BuzzerBeater Forums

Recently a thread was open in regards to franchises who were potentially cheating. In this thread no less than 10 supporters of this game took part in it and wanted to be heard. As a supporter, they are paying for that right. They have a right to ensure and take an active, vocal, role in ensuring they are investing in a game that is being played fairly. I for one have been a supporter for many years and I suspect that most of the people involved in this thread have been as well have been. I have been a strong ambassador for this website bringing in friends and colleagues to play at various times. I am sure many of the supporters on this list have also.

I understand and respect the fact that the GM is an unpaid position done by people volunteering their time. However they have to have common sense as well. They have to understand that they are a representative of a business that is accepting people’s money and from time to time those people have a right to ensure their money is being spent wisely. Nobody wants to waste their time and money on a website that isn’t protecting its own integrity.

I am not saying buzzerbeater isn’t protecting its integrity. I also think there are many fine BBs and GMs who do a great job and deserve praise and gratitude and want this site to succeed and grow supporters, not alienate them. The final response in the aforementioned thread however was very troubling to me and I am to sure others.

“What the hell do you want from us? Blame the BBs for making the rule about not discussing report results. We've given as good an explanation as we can about our procedures and that he has been fined numerous times already. I'm not just going to sit around and let you guys attack us and crap on our efforts that we volunteer our free time for. Thread closed.”

This response did nothing to ensure those that were concerned that the money they were paying for a fair game was being protected. If trust goes out the window, so will supporters and the only thing this GM will be moderating is his own Facebook page. Also the response was extremely over-reactionary to a very civil discussion overall. Yes some people were a little attacking. Some people cracked their normal share of jokes. But there was a lot of positive interaction and questioning as to what is being done about cheaters and how they are detected. Simply put, the more information that is out there to us, the better job we can assist and help make this as good a game a possible.

But overall this “crapping on our efforts”, as this GM put it, by those involved in the thread was completely unfounded. Let the crapping begin…

“I trust that you guys have experience and know what you're doing, but I'm still not convinced.” (about the alleged himself)

“'I’m not trying to criticize you or suggest you don't know how to do your job, but no system's perfect and people are always coming up with new ways to game the system”

“Could I ask why disciplinary action is so secretive? I would think that it would be more of a deterent to future cheaters if it is actually common knowledge that cheaters are actually dealt with.”

The majority were not trying to crap on his or anyones effort and the assertion was unnecessary as you can see above. What this GM did was shut down an entire, important, discussion with supporters of this web site. The customers. He or any GM does not own this game, the supporters and the players who bring web traffic to the game own it. And if we have questions of this serious of magnitude, they need to be addressed, professionally and courteously.

I have already had one supporter in this thread question whether or not he is going to continue doing so after his concerns were so easily dismissed. This is why I brought this to everyones attention. So the issue can be addressed and rectified.


Last edited by Hoosier at 5/5/2013 5:52:18 AM

“What the hell do you want from us? Blame the BBs for making the rule about not discussing report results. We've given as good an explanation as we can about our procedures and that he has been fined numerous times already. I'm not just going to sit around and let you guys attack us and crap on our efforts that we volunteer our free time for. Thread closed.”

All we were asking for is assurances that we were not wasting our time, and more importantly our money, on a game because someone was getting an advantage by either a.) cheating or b.) over 20 morons who bid ridiculously on garbage players. The responses we received ranged from, "We have lots of tools so please trust us." to "Don't blame me! Blame the BBs!"

In this uncalled-for tirade we did finally get an answer we were looking for:

...he has been fined numerous times already.

See?! that's all it took! I still question why there isn't some page that tells who and why a person was disciplined but I guess we have to "blame the BBs".

Recently a thread was open in regards to franchises who were potentially cheating. In this thread no less than 10 supporters of this game took part in it and wanted to be heard. As a supporter, they are paying for that right. They have a right to ensure and take an active, vocal, role in ensuring they are investing in a game that is being played fairly.

I haven't even finished reading your post, and I'll stop you right here. Your support for this game (as well as mine and that of others), gives you zero extra right to bitch about the game. ZERO. You can vote with your pocketbook to stop supporting any time you like, as can anyone else, and your opinion won't suddenly have any less merit. If it did have less merit for non-supporters, the game would have a very serious problem, and I for one would stop playing it altogether.

Anyway, let me try to read the rest of your post without my BS detector light going into strobe mode.

[...] I understand and respect the fact that the GM is an unpaid position done by people volunteering their time. However they have to have common sense as well. They have to understand that they are a representative of a business that is accepting people’s money and from time to time those people have a right to ensure their money is being spent wisely. Nobody wants to waste their time and money on a website that isn’t protecting its own integrity.

STROBE. Do you know all the relevant facts of the case? No? Then forgive me for asking you to stop talking out of your b-hole.

[The GM] response did nothing to ensure those that were concerned that the money they were paying for a fair game was being protected. If trust goes out the window, so will supporters and the only thing this GM will be moderating is his own Facebook page. Also the response was extremely over-reactionary to a very civil discussion overall. Yes some people were a little attacking. Some people cracked their normal share of jokes. But there was a lot of positive interaction and questioning as to what is being done about cheaters and how they are detected. Simply put, the more information that is out there to us, the better job we can assist and help make this as good a game a possible.

But overall this “crapping on our efforts”, as this GM put it, by those involved in the thread was completely unfounded.

I invite you to re-read the thread, and put yourself in the shoes of a GM while so doing. There's a line in the Game Manual that says the following:

"The following types of posts are not permitted in any forum and chat areas of Buzzerbeater:
[...]
- Discussing staff decisions (BBs/GMs/Mods). Please e-mail appeals@buzzerbeater.com with your complaint."

The majority were not trying to crap on his or anyones effort and the assertion was unnecessary as you can see above. What this GM did was shut down an entire, important, discussion with supporters of this web site. The customers. He or any GM does not own this game, the supporters and the players who bring web traffic to the game own it. And if we have questions of this serious of magnitude, they need to be addressed, professionally and courteously.

I have already had one supporter in this thread question whether or not he is going to continue doing so after his concerns were so easily dismissed. This is why I brought this to everyones attention. So the issue can be addressed and rectified.

Again, you do not gain special privileges by supporting the game. Some nice features, sure, but your opinion and mine matter diddely-squat more than someone who has never supported the game. Stop pretending like you know what's going on behind the curtain.

This thread is a waste of time.

Last edited by darykjozef at 5/5/2013 8:26:26 AM

What I'm pissed about is I got called out and then the thread closed leaving me unable to respond. This game has, to me, seemingly gotten worse instead of better since I joined, and I'm getting a little fed up with it.

Now, Namssor, when did I attack you? I simply stated a fact. You did avoid answering what most of us wanted to know. I can entirely understand that your hands may have been tied and you can't answer everything, but what I said was still true. There is no need to dance around the questions, either answer them or straight up say that you can't and won't talk about the issue. That's all you have to do.

Last edited by adchester at 5/5/2013 10:31:03 AM

Although the thread was abruptly closed, I was pleased with the response that Prof Bricks mentioned above and think that is whats many of us wanted to hear. Thank you

Dummy, you couldn't be more wrong. If there are no supporters or people playing this game, there is no game anymore. If there are people profiting from this game than they have an obligation to their customers. Period.

Your entire post isn't worth reading after that statement. I'm not even going to waste my time acknowledging the rest of the crap in it.

Woah if I was namssor I would've responded the same way, hell if I was still mod I think I would've closed the topic before it got started. Thread started turning towards blaming the ppl who are trying to give us answers. Reason I asked our GMs for a response and didn't go to the complaining forum or wherever we were supposed to go is because I know and trust namssor and Jason, and consider them our representatives. Assumed if I posted it somewhere else I wind up getting some response from a GM from France who doesnt care. Thats not a fair assumption, so we can and should just take the complaint to the BBs.

Last edited by jfarb at 5/5/2013 1:11:29 PM

I agree with you on this completely. If policy states that a forum be closed then close it early on. Don't let it linger for 8 pages and then decide to close it in a rage, completely dismissing the valid concerns of those partaking in a forum you already deemed to be worthy topic.

I think we're pretty lucky to have the GMs we do.
They're pretty cool about things & reasonable. Unlike a certain foreign GM. Hopefully they stay that way.
I also like that they let threads go for a while.


Sad to see another newspaper shutdown in the digital age, but c'est la vie...

Also, to anyone frustrated...
IMO Getting mad at GMs is like someone being upset with a company, then taking it out on random customer service reps. It would be a whole different thing if our GMs were complete jerks & actively protecting "suspicious" teams of their own volition. But they seem to be on our side. Plus, taking things out on GMs leads to: "THIS IS WHY WE CAN"T HAVE NICE THINGS"

Sadly it looks like there's no real recourse against certain suspicious, shameless teams... all that can be done is to make others aware of the situation & to shun / ostracize said teams.


Anyway... is there a way to get across everyone's dissatisfaction directly to the BBs? Or do they already know, & just not give a damn? Because it's one or the other based on their lack of response/action.

Very good point.