Confusling

[Watcher]

I recently put a bug report on the tracker, after which it was promptly closed with an email redirecting me to an old bug report on the old tracker, now as I couldn't access that tracker without registration (which appears to me impossible) I used the only communication method I could to inform the person who had closed it (via the email on their profile) and got a prompt email back telling me never to email them or any other members of the tracker by email. It may be my simple incompetence but I can see no other way of contacting someone as it does not appear to have a PM function, now this quite annoys me as I did not intend to cause offense and used the only method available and not only has my query met a dead end but the tone of the email (all capitals) left me feeling as if I had personally done something wrong.

[Marqsaynt]

Well, without taking sides and not really knowing what the whole story is I just have a few things to bring up.

1. Writing in all caps (shouting) is never cool, it's just a matter of common courtesy.

2. Assuming that Watcher just didn't accidentally miss somewhere in the email where it said something along the lines of "Please do not reply to this email account" I'd say it's understandable he wrote back. In the future, it may be nice to add that you don't wish for a reply to this account in any future emails of this nature.

3. While I think the PS team is doing a great job, the new bug tracker is awesome, the new features being added are very cool, and the settings team has really kicked things up to a new level  some aspects of public relations sound like they leave a little bit to be desired at the moment.

"Public Relations is a set of management, supervisory, and technical functions that foster an organization's ability to strategically listen to, appreciate, and respond to those persons whose mutually beneficial relationships with the organization are necessary if it is to achieve its missions and values." (Robert L. Heath, Encyclopedia of Public Relations).

Just thought that quotation summed up pretty well what I mean when I say public relations.

Anyway, hope this post didn't come off as overly critical. Was aiming more for "you guys (and gals) are all doing a great job and I think with a few adjustments here and there can be doing an even more awesome job."

[Caarrie]

first off in this tracker we have NO WAY to hide our email address. So no one has the ability to say DO NOT EMAIL ME FOR ANY REASON. So for now do not email anyone. If you have a problem with how a bug was handled reply on the bug. and the old Tracker is set up how it is for a reason, we were getting ghosts [people that were not logged in] modifying bugs and it was getting very annoying to us. and it is also posted in the tracker guide to search both trackers before posting bugs so that may mean that you have to register on the old one before you can see the bugs or search for them.

[Marqsaynt]

It is unfortunate that the way the new bugtracker system works all email addresses are public whether that person wants it public or not. I can see how that could be frustrating.

However, just in case the way I phrased my earlier post didn't make it exactly clear what I was suggesting, I was actually meaning that it'd be nice if there was something, somewhere on an email sent out to a bug submitter that let them politely know that they shouldn't use the emails to reply. Even more helpful could be if the preferred way to reply was also mentioned (from reading your post seems like that would be replying on the submitted bug). I would like to think that most people would be polite enough to respect a "please do not reply using email" request and use whatever method the PS team prefers.

It just seems to me that if a player/tester has cared enough to play/test PS and take the time out of their day to make a bug report plus follow up on the submitted bug, only to leave the interaction feeling confused and like they did something wrong, then a valuable source of player/tester submitted bug information has potentially been needlessly lost. All people involved from the lowliest player/tester bug submitter to the highest ranking developer are volunteers on this project (and therefor I'd have to think care greatly about PS) and it seems to me that there has to be a way where the PS Team-member and the player/tester bug submitter leave the interaction with an overall positive experience which hopefully leads to many more positive and productive bug submissions/fixes in the future.
 

[Watcher]

Caarrie the point I was trying to highlight was that I could not register for the old tracker so therefore it is impossible for me to see anything. Although I do understand your point about leaving a comment on the page however I wished to highlight the inablity to access the old bug tracker which I thought warrented a more urgent response, I will of course in future no longer email anyone but rather try other methods to contact them and make them aware of the situation.

[Lanarel]

I justed tested, and I had no problem registering a new account on the old tracker, after clicking on the 'new account' link below the login fields at www.hydlaa.com/bugtracker.

[Zan]

Shortness in responces is a recurring illness on the bugtrackers. If you want to keep hunting for bugs, the best thing you can do is not take it personal.

There are testers, devs and GM's on there who are very friendly but you also risk running into someone who is being frustrated by whatever issue they can't fix or keeps popping up and they may be not so friendly in their responce. Their jobs are time-consuming and frustrating at sometimes.

On the other hand, I don't think being frustrated with your work gives you the excuse to be blunt or rude towards someone who doesn't deserve it. It's not that hard to say something in a friendlier way, even if you don't feel like being friendly. In the end it'll only save you more trouble. And if you really don't want to be friendly ... then walk away and consider doing something else because no matter how great this project is, it isn't worth becoming grumpy over.

[Bereror]

You have the privilege to talk directly to every member of the team and not all of them are experts in public relationships. Many organizations limit the number of people you can talk to and make sure that you always get a nice answer, usually without any real information.

Not every answer you get from our team members is a nice one, but at least all the answers contain some useful information (at least I hope so)

[AryHann]

Hi,

as "admin" of the bugtracker I will step into this thread.

I think Watcher didn't do any harm, at least not intentional. I understand that he got the bug closed as duplicate of an old bug in the BT, but I don't understand why he can't create a new account on www.hydlaa.com/bugtracker. Please, contact me for that (arianna.benigno@REMOVEgmail.com).
You are free to contact any member of the team, with the different tools we have (bugtracker, PM on the forums, IRC) and in most of the case even email. It is hard to know who likes to receive emails and who doesn't, but for example, in my case, I consider a necessity in most of the case, so please free to contact me as reference for the bugtracker or the test team, indipendently from the fact that it was not me taking the direct action for which you would like to address some question.

I don't have evidence of the email conversation, but I assume that every single being is responsible of their tone/actions and that Planeshift has nothing to do with that :-)
It often happens that however we express ourselves badly, even if not intentionally, because of our stress level or our perception of how we would like things to be.
I apologize for any misunderstanding or problem that has been generated by the lack of proper tools.
We are here to collaborate for making PS better and therefore, I expect feedback from the player to be welcome. Not everyone is probably ready for that, then I recommend to contact the responsible or an overseer instead of a single individual, when necessary.

Both players and devs have interest to make PS better and that is why players spend their time filing bug reports and such. However, also the people belonging somehow in the team can get frustrated by the amount of work that needs to be done. I am sure that next time, whoever will get an email and doesn't like it, will forward it to the proper person or will politely answer explaining that he/she doesn't appreciate to be contacted by email and that another person should be contacted in the case.

In any case, please, do not force yourself to feel restrained in sending emails to people in the whatever team. Keep in mind that Caarrie doesn't like that and bug the others :-)

I hope I clarified the position and I hope that Watcher, nor Caarrie are in need to continue explaining their statements, since to me their are crystal clear! :-)
I hope we can continue all to cooperate just fine :-)
enjoy!

[Watcher]

Ah it turns out that I am really silly, I just thought to try a different username and that suceeded in registering. So everything is hunky dory now, I am sorry for wasting time with that little complaint but the lack of message telling me something was wrong led me to assume that the whole thing didn't work. Thank you all for everything. Now I request a lock on this thread as everything has been sorted.

[AryHann]

I am glad you fixed it :-)
*hugs*