das

I can't tell if you are slamming Jagexs ethics or ours, but just incase people are still on the "Admins sold out train," here's a long speech that should settle any doubts about our actions Ethics conceptually are a grey area that differ from person to person, philosophically do ethics not questions our morality on right and wrong which varries based on your culture? religion? upbringing? Anything deemed illegal, legal, sinful, traditional or any action we take as a human as an unethical manner depending on how it's seen by an individual. As admins, our moral compass is to provide the best content and conditions to our users and thats what we did. now I don't see how that can be considered unethical. As for Jagex's ethics, I really don't care what drove them to make the rankings, we got our deal, it was quite favorable and we gave up so little for it. We gave up NOTHING. Thus whatever moral compass they use, doesn't really affect us as we are not bound to them should they make insane demands about our website, nor we will be. Our users are and always will be why we make any changes around here and I do believe the majority of the users on this thread do not see it as "Selling out" so I doubt they question our ethics. Although it seems with your hammering of this point you are trying to make people doubt our ethical decision making perhaps. I don't see whats do difficult about business to grasp. Clear cut business deal. End of story. There is no conspiracy of Jagex forging one ring to rule them all, nor anything of the such. As twisted and nonsensical as the absurd request was to remove gaming adverts may appear - and i'll admit, I find it absurd - I'm also convinced with the information I know that no big evil conspiracy are about. The administration team we have cares about this site alot and always puts our users, nor ourselves ahead in making decisions. Why? we were all users once, still are - we all had a vision of what this site could be, and I believe that we can still get better, jagex rank of platinum be damned. we all believe that we can improve - and we have worked hard to make the right choices to do so. Some of us were more traditional users, some of us were idealistic idiots who went on damned crusades agaisnt perceived injustice - but we always and I do mean always make choices that reflect not for changes we want, but for changes we think our users can benefit from.. There is nothing unethical about that is there?

' We agree on this. Has hell frozen over? :P

Tell me where I or for the matter anyone but you and a smattering of others if that ever said we ever sold out. It seems like you believe doing business with anyone is selling out and while i respect that simple look at the world, we believe in making ourselves better when the opportunity presents itself, Call us sell outs all day long, we will call ourselves buisnessmen and continue to make deals that we feel makes tip.it better. This was well researched and considered and we are firm in our standing, I' admire your simple idealistic view that makes everything so cut and dry but when it boils down to it, we have decisions to make and we are quite confident in this one. Gold or Platinum, the main choice for us was to make sure people could say tif in game. We can - anything else is gravy, and to change the game rules to change our advertisements that affect nothing on our end. Fair trade so Jagex can feel secure that there players are so stupid that they will never heard of another game because the fansite they visit doesn't have advertisements for one. Whatever reasons they have to promote or nurture the community means nothing to me because at the end of the day we sacrificed nothing to gain something. it's quite easy to point out the sell out finger when you have no opportunity to consider or even make a deal. I enjoy business - it's fun - You should try it some time ;) ~Das

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqXmaFPn604 Got to admit, i'm kinda happy to see a 20 page thread, I do think part of the problem is at this point people like Qeltar are bashing jagex's ethical or moral decision and not the tip.it administration descsion to go along with the request..

Not this week, but in the near future there might be :) Just no clan column please. :thumbup: Whats wrong with clans exactly? I thought of writing one, this post has pretty much killed that idea.

are you guys still missing that without doing ANYTHING we will be platinum next month?

Again for clarification, we did not ask because they implied that, but because people like myself are more paranoid than you and qeltar and saw people freaking out as they did over control and logically knew this question would be posed.

creative content = every post, guide, times article etc

We didn't. We said we asked if it would be a problem. It wasn't. Had it have been a problem we wouldn't have done it. Thanks for the clarification. Das, sorry if I misunderstood what you were saying. It happens, glad everyone is on the same page now.

I also said that they did not require it or ask and said they did not mind it, I'm paranoid and knew users would raise these questions. So I asked them. Forgive me for asking questions before blindly agreeing to a deal going *yayyyyyyyy* I was banned from the site during that time, however i'd like to say quite a few of our articles in the past year have poked at jagex a bit. So every company who does a deal sells out? We did not lose our integrity, nor are you our moral compass. We still control our creative content, we asked to ensure it, and we could give two shits about the prestige, we wanted the perks for our users.

Nothing.

There was a time in 04 or 05 when people used to post all the time in general they got muted for saying tip.it.

it's not so much integrity as it is making a deal, you can even call it a deal with the devil if you prefer, but a deal that sacrifices nothing for us - for more perks for users. We have never ran creative content by them for approval, and i don't consider advertisements creative content The article I am referring too was a "Biased banning raises brows" which was 04? 05? and did not cite anything for fact to back up the fact that jagex biasedly banned players Bruce also had Evidence that backed his claims, it still went to court, it looked grim for a bit, and i've never seen any factual evidence presented by alot of people who bash jagex. People like to make accusations and theories, but have nothing solid to cover themselves making them on other than their own thought Perhaps, I have a penchant for waiting to prove people wrong so i'll certainly be waiting for the day you can say - I told you so - Because I can tell with you our current admin team it will NEVER happen. Numerous users asides you (generalization) have said they have doubts, theories and bad ideas I've been banned from this forum for standing up for what i believe in, on how it should be ran and other things, I've never took crap from anyone, never have, never will, and i'll resign and make it public why before becoming anyones plaything or toy. To you perhaps, To many they see it as a minor trade for more content. It's a buisness deal, as long as we are game legal to mention and get the gold/platinum level support we will uphold gaming adverts being removed - and worst case scenario if Jagex does change that, we will part ways, and still probably remove the ads, just because we have honor and class (And i'm not saying they don't,) and it's not affecting us to run them or not. If anything they will not be able to say we did not make a due diligence effort to maintain our word

It's still VERY common for buisness discussions and deals. That way they can't tell Runehq what they talked about with us or us what they spoke about with Runehq, thats probably best for all parties involved. What did we lose? It sure wasn't' revenue, a symbolic gesture of control for perks? Seems like a trade off to me. I figured someone who quoted sanford and son would get a picture representing the old tired slogan "grasping" for straws. ;) Because I feel this topic has alot of people grasping for things that are just not .....there to grasp at and cling on to and shout foul on.

The fact is i'm a player who has disagreed with the way runescape has been ran for half a decade. I'm bitter over trade limits, i'm bitter over PVP - hell i'm probably still bitter over my stats being wiped in classic due to inactivity. I've never been a jagex fanboy, I'm a player moderator and I try to use that to make a difference but with all due respect as a player, i've got more issues with them than you do, which is probably quite a few. I check my bases even if they don't need to be checked. Theres a difference in critical writing that challenges game ethics or challenges game rules than writing work that can be held up for slander and libel - and hey one of our times articles actually did get us in trouble for slander once. I'd have to see individual articles to comment on them Bruce Everiss has made everyone rather paranoid in that regard too. We went YEARS and close to a DECADE without these perks, we can go another DECADE again. We are far from the week, mindless and for lack of better word Jagex cuckolds some on this thread have made us out to be. Making fun? I don't believe i've called you fools, stupid or another insult yet, I think it's a valid view and it's your view and I am aware nothing I can type will convince you to change your mind in all likelihood. I do believe that it's misguided to say we bent over for jagex when you don't have the full information in front of you to make the choice as we did. I do believe from a buisness standpoint that I question the judgment of anyone commenting on this as experts in turn after asking about NDAS when NDAS are VERY typical for almost type of real buisness deal that i've ever seen. and thats probably going to come off as rather harsh We're not obligated to jagex in ANY contractual form to remove advertisements. it's a good faith effort to make an proactive campaign to remove them. We plan on removing them as we are alerted to them and see them. It's fairly cut and dry and I really feel at this point alot of people are just... Because.... And it's on this thread, posted by administrators already

I don't know what's most amazing about this statement: 1. That you would non-chalantly make it and apparently not think it's a big deal; 2. That you would say it in the same thread where you said Jagex wouldn't have influence over site content; 3. That 90% of the people here don't care about this, or anything else, as long as Tip.it gets its name on the marquee ("platinum"). Quite depressing. 1) It's not a big deal because A) They never wanted to impede or stop discussion for other games, we checked on it because some people like me are rather paranoid and distrusting B) We did not rush in to Jagex's arms blindly - we had quite a bit of research to do about advertising on our side, I believe we have been contemplating replacing google ads for awhile anyway C) Jagexs only concern is the advertisements - however shallow or odd it may be, they have no interest in controlling the times, our censors , our forums or anything else we do- we did check - not because we felt it was demanded of us ,but because people like *me* are *paranoid* and want things checked. 2) Advertisements are not actual content to me, sure they are on the website, but they are not creative pieces of work that we produce for our users, but banners no one cares about until they are removed it seems. We did research, it's not going to hurt our advertising, and I highly doubt anyone came here for gaming advertisements (well, maybe evony advertisements late night ;) ) 3) I think there is a point to care, I think it's over the top and a bit silly, but not unreasonable enough to get worked up over - but thats coming from my side where i obviously have more information than I can share. This oddly enough reminds me of sports card collecting. 2005/2006 people were outraged donruss lost it's ability to make MLB/NFL Cards Upper Deck - an industry Giant - is caught forging YU GI OH hologram cards - sued by Konami UD Loses it's MLB, NFL, NBA rights. Panini (the sticker company who bought out donruss) Gains NFL, NBA MLB rights. UD will probably go out of buisness Collectors who have slammed UD for years, are now enraged UD is gone and donruss is around. Doesn't make sense - sort of like this whole situation, I understand there is some pretty ambiguous ways to draw up some evil sinister conspiracies - But we checked before agreeing to remove advertisements No conspiracy exist and nothing else is required.

Bingo. Yep, we are doing *nothing* more for platinum.

Something still seems kind of fishy here...to me atleast. Theres really nothing insidious or fishy to smell really.

We wanted to make sure every option was considered, we do not rush into anything blind or overly happy. Things like this must be carefully considered as many factors are in play, I'd rather have pages and pages and pages of information and start off as gold then have 0 pages and start off at platinum blind and ignorant. As for why peter cannot say more - Business stuff usually requires both parties to sign a Non-Disclosure agreement, so there are legal reasons why we cannot talk in detail about everything. We did carefully make this decision.

Also in addition to peters post We wanted to clarify other things such as the video game forum and wow thread and other content before jumping in head first ignorantly making a mistake. Jagex wanted Tip.It to remove that from the forums?! I'm starting to think less and less of Jagex... Jesus!! No, they did not, but we did want to cover every possible base (i'm a conspiracy guy too) to make sure that everything was on the table to make the best possible call. Which is why we removed the ads. it's all we had to do, final and not a big deal. Jagex Stated they had no problem with game discussion on the boards.

Also in addition to peters post We wanted to clarify other things such as the video game forum and wow thread and other content before jumping in head first ignorantly making a mistake.

in all honesty, Yes, We trade some advertisements that do not affect our revenue for being game legal, and the occasional bit of content and interviews, we will be platinum here in a bit without changing anything else. It's a good day for our users IMO - buisness practices of jagex aside. Also for Qeltar - Upper Deck refused to sponsor recognize a major Minor League sports card site for it's "Sports card fansite of the year" (they give out nice prizes and stuff to users of that site) - The reason? Minor league cards stadium/team issues are not licensed by the NCAA or players associations. The irony? Upper deck was sued for releasing an unlicensed MLB 2010 set with no MLB license weeks prior.

Lets NOT bring politics in this. ~Das Registered Independent because I believe whoever blindly follows either party is sheep :P

Honest here - how many people complaining about advertisements being removed for games use Adblock?