bit more sophisticated than on other wargaming forums, and generally rather polite for the internet.

 scarletsquig wrote:
Warseer, less so. There was at one point, a thriving Mantic community on Warseer that got moderated into oblivion.. had a lot of my posts deleted for "advertising" when all I was doing was posting pics of new releases in a news and rumour thread. Whole threads and chunks of threads of perfectly reasonable discussion would suddenly vanish with no explanation.

Warseer threaten to ban me for advertising, Dakka gave me a subforum.

 Cyporiean wrote:

Warseer threaten to ban me for advertising, Dakka gave me a subforum.

I am always confused by their stance. Their entire site is an advert for GW. Yet, woe betide you even mention another company outside the wrong sub-forum. At one point, even linking to a KS got you a warning with the explanation given as "We don't allow advertising". Weird moderation logic.

I think that the majority of posts that could appear to be anti-GW are really Why are you letting things slide GW? posts.

Very few (if any) posters are anti-GW in a way where they want the company to fold. We just want better.

For example we've just had the 8inch Knight description have to be re-labelled to 6inches on their own website. How is that a mistake that could be made?

Dakka has a good staff of mods. As a general rule they don't jump the gun and lock down threads/ban people without a good reason.

The community can get a bad rap from some of the more outspoken posters. There are a handful of people on here who NEVER have anything positive to say. (There are two or three of them where I've gone back through several pages of their most recent posts to see if I could find ANYTHING that wasn't rude, sarcastic, snarky, or negative, and was shocked to find not a one.) I think these people seem to represent more of the forum community because they also tend to post quite a bit more.

Still, I think Dakka is a good representation of the 40k community as a whole, and really enjoy it. I encourage other people to check it out as well.

I've been on quite a lot of forums online and think Dakka is one of the best, with a good community and solid moderation, especially given it's size. GW catch flack because of the crap they pull. It's not going to be a love-in when they start selling poor quality products with price increases and try to hammer small companies and fansites with aggressive legal action. It says something perhaps about the GW corporate attitude filtering down to the shops that criticism is just those 'uneducated goons' on the internet, and not actually a direct result of their own actions.

While I enjoy the Dakka community for the most part, I have a hard time being shocked at GW not liking it.

While we have a good-ish community, I think we occasionally need to step back and get some perspective of ourselves and actually think of the communication and interaction more fully rather than instantly go into 'us vs them' defensive. Let me just take one example that constantly sticks out in my mind.

Anyone remember what happens/happened whenever a GW manager or store worker would post here and let it be known that they are a GW employee? I think the best analogy is a bucket of chum in a tank full of starving sharks. If we cannot communicate with them when they reach out to us, why should they just keep throwing themselves into this? I'm serious. Would you go to a place where just for saying what you are and what you do, you have a small legion of critics grab onto you like you had the ability to fix their grievances (real or not) of the worldwide company you work for?

While I'd love to get in the 'rah rah GW is so evil' camp here, I can't. Because we are hardly kind to them in return. And this is not just a matter of criticism, or white-knighting or whatever other nonsense term that I'm certain will be bandied out to dismiss my point entirely. If we as a community cannot be good ambassadors to GW, why do we expect them to wade through our mud and daggers for us? Why do we act shocked and appalled (in that infuriatingly smug 'oh this is sooooo predictable' way that I hate) when they don't have a positive opinion of places where simply saying you work for them is a death sentence to mob beating? Why support of acknowledge a place that actively, I repeat, ACTIVELY wishes for you to lose your job and for the company you work for to go under?

As Jimsolo has mentioned, the most outspoken posters set the tone. This is the internet and it is an echo chamber. Like it or not, and no matter what you say about it, the loudest members do a lot for setting the tone of the community. I've posted here for a good while and I've downright learned that if I disagree with some of the more virulently anti-GW posters that it is better to just not say anything than to argue. I don't need that kind of crap in my life, and why should we expect a GW employee to want it as well?

I get it. We want GW to be better, and I'm all on board with that. GW has made some mistakes in game design and business practice. Again, I can't argue that because it is true. However, I do not believe that Dakka has the ability to claim any kind of moral high ground. If we want to reach out to GW and fix things, we have a lot to fix in our own yard right now first. And expecting GW to slog through our crap to be here, only to get pelted by more of it for being GW, is utter lunacy.

Well said, curran12!

Its folly for any individual GW employee to set foot here, for the reasons you so eloquently outlined, especially as the likelihood of said employee having any power to affect change is tiny, rendering them nothing but a metaphorical punchbag for people's frustrations.

Much better idea to create an environment where you have control, have multiple staff to avoid any sort of fatigue and burnout, and actually listen to what your customers are saying and do your best to act on it if feedback seems particularly strong and consistent.

Like running your own forums?

Sure, it would be rough for a few weeks, months even, but if it was approached with integrity (not banning people purely because what they have to say is hard to hear) and was run with a genuine attitude of open communication and a desire to improve GWs relationship with it's whole customer base, I sincerely believe that by the 6 month mark, GW could radically improve the attitude many have towards them.

That is an intensely optimistic view you have, azreal.

I'd love to share in it, but just think of the floodgates that would be opened the instant GW announced that. You think it is bad for the poor GW manager who thinks 'oh I can post here and be involved' and posts to Dakka? Now you've painted a giant bullseye in a single spot for all of this to wash out. And it creates a no-win situation for GW in any way I can think of it for panning out.

It would be the 'GW manager posts on Dakka' situation made worse by several orders of magnitude. You'd have a flood of people storming in demanding (let's be honest with ourselves, people would be demanding) changes in everything from rules, to model design to how to run the business at an executive level. And, with the echo chamber effect, GW trying any kind of talking outside of the most obsequious begging and pleading will just be obliterated. Especially when the unfortunate community managers have to explain that they actually can't change the rules or business for the internet mob.

Could it work? Possibly. However, I think calling it a 'rough few weeks/months' does nothing to cover the amount of venom that would pour into that place on a daily, hourly basis. If GW would want to address it, they would need more than a handful of mods and community reps, they'd need to be pouring personnel resources into giving answers that would be adequate to pacify this mob.

Also, is it not a trifle presumptuous to ask GW to take that on? There's no form of compromise there. It acknowledges all of the vitriol and says 'it's your problem, not ours, GW'. Again, GW can open its doors to us, but if we don't even bother to wipe our feet, in a metaphorical sense, what good does it do? Likewise, the line of "if it was approached with integrity (not banning people purely because what they have to say is hard to hear)" rings out to me as an abandonment of compromise because it instantly puts GW in a moral pit and us on a higher level. Which we do not have. We are wishing for people to lose the ability to feed themselves and keep their homes. If we're gonna do this open communication thing, we have to give as well. This is putting everything on GW's shoulders and countenancing pretty horrible behavior on our part as well (using the collective 'our' here for Dakka and other big forums). I agree that they should not ban for dissent, but we should not give them the reason to.

I seem to remember seeing official GW FAQ's thanking Yakface
for his input

 curran12 wrote:
That is an intensely optimistic view you have, azreal.

I'd love to share in it, but just think of the floodgates that would be opened the instant GW announced that. You think it is bad for the poor GW manager who thinks 'oh I can post here and be involved' and posts to Dakka? Now you've painted a giant bullseye in a single spot for all of this to wash out. And it creates a no-win situation for GW in any way I can think of it for panning out.

It would be the 'GW manager posts on Dakka' situation made worse by several orders of magnitude. You'd have a flood of people storming in demanding (let's be honest with ourselves, people would be demanding) changes in everything from rules, to model design to how to run the business at an executive level. And, with the echo chamber effect, GW trying any kind of talking outside of the most obsequious begging and pleading will just be obliterated. Especially when the unfortunate community managers have to explain that they actually can't change the rules or business for the internet mob.

I don't think it's overly optimistic, no. Practically every other company on the planet seems to be able to maintain some sort of dialogue with their customer base, and in this very industry there are multiple examples of people getting it right. The issue would be GW genuinely wanting to change to remove the root cause of all the venom sent their way, and in this I would question their desire, possibly even their ability.

Could it work? Possibly. However, I think calling it a 'rough few weeks/months' does nothing to cover the amount of venom that would pour into that place on a daily, hourly basis. If GW would want to address it, they would need more than a handful of mods and community reps, they'd need to be pouring personnel resources into giving answers that would be adequate to pacify this mob.

I'm not going to argue about theoretical timescales with you, but again, you're always going to have people who will blindly criticise and 'hate' whatever you do, those aren't the people to worry about. There are, however, many people who are disenchanted who would be relatively easy to get back on side, there is still huge affection for 40K, even if not necessarily GW, and those would be the ones to target.

Also, is it not a trifle presumptuous to ask GW to take that on? There's no form of compromise there. It acknowledges all of the vitriol and says 'it's your problem, not ours, GW'. Again, GW can open its doors to us, but if we don't even bother to wipe our feet, in a metaphorical sense, what good does it do? Likewise, the line of "if it was approached with integrity (not banning people purely because what they have to say is hard to hear)" rings out to me as an abandonment of compromise because it instantly puts GW in a moral pit and us on a higher level. Which we do not have. We are wishing for people to lose the ability to feed themselves and keep their homes. If we're gonna do this open communication thing, we have to give as well. This is putting everything on GW's shoulders and countenancing pretty horrible behavior on our part as well (using the collective 'our' here for Dakka and other big forums). I agree that they should not ban for dissent, but we should not give them the reason to.

Asking GW to try and ensure the long term growth and health of their company by assuming responsibility for the satisfaction of their own customers, like, as I've said, practically every other company in existence? Nope, not presumptuous at all.

The fact that, at this point, they have such an apparently massive hole to dig their way out of with a percentage of their consumers is nobodies fault but their own, and the responsibility for trying to repair that should be their responsibility, and only theirs. If they choose not to undertake that responsibility, and as a result they eventually have to make redundancies or go into receivership (I'm making no such argument that GW must start to communicate or they will go under, but let us make the assumption for the purposes of this discussion) then who else's fault is it? They are still solvent (albeit not as much as a year ago) and profitable (ditto) so at this point, their fate is still very much in their own hands.

 eskimo wrote:
It's not suprising when Dakka offers more than a GW store.
...
Hookups

Wait, what?
What part of the forum is this, I must have missed it.