Hi Q.T.,

I've had mails from Gameboy & Ben Jos complaining about how you're managing MARP. Did they say anything to you?

They're both threatening to stop helping out on MARP unless I 'fire' you from the job of rule coordinator. As you know, I don't follow the goings-on at MARP very closely, so I've no idea what's been happening, but they seem to be making me choose between you and them. Apparently they don't like your 'undemocratic' behaviour.

For now I've changed the password at MARP so that nobody has access to change the files. You all still have 'editor' rights though.

I was wondering what your take on all this was, how it looks from your side, etc.

I hope this can all be resolved peacefully!

Chris.

--

I received this e-mail from Chris Moore, elsewise known as Zwaxy, this morning. I hope he will forgive me for reprinting it here.

I received no e-mails from Ben Jos or from gameboy9 in the past month. The most active discussion I have had about how MARP is being run and my philosophy on such was with Vaz.

I have not 'managed' the site in any way in the last month, due to time constraints of university studies and a new girlfriend.

I hereby step down as Editor and as Rules Coordinator at MARP. Please refer any concerns or questions to Ben Jos, gb9, Zwaxy, Pat, or skito.

I have no wish to play head games with other MARPers. I have accomplished what I originally set out to do, which was the removal of obviously bad scores from MARP. Since it now seems obvious I am not a valued member of the maintenance staff, I will leave.

I will cosider my continued association with MARP, or whether to simply delete my scores. I would like to personally thank BBH, JoustGod, Crash, QRS, Zwaxy, and skito for making my time here an enjoyable one. There have been many other players here who I also enjoyed chattting to, e-mailing, discussing strategies, or just plain arguing with (BeeJay, skito, Pat) and I apologize for not quoting you all by name here. There's just too damn many.

I apologize to any players I felt I needed to be heavy-handed with. I won't retract what I said, but I said it in what i thought were the best interests of MARP. Please understand that very little is intended personally. Tommi, I think you're a great player, and I'm sorry we could not resolve our differences.

I do not believe that MARP is best run as a total democracy, nor that it should follow any business model like Robert's Rules of Order. Neither of these provide any efficiency in running a site of 500 players. That said, I do not think that anyone should have autocratic power, or be unresponsive to player's desires, but rather that there should be a system of balance. I thought the system in place had established that, but it seems more and more to me now that players are dissatisfied. I am extremely dissapointed that two of my colleagues would choose to establish action behind my back without confronting me first, especially 'threatening to quit'. This echoes strongly for me actions taken by another player in T1, which was the ultimate reason fro my withdrawal from that tournament. I do not think this is appropriate behavior for those responsible for maintaining fairness at MARP.

I will congratulate Gameboy9 for his design and maintenance of the tournaments (the first of which attracted me to this site) and BenJos for helping me perform the original cleanups on the site that eliminated hundreds of slowed down first-place recordings. Both of you have helped immeasurably to contribute to this site and make it a great place to be. I would also like to thank skito for keeping me honest much of the time. I still hate the .nvram thing, but hey.

I wish he best to the new generation of MARPers, who have kindly supplanted almost all of my Magical Drop scores. Aaron and Ashuime, if there's ever netplay, we'll see who's fastest. And although he isn't a newbie by any means, I should thank Brian for showing me how to *properly* play several games. Next to JoustGod, he's probably the player I have had the most head-to-head .inp battles with.

Finally, I would like to thank Zwaxy for his conception and continued involvement in this site. This has been a virtual home for over a year, and a good time to boot. Cheers mate!

Sincerely,

Quinn A.C. Nicholson

Q.T.Quazar

-- Q.T.Quazar (qan@home.com), November 22, 2000

Answers

Well.. Thanks for your kind words Quinn about me and the other players I feel honored! It´s sad to see that you are leaving this site, and I honestly hope that all this editor arguments will be worked out instead of one person leaving this site..

And if you leave for good, I wish you all the best with your studies, and your new girlfriend! (I just lost mine some weeks ago)

Regards

QRS

-- QRS (qrs@telia.com), November 22, 2000.

Woah, longest posting to read in a while.

QT - try doing what I've done, take 6 months leave, pop in occasionally and you'll find that the games become immensely good fun to play again. I'm getting great enjoyment out of ********* currently and have decided when I get a few more stages sorted out again that this will be my comeback game.

********* - censored for future surprise.... ;p

Kick back, relax and see you when you feel like recording games again.

BeeJay

*waves* - from a lot closer than he's been for a while.

-- BeeJay (mamester@i4free.co.nz), November 23, 2000.

QT: As the head of the Unofficial Association Of MARP Egotists, I refuse to accept your resignation from this site. Get back to work and keep doing your excellent job.

To all the MORONS who are obviously passing unsubstantiated rumors to Zwaxy: Cut it out.

To me: Shut up.

-- Ashuime Rainflower (peng@demongate.ath.cx), November 23, 2000.

Cape? And you can lasso ~up~? How very odd! ;)

Seriously, though, I can understand the pressures with school, chicks, and all. I think BeeJay's right on this one, just take some time off and let things cool down. You're a good competitor and a fun personality to have around. I'm looking forward to locking horns again with you sometime, whenever we find a game we both actually like enough to fight over. :)

Cheers, Brian

-- Brian McLean (bmclean84@hotmail.com), November 23, 2000.

MARP is such a small community, that it would be sad to see one of the most frequent contributers to the site leave. (it'd also be a shame to see people conspiring behind an editor's back, but I'm staying out of that issue)

Maybe you do need a little time off to think things through, to enjoy life... but there's no need to just resign entirely when the full story isn't known. Think it over a little more...

-meeeeeoooooowwwwwwrrrrRRRRRRRRBOOOOOOOOOOMMMMMM!!!!!

-- BBH (lordbbh@aol.com), November 23, 2000.

Hi Quazar

I know, I haven't been on MARP that long, but I've always enjoyed your recordings and your hard work whenever there was an update to make new recordings in. Don't leave. You're way to good to leave MARP. The standard will drop and BBH will be even more ahead :-)

Don't go.

Bye.

-- Frankie (frankie@image.dk), November 23, 2000.

I have always appreciated everything you've done for this site QT and don't see any reason why you should leave.

-- LordGaz (garyjlee@hotmail.com), November 23, 2000.

I shall keep this short. I shall only speak for myself, although I know how Gameboy feels.

I was not planning on replying in this thread, because I do not want to start yet another yelling contest. I finally decided to make a short statement because I do not like the one-sided view of this thread, nor being called a moron...

The only reason I decided to go behind someone's back is because I felt QT was going behind the Editors' backs. For those of you who are misinformed, one of those Editors' backs is my own.

That is all I have to say at this point. Most of you here do not know what goes on on the Editors Board nor in e-mails amongst editors, so stop making uninformed statements. I have no desire to go behind QT's back once more and say any more on the matter in public before talking to him.

Cheers, Ben Jos.

-- Ben Jos Walbeehm (walbeehm@walbeehm.com), November 23, 2000.

BenJos: I was not trying to call you a moron. I thought that someone else had started it trying to get you and GB against Q.T.

Anyway, I apologize for the deplorable lack of information given to me.

I want to do recordings of Bubble Symphony!

-- Ashuime Rainflower (peng@demongate.ath.cx), November 24, 2000.

Thank-you for all those who posted their kind words, or who e-mailed me privately. As for what BenJos posted, I am open to the other Editors informing the community of what I was doing 'behind their backs'--in fact, I'm rather curious myself. To my knowledge, the only things I didn't seek agreement from others on was the suspension of Tommi Tiihonen's confirmer priviledges (due to comments made on the message board) and my halting of the PC_10 vote (due to poor structure, which we've seen again with the confusion during the revote) Let me know if I missed anything. I was also talking about the possibility of a petition against Richy Cream for repeatedly reuploading bad .inps, violation of community standards, insulting players, etc.--but that was still in a discussion phase.

To comment on the voting process at MARP, because this is something I hope can be fixed by the community: When building a vote, it is important that you provide clear alternatives. In the PC_10 vote, this would have been something like (example): 300 ticks, 900 ticks, unlimited time. Otherwise, those looking for the most time will gravitate towards the maximum end of the scale, whereas those considering what a 'fair' setting is (and I don't mean fair to imply anything other than what a person perceives to be fair) have a range of choices anywhere from 150 to some thousands of ticks. This is not a fair vote, and is obviously going to favor those who would vote uniformly at an extremum.

Some sort of time limit also needs to be established for the vote (I like the 1 week, then 48 hours until final voter thing that gb9 did) and hopefully with the new poll system on the new message board this will become easier for a higher percentage of the MARP pop. to participate, the largest single issue with MARP voting.

As for my comments on democracy/absolutism, i should probably clarify somewhat. MARP faces a unique problem in that it has a disinterested majority and a vocal minority. This minority changes from situation to situation, but it's rallying cry is the same: "Don't mess with my game" This is fine for the most part, except when it interferes with the way other people want to play a game, or more rarely, how other players perceive MARP. It is very important for more of the MARP community to start using this or the next msg board, and for the community to shed some of its apathy towards these message boards. This is at least 1/2 of MARP right here folks. This is the brains, eyes, and often spit and vomit of MARP. This is where things happen, where real changes are made.

Anyways, I have always held myself in full accountability of my decisions, and I make no changes now. The pleasantries have been posted. If someone wants to get something of their chest, please, do it now, or I'll assume that what was being said about me is unsubstantiated.

Q.T.Quazar

-- Q.T.Quazar (qan@home.com), November 24, 2000.

Ferewell.
If you want to know tricks or tips, send me private mail.
maybe I can help. Thanks.

-- Rank-52 (weavuspert@yahoo.co.jp), November 24, 2000.

Blaahhhhhhhhhhhhh(a long sigh). I wouldn't have wanted to comment on this, but what do you do?

quote: ", the only things I didn't seek agreement from others on was the suspension of Tommi Tiihonen's confirmer priviledges (due to comments made on the message board) and my halting of the PC_10 vote"

QT, As I've said before, in my opinion you had no right to cancel pc10 voting. You said you'll fix dip switches later, my ass you did. Why on earth did you cancel my confirming ability then, what fucking comments on message board? All I can remember is that I once said something like: I confirmed Alex Weirs TF(or hyperspt)score even though I don't have an inp- checker... is that it? 1)Lotsa confirmers don't have inp checkers, indeed I would be very happy if someone would send me one with instructions how to use it. 2)I can safely claim that I have enough knowledge of TF/HS, that I can eye-watch if someone has cheated or not. 3)I think Al had been already checked with his other inps. 4)I think I have been very honest with my submissions and accurate with confirming. 5)I originally got my confirming ability from Chris Moore/Zwax(y)

If it wasn't this case, read point 4 again.

You didn't send me a message or anything, I just noticed that "confirm" doesn't show for me...

Now it works ok...

I think you have had problems with other marpers too, maybe I've misunderstood, or only with me, if so, why, nothing I've done or said, even if I've been little pissed, haven't gone into personal level or done anything against "etiquette", if placing a simple voting thread is not a crime...

There is no sense making zillion inps and then leaving, I welcome you to common crowd.

Tommi, rank 50

P.S Zwaxy, if you read this, I think Gameboy9 has been ok as assistant page maintainer.

-- Tommi (tommi.j.tiihonen@wmdata.fi), November 24, 2000.

Thank-you, Tommi. Anyone else?

-- Q.T.Quazar (qan@home.com), November 24, 2000.

I have never had any problems with any of my fellow MARPers or the editors, so of course I welcome you back QT if you decide to do that.

Just as BBH points out MARP is a small community and we need everyone!

Regards

QRS

ps I´m sure things like this can be settled peacefully.. after all we are a bunch of grown up people here right:)

-- QRS (qrs@telia.com), November 24, 2000.

Here's the clarification of why I suspended your confirmation rights, Tommi.

Tommi: QT, I deny your authority to cancel this vote. So, THIS VOTING CONTINUES STILL.

Well, the deadline is over anyway now, thank you for voting. Result being:

option 1(timelimit 300) 3 votes (or 4, if you count QT in)

option 2(no timelimits) 6 votes

So the players have decided that Playchoice 10 games have no timelimit.

---

At the time of these posts, I was responsible for Rules coordination at the site. That means that I have to be confident that confirmers are themselves going to follow the rules, or else what is the point? You argued that you would do whatever you damn well wanted, so I wasn't about to trust your judgment any more. I therefore revoked your rights. Furthermore, you were impolite on the message board, and I notice that in this post, again, you've sworn on the message board.

If I was outside my authority, then I apologize to the other Editors. BenJos and Gameboy9 quickly reinstated you anyway. But I don't think I was. Maintaining the rules of the site were my priority, rules that you openly stated you had no intention of following.

Does that make you a reliable confirmer? No. I made my decision.

I can see how the Editors might perceive this as a move behind their backs, but seriously, one confirmer losing their priviledges? That's hardly AWOL, or grounds for threatening to quit, and I had my reasons.

So I'd still like to know what the big thing was... I haven't heard from Gameboy9 yet, so maybe he'd like to step out of the shadows.

Q.T.Quazar

Oh, and as for the dips, I don't know what you're talking about, because I was completely right. Coin/dip values changed, only one beta after I had been told they would. This much was even stated at the start of Gameboy9's post for the vote on the issue.

-- Q.T.Quazar (qan@home.com), November 24, 2000.

Damnit, this is starting to resemble the Florida elections. Can't we just sue each other and get on with the manual recount?

-- Ashuime Rainflower (peng@demongate.ath.cx), November 25, 2000.