I think they were given good severance packages if I’m not mistaken. But it does suck to lose your livelihood and then have your position posted back up for job offers when you were doing a good job.
I feel bad for that hearthstone woman that lost her job and had her role instantly put up for grabs from someone less qualified.
On the official forums? Yes. Only one. Long ago. Others have vented on personal media, but I think that was the only on-the-job example I can think of.
Despite a lot of abuse, they stay very professional here. Of course, I still consider some memes, a sense of humor, and sarcasm/snark to be within modern day communications norms for social media. See Wendy’s Twitter.
I find the Diablo forums way more chill and less personal attacks than say the WoW forums. You have a few trolls on here that try to rile people up. Even had one post in this thread but everyone knows who they are so everyone just ignores them, lol.
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Except your cooking recipes!
Ok, here is one I have not talked about. Pumpkin is known for being in sweet stuff with lots of cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, etc. That is overdone. How about a spicy and filling version even Diablo might like?
There are other options! Pumpkin is very very healthy from a nutritional and fiber standpoint and the savory aspects are neglected. I have a soup that is easy to make that highlights the pumpkin (or other related fall squash). The recipe came from someone who was stationed in a remote island diplomatic post. The person who shared was a farmer who made the most of what they had, along with cultural traditions. For them, the meat changed based on what was available. I use Andouille.
Spicy! Hearty! Tasty! Soup! (not your modern pumpkin dish)
-Double sized plain pumpkin can
-4 Andouille links*
-1 very large Vidalia onion, diced or ribbons
-1 large red pepper, diced
-3 small home grown chili peppers with seeds diced (heat) (or use what you want for heat)
-Garlic (about 3 large cloves large chopped)
-Roughly 2 cups of chicken stock
-Cumin (tbsp?)
-Hungarian or sweet paprika (tbsp?
-Black pepper
-Olive oil (sometimes)
Salt as needed
In a 4-6qt pot or Dutch oven - Cut sausage into bite sized pieces and brown on stove top – remove and set aside. If sausage did not release enough fat, add olive oil. Add onions and lightly caramelize them. Add diced red pepper, fresh hot peppers, and garlic - sauté. Combine vegetables, sausage, pumpkin, stock, and spices. Allow to simmer for about 45 minutes with occasional stirring. Add water as needed to thin, or if too thin just simmer longer to cook off liquid. Sausage and many stocks have salt, so just add salt as needed towards the end. Serve with crusty warm bread.
*If you can’t get Andouille (spicy creole sausage from the Southern US), you can use some other sort of spicy sausage but nothing with flavors that clash with the basics in the recipe. Something curry related might work, or chorizo.
Understandable. I’m not even mad that certain community managers talked badly about the community. They were justified probably, as a manager, we all do it.
The community can 100% ignorant jerks…
But, they got caught doing it and they use every excuse in the book… “muh privacy.” “Toxic fans!” And “they’re abusing a minority”.
I fire peole all the time. You don’t see polygon writing articales about how I fired a latino kid two weeks ago.
They got caught, they damaged the reputation of blizzard and damaged the relationship with community.
I do not care if they were justified, they probably were. But that doesn’t matter. The damaged is done and they should’ve been removed.
It has nothing to do with their gender, race, or sexuality. (Looking at you guild wars 2 story writer.)
You insult your fans, you’re done.
It often feels like blizzard needs community managers for their community managers.
Heh.
On this we agree. What you say on your PERSONAL media, is yours. It is not unreasonable for people to vent. As long as the contract they have with the company does not prohibit it.
Bad customers are bad…and people should not be expected to be punching bags for abuse.
I am sure, as a good managers, you also “fire” customers who abuse your staff.
The person in question, if it is who I think it is, is not a minority.
Why would they? Again, the person in question is not a minority.
No, he caused his OWN rep to be in question based on his PERSONAL media. If it had been on a Blizzard platform, or approved by Blizzard, you would be right. It was not.
We are getting into free speech here. Can an employee vent on their personal account about how they dislike being the target of abuse? Where do they vent? Where are the lines?
The abuse the online community aims at figures is horrible. I have spent a hell of a lot of time defending Nevalistis. She does not make the corporate decisions, yet people came here wanting her physically harmed, fired, etc. Not ok.
I honestly support every employee from any industry venting on their PERSONAL accounts as long as they leave names and such out of it.
EDIT - part of it gets to how staff should be treated. The idea that if you work for a company you are a non-human punching bag is wrong. Nobody signs up to be a target for the worst of the worst that we have now. They days of a cranky bill payer wanting an explanation of the fine details are over. People go way beyond average with the abuse.
It’s called jettisoning more expensive employees for the el cheapo interns and newbies. It’s one of the practices even California’s screwed up law system hasn’t been able to abolish yet. 
Meh. They do that because they’re so far out of touch with their customer base that it’s the only way to deflect from their not so great food (or service). Also, they’re still the only major chain that still doesn’t have a fair trade setup (they get their tomatoes from overworked and underpaid farmers).
I can’t comment on Wendy’s as a business or their policies. I am super sensitive to smells and the few times I was in there as a kid (bus stop for sports events), it smelled like vomit to me.
I only know from a social media perspective, the account is popular and considered funny.
If they’re funny, I’m good looking.
Also, my grandpa can’t stand the smell of chicken. My mom used to work for Pioneer before KFC bought them out 35 years ago and when he went to pick her up the smell made him gag. He has hated chicken ever since with the exception being when he’s actually in the mood for it, and only if it’s KFC’s extra crispy or grilled skinless chicken. Anything else makes him barf. 
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I really, really would like for them to make it so that D3’s earned items can be used in D4. We spent a ton of time farming some of these with some players going years and still not getting them. It would really go a long way toward showing that they appreciate our patronage. Sure, my happy cloud portrait is whimsical and weird, but so am I. I like it. I want to keep it with me.
love to see a dual between two people about same rank in the same rift … or something like that .
I know they will never let me farm some people who just wanna play…
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I can answer this
The line is when you get caught doing it. I do not care about your privacy, your act damaged my business.
Don’t act like that doesn’t bleed into Blizzard’s problem. This doesn’t exist in a vacuum.
The way that was handled is a big reason why I won’t give blizzard my money anymore.
Agreed, but sadly that’s apart of the job of a manager. If you can’t handle it. Go find another job and let someone who can.
I don’t agree. People having a complaint back in the day was normal. They were civil, if upset. Because everyone knew everyone else in town, you could not be a total jerk without consequence.
Modern means threats to have someone fired, raped, killed, etc. NOT ok. No, people should not be expected to put up with that! The anonymous nature of the internet lets the worst of the worst out.
Nobody should think that is ok, nor expect people to put up with it.
Fine, tell me my pasta sucks and you want a refund. I an handle that. Be pissed you did not get the table you wanted by the window. Ok.
Tell me I deserve horrible physical punishment to be fired, and add on personal insults… no. Nobody deserves that. NOBODY should be a punching bag for abuse. The idea customer facing people should accept ALL abuse without complaint is outright wrong.
No customer is worth allowing them to abuse staff like that. Not the extreme level I am talking about.
To end…firing the a* customers is ok. You don’t have to allow it. You can even call the cops on them.
I do not care. That’s the thing. I do not care. I run a company to make money, not to argue what’s right and what’s wrong.
People in the gaming industry act like they’re special, as if the rest of us don’t deal with this crap.
This is only happening more often, because “journalist” keep making a big deal out of it. Again. Boo woo. I also get death threats. This isn’t unique. Mute/block them and move on.
Seriously. If you can’t figure out nasty people exists online and if you can’t figure out how to use the block/mute functions that exists on every platform.
You’re already failing at the fundamental level of being a community manager.
EDIT: Okay, I realized I came off too harsh there, so let’s bring this back to having a discussion.
I’m not trying to downplay, belittle, or be insensitive. I am completely aware that there are some crazy people out there that will do horrible things in real life. Such as publishing someone’s private information.
I’m sure the community managers are great people, but they made a mistake and that’s okay. I don’t expect people to be a stone wall 24/7 and I don’t expect them to always be on their A game when it comes to dealing with online harassment.
But - it is part of their job, it’s sucks. Nobody is going to disagree that death threats and such are bad things. But it is going to happen and no matter how much we discuss whether it’s right or wrong, it’s not going to change.
Maybe they should give their community managers are break, move them onto other projects, and once the time comes move them back onto being a community manager. Cycle them out once and awhile.
I care about my employees a lot, and I want to make sure they stay happy, but I am not their friend, I’m their boss.
There are productive ways of handling with online trolls, and I don’t think making yourself out to be a victim of which everyone in the world deals with is productive.
I get death threats all the time online playing CoD and other things. I don’t take them seriously, I just mute/block them.
If you notice a trend of harassment comments, just turn off twitter and go do something else and come back when things settle down. But openly complaining about it, is only going to feed the fire and make it worse.
There’s a time and a place for these conversations, and I think companies need to grow a back bone and tell people to knock it off. But even this is going to backfire even harder.
There are just better and more productive ways of handling it outside of playing the victim card.
The majority of the people are in agreement, it’s bad and it shouldn’t exist. But it does exist and it’s not going to go away no matter how many times we have these discussions about right or wrong.
Edit 2:
TL;DR: We need to be more productive than just virtual signaling about how bad something is in which the majority of people want it to stop.
All those people have already left and won’t be missed at D4 launch so no biggie
And how many didn’t buy RoS because those at D3V were there purely to make money and had no interest in the game in the first place and because you could no longer make money from botting a game there was no point in getting RoS because there was no money to be made
So no one is playing D3 in China, guess they can just close that market because absolutely no one plays it
Must also mean that no one plays PoE either because that’s free too with MTX but no one is buying anything
And you are freedom of choice of buying a game or not, all you are doing is saying it has to be my way or the highway and everyone has to comply to what you want and you are taking the freedom of choice away from everyone else, Just to get your own way
And you are totally underestimating what shady things people will do
Any normal rational human takes the path of least resistance and if they can bot while at work and sort out the goods to sell when they get home, they are in a win win situation, they got 10 hours of playtime, xp and equipment to sell and not even have to play the game themselves
And according to people here D2 is a bot fest and that’s supposed to be a great game so why bot?. according to you people don’t do that
You’re not MissCheetah so you don’t know jack
Nothing compares to Andouille. Stuff is delicious.
As a manager you may realize that this seems to go on forever in any capacity. Something, something, absolute power.