Walking the Walk?

[Mike]

How much does it matter to you that a forum mod/news site owner/hobby blogger:

Plays games and or is in the business as a manufacturer?
And what is your reason for that?

I rarely game, but I do game.
I also run a miniatures business.

Does this have any direct bearing on how you think of me in my role here?

(prompted by a comment elsewhere)

[irishserb]

I don’t have real strong thoughts about it one way or the other, as long as the moderation seems balanced and just.

In general, I prefer the owner and/or moderator shares in the hobby in some way as a participant, and I don’t care for a forum that overtly promotes a single company or product line.

 

 

[MustPlayThat]

Whatever you do not or do has made this forum the best for miniatures I have ever come across, forget self guilt for making a profit because I enjoy this forum a great deal. I personaly would like you to produce 3D models for printing, I think its the future, the price of the models would not be as important as the quality, to be able to decide on an era of battle & then buy the complete setup would be great. this brings me to my second reason about your question, you being in the business as a manufacturer gives me a direct voice to ask for 3D models. I did think when I joined this forum because it looked like a business the forums would be horrible, but you have it just right.

MAY I ADD I DONT WANT 3DPRINT KITS, THE FOUR WALLS NEED TO BE PRINTED AS A WHOLE FOR STABILITY. JUST BECAUSE THE KITS ARE 3D PRINTABLE DOSE NOT MEAN THERE WORTH GLUEING TOGETHER, JUST TO GET OUT OF THE BOX IN SIX MONTHS TO BE FLATTENED. soory thought it needed saying if you ever got into it

[Steve Johnson]

It doesn’t affect your ability to run this forum IMHO. As long as you have some understanding of the hobby, that’s all that matters.

[Guy Farrish]

In general terms I think a good understanding of how to run a communications platform (forum/news group/magazine etc) is the most necessary requirement. A welcoming attitude, consistent, fair moderation and a knowledge of how the hobby works all help to build on that basic skill.

You seem to have those covered.

Does your gaming activity/business affect what I think of your role here?

Only in a positive way. To me you seem to maintain a scrupulous distance between your business as a manufacturing company and your activities as editor/moderator. You don’t favour your products over anyone else’s and welcome discussion of all types of gaming. Your experience in gaming gives you an insight into where discussions are going and enables you to quickly recognise if and when things are going towards difficult/controversial/off topic subjects and correct accordingly if required.

The place is a pleasure.

 

(Can I have my £5 now please?)

[Mike]

MustPlayThat wrote:

forget self guilt for making a profit because I enjoy this forum a great deal.

No guilt here about making money to feed the family!

😀

MustPlayThat wrote:

I did think when I joined this forum because it looked like a business the forums would be horrible, but you have it just right.

Ta very much.

MustPlayThat wrote:

you being in the business as a manufacturer gives me a direct voice to ask for 3D models

I don’t do 3d anymore really, that one comment was just an aberration, old school methods here for the most part.
My 3d days are behind me now, but that is for another time and place to discuss.

Guy Farrish wrote:

(Can I have my £5 now please?)

Yes*

*actually no, but thanks for the sponsoring payment you make!

[Darkest Star Games]

I am with those above.  It is important to me that a site owner/moderator has a grasp of the hobby, but not that they HAVE to participate.  I also agree that you’re running a great oasis here that I enjoy very much.

"I saw this in a cartoon once, but I'm pretty sure I can do it..."

[Norm S]

I know someone who runs a significant hobby business. Their view is that you should take the emotional  aspect of what you like (i.e. wargaming) away from the business and the business should just be like selling cabages and stand on its own merit, i.e. product is product and the product should make a profit, it should be a hard headed business matter, not an ‘I love wargamy thing’ sentiment, as the latter might not always involve good business decisions.

So, running a forum likely needs a different set of skills that gaming, modelling, sculpting, producing etc.

However, that said, I think the ‘owner / moderator’ needs to be plugged into the hobby enough to understand some of the nuances that surround the hobby and thereby the audience. We are not a particularly well understood hobby by the public, so we need an owner /mod that is closer than that!

[deephorse]

For me the most important things are that the moderator is a sane and reasonable person.  Someone that does not bear a grudge just because others disagree with them.  Someone that can accept another’s point of view without recourse to deleting posts, topics or banning people.  Someone whose political leanings are not obvious from the threads they start or comment on, or from the people they follow on Twitter.  In short, someone like yourself Mike.

It would also help if they had an understanding of gaming.

Play is what makes life bearable - Michael Rosen

[Russell Phillips]

I don’t care about any of the things you asked about per se. I care about how well the site is run. As others have said, having some knowledge of the hobby is probably useful, but ultimately what I care about is the end result.

Military history author
Website : Mastodon : Facebook

[Thorsten Frank]

I´m completely the same opinions that were stated before. But I want to add something. I´m no great friend of the “keep business and hobby apart” and the “keep businesses apart” – a person running a business should at least remotely have some first hand experience on the things he/she´s selling beyond the obvious and beyond the work time. I´ve too often seen uninterested people selling motorcycles to absolute beginners with no experience with at least a handful fatal results. Or selling computers (or parts of them) with rather strange results. I think everyone has esperienced this in one or the other way.
To keep it with the motorcycle example the best business I´ve dealt with over the years were, over the years, every single employee was riding himself and the boss himself rode on the track several times a year.

Just keep up the good work, Mike!

"In strange grammar this one writes" - Master Yoda

[OB]

It is an advantage that you game and manufacture when it comes to running a site about those things.  It means at a basic level we understand each other because we share those interests.  The first class moderation does no harm either.

OB
http://withob.blogspot.co.uk/

[kyoteblue]

Mike, you are one of us and it shows.

[telzy amber]

What they said

[McKinstry]

I care about how the site is run and this is my favorite site. Nuff said.

The tree of Life is self pruning.

[MartinR]

Having an understanding of the hobby helps. Good people and communication skills helps more.

"Mistakes in the initial deployment cannot be rectified" - Helmuth von Moltke

[Deleted User]

I don’t think I can say anything better than what everyone said already.
I was told once “doing something right its barely noticeable, but if it’s wrong, it’s ovious.”

Applying it to this, most will not be able to put a finger on how much gamer/business owner contribute to what we liked about the forum. On the other hand, if we hate this forum, we’ll be able to tell just how much you being a business owner and hobbiest made the forum unbearable.

[Mike]

Thanks for the kind words, though in all honesty I was not after praise (not this time), but was genuinely wondering if being in the business as it were was something you thought of benefit to running such a place.
So for example if TWW was sold to someone who was not a gamer would you be concerned.
And as a Trader member, if the new owner did not have a miniatures business would you worry they would not understand your needs as well as someone with the same needs?

 

 

[deephorse]

I am concerned now that you have raised the possibility of the site being sold to someone else.

Play is what makes life bearable - Michael Rosen

[Mike]

That private island isn’t going to buy itself.

[MustPlayThat]

is it a miniature island 🙂

[Thorsten Frank]

deephorse wrote:

I am concerned now that you have raised the possibility of the site being sold to someone else.

Me too! And …. that island. I had to learn that the hard way (but gladly not too late – as for somebody else as I learned 10 minutes ago ).

"In strange grammar this one writes" - Master Yoda

[John D Salt]

kyoteblue wrote:

Mike, you are one of us and it shows.

This.

deephorse wrote:

I am concerned now that you have raised the possibility of the site being sold to someone else.

Also this.

All the best,

John.

[willz]

Mike this is an excellent site to visit and is well run, the moderation is tempered and fair.  What your business interests both past and future IMHO have little or no bearing on a well run, friendly, welcoming wargaming / modelling forum that is always a pleasure to visit.  I regularly promote other gamers/ modellers to visit and join this forum.

Long live the TWW.

 

Willz.

[Thorsten Frank]

Uh, that silence does actually feed my concerns.

"In strange grammar this one writes" - Master Yoda

[Olaf Meys]

I think your ownership/participation as gamer is crucial to the core of the site. If it gets sold to someone who has no connection to the hobby, the site might lose its soul. It’s the only site I still regularly visit because it is “homey”, it has no drama (unlike many other sites, where the owners have a too heavy hand in moderation and rules around what may be published and what not), and is not continually trying to push an agenda.

A non-gamer would not know enough to “read” where things go.

http://mainly28s.com
wargames review site...

[Rhoderic]

I’d sooner frame it in terms of “hobbyist” and “non-hobbyist” than in terms of “gamer” and “non-gamer”. Someone who gets in one game every five years but still engages with other aspects of the hobby on a more regular basis (such as painting, modelling, reading rules, reading relevant fiction / military history, thinking about their own rules design or just making enthusiastic purchases of hobby products with a view to advancing their personal projects) is no less a hobbyist than someone who games twice a week.

But as for someone who isn’t a hobbyist in any way at all? In my view, the idea of a hobby community website administrated by someone like that isn’t even “a thing”. How would such a website even materialise?

And as for whether a hobbyist that owns/administrates a community website also happens to be a manufacturer/vendor, it makes no difference to me (assuming, of course, the website remain an open place for all manufacturers/vendors and discussion of them).

[jeffers]

What Olaf said. 😎

More nonsense on my blog: http://battle77.blogspot.com/

[Autodidact-O-Saurus]

Any techno-dweeb can run a forum. Building a community is a whole different ball of wax and I think you’ve done an admirable job of that. That takes a bit more insight into the motivations of the denizens and being ‘one of ’em’ is of great benefit.

Self taught, persistently behind the times, never up to date. AKA ~ jeff
More verbosity: http://petiteguerre.blogspot.com/

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