Dragon Slayer cheating: Sapience

[Fexelea]

Dear guildlaunch

As a long time lotro player and guildlaunch user, I was not very happy to see Rick Heaton proposed as best community manager, but alas if other players proposed him ok.

Now that Lotro has new forums, I come to find out he has set the default signature of EVERY user who had a lotro signature to direct to voting for him.

This is blatantly dishonest self promotion by trying to make it look like players support his cause. I am simply disgusted by this underhanded tactic and I believe it merits removal from the award on principle - he is abusing his power to self-promote regardless of the opinion of the players and taking advantage most don't know how the new forums work and are having trouble finding how to edit their signatures.



http://file3.guildlaunch.net/217839/Sapienceselfpromotion.png

When called out he is claiming he did it so people would change their signatures. What a pathethic excuse! I'm sorry this is dishonest and very very wrong and I believe it merits his removal from the competition

Thank you

[Castielle101]

Cas

[Fexelea]

An example of how this has distorted played view:

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MithrilMinded's Avatar
MithrilMinded

im so clueless that i thought..

ithought the comunity and players were uniting to vot for sapience in the slayer awards , using and anouncing it on signatures in a so shocking colur .... and i was thinking wowppl really want this to happen, i was feeling the love , lookeven ppl that are raging for gettingfreestuff....... nice one Sap

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https://www.lotro.com/forums/showthread.php?519890-Well-played-Sapience!&p=6870608#post6870608

[TheGrimFandango]

I came here to post the same because of his underhand tactics, but you beat me to it.
Well said.

[Nazgrat]

I have to echo the concerns of the other posters this violation is not simply the most passionate community or greatest moderator it boils to down to simple community population sizes being manipulated by narcissistic egotistical individuals to further their careers. Its a real shame this competition has been brought into disrupt by the actions of one individual.

I can only hope that Sapience is disqualified for manipulating the results. Best of luck to the other communities and moderators who don't need to stoop to the lows of cheating to show the strength of their communities.

[Macblue]

I was another who had their signature manipulated by Sapience in order to promote himself for this award.His masters at Turbine do nothing to stop this mans power trip. Complaining to them about his devious and underhand tactics is a waste of time with the attitude that even bad publicity is some publicity.
He has, IMHO single-handedly destroyed what was once the best gaming community on the internet.

I would ask that his nomination is removed from the Community Manager category as clearly his inclusion is also an insult to any other manager listed.

[TeeNinety]

I see the evidence that Sapience is playing games with other people's signatures, but I don't see the point of these games. I don't understand what he was trying to accomplish that could conceivably be worth the ire that would predictably result from manipulating other people's profiles. The "getting people to modify their own signatures" story is thin and silly.

Sapience: explain yourself.

[LavenderKae]

I understand that many people felt "used" by Sapience at his choice of replacement text for the people with broken code signatures. Perhaps it was a poor wording choice, and perhaps it should have just said vote for LOTRO and not for himself. I will concede those points. But the act of changing the broken code signatures (and ONLY those with a broken code signature) was a pointed measure to improve the forum after other efforts were ignored.

For starters, we were warned prior to the start of the new forum that it would break the old signature generator and any signatures using that code would cease to work. This is why I and many others deleted that code BEFORE the new forums hit.

After the new forums took effect, we were asked again to change the broken code signatures, and provided with new signature guideline rules available in the forum. These guidelines were linked to by Sapience in many of the various "how to fix my signature" posts that cropped up, as well as all the replacement signature generators to ensure they would meet the guidelines.

Despite telling us they would break, asking us to change them, and providing new guidelines, many people ignored this completely and left broken code with the bad links to a now non-existent signature generator in their signature section.

This kind of signature, containing broken code and links, is often flagged as a security threat by automatic detection systems, because it is the same type of thing that a spammers signature would hold. Sapience explained that these signatures were tripping that security problem, and had to be removed. But a great deal of people did not listen. The forums are part of his responsibilities, and having them full of broken signatures that are detected as potential security ricks makes LOTRO look bad. Asking didn't work. Providing instructions didn't work. The various alternative signatures that he helped to meet the guidelines were there. This left him with no choice but to either send hundres of warnign PMs, send out hundreds of forum suspensions for improper signatures, or to do something that would make everyone fix the problem quickly.

He chose to get the player base to fix the problem, rather than send a bunch of warnings around. He did it based of of an OFFICE VOTE (quote: "Actually we took a vote in the office and that was one of the options. 'Founding Member: Sapience Fan Club and Adoration Society' was the other.") of what to put as the replacement alert text. The OFFICE along with him deemed that the fastest way to get the broken signatures fixed was to make it (and I quote again):
"1 -Make it anything "pro" me.
2- Make it hot pink
3- Make it a Back to the Future quote so people with a sense of humor would get the joke."

This was obviously in the spirit of humor, with the intended purpose of getting the broken codes out of the forums without having to issue hundreds of violation warnings. Adding the link led you to the entire voting page, reminding you that LOTRO has many categories up, not just his, to vote for. If you check the "Well played, Sapience" thread in the forum, you will see that many got the joke, found it humorous, and changed their signature accordingly. Some were even reminded to vote int he awards at all, as they had forgotten. There were also those who didn't get the joke, took offense, but STILL CHANGED THEIR SIGNATURES.

Again, I admit the choice of wording was probably poor in a PR perspective - but this wasn't meant to be a PR move. It was an intentionally attention-getting move for the expresses purpose of fixing the broken signature problem in the most efficient way possible, and only affected those who FAILED to change their broken and improper signatures despite multiple attempts to get them to fix it. Knowing he himself is a topic of hot debate and using that knowledge to levy the changing of signatures was a clever way to get the signatures fixed without having to issue disciplinary measures for a problem that was originally caused by the forum change, not the players themselves, but was perpetuated by the inaction of the players thereafter.

[Stickypurplecat]

LavenderKae wrote:

Again, I admit the choice of wording was probably poor in a PR perspective - but this wasn't meant to be a PR move.

There were a hundred different ways to handle that situation, and they happened to pick the one that would have the added benefit of helping them snag an award that they could use to promote their game in the future. You seriously think that was a coincidence?

For the rest of the folks reading this thread, LavenderKae's arguments are derived from Sapience's own posts on the subject here.

Anyone who has taken a look at the LotroCommunity forums would know this kind of behavior is pretty par for the course as far as Sapience goes.

I'll note that I'm not someone who's going out of their way to bash the game. I've been playing for more than four years, spent thousands of dollars in sub fees and Turbine Points and spent countless hours building up its community. In those four years I've never had any administrative action taken on my account. Only recently did I find myself suddenly unable to like or comment on their Facebook page, without reason and without notice. Having never made a comment on their page, I thought this was odd. After posting to the Lotro forums asking if it was bug, the thread was deleted without response. Filed a ticket and was told I was indeed banned and that they were unable to "determine whether it was justified or not," adding my posting privileges were reinstated, and adding, "Please don't make us regret it. "

...As long as someone's laughing it still counts as a joke, right? Because that's essentially Sapience's argument in all cases where his chronically unprofessional actions have been criticized.

Getting back to the signature thing...At best it's extremely unprofessional, and at worst it's completely misleading and an attempt to manufacture the bandwagon effect. Not a small number of people have expressed concern with the fact that at first glance the signature change seemed like some grassroots movement to snag Sapience a nice trophy. A sharp-eyed community member pointed out that Sapience managed to violate his own guidelines for community conduct:

Quote:

14. Impersonation. Impersonating another community member, kinship/guild, famous person, or any Turbine employee is forbidden. This is considered a very serious offense and “it was a joke” is not a valid defense. Impersonation includes, but is not limited to, using images or signatures to suggest you are an employee or any person other than yourself. Making statements claiming you are someone other than yourself, forging, editing, or otherwise modifying posts of a moderator, Turbine employee, or forum member (i.e., “fixed that for you” style edits in quoted texts that change the wording or meaning of a post in an attempt to embarrass or misrepresent the original posters comments) is not permitted.

Even if Guild Launch doesn't find it to be "cheating," it's certainly unethical and not at all becoming of someone up for Community Manager of the Year. I hope that, if nothing else happens, people will consider this information when they cast their vote.

EDIT: Removed some typos, added quote regarding Lotro's community rules being violated by Sapience's actions.

[Dorothir]

LavenderKae wrote:

I understand that many people felt "used" by Sapience at his choice of replacement text for the people with broken code signatures. Perhaps it was a poor wording choice, and perhaps it should have just said vote for LOTRO and not for himself. I will concede those points. But the act of changing the broken code signatures (and ONLY those with a broken code signature) was a pointed measure to improve the forum after other efforts were ignored.

It's not just a poor choice of words, it's willfully misrepresenting people's views. Even a vote for LotRO would be the same as not everyone believes it deserves a vote.

LavenderKae wrote:

This kind of signature, containing broken code and links, is often flagged as a security threat by automatic detection systems, because it is the same type of thing that a spammers signature would hold. Sapience explained that these signatures were tripping that security problem, and had to be removed. But a great deal of people did not listen. The forums are part of his responsibilities, and having them full of broken signatures that are detected as potential security ricks makes LOTRO look bad. Asking didn't work. Providing instructions didn't work. The various alternative signatures that he helped to meet the guidelines were there. This left him with no choice but to either send hundres of warnign PMs, send out hundreds of forum suspensions for improper signatures, or to do something that would make everyone fix the problem quickly.

Or he could just delete the signatures with the problem without any warning PMs, as he has done countless times before. You conveniently miss this option throughout your whole post, like he had no other choice but to promote himself.

LavenderKae wrote:

He chose to get the player base to fix the problem, rather than send a bunch of warnings around. He did it based of of an OFFICE VOTE (quote: "Actually we took a vote in the office and that was one of the options. 'Founding Member: Sapience Fan Club and Adoration Society' was the other.") of what to put as the replacement alert text. The OFFICE along with him deemed that the fastest way to get the broken signatures fixed was to make it (and I quote again): "1 -Make it anything "pro" me. 2- Make it hot pink 3- Make it a Back to the Future quote so people with a sense of humor would get the joke."

It doesn't make it any better that the entire office joined in with it. From point 1, they clearly know Sapience is widely hated by the community, so they knew doing something like this would annoy most people.

Not to mention he now insults people that were annoyed by saying they lack a sense of a humour and it was a 'joke' (see Freebooter_Fox's quoting of rule 14).

LavenderKae wrote:

This was obviously in the spirit of humor, with the intended purpose of getting the broken codes out of the forums without having to issue hundreds of violation warnings. Adding the link led you to the entire voting page, reminding you that LOTRO has many categories up, not just his, to vote for. If you check the "Well played, Sapience" thread in the forum, you will see that many got the joke, found it humorous, and changed their signature accordingly. Some were even reminded to vote int he awards at all, as they had forgotten. There were also those who didn't get the joke, took offense, but STILL CHANGED THEIR SIGNATURES.

And many more were offended by it. Some even changed their signatures to a different link and what did they get for it? Infractions. He might as well have gone into a vegetarian forum and added a link promoting himself as a butcher. And he knows he's disliked, which makes the 'joke' an obvious troll attempt.

LavenderKae wrote:

Again, I admit the choice of wording was probably poor in a PR perspective - but this wasn't meant to be a PR move. It was an intentionally attention-getting move for the expresses purpose of fixing the broken signature problem in the most efficient way possible, and only affected those who FAILED to change their broken and improper signatures despite multiple attempts to get them to fix it. Knowing he himself is a topic of hot debate and using that knowledge to levy the changing of signatures was a clever way to get the signatures fixed without having to issue disciplinary measures for a problem that was originally caused by the forum change, not the players themselves, but was perpetuated by the inaction of the players thereafter.

Again, the most efficient way possible was to just delete the broken signatures. So don't try to blame players for Sapience pulling what is a clearly a move to enrage the community.

[Castielle101]

Sapience has stated numerous times that Lotro has the best community of any MMO. So if the community dislikes him (from his own admission he is aware of this) then what does that say about him as a Community Manager?

Either he doesn't really believe we are or he's a really poor community manager...

Cas

[Cappuccino Littlebean]

Some ppl just don't have a sense of humor. I thought the whole set up and execution was funny as he11 ..one of the reasons I like Sapience so much.

[Aedon Durreah]

I actually changed my sig to encourage voting for Rick myself. Just as in any campaign I think that trying to get out the vote for a candidate you support is perfectly fine.

[Stickypurplecat]

Aedon Durreah wrote:

I actually changed my sig to encourage voting for Rick myself. Just as in any campaign I think that trying to get out the vote for a candidate you support is perfectly fine.

The sig itself isn't the problem, it's the way it was implemented.

Would you appreciate it if a political candidate stuck a sign supporting their campaign in your yard while you were sleeping? Wouldn't you prefer they actually ask for your support?

[Sherwoodcappy]

Rick heaton has a very dirty and underhanded way of doing things in general. On his forums he is the king controlling, removing, and banning anyone he doesn't like or that would warn the community about his behavior. Look outside of his domain of control and suppression and what you will find is many very dissatisfied people. Quite a large number of which have screenshots posted(many of them) of the numerous and repeated offenses he commits.

Evidence proving how he troll's community members the moment they don't agree with them. Everything from going through all of there back posts for years to find anything to ban them with.

Quote from a guy name Jim "TOTALLY agree with you! Unfortunately, he'll delete your comment from this post tomorrow because he picks and chooses the comments that stay on this page. Any negative comments about WB, Turbine, or LOTRO in general are immediately deleted when he sees them, and the poster is blocked from making further posts on this page. It's happened to people I know and posts I've commented on in the past."

I also wish to cast my vote to remove Rick heaton from nomination of the dragon slayer awards.