Questions about the Valve info thread

[Apos]

I've been thinking: should we have emails about the demo vids on that thread? Basically, the purpose of the thread is so that people (especially those form other sites who want to come here to read just the info) can get info about the game and the engine, not necessarily every last bit of random PR stuff. That stuff can go in it's own thread. Just because someone from Valve wrote you doesn't mean that it's relevant to that thread.

I'm also a little worried about things like this:

From: Chris D
Sent: Tuesday, July 01, 2003 7:57 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Hey Gabe

Thought I'd jump on the bandwagon and e-mail you like everybody else is as HL2.net. You getting sick of it all yet?

First of all, I'm not sure we want to call attention to ourselves in this way: give them the sense that hl2.net is just encouraging people to send off tons of random emails to them. That's NOT a good thing, and that's certainly not what I wanted to give people the idea to do. But second of all, I'm definately worried about people pestering valve with really pointless questions just so that they can post to that thread. It's not a popularity contest, it's just to keep people informed. Getting a response doesn't mean you're special, it just means that the rest of us get to learn more about the game, which is special.

So, what can we do?

1) Should we ask the mods to delete or move posts that aren't about the game or engine? These posts may seem important to you now, but two weeks from now they're be pointless clutter, not really telling us anything about anything.

2) Can we discuss the second problem (I'm not sure we can do anything about it).

 

[Gojin]

Since nothing seems concrete about the demo videos except maybe for Jhero's latest e-mail. I don't think they should be on there. Yep Apos, glad I voted you to be mod.

 

[Apos]

That's what I was thinking: whether it's concrete info or not, basically the information will be obsolete after they are released, and not really of interest to anyone browsing through to learn about the game itself, the engine, or the SDK.

 

[Apos]

Anyone else have an opinion on this? I know it's busy with other things, but I just wanted a bit of community input.

 

[Kornflake™]

I think whether or not the posts are kept up on the forum, people will continue to 'pester' Valve.

Once we realised that we may get a response we all started thinking of things we could get away with asking!

But I do agree, unrelated posts don't belong there, I mean after I'd recieved a reply from Gabe I sent a 'thank you' for his quick response, he mailed back to say:

"I type fast"

Great! but it doesn't tell us anything about the game so it didn't go in the thread!

As for your second point, there isn't much that could be done I'm afraid. Setting up a poll of the 10 most poplular questions on a weekly basis and having one person email it off sounds ok in theory but there's nothing to stop folks emailing anyway, and blocking peoples individual email posts would just be stifling to the community (not to mentioned the nuggets of information that would be lost!)

</rant>

<edit>I cannot emphasise enough the importance of proof reading sorry to anyone who attempted to decipher my post pre-edit</edit>

-Kornflake™

 

[Robert]

Maybe we know to much allready.. If you shall ask Valve something, then ask a question that no one else has asked..

 

[djkanuk]

I agree with the comments that have been made. The Valve emails sticky thread has encouraged a bad element to abuse Valve's generosity in answering our questions, but overall it is still one of the best and most up-to-date sources of information about the game (in the absence of being able to agree on a comprehensive FAQ). I'd say delete all the extraneous comments and questions, but leave all the legit responses from Valve (even to stupid questions).

There ya go Apos, that's your first job as moderator (cross fingers).

 

[Mr.Reak]

Problem is djkanuk, how do you know which e-mail is legit and which is not?

On the side note, I agree with everything Kornflake™ said.

 

[Apos]

Thankfully Valve has been uncommonly amazing in giving out info, but I worry more about the people who write to them and basically imply things like "those crazy hl2.net people are mad at you and are being ordered to spam your email with dumb questions!" Not particularly good for the site to be mentioned as inciting a riot.

 

[Straylight]

Perhaps they should just be deleted after the movies are released. No point in them existing in any thread after they are out. Up until then, better to have it all in one place IMO.

-Straylight

 

[GOoch]

Apos

is right acctualy this sort of email could be a bit damageing and could couse probs. We obviousley dont want that and Valve have been realy good with emails.
Lets not upset them with the same stuff over and over..

maby a weekly Email questionare would be the answer.?
formed by the guys on here and pick the best question for game to answer.?

 

[djkanuk]

Originally posted by Mr.Reak
Problem is djkanuk, how do you know which e-mail is legit and which is not?

No way to know, unfortunately, so it's best to leave all the emails there, unless they are quite obviously bogus.

The weekly questionnaire is a good idea, and might curb some of the spamming of Gabe's inbox, but as was said we can't really stop anyone from emailing Valve. Could the moderators organize this, choose the questions, and post the responses? (According to some sites out there, such an email would constitute an "interview with Gabe Newell"):dozey:

 

[Calm_Blue_Ocean]

Yes Apos,

Start a thread where people submit potential questions. Once or twice a week we could select the best (or most requested) question(s) and email them to Valve.

Another idea would be for someone from the site to interview Gabe by email as many other sites have done.

In any case, it should be well organized and we should refrain from asking questions independantly (we don't wanna' spook him).

 

[djkanuk]

Originally posted by djkanuk
No way to know, unfortunately, so it's best to leave all the emails there, unless they are quite obviously bogus.

A man is entitled to change his opinion... scrap the emails about the release of the demo vids (once they're released). Only keep responses that are relevant to the game itself (not Gabe's family, or whatever).

 

[Kornflake™]

Reading over the new posts in the valve info thread today it's apparent that there's a number of folks who have signed up and posted on the thread under the assumption someone is going to answer them.

Ok maybe it isn't too clear to them, or perhaps they haven't bothered to read the original posts but maybe the message should be ammedned to read like this:

Only post here if you have new information about Half-Life 2

• Do not post questions on this thread, they will not be answered
• Do not post old / repeated information
• Do not information unrelated to Half Life 2
• If you wish to comment on any information posted here, create a new thread
• If you find your post has been deleted, it is because it was in breach of the rules, do not re-post it

Ok, obviously from my last point, I think the thread should be quite strictly moderated - even with clear concise rules I can still see folks posting random crap!

I'm really not a fan of heavy moderation, post deletions etc. but the thread is getting very messy, and seeing as other sites (including PHL) have links to the thread, I feel an effort should be made to keep it to a standard.

-Kornflake™

 

[SidewinderX]

I agree with ya'll.
The post should be about the game or the engine, but there shouldn't be those "tell me the plot" "no" posts. I'd perosnally perfer to see more questions about the engine, but hey, that me.

 

[Apos]

I already volunteered to clean it up myself. But someone is definately goign through a little less often to flush it out periodically.

 

[Straylight]

I nominated you for mod Apos specifically so you could clean it up. I hope you get it.

The thing that bothers me the most are the e-mails people post that don't have any response to (yet). This is only telling us what you are curious about in HL2 and that doesn't belong in the Valve info thread. The point of that thread is to get new info about the game from Valve. More anoying for me, is the fact that if you come back and edit something on page 1, I'm not going to see it because I don't re-read the whole thread every day.

-Straylight

 

[worldspawn]

i agree... just like someone posting a scanned image of gabe's business card which showed his personal information.. although i don't think i'm more intelligent than everyone.. i am worried that people will ask many needless questions if they've given the opportunity, and might force valve to refuse to answer any emails.. i mean, be curtious and don't waste there time, and there's no problem, but when information like email addresses are available to the general public, it's hard to keep things in moderation how they should be, like needless emails.