wavemotion wrote:On an unrelated note, I'm surprised nobody asked what the worst ranked 1e or earlier TSR product was.

I'm not surprised, having been through way too many years of Rankings Holy Wars at Aldie and Derk's Circus of Fear.

Not everyone is obsessed with ranking every item they come into contact with; that's more of a BGG type of thing. In my many years here, I can recall only a handful of threads that in any way touched upon rankings or ratings, even tangentially.

(And I won't even mention how statistically invalid the entire process is ... or how the Big Cheeses seem to have a shaky grasp on the whole Bayesian thing and what its strengths and weaknesses are ... or that y'all should be using a Pairwise system ... whoops, maybe I will mention it ).

Please put me down for a gigantic "don't care" vote.

My .02. FWIW. YMMV. IMHO. UCLA.

ashmire13 wrote:would that perhaps point a finger at the age/thought processes/motives of the early RPGG members then? Especially if it is being watered down as more and more (older?) players join the site??  

I don't know... the RPG Geek rankings indicate the relative popularity of games to people that frequent the site. Nothing more. We will be using the rankings in an upcoming "live-guide" we'll publish with things like "if you like X genre, Y movie or Z book you might check out ABC RPG". What I can say is that we seem to have a good cross segment of RPers - the top 100 is heavy with various edition D&D products but that's because the industry is virtually defined by it. But there are a large number of entries for CoC, WFRP, Traveller, GURPS and a good selection of the better Indie games produced over the last decade.

I'm happy that some of the Acaeum members have seen fit to join and rate their products. I've discovered a few new must-purchases because of it.

-Dave

ashmire13 wrote:I'd be careful with that, having seen some utter arse being listed as a result of some things that I might 'like' on either Amazon or Facebook. Just a thought to consider in case it gives rubbish or unrelated suggestions.

It's why we haven't done it yet. There used to be a system on BGG that said "if you like X you might like Y" but it was dumped a couple of years ago because it wasn't particularly good. The new system has potential but development is a ways away.

ashmire13 wrote:Can't say that I've really delved too much into RPGG yet, I'm still having a bit of fun picking up some missing pieces (playing as well as games) from BGG. I might drag myself onto the other side of the site and list the few items I have soon.

As I don't frequent BGG more than a few times a year, I'll be happy to have you visit the asylum!

-Dave

mbassoc2003 wrote:That seems to run contrary to something you said about not being the owner of the site when I said I could understand running a volume enterprise to drum up traffic. You're the boss but you don't own the site? So someone else owns the site like a director working for the board that owns the company?

They are unrelated completely. You said I must have a very understanding boss... I said that I am. Not sure where you got the idea that I owned RPG Geek from that. I volunteer my hours at RPG Geek.

Again, you seem to see the words I'm typing... but very little else.

-Dave

mbassoc2003 wrote:No, originally, way back when, I had assumed you owned the site when you said you weren't just a functionary. Then you indicated I was wrong and you were a worker, but a highly placed one, and the site was owned by someone else. Then you said you were the boss, and I was just trying to work out exactly what the structure of the whole enterprise was and what the motivation was for doing the site.

I run the day to day activities at RPG Geek on a volunteer basis - those thousand hours a year isn't work - it's passion. I have no boss there - as a volunteer I simply walk away if I feel that I'm not getting what I want out of the site or that the site has taken a direction that is opposed to my beliefs. I carry no Admin badges of any kind - if I needed a badge to run the day-to-day activities there I think the site would be in trouble. That effort has nothing to do with my job - of which I'm the Director of Software Engineering for a company I helped build. The two are not related.  Maybe when a person is flipping burgers and always having to answer to someone that person might get the impression that we all are under the iron will of someone else.

The guy who owns the site isn't doing this for any other reason than to create a money generating machine, and that's a numbers game. I get that part of it. But that's not you, and not your motive.

Hardly. For the first three years, Aldie and Derk simply poured their money into the site at their expense to promote a hobby they love. Nothing more. Anyone that tells you differently hasn't seen the bills that accumulated during the first three years and is, quite simply, lying. Not white-lying... but outright dead-wrong lying of which I can instantly put them on the list of liars in the world. When some of us found out that they were putting out hundreds of dollars per month from their own pocket to keep the site alive (there no ADs or any partnerships during those years) many of us sent them checks unasked for. We had been getting so much out of the site for years - and we wanted the site to continue to grow and attract more people into the hobby. We gladly sent the checks (a bit before Paypal's time) and the site continued. As the years went along, they couldn't sustain the site from their own pockets or the goodwill of some friends - so they set about a plan to turn their passion for gaming into something sustainable. They make ends meet - they now have 4 people on staff who are able to feed their families and not much else. Anyone that can turn their love of something into a sustainable business should be commended - we could all hope to do as much in life.

Foul asks for donations to keep this site running. You donate to keep it running because you find something here you feel a part of and want it to continue. Tens of thousands of us feel the same way about the 'Geek and donate each year.

I'm thankful that not all Acaeum members are as myopic as you.

-Dave

mbassoc2003 wrote:Yes, you may invest thousands of hours a year, but harnessing that passion in people to work for you is what being a successful businessman is all about.

That's the first intelligent thing you've said to me in months and the first I can agree with. Though I'd change the word 'businessman' to 'leader'.  Life is about much more than money.

And I'm flattered!

-Dave

Now it sounds like one of those mentalist American cults in some backwater where the 'leader' gets everyone to do his bidding until it all goes belly up and he shoots everyone....  

ashmire13 wrote:Now it sounds like one of those mentalist American cults in some backwater where the 'leader' gets everyone to do his bidding until it all goes belly up and he shoots everyone....  

That's what I was thinking. This guy's a brainwashed mug.
Could you imagine spending 20+ hours a week running someone else's business for them for free, while they sat at home counting the revenue?! This guy's a politician's wet dream.

Keith the Thief wrote:Swords or pistols?