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shadzar
2009-08-28, 02:10 AM
WotC forums are back up, and like DDI they are connected to another server outside of there control.

Any information you give to these new forums are NOT ocntrolled by WotC but instead a company in Oklahoma City, OK


IP address: 69.8.198.251
Host name: wizards.com
Results returned from whois.arin.net:


CustName: Wizards of the Coast
Address: 1600 Lind Ave SW suite 400
City: Renton
StateProv: WA
PostalCode: 98057
Country: US



IP address: 209.217.19.40
Host name: community.wizards.com

Network IP address lookup:


Whois query for 209.217.19.40...

Results returned from whois.arin.net:

OrgName: Catalog.com
OrgID: ETHO
Address: 14000 Quail Springs Parkway
Address: Suite 3600
City: Oklahoma City
StateProv: OK
PostalCode: 73134
Country: US

While it may be ok to have offsite hosting for such things, don't let the "wizards.com" portion of the URL fool you, this site is not run by WotC even if they have some control over it, but by a social network software company.

This means that any information you give to this new community website is not solely for the eyes of WotC to see.

Of course WotC removes such information from the new forums, so you look at it and think that the entire website is copyright to them and HASBRO, making it look like WotC is running the show, but it is NOT.

So be careful what information you actually give to them under the new forums such as the required zip code information and other personal information.

So what took WotC over a week to do was basically getting all the old information given over to this new company to handle the community. Any problems with the new hardware are now no longer WotC problems, so any problems with the new forums will have to go form user to WotC CSM, to WotC someone in charge of the new website account, to ONESITE to fix the problem.

Which basically means expect more downtime when errors occur.

Funny that it took a week+ to do this since WotC didn't have to do anything but route the alias/subdomain to the new IP address and continue on with business. Takes at most 24 hours for DNS servers to propagate the change to all the internet so "community" points to the new IP address. :smallconfused: All the while they could have still been using the forums.gleemax.com link to keep the old forums running and just change the links to the community to the new URL in about 5 minutes with ZERO downtime for the forums.

Well just wanted to give everyone the warning of who you are given your personal info to when dealing with the new WotC forums, as the users would be responsible anyway for giving out their info and WotC could never be held responsible since they decline to tell you they are not running their new "community site".

Good luck to any who use them (or can since Firefox seems to have a problem with the new "forums".)

(Didn't know where this belonged more here or in media, so flipped a coin and put it in RPG forums here. If it belongs in another forum here, then someone please move it to the proper forum.)

Temet Nosce
2009-08-28, 02:12 AM
Ah, it's a Firefox issue now? Meh. Thanks for the heads up anyways, although I think any personal information they have on me is lies...

Nai_Calus
2009-08-28, 02:31 AM
Explains the complete BS of me having to change my cookie settings to allow cookies from other websites to use their incredibly crappy new forums.

shadzar
2009-08-28, 02:44 AM
Explains the complete BS of me having to change my cookie settings to allow cookies from other websites to use their incredibly crappy new forums.

Yes. www.onesite.com tries to set cokkies for the subdomain "community" at the domain "wizards.com". This can cause some browsers problems where the cross platform cookies are set since the originating server/domain is not trying to set the cookie.

Again a big failure of design and implementation.

OOTS Powered by vBulletin®
ENWorld Powered by vBulletin® (plus it has the wiki and all the community features)

vBulletin isn't my preferred, but it takes a single machine to run a server for up to 1000 user connections at once. phpBB3 also has those features, but is free software.

Why WotC chose yet again to pay another company to do this is confusing as it just means they will be able to fire a few more IT and web personal, which should make people worry about the future of DDI if they are subscribers and WotC no longer is able to run their own forums.

I had to use IE-tab in firefox to view the site because of the cross-domain cookies and always got a "Whoops!" screen when just using firefox telling me I didn't have cookies enabled, and I hand accepted ALL of them. :smallconfused:

Sir Homeslice
2009-08-28, 03:57 AM
Also the new forums are hideously ugly.

Curmudgeon
2009-08-28, 04:05 AM
Also the new forums are hideously ugly.
Oh, indeed. And most of the screen real estate is taken up with all sorts of stuff besides forum messages, so reading is frustrating.

shadzar
2009-08-28, 04:18 AM
Oh, indeed. And most of the screen real estate is taken up with all sorts of stuff besides forum messages, so reading is frustrating.

I know nothing of this since I only got an error message saying my browser was denying cookies. Noticed the site trying to set cookies was NOT WotC but this ONESITE.com thus why I was rejecting them. So never saw the forums themselves in view.

So they look like the 4th edition books with the same amount of wasted landscaping due to excessive whitespace?

Sounds like the same system used for the "forums" on Myspace. :smallconfused:

Nai_Calus
2009-08-28, 04:28 AM
The god-awfulness of the forums(And the groups, and the blogs, and the wiki, and everything) makes the fact that it's outsourced even worse.

I mean, their own internal incompetence that we're used to is one thing.

They're PAYING someone to suck this badly?

Temet Nosce
2009-08-28, 04:32 AM
Hey, look on the bright side. At least you guys can see how bad it is to complain about, I still can't even access the site.

WotC - And you thought their editing was bad.

Kurald Galain
2009-08-28, 04:33 AM
Oh, indeed. And most of the screen real estate is taken up with all sorts of stuff besides forum messages, so reading is frustrating.

I completely agree.

mostlyharmful
2009-08-28, 04:37 AM
WotC - And you thought their editing was bad.

Hey, at least their editing is better than their playtesting.

and having logged onto the new site, yes, it is that badly designed that I couldn't stand it never mind the fact that it was spewing the lies I gave it about myself to god knows who.

elliott20
2009-08-28, 04:42 AM
Are you saying in order to even look at some of the old handbooks and compilations thread I need to submit more info this onesite.com place?

well that just sucks now.

kamikasei
2009-08-28, 04:45 AM
Are you saying in order to even look at some of the old handbooks and compilations thread I need to submit more info this onesite.com place?

No - they're visible without having to log in. You just won't be able to post or manage subscriptions.

edit: And, oh boy, that's some crappy design. Pet peeve: it seems every page title is prefixed with "The Wizards Community", with the result that all threads in tabs look the same. Helpful!

Chrono22
2009-08-28, 04:45 AM
I'll admit it doesn't look fantastic, but at least it isn't bright white letters on a black screen.
Let's not get too upset here about them outsourcing the community. We all already knew how they felt about it anyway.:smallbiggrin:

shadzar
2009-08-28, 04:45 AM
Hey, look on the bright side. At least you guys can see how bad it is to complain about, I still can't even access the site.

WotC - And you thought their editing was bad.

Point of correction. I have only seen the site through a text-only browser. It would not come up in Firefox due to the cookie behavior, so had to drop back to a text-only browser, so only saw words and not the abominable placement of things or spacing that others are talking about. Not even Google has it cached, so is likely until someone takes a screenshot, there will be MANY people that don't see the thing. :smallsmile:

Dixieboy
2009-08-28, 04:53 AM
WotC, you just lost 5 karma points.

Temet Nosce
2009-08-28, 04:55 AM
Hey, at least their editing is better than their playtesting.


I... cannot really disagree with that statement. Which is saying something, since I don't think WotC actually ever does any editing.


Point of correction. I have only seen the site through a text-only browser. It would not come up in Firefox due to the cookie behavior, so had to drop back to a text-only browser, so only saw words and not the abominable placement of things or spacing that others are talking about. Not even Google has it cached, so is likely until someone takes a screenshot, there will be MANY people that don't see the thing. :smallsmile:

Meh, I managed to fix it so I can access the site. I just finished typing in some random nonsense for its required crap (I linked them their default avatar since they require me to have one).

So... I think they pretty much finally managed to rid their forumsof me. I hate this kind of "social networking" nonsense and avoid them like the plague. Congratulations to WotC. Not that it matters much most likely, since I only ever posted on the CO boards and rarely even there.

Grumman
2009-08-28, 04:57 AM
Not allowing cookies for that onesite.com did not stop me logging in. Actually, it only asked the first time, perhaps as part of the redirect from gleemax to the new pages.

It still sucks, just a tiny bit less.

shadzar
2009-08-28, 05:01 AM
I'll admit it doesn't look fantastic, but at least it isn't bright white letters on a black screen.
Let's not get too upset here about them outsourcing the community. We all already knew how they felt about it anyway.:smallbiggrin:

The problem is we have HASBRO all over all the WotC pages, which makes parents think "Hey the toy people so this is safe for info to be placed". When in fact it is like giving your personal info of children to MYspace. This information is published through the forums itself and required to be put in. It is in violation of privacy acts for them to colelct this information when you are not doing busines with this company to use the forums.

Also from what I understand this new company running the forums has access to information related to DDI accounts.

So a DDI subscriber gives his info to Digital River which in turn gives it to this ONESITE in order to label your account as a subscriber on the forums....Really? Some random company running a forum software site now needs your DDI information for you to be able to use the free forums for the company you have no business dealings with?

WotC is pretty much just giving out all kinds of personal information to people that do not have any need for it.

So while they may enjoy outsourcing because of their own incompetence, the amount of information sharing they are doing in the process and neglect to tell user of the various websites run by other companies should make HASBRO and WotC criminally liable for any accounts of misuse of that information.

HASBRO/WotC went ahead and gave personal info about DDI subscribers to this new company without asking permission, even if these people did not want to use the new forums, or have their personal information published on the internet.

There is a child safety concern here. I also saw no indication of an image stating the site was safe for children like previous sites under WotC regarding ESRB, or child safety act to protect children online.

They are setting themselves up for many problems by choosing to do it the wrong way. They didn't NEED to have another company do it, so the fault is their own. :smallfrown:

But you are right, they could care less about the community/gamers and are just trying to bring back the horrid thing that was Gleemax that nobody really wanted in the first place.

Gnorman
2009-08-28, 05:44 AM
WotC, you just lost 5 karma points.

Only five? Hell, I'm never posting there again. It's awful.

The Vorpal Tribble
2009-08-28, 05:46 AM
Also the new forums are hideously ugly.
GAH! It is! Can barely read the things...

Curmudgeon
2009-08-28, 05:48 AM
I have only seen the site through a text-only browser. It would not come up in Firefox due to the cookie behavior
I use Firefox, and it is possible to make the site work. It's just annoying that you do have to work at it.

kamikasei
2009-08-28, 05:57 AM
What problem are people having with Firefox? I can view the site fine. Is it just when you try to actually log in? Maybe you all have more persistent cookie settings than I and my browser just didn't bother trying to log me in automatically.

Malek
2009-08-28, 06:08 AM
Point of correction. I have only seen the site through a text-only browser. It would not come up in Firefox due to the cookie behavior, so had to drop back to a text-only browser, so only saw words and not the abominable placement of things or spacing that others are talking about. Not even Google has it cached, so is likely until someone takes a screenshot, there will be MANY people that don't see the thing. :smallsmile:
http://img199.imageshack.us/i/godmyeyes.png/ <----here you go, maby not the best screenshot, but gives a glpimpse of it all (mind that this is one of alternative backgrounds, the default one is *all white*)


I'll admit it doesn't look fantastic, but at least it isn't bright white letters on a black screen.
Actually, white text on black background supposedly strains eyes less. Regardless of that I would prefer white on black to "oh god white, white, white" there is now.

Also:
Old subscriptions - gone
Archieved topics - apparently gone
PMs - gone
Most formatting tags - dead
Quick replay - you wish
New subscriptions - no quick link to view them, you have go through one of three "preferences" menus (this one "conviniently" linked at the bottom of the page and find the link to subscriptions there)

shadzar
2009-08-28, 06:26 AM
I use Firefox, and it is possible to make the site work. It's just annoying that you do have to work at it.

:smallconfused: Could you be any more vague?


http://img199.imageshack.us/i/godmyeyes.png/ <----here you go, maby not the best screenshot, but gives a glpimpse of it all (mind that this is one of alternative backgrounds, the default one is *all white*)

Thanks. What is the point of the recent topics column?

Looks like someone stole a poorly designed news site structure and applied it to forums.

Recent topics appear in the top of the forum itself not some always updating list propagated on each page load. That only increases the amount of server stress by having to update portions of the threads with each new page load.

Yeah that makes since to increase bandwidth usage and cause lag IF anyone ever starts using it because the server melts under the strain, or you have to cut the number of users in half due to constant doubling of access from each user.

:smallconfused:

Why is there any margin on the left side? (Am I going to punch holes in my screen to put it in my notebook to carry it with me or something?) Is something over there halfway down the page or something or did we all turn Japanese and read from right to left now instead of oh say...English that reads from left to right? :smallconfused:

WHY OH WHY does this thing need to scroll horizontally?

Who in the hell defines landscaping by exact pixels based on some $40,000 TV when not everyone views the internet on a theater screen?

width="100%"
NOT
width="1000000000px"

Let the website scale with the browser for crying out loud?

What idiots design websites these days ADHD college students working as interns?

:smalleek: Shiny flashy with lots of invasive flash objects! That's a good website!

:yuk:

I wish someone on this planet would learn how to make a functioning website.

Put your menu on the left taking up only as much space is needed and have all menu items showing and not some dropdown lists.

Then place the contents of the page on the right and let it fill the width of the browser based on the client side screen settings.

:smalleek: Like this fine example of a decently designed website.... http://www.giantitp.com by Rich Burlew.

PinkysBrain
2009-08-28, 06:39 AM
I really don't see the big deal with the outsourcing and privacy ... if you're giving personal information to Big Corp and you care about privacy LIE. The company they are outsourcing to has the same obligation to respect Wizards privacy rules as Wizards themselves. Legally the difference doesn't matter.

No, the god awful formatting hurts far more.

herceg
2009-08-28, 06:44 AM
Bah, and now I can't even open it due to company registration (gleemax somehow passed under the radar). This su... is bad :)

shadzar
2009-08-28, 06:44 AM
I really don't see the big deal with the outsourcing and privacy ... if you're giving personal information to Big Corp and you care about privacy LIE. The company they are outsourcing to has the same obligation to respect Wizards privacy rules as Wizards themselves. Legally the difference doesn't matter.

No, the god awful formatting hurts far more.

The problem is that not all the "kiddies", that target audience WotC wants to attract for its games outside of just RPGs; don't understand all the ins and outs of websites and the domain name is misleading to think wizards actually runs the servers and controls the information just as the WWW that has servers in Renton Washington. Nor do the parents of these people know that it is no WotC that owns these machines that the info is on, and WotC nor HASBRO will be legally responsible for any damage caused by this information getting outside of its system. One reason why some people let others run their websites so they can claim deniability in that they no longer shoulder the burden of full responsibility but can throw it onto the other company since they are responsible for the hardware and software and to protect the information. Ergo WotC just fires the forum company and sues them for damages that may be charged towards WotC for letting any personal information out. Then WotC loses nothing and is in no way responsible since it did all it could do by firing the company and terminating their contract with them. No los for Wotc so everyone will still not give them any negative publicity for any wrong doing, when they knew well and good beforehand what they were doing.

:smallfurious:

Ecalsneerg
2009-08-28, 06:51 AM
As if I needed another reason to not use Gleemax *shrugs*

Nai_Calus
2009-08-28, 06:59 AM
Opera renders it slightly better than Firefox apparently.

And by slightly better I mean that it's merely having angry weasels shoved down your pants, rather than angry rabid weasels:

http://www.iankunx.net/ohgodmyeyeswhy.jpg

shadzar
2009-08-28, 06:59 AM
As if I needed another reason to not use Gleemax *shrugs*

Now now, while it serves the same functions, you have to admit it is nice even in that screenshot to not be eye-bleeding green with that stupid Magic card image all over the thing.

Also they were kind enough to remove the gleemax domain from the link where you didn't have to see the horrid thing ever existed in the past.

kwanzaabot
2009-08-28, 07:01 AM
I really don't see the big deal with the outsourcing and privacy ... if you're giving personal information to Big Corp and you care about privacy LIE. The company they are outsourcing to has the same obligation to respect Wizards privacy rules as Wizards themselves. Legally the difference doesn't matter.

No, the god awful formatting hurts far more.

My interpretation is that if you're a subscriber, then your credit card details are sent to this hardly reputable company (they'd gain some brownie points if they could design a decent website... I mean, come on, it's not hard! If the actual point of the site forums] takes up around a quarter of the screen like in the above image (http://img199.imageshack.us/img199/4291/godmyeyes.png), then you need to fire your website designers).

Pharaoh's Fist
2009-08-28, 07:02 AM
That's why I never use my credit card for this sort of thing.

shadzar
2009-08-28, 07:02 AM
Opera renders it slightly better than Firefox apparently.

And by slightly better I mean that it's merely having angry weasels shoved down your pants, rather than angry rabid weasels:

http://www.iankunx.net/ohgodmyeyeswhy.jpg

Love that screenshot!

Several "Recent Topics" saying pretty much "This place sucks!" :smallbiggrin:

lesser_minion
2009-08-28, 07:04 AM
Well, I just had a look, and I'm not seeing any horizontal scroll in Opera (9.64). I tried Firefox (3.5) as well, and that didn't throw up a problem.

The central bit does seem to have a fixed width based on number of pixels though - it looks like they've basically decided that anyone who isn't viewing their site in 1280 x 800 or 1280 x 960 isn't worth the trouble.

Gnorman
2009-08-28, 07:11 AM
Ahahahahaha that screenshot has me complaining about the changes in the sidebar. How topical.

They say it's in beta, but if this is the beta, I don't have a lot of faith left in the endeavor.

Plus, you know, the whole shady outsourcing bit.

The White Knight
2009-08-28, 07:18 AM
WHY OH WHY does this thing need to scroll horizontally?

Who in the hell defines landscaping by exact pixels based on some $40,000 TV when not everyone views the internet on a theater screen?

width="100%"
NOT
width="1000000000px"

Let the website scale with the browser for crying out loud?

What idiots design websites these days ADHD college students working as interns?

I'm a college student working as an intern at a web dev shop, and personally find that last comment a bit offensive.

By that screenshot (http://img199.imageshack.us/img199/4291/godmyeyes.png), it looks to me as if their intent was to have the silly "Recent Topics" sidebar end inside the grey background by the same number of pixels as the left side of the forum itself (as demonstrated in another linked screenshot), except the line "html_removedhtml_removedhtml_removedhtml_removedTa les...etc" (poorly auto-generated by scrubbing html tags, perhaps?) pushed this past its usual boundary and caused a horizontal scroll.

I think if they did away with that cumbersome sidebar on the right (assuming it doesn't actually serve any useful purpose; I haven't been in there yet) and redid the color scheme of their forum (or made it customizable), this wouldn't be so bad, aesthetically. The background, borders and navlinks certainly don't offend me at all. 'Cept maybe the search/login/logout block at the top... gimme some rounded corners or somethin'.

EDIT: I just checked it out. It certainly does seem designed against a pretty high standard of horizontal resolution. I mean, on most computers nowadays, we can certainly afford the 1200 pixels of width, but I rarely have my browser (nearly) maximized on my laptop like I have to to view this without a horizontal scroll. Ouch.

Master_Rahl22
2009-08-28, 07:20 AM
Wow, that is just a horrible, horrible place. The recent topics column that takes up 40% of the screen is just an insult. It's a symptom of the economy. I'm sure some Hasbro exec said, "Hmm you know we'll save X dollars by dumping that stupid WotC website on some outsourced company." What they fail to see is that yes, you save money because it is lower quality. People always look at the dollar amount and see that it's lower, and never realize that usually you get what you pay for. I propose that several of us go over there and recommend that CharOp and some of the other fun boards just move to a new site, like maybe giantitp.com. :)

shadzar
2009-08-28, 07:23 AM
Ahahahahaha that screenshot has me complaining about the changes in the sidebar. How topical.

They say it's in beta, but if this is the beta, I don't have a lot of faith left in the endeavor.

Plus, you know, the whole shady outsourcing bit.

Silly question. Since they have the gleemax domain until 2011, why did they do anything at this time if it is still beta? Couldn't they have waited to roll out a fully working site, or is everything the do going to be broken because MMOs do it?

Why couldn't they get the basic functions of the forums, blogs, wiki, etc built first and then when all that was working they could wipe the database of all the test data, and convert the old forums over into the new structure and just run a working site?

Why have a week+ downtime for the forums only to bring up a beta piece of software? :smallconfused:

Pharaoh's Fist
2009-08-28, 07:24 AM
Wow, that is just a horrible, horrible place. The recent topics column that takes up 40% of the screen is just an insult. It's a symptom of the economy. I'm sure some Hasbro exec said, "Hmm you know we'll save X dollars by dumping that stupid WotC website on some outsourced company." What they fail to see is that yes, you save money because it is lower quality. People always look at the dollar amount and see that it's lower, and never realize that usually you get what you pay for. I propose that several of us go over there and recommend that CharOp and some of the other fun boards just move to a new site, like maybe giantitp.com. :)

They'd get banned within a fortnight.

Gnorman
2009-08-28, 07:27 AM
They'd get banned within a fortnight.

For what...?

Pharaoh's Fist
2009-08-28, 07:28 AM
They're a bunch of ornery, crotchety old men.

Gnorman
2009-08-28, 07:30 AM
They're a bunch of ornery, crotchety old men.

... aren't we...?

I mean, I know I am, at least in spirit...

shadzar
2009-08-28, 07:33 AM
I'm a college student working as an intern at a web dev shop, and personally find that last comment a bit offensive.

See you don't fit the statement as you are not also ADHD are you?

As you present they have screw stuff up, and had over a week to look at it. Too many websites today are designed from advertising POV than functionality. You won't be told that as an intern, but will learn it. You want the site to be all "shiny shiny" to draw attention first and foremost, and then after that you might worry with if the site works or not. That is today's design philosophy in the industry. Just look at the mast header with all that wasted landscaping.

Seems the left side is there on purpose. There will likely be skyscraper ads placed along the left side to make SURE that all viewers see them and they are not cut off by browsers that do not have the same screen widths.

Advertising and website design only working for websites for an advertising company. Others need to focus on their purpose. Porn...well it is the only website these days that get the information passed out to people. Seriously though any website focused on advertising with shiny pictures is jsut another porn site.

Like the art thread in books, you don't need that much. The purpose of forums is for text sharing to express opinions and discus topics. Not to replace the Smithsonian Museum with lots of pretty pictures instead.

Form Follows Function.

They designed a site to look fancy and perform poorly...for the 5th time. Original WotC site like a bad webstore, next rendition only slightly more sense to it, current site with DDI and horrible menu system, Gleemax....., now this jumble of mess.

Another thing to live by when designing websites aside from the above:

Keep it simple stupid.
Make it legible and intelligible.

If you forget all those then all you will have left is GIGO...they put garbage in, we get garbage out. :smallsmile:

Unless you are planning to work for and trust the company you are interning at, I would suggest just use it for your class credit and ignore everything else you see or here there (unless you get paid something). That way you may become a decent web designer in the future rather than designing websites that are themselves ADHD (like these new WotC forums/community thingy).

PinkysBrain
2009-08-28, 07:33 AM
Ergo WotC just fires the forum company and sues them for damages that may be charged towards WotC for letting any personal information out.
So? Regardless of who is responsible and has to pay the piper the ... someone still has to. What is important is whether this makes it more or less likely that your data will be leaked. I'd say the odds are about even, the technical competency of the people who ran the previous board impressed me no more than that of the people running the current one (although I'd preferred their existing staff had stayed on running the old board, I really doubt Wizard's is saving money this way ... it's just about firing people for the sake of firing people).

kamikasei
2009-08-28, 07:34 AM
Looking at how horribly Solo's Sorcerer Guide got mangled in the transition (seemingly all the formatting broke), the prudent thing would more likely be to rehost all the guides for which you can secure permission here or somewhere else a bit less eyehurty.

Foryn Gilnith
2009-08-28, 07:35 AM
This reminds me of what happened to the Magic: the Gathering site. Unfortunately, much like then, I'm not in a position to get up in arms about it. I left Magic/4e long before the website screwed up.

Who in hell are they trying to appeal to with these things? I know kids interested in RP as young as 12. Conceivably, they might like the new design. But they'd never touch an internet forum. Frankly, I think that the next design should be Hasbrochan and we should go to /D&D/, /CO/, and the like. For the lulz.

Thankfully, the only place I visit there, Star Wars RPG HQ, isn't too mucked up. The option to preview a post's contents by hovering over the title is gone, but giantitp has weaned me off of that anyway.

PinkysBrain
2009-08-28, 07:40 AM
I'd prefer 4chan layout over the one Wizards is using now.

Gnorman
2009-08-28, 07:41 AM
Looking at how horribly Solo's Sorcerer Guide got mangled in the transition (seemingly all the formatting broke), the prudent thing would more likely be to rehost all the guides for which you can secure permission here or somewhere else a bit less eyehurty.

I, for one, moved my handbooks to Brilliant Gameologists.

shadzar
2009-08-28, 07:45 AM
So? Regardless of who is responsible and has to pay the piper the ... someone still has to. What is important is whether this makes it more or less likely that your data will be leaked. I'd say the odds are about even, the technical competency of the people who ran the previous board impressed me no more than that of the people running the current one (although I'd preferred their existing staff had stayed on running the old board, I really doubt Wizard's is saving money this way ... it's just about firing people for the sake of firing people).

True, but at least with WotC you knew what to expect, and the ESRB protected against leaks, and could do something about it with their logo in place.

With this new company you have no idea what they could/will do with personal information.

kamikasei
2009-08-28, 07:50 AM
Who in hell are they trying to appeal to with these things?

It strikes me as unnecessary to assume that they have any particularly clear idea of who they're trying to appeal to or how to go about it. Never underestimate the power of executives flailing their arms in wild panic in meetings with one another who then fail to communicate anything useful to overloaded workers left trying to put something together to satisfy an undefined need for "change! ...because!" with no better specification than "no, that's not right, make it different!".

The ability to deploy a competently-designed interface for a useful resource is insignificant next to the power of corporate farce.

PinkysBrain
2009-08-28, 07:53 AM
You can expect them to protect it to the best of their ability as they are contractually obligated to do. If WotC's doesn't put limitations on the use of my data by their subcontractor then WotC is in breach of contract with me.

shadzar
2009-08-28, 07:58 AM
It strikes me as unnecessary to assume that they have any particularly clear idea of who they're trying to appeal to or how to go about it. Never underestimate the power of executives flailing their arms in wild panic in meetings with one another who then fail to communicate anything useful to overloaded workers left trying to put something together to satisfy an undefined need for "change! ...because!" with no better specification than "no, that's not right, make it different!".

The ability to deploy a competently-designed interface for a useful resource is insignificant next to the power of corporate farce.

Please stay on topic of the new WotC forums, and not drift onto US politics. Thanks. :smallsmile:

Kurald Galain
2009-08-28, 07:59 AM
I, for one, moved my handbooks to Brilliant Gameologists.
I used to read that site but I quit because it barely seems to have any traffic. Maybe enworld would be less of a backwater?

kamikasei
2009-08-28, 08:15 AM
Please stay on topic of the new WotC forums, and not drift onto US politics. Thanks. :smallsmile:

...By all means. If I do actually start drifting on to US politics, I'll heed that advice. Meanwhile I'll happily continue to kvetch about the broken decision-making in companies the world over, if you don't mind.

shadzar
2009-08-28, 08:21 AM
...By all means. If I do actually start drifting on to US politics, I'll heed that advice. Meanwhile I'll happily continue to kvetch about the broken decision-making in companies the world over, if you don't mind.

:smallfrown: Maybe my joke was too subtle.... I wasn't accusing you of anything really. :smallsmile:

shadzar
2009-08-28, 09:13 AM
Further research....

ONESITE is a social network software developer.

WotC has the Custom Enterprise package found here.
http://www.onesite.com/products.html


Online communities are organic. Not just the technology to evolve, but the promotion, content, advertising, and business must change and adapt as well. Our success with our clients has been dependent on creating collaborative, long-term relationships. We have a complete development and design team that works with our clients, through a dedicated Project Manager, to get our customer's communities launched. We work with our clients on best practices we have learned, share our experience, and work collaboratively to leverage their resources and our technology to create truly unique destinations.

The result is simple - traffic. For existing sites, communities can provide a 30%-70% increase in traffic - providing greater opportunities for advertising, cross-promotion, and brand awareness.

The new forum platform was made for advertising purposes. :smallconfused: Just for traffic.

If you have people that already know they why do you need an advertising site for social networking, rather than a discusion arena otherwise known as a forum for your loyal customers to discussion your products.

Shouldn't/isn't the advertising done through DDI anyway?

Also note on that page:


Enterprise Platform at a Glance

* • 6-8 Week Turnaround
* • Dedicated Project Manager
* • Design and Development Resources


6-8 weeks, and the forums had to be down for one of those weeks?

Here is some of the others features the new WotC forums site may have as available from this company....
http://www.onesite.com/features.html

Another_Poet
2009-08-28, 10:01 AM
Thanks for the information. That said, I almost take this as good news since the new hosting company can't possibly do a worse job than Wizards did of running the site. Which means there's a chance that things will actually improve.

/silverlining

Pharaoh's Fist
2009-08-28, 11:06 AM
Thanks for the information. That said, I almost take this as good news since the new hosting company can't possibly do a worse job than Wizards did of running the site. Which means there's a chance that things will actually improve.

/silverlining

All my favorite threads and guides are ruined. This is arguably worse.

lsfreak
2009-08-28, 11:18 AM
All my favorite threads and guides are ruined. This is arguably worse.

Truth.

Shadzar, I disagree with your views concerning almost everything you post about. But not this :smalltongue:

Dublock
2009-08-28, 11:27 AM
Truth.

Shadzar, I disagree with your views concerning almost everything you post about. But not this :smalltongue:

Oh good, common hatred of WoTC policies/actions bring the playground together :smalltongue:

shadzar
2009-08-28, 11:36 AM
Oh good, common hatred of WoTC policies/actions bring the playground together :smalltongue:

The enemy of my enemy is my friend? :smallbiggrin:

Tiki Snakes
2009-08-28, 11:41 AM
Works fine for me. But then, I don't actually use it, at all, ever, so I can't even compare it to before. *shrug*
I've only really got an account because of a breif and easily resolved technical error I had with the character builder.

Lol@third-party-paranoia btw.

Fitz10019
2009-08-28, 11:50 AM
To the OP, one 'shadzar', I take this opportunity to recognize your act of public service, and to extend my gratitude on behalf of the GitP community.

[Not that I represent the GitP community, but seriously, your warning is appreciated.]

Foryn Gilnith
2009-08-28, 12:10 PM
Yes, we need more cheers for shadzar. I'm not awfully fond of him and I don't give half a damn about this new discovery; but it's important. He went to a lot of work to bring us this public service announcement.

Hip, hip...

Ichneumon
2009-08-28, 12:22 PM
God, It's so simple what you need to run a good forum. You don't need avatars, user groups, blogs instant links to recent topics or anything of the advanced features of board software such as vBulletin (like GitP is using, even without many of its possible features). The ONLY thing a forum really needs is a logical structure and legibility. You need to be able to understand where you are on the forum and you must be able to "move" around easily and read the posts on topics and comment on it. Many forum software's are capable of doing this, sure some are better and more advanced than others, but you really need very little to make a forum work. And WotC just ignored that and failed.

Sure, there were a lot of things wrong with the old forum, but at least you could read and comment easily, now, you can't.

Dixieboy
2009-08-28, 12:25 PM
Only five? Hell, I'm never posting there again. It's awful.
Considering you earn karma points by saving the world, or similar events.
Yup.
Only five.

Ichneumon
2009-08-28, 12:27 PM
I'm done with the WOTC forum. I'm not going to visit it ever again, as long as it stays like this. Too much of an annoyance to work with this lay-out/interface.

oxybe
2009-08-28, 12:31 PM
i think it's because it's supposed to be resembling more of what they originally envisioned gleemax to be, essentially a social site for geeks, then just a forum.

still has some problems in the execution, but it's not supposed to be just a forum.

Foryn Gilnith
2009-08-28, 12:34 PM
And meanwhile, Star Wars is sitting over in their ghetto without any of the WotC hate, quietly recovering from their own, insular community feuds, and trying to repair the gap between miniature players and roleplayers...

Fax Celestis
2009-08-28, 12:45 PM
I'm done with the WOTC forum. I'm not going to visit it ever again

Agreed.

Now, if there was just some way to link this topic on the WotC forums without actually going there...

Voice of Reason
2009-08-28, 12:53 PM
I'd like to add something to this discussion, but the forums over there keep stonewalling me from looking. I made the mistake of trying to log in under my old username, and I presume that this new site has cookied my computer into submission, because whenever I go there, it drags me straight to my logged-in profile (without my logging in, or giving it permission to do so). Once there, it won't let me view or post in any part of the site until I update my profile, but I can't do so, because the "next" button doesn't work (curiously, I could update my avatar and personal settings just fine :smallconfused:). The only hint that anything is wrong is a tiny "error on page" message at the bottom of my browser whenever I try to click the "next" button, which of course helps immensely when it comes to fixing the problem :smallannoyed:

I'd ask others for their help, or see if there's a Q&A thread, but the forums won't let me in to find the answers :smalltongue:

EDIT: Also, to the original intent of this thead: Isn't it quite possible that your personal information is already in the hands of this other company? Wizards obviously migrated everyone's forums accounts over, which contained E-mail addresses at the very least.

Tequila Sunrise
2009-08-28, 01:01 PM
WotC forums are back up, and like DDI they are connected to another server outside of there control.

Any information you give to these new forums are NOT ocntrolled by WotC but instead a company in Oklahoma City, OK
I'm confused. How is company X hosting a site any different from WotC hosting it? Is it the Men in Black on the Net Inc., or something? What's all the sinister fear about?

I've updated my info on the new forum, and nobody asked for my SS# or anything sensitive. If I was paranoid, I could easily lie about what impersonal info the site does require. Help me out here, this seems like much ado about nothing to me.

shadzar
2009-08-28, 01:02 PM
VoR the funny thing I read over on EnWrold is that being logged in people cannot view the forums, but by logging out you can view them.. I think someone here may have mentioned that as well.

It is possible that WotC did give ALL your information form the old forums to this company, but under the TOA they can do anything with anything you put into the system. It belongs to them under the old TOA. So they could do anything with your personal info even anyone's info that they collected under COPPA.

which doesn't seem quite right.

They should have just started the forums new, with a blank list of users and empty boards, and left the old ones in archival viewing mode for people to look back at. That way no ones information over or under the age of 13 was given to this new company.

Someone would have to look into the internet privacy act and see if pasing your email to another ocmpany would be a violation, or any other info for that matter, when in fact they needed to pass nothing, but just start the new forum with mods and VCLs/FGs, and admins in place and restart the entire thing and let people choose whether they wish to accept the new companies policies to use the forums.

There is a bunch of seemingly gray area stuff that was done here during this process. :smallconfused:


I'm confused. How is company X hosting a site any different from WotC hosting it?

1- Does COPPA allow WotC to give out information on children to a new company just because they no longer wish to run their own servers anymore? Isn't COPPA there to prevent information on children FROM being given to ANYONE else that the parents did not choose to allow to have this information?

2- What rules does ONESITE have to follow since this information was freely given to them about any children that may have been using the previous WotC forums?

3- Do the new forums make it clear to parents (or anyone else) that the forums and personal information has changed hands, or asked any of the users if they would allow this?

I know it sounds a lot geared towards children, but when you change to an offsite server without telling people before hand, should the company not be responsible for getting permission to transfer anyone's personal information?

The forums are now not operated by WotC, nor are they in the same state as WotC or HASBRO offices, and the rules from state to state may differ in regards to users rights.

Same thing as the old forums having the vBulletin copyright removed and trying to claim the forums were copyright to WotC. There is a bit too much dishonesty and hiding the truth of what belongs to whom, and who is responsible for what. It just isn't something a trustworthy company would do.

If HASBRO is still fired upa bout charging those people from Scribbled with posting the PDF to it because of copyright violation, then why would they so easily evade laws that might be there to protect personal information on the internet?

Seems hypocritical to me, and only self-serving at best. :smallconfused: Either way it is dishonest.

Voice of Reason
2009-08-28, 01:06 PM
VoR the funny thing I read over on EnWrold is that being logged in people cannot view the forums, but by logging out you can view them.. I think someone here may have mentioned that as well.

You know, that sounded like a reasonable solution, and so I hurried over to the new site to try it out.

...it won't let me log out. That's got to be the most twisted thing I've seen since the "back button as 'refresh'" sites.

shadzar
2009-08-28, 01:12 PM
You know, that sounded like a reasonable solution, and so I hurried over to the new site to try it out.

...it won't let me log out. That's got to be the most twisted thing I've seen since the "back button as 'refresh'" sites.

You may need to check on a few cookies. I hate the sound of that, but with how screwed up websites are today they fowl up your browser real good.

Clear any cookie from wizards.com
clear any from gleemax.com
clear any from onesite.com

Make sure you allow the cookie from onesite.com that it tries to set if you WANT to log in. Then close your browser and reopen it or do a forced refresh to see if it will recognize the cookie is not there so you can view the forums.

You may need to close any tabs with the forums in them to clear them from your memory to get a fresh load of the page.

All I still get is the Whoops! page with Firefox telling me I don't have cookies enabled. I think that is actually a part of AdBlock preventing something on the page and it recognizing I have AdBlock and preventing me from viewing the site since I will block their potentially malware ads.

If none of that helps, I have no idea, as every browser so far ha been reported as having problems logging in, logging out, or even viewing the new site. :smallfrown:

BillyJimBoBob
2009-08-28, 01:25 PM
[lots and lots of ranting snipped]
Funny that it took a week+ to do this since WotC didn't have to do anything but route the alias/subdomain to the new IP address and continue on with business. Takes at most 24 hours for DNS servers to propagate the change to all the internet so "community" points to the new IP address. :smallconfused: All the while they could have still been using the forums.gleemax.com link to keep the old forums running and just change the links to the community to the new URL in about 5 minutes with ZERO downtime for the forums.Except for all the data they would have left behind. Data migration is quite often the single largest issue when swapping platforms/technologies/whatever.

Well just wanted to give everyone the warning of who you are given your personal info to when dealing with the new WotC forums, as the users would be responsible anyway for giving out their info and WotC could never be held responsible since they decline to tell you they are not running their new "community site".

Good luck to any who use them (or can since Firefox seems to have a problem with the new "forums".)You seem to be all bent out of shape over this. Why is that? Why the cutesy quotes around "community site" and "forums"? Does being managed by a third party make it magically no longer a community site or a forum?

And before you vent (further) about the possible privacy issues you might want to click the little ESRB link and actually read their privacy policy to see if there's something there you object to which you also did not object to previously.

Smart money says that you never read the policy before the site moved, and that your entire rant is just unsubstantiated nerd rage over a change you've decided you don't like for reasons most people could care less about.

But check out a portion you might have been well advised to read before posting:

With whom does Wizards share my personal information?
Wizards may share your personal information with outside entities hired to assist with internal web site support operations (e.g., community operations, online product fulfillment, e-mail services, or technical support). These entities will not use your personal information for any other purpose, and have agreed to maintain confidentiality, surveys, security, and integrity of all the personal information they obtain from us.Now you could point out that these terms have been violated in the past. But it's also true that employees are just as culpable for selling or giving away customer PII (in fact employees are the single largest security hole for any company) as any outside entity. So it kind of come down to, does it really matter? You either trust or do not trust. There is no try.

So they look like the 4th edition books with the same amount of wasted landscaping due to excessive whitespace?Yep, that's nerd rage all right.

FlawedParadigm
2009-08-28, 01:26 PM
This just in; another piece of shadiness. Wizards' new forum also automatically adds itself to your friends list, presumably to be able to access any information you set to "friends only." You can fix this in your profile section by going to Friends/View Friends, and then there's an option beneath the Wizards icon (in appropriately tiny) brown text. You get a very satisfying message afterwards;

You are no longer friends with wizards .

I must say I am pleased with this information.

AstralFire
2009-08-28, 01:32 PM
The sheer devotion some people have to WotC-published rulebooks compounded with their sheer hatred and contempt of Wizards of the Coast never fails to make me giggle.

Apparently this wrecks a bunch of really old threads, which totally sucks and shouldn't have happened. As far as the actual appearance of the site goes, I kinda like it. Lots of nice, soft colors, very web 2.0. Where it fails is the handling of subforums, which should be in nested lines, not in a comma-separated list. The 'recent topics' panel causes unpleasant clutter largely because they didn't arrange subforums well.

Kurald Galain
2009-08-28, 01:34 PM
Seems to me that if this forum claims to be a network site, they'd be up against Facebook, Myspace, Linkedin and Twitter, among others, against which it will fail epically.

Pika...
2009-08-28, 01:36 PM
Damn!

What should I do guys? Should I be worried?

http://i47.photobucket.com/albums/f173/celestialkin/Updateuserinformation_1251551.png

shadzar
2009-08-28, 01:38 PM
Except for all the data they would have left behind. Data migration is quite often the single largest issue when swapping platforms/technologies/whatever.
You seem to be all bent out of shape over this. Why is that? Why the cutesy quotes around "community site" and "forums"? Does being managed by a third party make it magically no longer a community site or a forum?

:sigh:

They have lost a great many old and recent threads in this move, therefore any new data not migrated would have been business as usual under the current circumstances. The PR value of leaving the old forums up since data loss was eminent would have been a boon for them.

I am bent out of shape because like I am saying here, and many on many other forums for the past week have been saying, and are still saying, this is not something that should have taken a week to do from any competent IT department. This includes but not limited to DDI and the potential harm it can do to a game or what is left and non-diluted of the name of a game buried in the bowels of HASBRO they wish to never see the light of day, called D&D. I lived through many of the early problems it had, and the ones created by incompetence of its new slave master can only cause to end it completely to become a generic term for RPGs as the d20/OGL did leaving it under 20% hp.

"community site" as well the subdomain community is what is being used by WotC to identify this new site. Also it is not just a set of forums. "forums" are exactly, and only (under the version of Vbulletin WotC was using) what the old ones were, and even included as such the previous subdomain name attached to the gleemax domain, and prior it was curiously "boards1" that was attached to wizards.com prior to the hellish abomination being birthed called Gleemax.

So I use those terms with quotes to identify the previous from the current as that is their intended purposes, and the function the software for them is/was designed for. :smallsmile:


You are no longer friends with wizards.

Scott Rouse posted over on the ENWorld thread for everyone there to friend him and someone asked him "Are you trying to be the new Tom?" :smallbiggrin:


Seems to me that if this forum claims to be a network site, they'd be up against Facebook, Myspace, Linkedin and Twitter, among others, against which it will fail epically.

This is the Gleemax concept come to life under new direction. Exactly as you say the WotC version of TwitMyFacedin.

AstralFire
2009-08-28, 01:39 PM
No doubt about that. Non-visually, requiring me to put in a bunch of non-pertinent information just to be able to view the boards once logged in is incredibly stupid.

Fax Celestis
2009-08-28, 01:44 PM
TwitMyFacedin.

Is that a socially spec'd paladin?

NEO|Phyte
2009-08-28, 01:50 PM
Is that a socially spec'd paladin?

This is my next D&D character.

AstralFire
2009-08-28, 01:53 PM
Yeah, attempting to post resulted in my only major dislike of the new forums so far:
http://www.theanteheroes.com/Dumb.gif
My current avatar.

Curmudgeon
2009-08-28, 01:55 PM
http://www.theanteheroes.com/Dumb.gif
Mind if I borrow that? We could start an image revolt!

Temet Nosce
2009-08-28, 01:55 PM
Heh, apparently WotC has gone into the business of uniting people. I'm not the only person from the CO boards who is leaving looks like. Kinda depressing really, since I don't really like BG. I had a soft spot for the CO boards.

Pika...
2009-08-28, 01:56 PM
Mind if I borrow that? We could start an image revolt!

I second this.

AstralFire
2009-08-28, 01:56 PM
Mind if I borrow that? We could start an image revolt!

Go right ahead. I like the look of the site, but I don't use twitter or facebook or myspace for reasons, and I didn't want to have to fill out a profile for one just to be able to view the boards while logged in.

BillyJimBoBob
2009-08-28, 02:03 PM
They have lost a great many old and recent threads in this move, therefore any new data not migrated would have been business as usual under the current circumstances.You seem to be operating under the assumption that they "lost" anything at all. Why don't you write them an email and ask if they cared at all about nerd rage post number 283,402? My bet is, they lost only things they cared to lose. Or more accurately, could not have cared less if they lost.

The PR value of leaving the old forums up since data loss was eminent would have been a boon for them.A fraction of their customer base uses the forums. An even smaller fraction cares about old discussion on those forums. Any supposed PR value needs to be weighed against the cost in equipment and man hours, and loses horribly in any business case. It's like WotC had a choice: Piss off shadzar or spend a lot of money maintaining a site they had just paid another company to maintain for them. You'll find companies who opt for option b. For the most part, they are no longer in business.

I am bent out of shape because like I am saying here, and many on many other forums for the past week have been saying, and are still saying, this is not something that should have taken a week to do from any competent IT department.Odd, most of your ranting has nothing to do with the delay. It's hard to vet up these words with your prior words, there is a huge mismatch.

You seemed to be very concerned about privacy issues. And yet you haven't even tried to point out any differences between the old and the new privacy policies. Have you bothered to read them, or is it just easier to nerd rage a bunch of stuff you decided sounded good but had nothing to do with reality?

So I use those terms ["community site" and "forums"] with quotes to identify the previous from the current as that is their intended purposes, and the function the software for them is/was designed for. :smallsmile:So, let me get this straight: You're upset that they have added functionality and yet dareed to use the old comfortable terms to describe the new site? Ok. Seems like a clear case of TheyChangedItNowItSucks (http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TheyChangedItNowItSucks), but ok. I mean, many companies would swap out all the old names for new for that "new and improved" marketing punch. But you're no doubt also upset that they called 4e D&D, so this would at least be a consistent position.

You'd make your point(s) better if you clearly communicated them, and didn't spew out huge rants of baseless inaccuracies. You know, like this entire post:

The problem is that not all the "kiddies", that target audience WotC wants to attract for its games outside of just RPGs; don't understand all the ins and outs of websites and the domain name is misleading to think wizards actually runs the servers and controls the information just as the WWW that has servers in Renton Washington. Nor do the parents of these people know that it is no WotC that owns these machines that the info is on, and WotC nor HASBRO will be legally responsible for any damage caused by this information getting outside of its system. One reason why some people let others run their websites so they can claim deniability in that they no longer shoulder the burden of full responsibility but can throw it onto the other company since they are responsible for the hardware and software and to protect the information. Ergo WotC just fires the forum company and sues them for damages that may be charged towards WotC for letting any personal information out. Then WotC loses nothing and is in no way responsible since it did all it could do by firing the company and terminating their contract with them. No los for Wotc so everyone will still not give them any negative publicity for any wrong doing, when they knew well and good beforehand what they were doing.

:smallfurious:It's nothing but a huge pack of inaccuracies and wild guesses played off as though you have insider information. You appear to have very little knowledge of law which could even be called "layman's knowledge". And read the privacy policy (http://ww2.wizards.com/Company/Default.aspx?doc=Privacy#who).

AstralFire
2009-08-28, 02:05 PM
Amusing note: they don't check anything.

My zipcode of '32143432123092' is currently accepted.


You seem to be operating under the assumption that they "lost" anything at all. Why don't you write them an email and ask if they cared at all about nerd rage post number 283,402? My bet is, they lost only things they cared to lose. Or more accurately, could not have cared less if they lost.

Losing the handbooks was pretty bad, even if I didn't use them.

Foryn Gilnith
2009-08-28, 02:10 PM
Losing the handbooks was pretty bad, even if I didn't use them.

Eloquent reply to nerd rage post 283,403.

shadzar
2009-08-28, 02:33 PM
Amusing note: they don't check anything.

My zipcode of '32143432123092' is currently accepted.

:smallconfused: So not only do the forums miss many threads people needed from the past, require information above and beyond that required to type a simple message, and have terrible design choices and spacing, but they are incapable of form validation?

No wonder they had to convert all the names with spaces to underscores.

BTW, how is the weather there on Pluto where your zipcode indicates you are living on that exoplanet?

BillyJimBoBob
2009-08-28, 03:25 PM
1- Does COPPA allow WotC to give out information on children to a new company just because they no longer wish to run their own servers anymore? Isn't COPPA there to prevent information on children FROM being given to ANYONE else that the parents did not choose to allow to have this information?Read the privacy policy (http://ww2.wizards.com/Company/Default.aspx?doc=Privacy).

2- What rules does ONESITE have to follow since this information was freely given to them about any children that may have been using the previous WotC forums?Read the privacy policy (http://ww2.wizards.com/Company/Default.aspx?doc=Privacy).

3- Do the new forums make it clear to parents (or anyone else) that the forums and personal information has changed hands, or asked any of the users if they would allow this?Read the privacy policy (http://ww2.wizards.com/Company/Default.aspx?doc=Privacy).

I know it sounds a lot geared towards children, but when you change to an offsite server without telling people before hand, should the company not be responsible for getting permission to transfer anyone's personal information?Read the privacy policy (http://ww2.wizards.com/Company/Default.aspx?doc=Privacy).

Either way it is dishonest.As dishonest as multiple and repetitive complaints about a privacy policy which it appears as though you've never read? No, not that dishonest.

BillyJimBoBob
2009-08-28, 03:29 PM
:smallconfused: So not only do the forums miss many threads people needed from the past, require information above and beyond that required to type a simple message, and have terrible design choices and spacing, but they are incapable of form validation?Is there a win for WotC anywhere with you? They either suck for requiring a zip code, or they suck for not making sure it's a valid zip code. But if they require a number in the zip code field, and you fill it with nonsense that passes, are they really invading your privacy?

Starbuck_II
2009-08-28, 04:35 PM
They are invading theoretical personal space.
For some that is worse than invading real personal space. Like my imaginary friend Morbo: he finds that extremely offensive.

Dixieboy
2009-08-28, 04:38 PM
This might sound like a stupid question:

But do you support the changes BillyJimBoBob?

Androgeus
2009-08-28, 05:02 PM
Is there a win for WotC anywhere with you? They either suck for requiring a zip code, or they suck for not making sure it's a valid zip code. But if they require a number in the zip code field, and you fill it with nonsense that passes, are they really invading your privacy?

They suck for a not so great input for location. Why does country come after zip code? Why is zip code still a required field if you have chosen your state as "outside USA or Canada"? (I know other countries have things that are similar to Zip codes, but still it makes you feel better if you know your typing something into the box that will be accepted (I'm sure I typed XX1 1XX in to it when i set up my profile but it just says 0 now))

kc0bbq
2009-08-28, 05:10 PM
This might sound like a stupid question:

But do you support the changes BillyJimBoBob?I don't really mean to speak for him, but let's parse this out.

There were two complaints: One, that the new software isn't all that great and stuff is missing. Valid, and acceptable opinion. The site does seem to be pretty eye melting and poorly laid out. Two, FROTH FROTH PARANOIA FROTH PRIVACY FROTH FUME GURGLE. Two is the problem, as it's not based in any sort of reality and respecting the source, pointless. Shadzar has a bizarre and irrational hatred of all things WotC and goes through the most exotic forms of mental gymnastics to try and spread that hate. I read the OP and it's just an attempt to sow FUD.

BillyJimBoBob
2009-08-28, 05:17 PM
This might sound like a stupid question:

But do you support the changes BillyJimBoBob?Not a stupid question, but very unspecific. Which changes? The changes to the privacy policy, the changes to the layout of the forums, any other changes, or all of the changes?

I'll try to head off a long back and forth:

I have read the new privacy policy. I find nothing to object to on my own behalf. If others object, they are free to not sign up; or to not use if already signed up; and there is even an option to request a purge of all of your PII from their records. So shadzar, if he ever bothers to read the privacy policy, should make quick use of that last option.

I have no objection to the new layout. I haven't used it long enough to know if this will continue to be the case, but in any event I don't see a nerd rage building in me over the new format.

I have little use for some/most of the "extras", but then they don't bother me either. So I'll just ignore them and hope that they ignore me.

Did I cover your intended question?

They suck for a not so great input for location. Why does country come after zip code? Why is zip code still a required field if you have chosen your state as "outside USA or Canada"? (I know other countries have things that are similar to Zip codes, but still it makes you feel better if you know your typing something into the box that will be accepted (I'm sure I typed XX1 1XX in to it when i set up my profile but it just says 0 now))Why does any of this matter? Suck up a "not to your liking" input location, you'll only have to deal with it once. And rejoice that if you happen to live in Italy you can still put in a random string of numbers and will be issued an account. :)

Androgeus
2009-08-28, 05:24 PM
Why does any of this matter? Suck up a "not to your liking" input location, you'll only have to deal with it once. And rejoice that if you happen to live in Italy you can still put in a random string of numbers and will be issued an account. :)

Meh, I'll agree I was really just being pandantic for the sake of it. I'm British see. The only thing we enjoy more than queueing is complaining. :smallbiggrin:

I actually think the new layout is alrightish, they just need to let the current forum/thread take up more of the screen.

Animefunkmaster
2009-08-28, 06:01 PM
I am having trouble replicating the whois for: http://community.wizards.com/

Perhaps a link to the whois you used?

Curmudgeon
2009-08-28, 06:40 PM
Go right ahead.
Done. I posted one message, and the anti-avatar showed up. Thank you.

I found it quite tedious to go and change every single one of the privacy settings so I wouldn't get e-mail spam, IM spam, ...

mostlyharmful
2009-08-28, 06:46 PM
Meh, I'll agree I was really just being pandantic for the sake of it. I'm British see. The only thing we enjoy more than queueing is complaining. :smallbiggrin:

Here here! It's what made us great you know. Well, that and repeating action firearms and merciless violence.

Dixieboy
2009-08-28, 08:06 PM
*snip*

Did I cover your intended question?
Ayup.

Thanks, curiosity sated.

Lamech
2009-08-28, 10:23 PM
Its an increased privacy risk because if Hasbro screws up? And say releases credit card info or a childs location to a crime? Big lawsuit and the company takes a huge public relations hit. Therefore they will make damn sure they arn't being needlessly risky with info. Random company 23 in nowheresville? They also take a big public relations hit, but they don't really have a brand name. They change their name and then as far as the public is concerned they are a brand new group.

So yes this is probably a privacy risk. Just not a huge one.



A fraction of their customer base uses the forums. An even smaller fraction cares about old discussion on those forums. Any supposed PR value needs to be weighed against the cost in equipment and man hours, and loses horribly in any business case. It's like WotC had a choice: Piss off shadzar or spend a lot of money maintaining a site they had just paid another company to maintain for them. You'll find companies who opt for option b. For the most part, they are no longer in business.
Also I suspect the most dedicated part of their customer base uses the forums. And I suspect a large part of the forums likes handbooks and what not.

When five geeks get together and say "Lets play a RPG which one is good?" You don't want someone to say "Mage or Rolemaster" Also I don't sign on to the forums, but I do use the handbooks occasionally. If someone googles "DnD Wizard guide" you want them to get something useful.

So yeah I say thay wizards got smacked. And lots of groups have seen the value in forums. So I suspect they are profitable, so again neglecting them is a bad idea.

Shadow_Elf
2009-08-29, 12:00 AM
tl;dr the thread, but I wanted to add that while I don't really like the new community AT ALL, I always liked GitP better and I only ever went there for the DDM community and to complain about DDI-related stuff, so its not a huge deal. I've also found that listing my Zip Code as "Some" is good enough, which means that that box doesn't even have a sensor of some sort for zip-code like formatting, which is lazy but appreciated. I don't want the WotC "community" to be Myspace/Facebook + D&D/M:tG, I want it to be an easily read forum where I can praise/complain about WotC's stuff.

Signmaker
2009-08-29, 12:02 AM
Well, all the class handbooks look like a giant mess now on my firefox client, so I'm miffed. This 3rd party fail takes the cake, though.

Blaine.Bush
2009-08-29, 12:43 AM
New forums:

http://ninh.nl/blog/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/dontwant.jpg

Seriously.

Nai_Calus
2009-08-29, 01:24 AM
Hahaha, nice avatar.

Praise Corellon that they got rid of that stupid sidebar.

Now if they can just fix... Er... Everything else. >_>;

Kurald Galain
2009-08-29, 03:26 AM
Well, all the class handbooks look like a giant mess now on my firefox client, so I'm miffed. This 3rd party fail takes the cake, though.

That's not because of Firefox - that appears to be because the Brilliant New Forum System (tm) doesn't seem to parse such new-fangled weird forum tags as 'bold' and 'italics'.

Sliver
2009-08-29, 04:27 AM
I just visited the forums for some handbooks and the commoner campaign (YAY! Update!).. I didn't like the fact that the codes like size, bold and such, and quotes, don't work.. But as I really don't need anything else over there, I can manage..

shadzar
2009-08-29, 05:04 AM
Read the privacy policy (http://ww2.wizards.com/Company/Default.aspx?doc=Privacy).

I offer yourself the same advice in return in regards to the unavailability within the week for people to be able to use the policy. Since the migration of information to another company was done prior to being given a chance for people to fully make use of their rights under the policy


Review, update and removal of personal information

If you have registered with our site, you may at any time review and/or update the contact information we have for you or inform us that you want us to remove your information from our database by contacting customer service. Please be sure to include in your message the name of the feature for which you registered and the e-mail address you used to register so that we can verify your request.

With login being down and the customer service being down it was not a valid way to contact CS about removing ones personal information prior to handing it over to the other company, snail-mail would have taken more time and had to be sorted out, as well a phone call was likely to be unresponsive as the personal information collected and given to the other company had already been done when the original forums had been taken down.

WotC failed to inform people prior that personal information would be changing hands, and only implied that the server was being updated, not replaced by another ocmpany which falsely led people to think that the information was NOT changing hands, but instead staying in house. Therefore the users were not allowed to exercise their right to prevent such transfer of information and have it removed form the system without prior knowledge of the transfer of the information by....once again WotC failure to explain anything since they decided to go on this road to DDI and hide information as they have done and neglected to inform its consumers and website users since 4th edition as announced at GenCon.

Feel free to look up all the backlash about Ken Troops, Randy Beuhler, GamerZero, etc in regards to false or mismanaged information dissemination to customers. If you can find any of it on the new forums, but likely it was well hidden or destroyed to cover up the fact that WotC has a habit of purposefully and willingly misleading its customers and users in regards to its digital endeavors.

So had WotC given proper chance to use the "removal of personal information" channel prior to it exchanging hands, then maybe you would have a leg to stand on, rather than defend backdoor deals and shady business practices.

But that is ok since the new law passed prior to WotC change on the internet crackdown of personal information being handed out by people, Maybe we will see them in court for something other than stolen PDFs, or Turbine suing Atari over DDO: Stormreach, but WotC finally on the other end of the law and get its own spanking.

shadzar
2009-08-29, 05:08 AM
I am having trouble replicating the whois for: http://community.wizards.com/

Perhaps a link to the whois you used?

Like this?

http://whois.domaintools.com/209.217.19.40

Did nslookup to get the IP.

jeek
2009-08-29, 05:21 AM
How hard would it be to write a Greasemonkey script that makes the site readable?

shadzar
2009-08-29, 06:52 AM
Shadzar has a bizarre and irrational hatred of all things WotC

While others have a fanatical and almost worshipping love for all things WotC. :smallconfused:

Tiki Snakes
2009-08-29, 03:27 PM
While others have a fanatical and almost worshipping love for all things WotC. :smallconfused:

You don't play 3rd or 4th ed DnD. I can't imagine you're an avid MTG player, either. To the best of my knowledge, you don't play, or collect any WOTC related products or games.

So I challenge you to go two months without starting a thread moaning about WOTC in any way.

The Eight Satanic Rule of the Earth states; Do not complain about anything to which you need not subject yourself.

Myrmex
2009-08-29, 04:02 PM
That's why I never use my credit card for this sort of thing.

Yeah. After working retail for a couple months, I got more than enough credit card numbers to never have to use mine again. :smallwink:

shadzar
2009-08-30, 04:14 AM
You don't play 3rd or 4th ed DnD. I can't imagine you're an avid MTG player, either. To the best of my knowledge, you don't play, or collect any WOTC related products or games.

So I challenge you to go two months without starting a thread moaning about WOTC in any way.

The Eight Satanic Rule of the Earth states; Do not complain about anything to which you need not subject yourself. [/COLOR]

DDM v1.5 :smalltongue:
Magic pre-7th :smalltongue:

You lose 3 ranks in knowledge. :smallbiggrin:

Indon
2009-08-30, 12:37 PM
So... Wizards subcontracted their forum out to what is essentially a glorified advertising firm?

That's so in-character for them that I think my faith in their ability to make RPG's just increased.


Seems hypocritical to me, and only self-serving at best. :smallconfused: Either way it is dishonest.

I dunno about hypocritcal or even dishonest.

I mean, Hasbro is a publically-owned corporation. Their only responsibility, their only purpose, is to make shareholders money.

Which means that Wizards' sole function is to make profit. They are under no obligation to provide any services of any level of quality, only to get money any way they can (which just happens to include providing some services as a side-effect). If that includes selling your information to an advertising firm, then so be it.

Frankly, I never used the Wizards' forum. Why bother when you can use a forum like the one here at GiantITP, run for free by someone who you know loves what he does, and not what he gets from your wallet?

For BillyJimBoBob:

But check out a portion you might have been well advised to read before posting:

This just in: EULA's are frequently expansive and can grant the organization producing it deceptively great power. From your very exerpt, the ambiguous term "Community Services" is used as something Wizards can do with your information.

Were you aware advertising was included in that term? I wasn't, until I looked at the information offered by that "Community Services" website.

The effect of the EULA was to allow Wizards to do damn near anything it pleases with the data to make them money while fooling people into thinking their information is at all secure.

It's not even a particularly clever approach, as ambiguous wording defined by the contract writer is a staple of exploitative contracts.


Read the privacy policy (http://ww2.wizards.com/Company/Default.aspx?doc=Privacy).

I have a better idea: You read the policy.


Third parties who fulfill Site-related services such as hosting may collect the personal information you provide on our Sites. These third parties will not use your personal information for any purpose other than to provide the Site-related services, and have agreed to maintain confidentiality, surveys, security, and integrity of your personal information.

Wizards can contract a company out to do anything they want with your data, so long as their business is performed on or with a website in a way sufficient to meet the definition to be 'site-related' - a term almost certainly defined by Wizards since you're unlikely to find something so vague in a legal dictionary.

shadzar
2009-08-30, 01:22 PM
So... Wizards subcontracted their forum out to what is essentially a glorified advertising firm?

That's so in-character for them that I think my faith in their ability to make RPG's just increased.

Huh? Maybe if they do make the game "Paper and Paychecks", the RPG where you run a big company and make money by treating your costumers like dirt and milking them for every penny they have for little to no quality of product. *Game concept by Lorraine Williams

I dunno about hypocritcal or even dishonest.

I mean, Hasbro is a publically-owned corporation. Their only responsibility, their only purpose, is to make shareholders money.

Which means that Wizards' sole function is to make profit. They are under no obligation to provide any services of any level of quality, only to get money any way they can (which just happens to include providing some services as a side-effect). If that includes selling your information to an advertising firm, then so be it.

Frankly, I never used the Wizards' forum. Why bother when you can use a forum like the one here at GiantITP, run for free by someone who you know loves what he does, and not what he gets from your wallet?

The problem is if they are only looking at making the quick buck for shareholders rather than lasting quality products for the consumer, then why should anyone trust them to make a competent game?

Morrus at ENWorld (http://www.enworld.org/forum/general-rpg-discussion/264248-wizards-forums-up-4.html#post4913143) had something quite funny to say similar to using OOTS forums since it also runs (a newer version of) vBulletin:



Originally Posted by Nifft
I took a quick look at the site's Javascript resources (when figuring out how to scrip the right-column out of my interface), and it looks like they bought the base software from a company called "OneSite" (http://www.onesite.com/).

Anyone have experience with their products?

Cheers, -- N
How bizarre. They can do ALL of that with vBulletin (the software they already had...)

We have it all right here on EN World. The only bit we don't have is the activity update list.

Steward
2009-08-30, 02:20 PM
I don't understand all that technical information in the original post. Are you saying that this strange mysterious subcontracting company can take money directly out of our bank accounts and use our identities to sign up to terrorist websites' mailing lists?

Mystic Muse
2009-08-30, 04:11 PM
I don't understand all that technical information in the original post. Are you saying that this strange mysterious subcontracting company can take money directly out of our bank accounts and use our identities to sign up to terrorist websites' mailing lists?

if they want to yes they can.

shadzar
2009-08-30, 04:27 PM
I don't understand all that technical information in the original post. Are you saying that this strange mysterious subcontracting company can take money directly out of our bank accounts and use our identities to sign up to terrorist websites' mailing lists?

Maybe. It is unknown exactly how much of your personal info was given to the new "forums" people in order to notate that you are a DDI subscriber. They may get it from WotC, or maybe directly from Digital River, since all the WotC account management used the same system and is all in one big database. How much of that database was shared to get the community site up only WotC knows.

They more than likely do have your email address and username, and can easily spoof you on other websites or sell your email addres to other people since YOU do not have any business with ONESITE directly. It is all up to whatever WotC says they can do with your information that WotC collected, because as per the old forums TOA..."Any information by the user becomes the property of WotC"...

Very dodgy wa WotC are doing thing to try to get permission to share your posts on the internet.

So what can ONESITE do with your information? You will have to call them, or your lawyer to find out. If they do have banking or other finance information from the users then I would think that would be a REAL problem and a legal matter at that.

I haven't been able to see the ONESITE EULA, and stack it up beside the old WotC forums TOA/EULA, so don't know what transpired as far as rights go in the transition. :smallfrown:

Tiki Snakes
2009-08-30, 07:52 PM
DDM v1.5 :smalltongue:
Magic pre-7th :smalltongue:

You lose 3 ranks in knowledge. :smallbiggrin:

Everytime I read one of these threads, shad. Every time. ;)

Indon
2009-08-30, 10:55 PM
if they want to yes they can.

Legally, only if they're subcontracted to by Wizards. They can do anything they want with the information so long as it is within the scope of what Wizards tells them to do with it.

So if they say, "Run a website with this information," then they can keep the information on the website, customize the website, maybe communicate with other Wizards-owned websites, etc.

There's really nothing keeping Wizards from doing the terrorist thing in their contract, but that would go against their profit motive and they might need to use an Atonement* spell.

A more realistic example of possible bad stuff from this could be if Wizards says, "Advertise to them for demographic-appropriate goods and services," then they could, for instance, send spam emails to you for stuff they think you might buy (and presumably Wizards would get a cut of that action).

So if you start getting emails in the near future about how your penis and/or breasts could receive a +5 enhancement bonus, you know what's happened.

*-Or 4E equivalent.

elliott20
2009-08-30, 11:44 PM
So if you start getting emails in the near future about how your penis and/or breasts could receive a +5 enhancement bonus, you know what's happened.

who could possibly only want one without the other? I know I wouldn't!!

well, that pretty much does me in, I'm not gonna bother re-registering to the WotC website. Not that I was active much there in the first place, but now I'm far less inclined to bother.

shadzar
2009-08-31, 04:35 AM
A more realistic example of possible bad stuff from this could be if Wizards says, "Advertise to them for demographic-appropriate goods and services," then they could, for instance, send spam emails to you for stuff they think you might buy (and presumably Wizards would get a cut of that action).

Well that company has done exactly that with eBay for years. Send spam mail to users with valid email addresses in its database. Yes ONESITE runs a website for eBay. So getting tons of spam email per day isn't that far off. Probably be set up and in place prior to the forums fully functioning over there.

If I am correct, that is the same company that had about 100k users email addresses hacked from also when eBay had some funk in the past with data protection. :smallconfused: Been a while back, so not really sure if it was them or eBay themselves.

Indon
2009-08-31, 07:25 AM
Been a while back, so not really sure if it was them or eBay themselves.

The ability of subcontracting firms to avoid even being publically considered liable for possible misdeeds has already been mentioned in the thread, but I feel this serves as a fine example that should be highlighted.

To be fair, we don't know if they've done anything bad/obnoxous/unethical/etc with the information Wizards gave them at this time, nor do we know Wizards has asked anything of them that would require it. We also don't know if they're incompetent or anything like that.

Of course, as a subcontractor whose only customers are other companies, they avoid much of the public scrutiny that tries to keep normal companies honest. So if you must be paranoid, there is a good reason, at least to be a little bit so.

shadzar
2009-08-31, 09:30 AM
The ability of subcontracting firms to avoid even being publically considered liable for possible misdeeds has already been mentioned in the thread, but I feel this serves as a fine example that should be highlighted.

To be fair, we don't know if they've done anything bad/obnoxous/unethical/etc with the information Wizards gave them at this time, nor do we know Wizards has asked anything of them that would require it. We also don't know if they're incompetent or anything like that.

Of course, as a subcontractor whose only customers are other companies, they avoid much of the public scrutiny that tries to keep normal companies honest. So if you must be paranoid, there is a good reason, at least to be a little bit so.

Which is the point I was making. We have no idea what the new place is allowed to do with the information.

kc0bbq
2009-08-31, 01:02 PM
Which is the point I was making. We have no idea what the new place is allowed to do with the information.Except that they are bound by the wording of wizard's privacy policy, which doesn't allow them to do much with it.

If they violate it, the end user has the normal recourse.

shadzar
2009-08-31, 01:11 PM
Except that they are bound by the wording of wizard's privacy policy, which doesn't allow them to do much with it.

If they violate it, the end user has the normal recourse.

But that said that it could be used in "web-site related business". That could include spamming people or selling off the info to other advertisers since the main focus of ONESITE is a traffic and advertising business.

So anything "web-site related" for the benefit of ONESITE or WotC/HASBRO is perfectly fine for them to do.

Send yet another company all the info to send users emails to collect demographic data, buying habits, etc is within the term of "web-site related" in order for both WotC and ONESITe to tailor this new venture for the users....You know cause it would be to easy to ask the users what they want, and might prefer to let random people with degrees decide what people want.

:smallconfused:

Person_Man
2009-08-31, 02:05 PM
It's also worth re-iterating that everyone should avoid giving any specific personal information out online. Your address, birthday, where you grew up, your mother's name, where you went to school, where you were baptized, etc.

Think about how easy it is to guess email passwords or answer challenge questions (What's your pet's name?) and how much personal and financial information is held in your email account. Think about the Google interview - before anyone hires you, they Google your name, and will read your blog and networking website pages, including the stuff you deleted that got stored in the Google cache. Think about how easy it is to get a fake id, and then use it to get authentic id and/or sign up for credit cards and loans in your name. Think about how everything you buy with any credit card, supermarket Club Card, or online store, is aggregated and sold to whoever wants to buy it.

The internet is a wonderful, powerful tool. Just don't tell it anything about you.

Kurald Galain
2009-08-31, 02:08 PM
Think about how easy it is to guess email passwords or answer challenge questions (What's your pet's name?)
Oh yeah... don't you hate it when so many websites now ruin a perfectly good password system by forcing you to also enter an obvious "secret question" with an equally obvious "secret answer" in the name of security?

(yeah, I know, I can always answer "what's your mother's maiden name" with "hkgjknxjkflngfjknl53jklnjkglndfjkln", but they shouldn't be asking that in the first place)

Curmudgeon
2009-08-31, 02:37 PM
Think about the Google interview - before anyone hires you, they Google your name, and will read your blog and networking website pages, including the stuff you deleted that got stored in the Google cache.
...
The internet is a wonderful, powerful tool. Just don't tell it anything about you.
I guess I'm lucky in that my name is also the name of a company that's been in business for over 150 years. Picking the search hits that actually refer to me requires already knowing a fair bit.

Why yes, I am the John Smith of John Smith Industries! I'm interested in financing your <InterNet scam> business venture. Just deposit your 10% seed money in my Caymans Island account, and I'll put up the other 90% -- or my name isn't John Smith! :smallwink:

potatocubed
2009-08-31, 02:47 PM
Yeah, if you Google my real name (as I do, periodically, just to check...) you get a hotshot pediatrician in Stanford, a guy who's kind of a name in model trains, and some dude who posts a lot on a pimp-your-ride forum. As far as I can tell, I appear maybe once.

Possibly also relevant: Personas (http://personas.media.mit.edu/personasWeb.html), which is some MIT web-crawler masquerading as a piece of art.

kc0bbq
2009-08-31, 03:20 PM
But that said that it could be used in "web-site related business". That could include spamming people or selling off the info to other advertisers since the main focus of ONESITE is a traffic and advertising business.

So anything "web-site related" for the benefit of ONESITE or WotC/HASBRO is perfectly fine for them to do.

Send yet another company all the info to send users emails to collect demographic data, buying habits, etc is within the term of "web-site related" in order for both WotC and ONESITe to tailor this new venture for the users....You know cause it would be to easy to ask the users what they want, and might prefer to let random people with degrees decide what people want.

:smallconfused:Demographic data isn't usually personal information, it's pretty much by definition impersonal information.

You're stretching again. "Web-site related" doesn't mean what you want it to mean.

shadzar
2009-09-01, 03:43 AM
Demographic data isn't usually personal information, it's pretty much by definition impersonal information.

You're stretching again. "Web-site related" doesn't mean what you want it to mean.

How many users use Yahoo mail, Hotmail, G-mail, etc is demographic data. Zip-codes pinpoint the locations and population density of the users. I am not sure where you have been for the last decade where tracking each of your purchases has become customary with saver's clubs for many types of stores, but this is personal information. (Why I often buy things I never use to confuse the system.)

"Web-site related" means whatever they want it to mean.

Now they likely aren't going to ask what color panties you are wearing, but it could be one of those security questions to get a forgotten password or username, which in term would be giving them more info than they need. Demographic information is any kind of information that will help narrow down your consumer/user base into the most workable groupings to find a target group to focus on.

Again since this new site is on a traffic and advertising company based software, then web-site related means they will have advertising on the site like google ads or something else that pinpoints your location and offers things local to you and also your interests such as whatever game you put into a profile that you play. This could even cause e-mail to be sent for special offers for related materials to those games.

Also in regards to zip-codes, today you can just know where many an IP address is within 30 miles, so your zip-code is useless to need. Every website you go to can track down where you are by using your IP address. It isn't like going into Radio TheShack and them needing your zip-code to know where their customers come from. I just tell them use their own cause if they need one to make the sale and cannot use their own I will take my business elsewhere. You want my money, then you better be damn thankful to get it.

So web-site related and demographic can easily be linked and it is up to ONESITE and/or WotC to decide what they consider to be for "web-site related" use.

KIDS
2009-09-01, 03:50 AM
These new forums are totally annoying me! I can't visit any particular blog or forum because clicking on the link just redirects me back to profile page to fill it out. But when I enter the information in my profile and save it, I am redirected back to the main screen and it is still not saved. Sigh.
EDIT: solved this by using IE instead of Opera. But still...

Overall, I don't see why Wizards changed this. It seems like a major fail for little or not gain to me. I don't care abour someone tracking whatever, but I find their lack of functionality disturbing.
And since my country is not listed in the countries available, I selected US instead of it. That'll teach 'em!!! :smallsmile:

shadzar
2009-09-01, 04:11 AM
Overall, I don't see why Wizards changed this. It seems like a major fail for little or not gain to me. I don't care abour someone tracking whatever, but I find their lack of functionality disturbing.
And since my country is not listed in the countries available, I selected US instead of it. That'll teach 'em!!! :smallsmile:

1- Someone there still wanted Gleemax even after the murder-suicide of the lead developer of it, and needed something to compete with MYspace and Facebook, even after they let Randy Beuhler go.

2- WotC is not known for their competence in web presence.

3- The functionality depends on if the intent is to allow users to use the site, or just get more visits to it? (ONESITE makes software with intent to gain more traffic to advertise to more people.)

4- You should put 90210 for your zip-code and Melrose Place for your location. :smallbiggrin: Tell them your real name is Aaron Spelling.

The New Bruceski
2009-09-01, 04:21 AM
Yeah, if you Google my real name (as I do, periodically, just to check...) you get a hotshot pediatrician in Stanford, a guy who's kind of a name in model trains, and some dude who posts a lot on a pimp-your-ride forum. As far as I can tell, I appear maybe once.


If you google me you get a lot of hot women. Yay for gender-neutral names!

sofawall
2009-09-01, 04:57 AM
If you google me, you get, well me... Not a common name, if you make sure Google searches you properly (put it in quotes).

ANyway, poked around there for 10 mins, decided it wasn't my cup of tea and decided to abandon it.

Although, to be honest, being used to this board, going back and seeing on the first page: "Epic casting at level 6" and "196 magic missiles in one round".

Oh, how I missed Gleemax, oh, how I hate community.wizards...

EDIT: Heh, in that much hated sidebar, the most viewed topics look suspiciously not-viewed.

shadzar
2009-09-02, 06:46 AM
:smalleek: Silly question for anyone able to view the new forums thingy....

What rules are there for say posting and discussing rules about WotC games.

Magic lost Autocarding which allowed you to post the version of the card you were discussing for all to see and a link to the Gatherer for the errata. Now posting a card image via WotC servers isn't possible since that would by inline/hot linking to images without permission.

Also what about discussing rules for D&D? Now you would be posting copyright material on another website without permission. So if you need exact wording clarified then how much can you ask on the new forums in regards to rules interpretation or RAW vs RAI...etc?

Would posting on these new forums someone get you banned form them and your DDI account canceled for piracy or copyright violations?

Anyone read the new EULA, TOA, COC to note anything about it that might be harmful to users on this new community site?

Indon
2009-09-02, 08:15 AM
Demographic data isn't usually personal information, it's pretty much by definition impersonal information.
There's nothing in the privacy policy which limits their "website related" use of personal information in conjunction with third parties, either.


"Web-site related" doesn't mean what you want it to mean.

That's rather the problem - it means whatever someone else wants it to mean.

A legal document with even one term like that can nullify any benefit you might otherwise gain from the document - in this case, it is a privacy policy which doesn't actually guarantee any privacy, because they can redefine the terms to essentially do whatever they want with your information.

Legally.

Curmudgeon
2009-09-02, 11:23 AM
There's nothing in the privacy policy which limits their "website related" use of personal information in conjunction with third parties, either.
Everyone should be aware that a requirement to provide a description of a company's privacy policy doesn't mean that there's any requirement to keep things private. It's legally acceptable to have a privacy policy like this:
We sell all personal information to anyone who's willing to pay us. There are specific legal requirements for customer privacy in financial and health care areas, but nothing general.

shadzar
2009-09-02, 01:48 PM
Everyone should be aware that a requirement to provide a description of a company's privacy policy doesn't mean that there's any requirement to keep things private. It's legally acceptable to have a privacy policy like this:



We sell all personal information to anyone who's willing to pay us.

There are specific legal requirements for customer privacy in financial and health care areas, but nothing general.

Sadly true, and many don't seem to understand that. ANYTHING you post on a website or give in the way of information about yourself that other person can use as they see fit. All they have to do is tell you up front, and the former WotC forums said something tot he effect of "anything posted to or input by users of our forums acknowledges that these things become copyright to WotC."

You can use forums and such without agreeing to them even though you click the accept on the ToA page when registering, but if you do, then make sure to put in fake information. :smallwink: