Let me preface this by restating that marketing CF is the most important CF-related job that, in general, no one seems to want to do.

>You guys are fond of saying that CF is different. That because
>it’s a volunteer organization, or that because it’s internet
>based or that because it’s free, it’s somehow exempt from the
>rules that every LLC has to play by to be successful. I know
>your Sunday School teacher said that your unique and special…
>but you aren’t that unique. :) (That’s a consulting joke.)

The fact that it's a non-charitable volunteer organization isn't unique, but it is different from most organizations.

If people work for me for money, they'll do unpleasant work for me because if they don't, I won't pay them.

If people work with me to help feed the poor, they'll do unpleasant work because they believe in the goal.

If I ask people to do unpleasant work as part of a hobby to support a game that's supposed to be fun, generally, they just won't do it and they'll find something else to do with their time. I include myself in that. During time periods in which CF isn't fun for me, I just do something else with my free time. There are exceptions to this generality of course, but they are just that -- exceptions, not the rule.

>This is a serious question - do you really care if there are
>only 50 or so people that play? I mean… if your happy with the
>current small playerbase dwindling to that, fine. I mean
>really… you can choose for that to be the way you do things.
>Not a wisecrack… if that’s what you want to do, do it. You
>probably have years left before it totally dies. Stop reading
>right here.

I care, but most of the time, I don't care enough to work CF like a second job vs. just doing something else fun with that free time instead. Like most of us, I've accrued additional responsibilities and demands on my time over the years, and I prize the fun-ness of my hobbies more than I once did. When I was 19 it wasn't a big sacrifice to spend a day busting out a bunch of CF code for something I wasn't personally interested in for someone. (Or whatever un-fun-for-me CF task you care to throw out there, be it administration or marketing or process analysis.) That's the perhaps ugly truth for me at this point in my life.

>I’ll give you an example. Mek recently wrote that post asking
>if he could contribute his ideas without coding and yada yada.
>Cyradia took offense (and I’m not arguing the validity of
>that) and wrote back a nasty post that upset Mek - who was
>really asking an honest question to try to help. Daevryn
>responded as well and politely made a good case for the
>immortal side, and Mek was happy. What Daevryn and Cyradia
>said wasn’t really very different, the difference was in how
>it was said. My point is, if Cyradia as a staff member can’t
>treat a player better than that, fine, just don’t have her
>respond to peoples posts on ask immortal. Leave that to a
>customer service immortal who can do it nicely.

Man, it's a sad day when I'm the good cop. ;)

I'm all for people marketing CF and helping out on the forums. Where I think we have a problem/disconnect here is that being staff of CF traditionally means having an immortal character.

I'm cool with there being marketing/administrative staff at my hypothetical nuclear power plant who have no talent for or interest in the technical guts of the plant. I'm not going to give them security access to the reactor core, not because I think they're terrorists who want to blow up my plant, but because they have no idea what they're doing in there or how to keep themselves or others safe.

>Right now your system of making staff doesn’t allow for people
>with customer service/marketing/sales talent to join the team.
>It is, in fact, built to exclude anyone BUT “product” oriented
>people.

We have and have had in the past people whose careers are in those areas on staff. We haven't generally had such people who also want to be filling those roles as their hobby.

>You can point out that I was heroimm for 11 days, and say I
>don’t know what I’m talking about,

For me, the point there isn't so much that it indicates that you don't understand the inner CF workings as it perfectly counterpoints so much.

You immed. You were asked to do something to make CF better that you didn't feel personally interested/talented in. (Area writing.) You quit after a week and a half without having done it.

But you think I can tell someone else on staff who doesn't have a talent or interest in marketing to do it and they just will?

>and ignore the fact that I
>have a staff of people that I train/motivate/retain every day.
>I have 4 paid employees, and a team of 14 people who not only
>work for free, but still pay me my fees. Now you can tell me
>that your Sunday school teacher says that your situation is
>different than mine because CF is unique and special, or you
>can just listen to someone who is good at team building.
>
>In the last two years I’ve turned over two out of sixteen
>volunteers, and never lost a paid staff member. My team
>functions very well whether I’m there to direct them or not,
>because I’ve trained them well.

I'm sorry, but just because some people will do work that you want done for free doesn't mean that I will. Again, you didn't want to do work someone else thought was important put in the same position.

>Truthfully, if you’d rather I didn’t give you my input, say
>so, and I won’t waist my time or yours.

Ultimately, I agree that marketing is important and that more of it should be done, and that we as a game/company/whatever could do better in those areas. I disagree with you on some of the realities of what people will and won't do for CF.