There's no contact mail for mudmagic that I could find from its front page and I can't be bothered to sign up for an account so I'll post here, as I know Kyndig reads this site.

Summary: Mudmagic was blocking e-mail and whatnot from servers hosted with Wolfpaw.

One of the admins hosting with you is looking for a job with us. Makes it pretty difficult for him when my reply to him bounces a week later due to indecent.mudmagic.com blocking Wolfpaw customers. You removed the blocks from some of your servers, but apparently forgot some.

Sort it out, as you're doing your customers absolutely no favors at all in your little war with Wolfpaw.

--matt

I went to confirm this. There is no contact on the front page. I figured it'd probably be on the page, and indeed there is a menu on the left. Took less than a minute. It's also the of a pretty obvious Google search.

Fair enough, though I wasn't at all inclined to do even minimal searching through their site for a contact mail. This kind of behavior affects all their customers anyway so it's relevant here regardless.

--matt

Logos, I sincerely doubt that your own laziness is adequate justification for such slander.

In regard to your supposition that Kyndig is being discourteous to its customers, nothing could be further from the truth. As a customer of Kyndig I can safely say that their attention to the needs and desires of their customers is second to none, their customer care, willingness help, and desire to provide the premium mud related website is beyond reproach.

On the rare occasions where I have had to address very minor issues with our provision, their response has been prompt, polite, attentive, and their solution has been applied swiftly (with a generosity of spirit, consideration, and gratuities that has gone way beyond the call of duty)

If other organizations showed half the commitment to customer satisfaction that Kyndig exhibits the business world would be a much nicer and less stressful place to operate in.

As Yui pointed out the contact us is plainly visible on the hosting page. In addition calling up Kyndigs own details would have given you his Aim addy etc, so you could have even talked with him in person – how many sites offer that level of contact?

Considering the fact that you know he is a member of this site and visits frequently why didn’t you just send him a private message? The only reason for posting to the public forums when such a facility exists was to draw attention to the issue and perhaps score some points for wolfpaw by attempting to discredit this premium host.  

PS

Isnt there a stone waiting for you to crawl back under Logos

If the claim is true, don't you think it is something we should all know about?

One Mud Host blocking all emails from another mud host would certainly be a pretty sleazy business tactic. It sounds very AOLish.

I would certainly like to hear an explanation.

Wolfpaw's explanation is on wolfpaw's website, linked straight off the main page, and has been there for a few days.  The matter had been resolved as far as I have been told, so this is just a "for reference" link since you asked.

Absolutely ridiculous. You don't reciprocate to childishness with more childishness. You take the high road and attempt to resolve the issue with as little impact for your customers as possible. It is completely unacceptable for a hosting company to block a network unless that network is specifically impacting their customer service.

Oh Good Lord. I completely agree with Unifex on this one. This has crossed whatever "Administration to Personal" level there ever was.

I wonder if these two companies know that their price fixing agreements between each other are absolutely against the law.

Just a comment here. I was not aware such a thing was against the law. The jest of it was that Kyndig was being hurt by our low prices, and as a result, we made an arrangement with him that neither of us would sell for under 9 dollars.

It was not designed to hurt the consumer, and that was not either of our intention. It was more of a nice geasture to not put someone else out of business.

My apologies if it was an offense,
D.

I certainly didn't take offense. I host all of my own servers anyway so it doesn't affect me personally whatsoever.

I care a lot about the MUD market as a whole. I think we all benefit from the market for text games growing. The backstabbing and attempts to drag "competitor(s)" down is exceptionally unwise. You don't see Blizzard trashing Bioware, for example.

I would not want to see MUD hosting companies get in trouble because they engaged in illegal business practices that they may not have even known was illegal. Their role in the market is absolutely vital as they provide a low-cost option to people who want to run MUDs. Web hosting accounts don't provide the same types of services that MUD admins need and thus they are not a viable alternative. I like knowing there are a healthy number of MUD Hosting companies operating (hopefully profitably) because I believe it is good for all of us.

That is also why I am sad to learn that these MUD Hosting companies are engaged in a feud that in my opinion helps nobody yet harms everyone.

Hi Threshold,

I absolutely agree with everything in your post. It is unfortunate that it has degraded to that point. I'm sure some people would say I contributed to it.. perhaps I did. It was not however, my intention to do that. I simply posted what was going on, because I felt it was time for people to know.. seeing as it was affecting them anyway.

D.

the_logos: I see you've decided to come back, despite your previous posts to the contry. That's your decision of course, but how about - just for once - try starting a thread which isn't an attack on someone? Something which is, for example, constructive. Go on, try it - you might even like it!

BURN!!!

Kavir: If you'd read what I said, it was that I would not involve myself in discussions. I still intend (as I said) to post announcements.

I am making an exception here since I'm sick of you flaming me while trying to paint yourself as anything but a flamer. Your flaming knows no bounds really. Despite the fact that your post contained absolutely nothing of relevance to this thread (and as a moderator on TMS one would ASSUME you know better.) you chose to flame, again. I don't believe I've ever attacked you personally and yet you take every opportunity to do the reverse.

I'm not going to say you're intentionally lying, but you're, minimally, quite clearly inventing your own reality. Let's look at the threads I have started in the last 3 months and let's see if your assertion that I only start threads that are attacks on people hold up.

1. "Mud magic: get it together". You can call it a flame, but I don't think it's really 'flaming' to point out a mud hosting service actively blocking e-mail from its own members. But whatever, we'll call it a flame if it'll make you happy and give you a reason to attack me. Considering you actually maintain a website flaming another mud (Medievia), you're not really one to talk when it comes to pointing out muds doing things you don't approve of.

2. "Bards + Achaean Year 350 wrapup" - Announcement

3. "The Scarlattan Theatre in year 350!" - Announcement

4. "Be a bookie in Achaea!" - Announcement

5. "A new forum for text muds" - Announcement

6. "The Mind's Eye" - Announcement

7. "Iron Realms sponsors Children's Charities" - Announcement

8. "Wolfpaw matches IRE's donation" - Announcement (This thread won't show up as a search for me since one your fellow moderators had to shut the thread down and lock it due to the idiots flaming us for announcing we're giving money to charity...nevermind that companies like Macy's take out full-page newspaper ads to announce the same thing.)

9. "Win a real world Glamdring in Achaea" - Announcement

So I see 1 out of 9 threads that I started in the last 3 months that can even remotely be considered a flame. No doubt actual evidence won't make much difference to you though as you're just looking for excuses.

--matt

Regardless of who is right and who is wrong, this isn't the sort of thing we all really needed to see aired in public. It should have stayed between Dale and Calvin and settled quietly. That it's become a public issue is just sad and pathetic. Really. This should have been settled privately.

I think as soon as MUD hosts start blocking traffic from each other it becomes an issue that the entire community has a right to know about.

I sure as heck would want to know about such behavior if I were looking for a MUD host.

However this is quite clearly the "Webmasters" forum, under the "Discussions" section. It has nothing to do with the "announcements" forum (which is under the "promotions" section).

Come now - I asked you to try posting something constructive. That's hardly a flame, by any definition of the word.

All of which are announcements.

When you used to post in the discussions sections, a large percentage of your posts appeared to be flame-bait - thus I was more than happy to see you state that you would no longer involve yourself in discussions.

Now you've started posting in the "discussions" section again, and (surprise surprise) your first post is a flame. And when I ask if you could try posting something nice for a change, you flame me in response, and imply that I'm a liar.

But perhaps I misunderstood - so let's clarify this. You stated that you would no longer involve yourself in discussions here, and would instead limit yourself to announcements only. You then posted a flame in the discussions section. Now please explain how I am the liar?

Chuckle. Your pedantism knows no boundaries. What I posted was an announcement of general interest to -anyone- who either hosts with Mudmagic or who needs to communicate with someone at Mudmagic. What you posted was a completely off-topic flame based on completely untrue statements. I'm not even sure how you can justify taking the thread so off-topic except that you have this rabid hunger to attack me and then turn around and claim, "What? No no, I wasn't attacking! I don't do that!" (Nevermind your web page devoted to flaming Medievia.)

I don't expect an apology from you though as you have a long history of refusing to recognize when you're wrong. I'll just go back to ignoring anything you have to say on any subject but coding.

--matt

What you posted was a personal attack against the main competitor of your hosting provider. And you did so in the discussions section.

Asking you to post something constructive is hardly a flame, and I made no false statements. Or was I somehow supposed to interpret your claim that you would no longer involve yourself in discussions as "all discussions except those in the webmasters forum"? Because if so, I didn't, and I would be interested to know which other discussion forums you don't consider to be used for "discussions".

Pot, kettle, black! However I do apologise (and have done so) - when I am wrong. In this case, however, I am not. Think about what I said - tuck your ego away for a second and really think about it. Not all threads have to be advertisements or attacks on competitors. I know you've got your own exclusive forum where you can post constructive stuff, but what sort of impression do you think you're giving if you only ever post chaff here? Particularly as most of the people reading it won't have access to your BigMud forums.

Can't you two fight in private or something? I've got "This is the song that never ends, etc." from that old PBS show stuck in my head now.

Seriously though, Kavir, it's getting old, whether you're right or not. You obviously abhor the_logos and most of the things he does, so why do you continue to subject yourself to him through these vindictive posts?

Add to that the fact that you're not even the moderator for this particular board or the Announcements board, and I really fail to see why you're not just ignoring everything he writes.

I can already hear some variation on "But I need to counter the xxxxxx he posts to protect everyone else!" coming, but that seems rather childish. Most of us can make decisions on our own, I would hope.

Heh, don't I feel honored. I wasn't aware I was famous around here, what with my massive 0.21 posts per day and all. I reply when I feel like it, and if most of those replies happen to involve topics you post in, then so be it. I guess it's the sort of thing that sparks my interest.

Anyway, you can post whatever you want, and if you think i'm anything more than mildly annoyed about this thread, you've badly misjudged.

It is amusing, though, how you seem to react to anyone that posts something you don't like by becoming extremely rude or treating them like a child. I thought you were the one that was so inflamed at someone posting non-constructively?

Once again, you misunderstand. I only mentioned the fact because if you were a moderator for this board, then I could easily see why you would want/need to post on this thread, despite your feelings. Maybe if you weren't trying to be so utterly condescending, you'd see that.

And who would I report you to? Synozeer, so he could laugh in my face about it? Sorry, no. Again, if you think anything about this whole thread bothers me all that much, you're sorely mistaken.

I eagerly await your next post calling me an idiot/lapdog/child/etc..

I didn't say famous - I said faithful. And I said it because all of your 22 posts have been in the following 6 threads:

1: "Aardwolf commercially violating diku licence" in which Hephos attacks Aardwolf, and the_logos defends Hephos's view.

2: "These forums, Aardwolf, and me" - a thread started by the_logos in which he says he's leaving because of the attacks on Aardwolf (but clarifies that he's not talking about anything done by Hephos).

3: "A new forum for text muds." - in which the_logos announces his new exclusive forum.

4: "The Mind's Eye" - in which the_logos announces his new exclusive forum again.

5: "Diku license" - in which the_logos attacks the Diku license.

6: "Mudmagic: get it together" - in which the_logos attacks MudMagic.

In almost every case you've jumped in to the defence of the_logos or the point he was arguing.

If it appears that i'm defending him or anyone else, it's only because the view(s) being discussed mesh with my own. Not sure what I can do about that, so I guess you'll just have to live with it.

As has no doubt crossed your mind, if only fleetingly, I do not play any of the_logos' games, I never will play any of them, and I have absolutely no relationship with him whatsoever.

Any views expressed are my own, despite whatever you may think. I would feel the same, whether it be the_logos or anyone else involved.

Believe whatever you want, though, I guess it doesn't really matter to me in the end.

It's not that, so much as the fact that you don't post anything else - the only threads you've participated in are flame wars, in which you jump to his defence. However the_logos has actually started two constructive threads during his time at TMS - if your views mesh with his, why not try posting to those?

KaVir

It might be a good idea just to resist the temptation of having the last word.

1) Moderator or not nobody can judge what other users of the forum may find interesting. I found this topic interesting.

2) Your personal (and childish - I am 20 and your words read like those of a 12 year old to me) replies just get in the way of the general topic. My apologies for that rather direct statement.

Obviously you are not the only person who does it, but if you start, others follow. Instead, set the example. Otherwise people like me who just enjoy learning from those who contribute to the dicussions (yourself included, you don't normally sound prepubescent) will eventually all fade away leaving you all to argue.

I find it very interesting that price fixing has been admitted publically here by wolfpaw.

- Thain.

Getting back on topic...

Does Kyndig have anything to say about the topic itself?

I am interested in hearing the other side of the story and I feel the entire MUD community is entitled to an explanation.

I would prefer be fully informed so I don't have to make a conclusion based on only one side of the story.

Regards of what is said by anyone here, everyone will reach their own conclusion. If anyone is really THAT interested in what transpired, why not contact the parties involved directly, instead of dragging it out here.

Not saying that I agree with anything that has happened between Mudmagic and Wolfpaw, but I think Mudmagic has made a smart move to not participate in what has degenerated in to a good old flame war. No matter what response Mudmagic might post, someone will disagree and the flame war would continue.

Because as I already noted previously, I feel like the MUD community has a right to know exactly what transpired here.

A lot of people and MUDs were affected by these very inappropriate actions (blocking each other) and every MUDer (admin or player) deserves the details.

Anyone who might consider hosting with either of these companies certainly has a right to know what happened here so they can make an informed decision when selecting a mud host.

I agree with Threshold, not only is it important to the "Community" but it is a good PR move that ANY company would do.

Dirty laundry gets aired in the public, the company immediately makes a general "We didn't do anything wrong, here is our version of the story" statement.

Like when Half Life 2 was leaked, they didn't just stuff it under the carpet... or when Dakitana had to rebuild their entire system using the Quake engine. Rumors will get out and if a company doesn't work to eliminate them they wind up looking really bad in the long run.

Since the news is out I think it is important that Kyndig releases some sort of statement for their own good.

So far all I know about Kyndig is that they took my game off their system because I was a Wolfpaw customer (true or not I don't know because they haven't said anything)... Now usually when people ask who a good hosting provider is I would say something like "Oh, kyndig and wolfpaw are the two largest that I know of" Now I'm not so inclined to put Kyndig in that statement unless they back themselves up a bit.

Oh, and to add I think TMS is the best place to have this discussion because it isn't "aligned" (at least as far as I know) with the two companies).

*shrug*

So this is what the MUD community is like?

Well fine, a few opinions of my own. (Since I know they're so valued anyway)

I've avoided Wolfpaw for hosting due to (what I felt) very high costs for very little in return. Admittedly, I might be wrong. Given that I was a MudMagic customer (and still am for web hosting), I have no complaints on how competent of a host they are. I never waited long when I was in need of help, and also admittedly, most times I needed help cleaning up after my own stupidity.

In short, if you're attacking a hosting company, or if we'd like to get back to the whole 'war' between two companies, MudMagic.com is very fair price-wise and *very* helpful and respectful to their customers. Those who say that they're doing an injustice to their customers should perhaps become one before making such statements? I'd prefer this rather than you putting words in my mouth, as well as other loyal customers of a company that has done no wrong to them.

Now this war is very counter productive, but it brings into light something sickening about this community. So just how badly can one person get burned for expressing his own views to the wrong people? If I think, say (as an example) that Wolfpaw sucks. Now, will this opinion burn me from ever being welcome on TMC's list? If so, that'd also burn me from being listed in zMUD's MUD list too. This is quite backwards, is it not? The country I live in allows freedom of expression, and this community gives the impression that it's not valid here.

Now there's been some obvious ego-stroking in this thread. No offense, KaVir, but you can't help but to speak up when you see a chance. Nothing wrong with this, but if we cut out the 'back-and-forth', the thread becomes *much* smaller, and a lot more on the point.

The_logos - The question is valid. If you had to contact Kyndig personally, then why did you decide to post? Surely the advertising this is generating for you (since your signature has your MUDs' links in it) is decent enough. In all fairness, given that you're one of the few MUD admins here who make money off of their game, that maybe you'd share the wealth? Probably not. Well do enjoy the free advertising.

Kyndig (should you read this) if any of what has been said by Wolfpaw is true, I would highly recommend you settle it. This also goes for Wolfpaw. You both earn income from the very community you're both working to destroy by petty childish behavior.

Samson was right. This has gone on too much, but I couldn't resist my own two-cents from being added. What's more sad is I'm curious how many new-comers to the community will eventually wind up on threads like this, and wonder if it's worth joining into a pack of rabid, wild dogs? That's how it seems.

-- Xorith

Xorith wrote:

If I recall correctly, Logos said his email was blocked by Mudmagic.com's spam filter which he cannot directly email to kydnig himself. just a thought to clear up. Hope i am not that mistake. ^_^


Regards,
Valaria

First hand experience is such a time-consuming way to make decisions that a gargantuan amount of human effort is spent delegating these decisions away. Nevertheless, supposing that "MudMagic.com is very fair price-wise and *very* helpful and respectful to their customers" does not justify the act of blocking another network. It may to you, but you're obviously not the only one with an opinion on what's important here.

He answered this question in his reply to my post:
As much as I enjoy sticking it to The Man, I don't think that advertising was a motive here.

Ok, I think the entire point has been missed here.

1. It's irrelavent if the_logos only chooses to place posts of a flaming nature on this board.
2. It's irrelavent if there are those here who do not like the_logos.
3. Our opinions and likes/dislikes concerning the_logos is irrelavent.

The only objection I have seen that *might* be relevant, is the board the post was placed on.  

Getting to the point of my post...I am not the first one in favor of "mud slinging", or dragging anyone's name through the dirt.  And I can not prove that any of these claims are true.  But *IF* they are, I think it's very relevant to the Mu*ing community.  If two Mu*hosts are having a "war" of sorts, this is very good information to provide the community.  I don't have any personal agendas or grudges against the two parties involved.  I personally host my mud with one of the newbies of the Mu*hosting community (and have been very satisfied).  I don't care to see either of them flamed, or to see either of them cleared.  But when someone posts something of this nature...let's consider it, discuss it...whatever.  But why must you just begin attacking whoever has posted it?  Just an observation.

Wrong.

Kyndig/MudMagic uses these forums to generate business.

If he has engaged in extremely unethical or illegal business practices, the people who provide him the source of free advertising deserve an explanation.

Furthermore, if the allegations are true, his actions harm the ENTIRE MUD COMMUNITY by creating an exceptionally hostile environment between major hosting companies. That is bad for the entire market.

That is why the entire community is owed an explanation.

Dear gods, man. The Internet is one of the largest sources for free speech. Look around, take a good hard look at the results on Google the next time you do a search. The Internet is the one place where people can come and share their opinions behind the protective facade of being anonymous. Your statement carries only an assumption of what most websites are like.

I'm not one to play devil's advocate, but seeing as I never felt this massive block, I can't very well use it as a basis for completely flaming a MUD Host. I have my own issues with MUD hosts these days. Given that I've had a host hose their entire hard drive while NOT making the CD backups I was paying for, well that takes the cake. This is nothing compared to losing a year's worth of building and coding. I'd have had a backup if I got what I paid for, and if my home machine wasn't *also* down. As far as inter-network wars, it only hurts them both. For Dale to post evidence of how childish both he and Kyndig can act, it serves neither any good. If I need a host now, I'm more than likely going to go to Arthmoor - a hosting company that hasn't displayed prime examples of childish behavior.

My point in all this, that seems to have been missed by the natural need for people to throw attacks, is that both companies are at fault for their own childish behaviors. It shouldn't have gone public because It shouldn't even have gone this far. For the most part, we're adults here. Why are we acting like this? This damned thread is a prime example of just how backwards the entire community is.

Good gods people.

-- Xorith

Melodrama aside, I don't see how wanting to know the full story is backwards.

This isn't a flame thread; most people here are posting in a rather civil manner. I don't see anything along the lines of "OMG Kyndig Sucks!!1".

As far as I am concerned the customers (Wolfpaw and Kyndig) are the ones stuck in the middle of this. That is wrong, and I don't see why bringing up how wrong it is makes this thread a Flame at Kyndig.

I appreciate that Dale gave an explanation about the story. Some people argue that it should have never been opened to the public but let's get real for a second:

Every Wolfpaw customer got 4 emails from Kyndig stating that they could not connect to their game and the game would be removed from the system. When Kyndig shut down all Wolfpaw accounts it BECAME PUBLIC.
So, you have all these people asking Wolfpaw "Hey man, what's up? Why can't Kyndig talk to my game? Some crazy firewall issue or what?"

Wolfpaw released a statement about the situation, this is what a good company is SUPPOSED TO DO. What else would you have them do?

Hindsight would dictate that the easiest answer to this problem is "Never have gotten into this in the first place" That's not an answer and is completely meaningless at this point.

The situation did happen and there is no time machine, Kyndig did ban all Wolfpaw accounts from his game listing. Now what would you do if you ran Wolfpaw and you have your customers asking you what's going on?

I don't see how saying this makes me out to be flaming Kyndig. I'm just telling what actually happened. I'm not trying to convince people not to go to Kyndig, I just want an answer as to why my game was taken off their list. I have nothing bad to say about Kyndig's pricing, customer service, or uptime because I don't know anything about them!

I want to know if the story is true, and if it is I think all Wolfpaw & Kyndig customers, and the Comunity, deserve an apology.

My apologies for posting again, since certain members of TMS seem offended anytime I do post, but I wanted to simply say that Kyndig resolved the issue with the particular server of his (indecent.mudmagic.com) in a polite and expedient manner, and apologized for any trouble caused.

Funny how certain forum members got all riled up at my post when Kyndig, to whom it was directed, just fixed the problem.

--matt

I'm taking a stab in the dark here, but somewhow I think what riled people up was title used for the topic. "Mudmagic: get it together., Stop the childish crap."

I can see how people might view that as a flame, but it doesn't matter now because it's all sorted out, isn't it?