Don Maddox
14 Mar 05, 15:43
Based on conversations I have had with the senior ACG/WHQ staff and with members of the Harpoon community, we are in the process of making some changes.
The Harpoon scenario archive has been taken off-line until further notice.
We are debating some internal changes that might help to make this section run smoother.
We are currently discussing whether or not Harpoon should have a place among the other wargames we support. This is a very difficult decision and has been greatly complicated by recent events.
Let me address a couple of other issues here.
First, accusations have been made that WHQ staff members have used an unauthorized software utility to generate and post scenarios for Harpoon. Demands have been made that we cease and desist from doing this and take action against those responsible. This is a serious charge and we take it seriously. First, no evidence whatsoever has been presented to us to support this accusation other than opinion and heresay. No one has come forward to back it up. Since this software is not available, how am I to determine if any of the scenarios hosted in our file archives fall into this category? In essence, accusations have been flung on this forum along with demands for action, but no evidence of any kind has been offered. So I'm supposed to fire a staff member based on what? Even if I did so, how am I supposed to verify whether the scenarios are legit or not? I do not discount the possibility that a portion of these scenarios may, in fact, be tainted, thus we have taken the scenario archive off-line until further notice.
Second, it appears that there is a policy on Harpoon HQ of only supporting those scenarios which use DB2000 if they are submitted to Harpoon HQ. Since this database has--at least as I understand it--become the defacto standard for much of the community, that does not appear to leave any third party site with the ability to host scenarios without generating an entirely new database from scratch. Judging from what we have seen to date, doing so would almost certainly be a recipe for additional divisions among the community. This situation does not appear to leave any room at all for wargame sites such as WHQ to contribute in a meaningful way.
I have been deluged by messages from interested gamers who wish to see the WHQ Harpoon section stay open as an alternative to Harpoon HQ. Allow me to clarify our position here. When we elected to support Harpoon, it was done in the belief we could contribute to the wargame community as a whole. We did not open this section as "an alternative" to anything (i.e. we are not trying to compete or take anything away from any effort elsewhere). That being said, it seems clear many gamers perceived it as exactly that: an attempt to compete or undermine Harpoon HQ. That is not the case. Herman Hum volunteered to head up the new section, and this appears to have generated an almost instantaneous conflict based on previous episodes between certain individuals. We rely on volunteers here just as other sites do, and to some extent these volunteers bring with them a certain amount of advantages and disadvantages. Some people perceive Herman as being a very active and productive member of the community, some do not.
As of this writing the future of this section is uncertain. We are not going to waste valuable time and resources putting out fires and fighting for the chance to do something productive for the community--at our own expense! WHQ/ACG is an active community and it brings a lot of wargamers together into one place. This helps support both the gamers and the developer/publishers. That being said, there may be no place in the Harpoon community for us. I have spoken to various members of the community and we are currently exploring ways in which we might be able to solve these issues and move on. When we make a final determination we will let you know.
The Harpoon scenario archive has been taken off-line until further notice.
We are debating some internal changes that might help to make this section run smoother.
We are currently discussing whether or not Harpoon should have a place among the other wargames we support. This is a very difficult decision and has been greatly complicated by recent events.
Let me address a couple of other issues here.
First, accusations have been made that WHQ staff members have used an unauthorized software utility to generate and post scenarios for Harpoon. Demands have been made that we cease and desist from doing this and take action against those responsible. This is a serious charge and we take it seriously. First, no evidence whatsoever has been presented to us to support this accusation other than opinion and heresay. No one has come forward to back it up. Since this software is not available, how am I to determine if any of the scenarios hosted in our file archives fall into this category? In essence, accusations have been flung on this forum along with demands for action, but no evidence of any kind has been offered. So I'm supposed to fire a staff member based on what? Even if I did so, how am I supposed to verify whether the scenarios are legit or not? I do not discount the possibility that a portion of these scenarios may, in fact, be tainted, thus we have taken the scenario archive off-line until further notice.
Second, it appears that there is a policy on Harpoon HQ of only supporting those scenarios which use DB2000 if they are submitted to Harpoon HQ. Since this database has--at least as I understand it--become the defacto standard for much of the community, that does not appear to leave any third party site with the ability to host scenarios without generating an entirely new database from scratch. Judging from what we have seen to date, doing so would almost certainly be a recipe for additional divisions among the community. This situation does not appear to leave any room at all for wargame sites such as WHQ to contribute in a meaningful way.
I have been deluged by messages from interested gamers who wish to see the WHQ Harpoon section stay open as an alternative to Harpoon HQ. Allow me to clarify our position here. When we elected to support Harpoon, it was done in the belief we could contribute to the wargame community as a whole. We did not open this section as "an alternative" to anything (i.e. we are not trying to compete or take anything away from any effort elsewhere). That being said, it seems clear many gamers perceived it as exactly that: an attempt to compete or undermine Harpoon HQ. That is not the case. Herman Hum volunteered to head up the new section, and this appears to have generated an almost instantaneous conflict based on previous episodes between certain individuals. We rely on volunteers here just as other sites do, and to some extent these volunteers bring with them a certain amount of advantages and disadvantages. Some people perceive Herman as being a very active and productive member of the community, some do not.
As of this writing the future of this section is uncertain. We are not going to waste valuable time and resources putting out fires and fighting for the chance to do something productive for the community--at our own expense! WHQ/ACG is an active community and it brings a lot of wargamers together into one place. This helps support both the gamers and the developer/publishers. That being said, there may be no place in the Harpoon community for us. I have spoken to various members of the community and we are currently exploring ways in which we might be able to solve these issues and move on. When we make a final determination we will let you know.