Worsiedog suspended from EA Forum

Why?

Because SimGuru_BGY_11 decided to throw a strop over Worsiedog pointing out the obvious, which was that if they were telling customers that custom contents and mods were potentially causing trouble with the game, then perhaps they ought to remove the stickied thread listing custom content sites until such times as the matter is resolved.

SimGuru Big Baby’s response? Have Worsiedog banned for seven days for being ‘off-topic’!

Read the full story here.

For what it’s worth, we have each sent e-mails of protest to EA over this, and anyone else wishing to do the same (you never know, they might listen) can do so at:

gps@ea.com (No they can’t, bastards! Trying again with)

support@ea.com
😦

* * * * *

(For the benefit of the curious)

Dear Sir/Madam,

We are writing to ask that, during this season of goodwill through the world, you show a little by revoking an utterly unjustifiable 7 day suspension on Worsiedog, imposed for little other reason than some EA board ‘guru’ – one SimGuru_BGY_11 deciding to take out his ‘bad day’ on an innocent board member’s suggestion that was made in good faith.

This incident occured on the following thread:

http://forum.thesims3.com/jforum/posts/list/0/142882.page#1711776

where a member was complaining about game crashes since installing World Adventures.

SimGury_BGY_11 replied:

‘The Invalid File error typically arises from custom content and mods; even altering the time/date stamp on core files can provoke it. What we advise is that users remove all CC and mods prior to patching.’

To which Worsiedog made the pertinent point that this being the case, it might be wise for the stickied thread highlighting Custom Contents sites to be removed.

For this, the post was erased and she was banned from the forum for 7 days!

Reason? Being ‘off-topic’! This is preposterous, and well you know it.

You have already lost a large amount of respect in recent days by banning RubyTheFuzzled – a long standing and much loved member of the forum who has done much to help others and to defuse successfully some of the occasional ‘dramas’ that have occasionally been the bane of the EA Forum (for what she admitted was an error of judgement, rather than of malice, and for which she has apologised to you directly).

Woe betide any business – particularly in the cut-throat entertainments industry in the current economic climate – that thinks it doesn’t matter if they step on their consumers now and again. It is repeat business and ‘upselling’ from your existing customer base that makes and breaks every enterprise in the world. If too many of that customer base turn their back on you forever after one ‘stamp on the little guy’ too many, soon you don’t have a customer base left to offend.

We know and appreciate that you try to both help users and to keep the peace, and that sometimes for those policing the EA Forum – like Gilbert And Sullivan’s Penzance constabulary – their lot may not be a happy one. Thankless tasks seldom are.

But equally there is a time when real strength is showing a willingness to bend, to concede that a decision was made in haste, and to regain that respect by its rectification.

Therefore we ask you, please, rescind the suspension on Worsiedog.

And if you could do the same for RubyTheFuzzled too, that would really make our Christmas.

Have A Cool Yule,

The Mare’s Nest