On October 18 2018 22:35 EsportsJohn wrote: Nothing presumptuous about hiring volunteers. The TL we know today wouldn't exist without volunteers. Hell, even half the work that's done on this website (liquipedia, info from Korea, tournament organization, etc) is done for free right now. And it's not like Victor or Steve are heading a big coverage section and just exploiting people...the people in charge of these writing sections are the volunteers doing this out of a labor of love.
I don't have a bottom line, but even at a minimum amount of money per article paying over 60 writers across all sections of the site, TL.net's budget is going to be significantly thinned, and that's not including the full-time graphics artists, programmer(s), and heads of each section. Or Liquipedia. Or the website they bought earlier this year (Master League). And that's just the community site; we're not even talking about salary for the players, org infrastructure (payroll, managers, coaches, the TL chef, etc), travel costs, overhead, or maintenance.
The sort of narrative that TL exploits volunteers is an old and incredibly uninformed opinion, and honestly, I'm getting tired of seeing it every time one of these gets posted.
As someone who poured tens of thousands of hours into BW back in the 2000s co-running WGTour on a volunteer basis before eSports blew up, this is such a bullshit response, particularly in light of the news that TL's parent company raised $26 million this year in funding. It's 2018, not 2008 - the industry has changed.
That's nice and all, but if you have no idea about the current financial state of the TL community site aside from a link, please don't make such random assumptions.
That's nice and all, but I didn't make any assumptions. That link was to provide context to the situation at hand. Not to mention, "Forbes recently valued the organization at $200 million--the third highest among esports teams" yet y'all can't afford to pay your own writers/artists on a community site that was essential in TL's development and rise as an organization. Garrl had it right and temp banning Gecko does nothing to support your argument.
On top of that, you have the audacity to state that we aren't paying people when it's clearly stated in the OP that compensation is possible, and as John and myself explained several posts above, is dependent upon being staffed. Aka, show your competence at your craft, and you'll get something and other opportunities too. So please, do me a favour and don't jump into a conversation without having the correct information like that other fellow from earlier.
I am not saying that or knowing if people are exploited for their work here on TL.
However "compensation is possible" is the 101 of exploiting people, especially in the creative department where money is normally scarce. Directly followed by "prove yourself first". That is not a job I would take in any industry if I was not really desperate. You do not start working without compensation in any normal job.
I have no illusions about the money that is floating around in BW - it probably is mostly non-existent.
However, the constant recruitment of volunteers (not only in the BW section!) for me is the most irritating thing about TL since it has become a for profit company. I wholeheartedly despise it.
I think the message they are sending is that if there are no volunteers, there will be no BW section or at least no BW content. So it's either volunteers or nothing.
nothing will go away, the reason we're asking for help is that we want to be able to do more, even if by the end of this nothing comes out of it we will continue in our current scale of operations.
I'll carry this section on my own if I have to, but please lets not have it come to that.
On October 18 2018 22:35 EsportsJohn wrote: Nothing presumptuous about hiring volunteers. The TL we know today wouldn't exist without volunteers. Hell, even half the work that's done on this website (liquipedia, info from Korea, tournament organization, etc) is done for free right now. And it's not like Victor or Steve are heading a big coverage section and just exploiting people...the people in charge of these writing sections are the volunteers doing this out of a labor of love.
I don't have a bottom line, but even at a minimum amount of money per article paying over 60 writers across all sections of the site, TL.net's budget is going to be significantly thinned, and that's not including the full-time graphics artists, programmer(s), and heads of each section. Or Liquipedia. Or the website they bought earlier this year (Master League). And that's just the community site; we're not even talking about salary for the players, org infrastructure (payroll, managers, coaches, the TL chef, etc), travel costs, overhead, or maintenance.
The sort of narrative that TL exploits volunteers is an old and incredibly uninformed opinion, and honestly, I'm getting tired of seeing it every time one of these gets posted.
As someone who poured tens of thousands of hours into BW back in the 2000s co-running WGTour on a volunteer basis before eSports blew up, this is such a bullshit response, particularly in light of the news that TL's parent company raised $26 million this year in funding. It's 2018, not 2008 - the industry has changed.
That's nice and all, but if you have no idea about the current financial state of the TL community site aside from a link, please don't make such random assumptions.
That's nice and all, but I didn't make any assumptions. That link was to provide context to the situation at hand. Not to mention, "Forbes recently valued the organization at $200 million--the third highest among esports teams" yet y'all can't afford to pay your own writers/artists on a community site that was essential in TL's development and rise as an organization. Garrl had it right and temp banning Gecko does nothing to support your argument.
On top of that, you have the audacity to state that we aren't paying people when it's clearly stated in the OP that compensation is possible, and as John and myself explained several posts above, is dependent upon being staffed. Aka, show your competence at your craft, and you'll get something and other opportunities too. So please, do me a favour and don't jump into a conversation without having the correct information like that other fellow from earlier.
I am not saying that or knowing if people are exploited for their work here on TL.
However "compensation is possible" is the 101 of exploiting people, especially in the creative department where money is normally scarce. Directly followed by "prove yourself first". That is not a job I would take in any industry if I was not really desperate. You do not start working without compensation in any normal job.
I have no illusions about the money that is floating around in BW - it probably is mostly non-existent.
However, the constant recruitment of volunteers (not only in the BW section!) for me is the most irritating thing about TL since it has become a for profit company. I wholeheartedly despise it.
I think the message they are sending is that if there are no volunteers, there will be no BW section or at least no BW content. So it's either volunteers or nothing.
nothing will go away, the reason we're asking for help is that we want to be able to do more, even if by the end of this nothing comes out of it we will continue in our current scale of operations.
I'll carry this section on my own if I have to, but please lets not have it come to that.
I didn't mean no volunteers out of this draft, I meant no volunteers period, but yea. Rawr fighting!
On October 18 2018 22:35 EsportsJohn wrote: Nothing presumptuous about hiring volunteers. The TL we know today wouldn't exist without volunteers. Hell, even half the work that's done on this website (liquipedia, info from Korea, tournament organization, etc) is done for free right now. And it's not like Victor or Steve are heading a big coverage section and just exploiting people...the people in charge of these writing sections are the volunteers doing this out of a labor of love.
I don't have a bottom line, but even at a minimum amount of money per article paying over 60 writers across all sections of the site, TL.net's budget is going to be significantly thinned, and that's not including the full-time graphics artists, programmer(s), and heads of each section. Or Liquipedia. Or the website they bought earlier this year (Master League). And that's just the community site; we're not even talking about salary for the players, org infrastructure (payroll, managers, coaches, the TL chef, etc), travel costs, overhead, or maintenance.
The sort of narrative that TL exploits volunteers is an old and incredibly uninformed opinion, and honestly, I'm getting tired of seeing it every time one of these gets posted.
As someone who poured tens of thousands of hours into BW back in the 2000s co-running WGTour on a volunteer basis before eSports blew up, this is such a bullshit response, particularly in light of the news that TL's parent company raised $26 million this year in funding. It's 2018, not 2008 - the industry has changed.
That's nice and all, but if you have no idea about the current financial state of the TL community site aside from a link, please don't make such random assumptions.
That's nice and all, but I didn't make any assumptions. That link was to provide context to the situation at hand. Not to mention, "Forbes recently valued the organization at $200 million--the third highest among esports teams" yet y'all can't afford to pay your own writers/artists on a community site that was essential in TL's development and rise as an organization. Garrl had it right and temp banning Gecko does nothing to support your argument.
Yes, you are making a big assumption here with that link. Anyone who carefully reads this post of yours should come to the realization that the community site and the proteam are two separate entities, and no, the community site does not have $200 million to spare, nor did it raise $26 million for the company this year. I mean, seriously, are you reading what you write?
On top of that, you have the audacity to state that we aren't paying people when it's clearly stated in the OP that compensation is possible, and as John and myself explained several posts above, is dependent upon being staffed. Aka, show your competence at your craft, and you'll get something and other opportunities too. So please, do me a favour and don't jump into a conversation without having the correct information like that other fellow from earlier.
As for the ban, KBB pulled it on his own, because you know, he is the guy who has run the moderation team, and kept the site damn clean for 5+ years so I'd hope he knows what he's doing. But seeing as you want more details, sure, the post was terrible because we ban for image memes on here. It's a rule that been around for a long time, and I'm pretty sure that Gecko is aware of it. In other words, no, this doesn't work against my argument.
I don't mean to interject but then the question is why does an organization with such funds not devote some of it to the BW community/forums? I'm well aware that you probably can't answer this question in detail, but I think that this is underlying frustration for some of the users who have responded here (not me, for the record - I can empathize, though).
I mean, Chillindude has a sponsorship from TL, so like...
Business 101, budget is allocated as investment on return. While TL.net provides significant value as a community site, it runs more or less on a deficit, whereas the pro team is where all the money is made. In any case, a very large majority of the money SHOULD be allocated to the players and allowing the pro team to continue functioning. So TL.net's budget is very low compared to the pro team. It can seem like TL has unlimited money to throw at things, but as a functioning business, you can't just throw tons of money at stuff without a means of getting a return on your investment.
Full transparency, I've made sure that the writers in the Heroes section earn at least $35/article (about $0.05/word), which is an industry minimum. Every writer still goes through a trial period of 3 articles to ensure that we're getting people who are dedicated to working with us and improving. That said, $35/article is still way too low to be considered anything but a volunteer job. We're intentionally trying not to misrepresent these roles as something you can make a living off of.
EDIT: That's about as far as I should dig into TL.net's financials. I will just say that from my experience, TL.net has been unbelievably accommodating. As a part time job being involved in the esports community, this group is the best.
On October 18 2018 22:35 EsportsJohn wrote: Nothing presumptuous about hiring volunteers. The TL we know today wouldn't exist without volunteers. Hell, even half the work that's done on this website (liquipedia, info from Korea, tournament organization, etc) is done for free right now. And it's not like Victor or Steve are heading a big coverage section and just exploiting people...the people in charge of these writing sections are the volunteers doing this out of a labor of love.
I don't have a bottom line, but even at a minimum amount of money per article paying over 60 writers across all sections of the site, TL.net's budget is going to be significantly thinned, and that's not including the full-time graphics artists, programmer(s), and heads of each section. Or Liquipedia. Or the website they bought earlier this year (Master League). And that's just the community site; we're not even talking about salary for the players, org infrastructure (payroll, managers, coaches, the TL chef, etc), travel costs, overhead, or maintenance.
The sort of narrative that TL exploits volunteers is an old and incredibly uninformed opinion, and honestly, I'm getting tired of seeing it every time one of these gets posted.
As someone who poured tens of thousands of hours into BW back in the 2000s co-running WGTour on a volunteer basis before eSports blew up, this is such a bullshit response, particularly in light of the news that TL's parent company raised $26 million this year in funding. It's 2018, not 2008 - the industry has changed.
That's nice and all, but if you have no idea about the current financial state of the TL community site aside from a link, please don't make such random assumptions.
That's nice and all, but I didn't make any assumptions. That link was to provide context to the situation at hand. Not to mention, "Forbes recently valued the organization at $200 million--the third highest among esports teams" yet y'all can't afford to pay your own writers/artists on a community site that was essential in TL's development and rise as an organization. Garrl had it right and temp banning Gecko does nothing to support your argument.
On top of that, you have the audacity to state that we aren't paying people when it's clearly stated in the OP that compensation is possible, and as John and myself explained several posts above, is dependent upon being staffed. Aka, show your competence at your craft, and you'll get something and other opportunities too. So please, do me a favour and don't jump into a conversation without having the correct information like that other fellow from earlier.
I am not saying that or knowing if people are exploited for their work here on TL.
However "compensation is possible" is the 101 of exploiting people, especially in the creative department where money is normally scarce. Directly followed by "prove yourself first". That is not a job I would take in any industry if I was not really desperate. You do not start working without compensation in any normal job.
I have no illusions about the money that is floating around in BW - it probably is mostly non-existent.
However, the constant recruitment of volunteers (not only in the BW section!) for me is the most irritating thing about TL since it has become a for profit company. I wholeheartedly despise it.
I think the message they are sending is that if there are no volunteers, there will be no BW section or at least no BW content. So it's either volunteers or nothing.
nothing will go away, the reason we're asking for help is that we want to be able to do more, even if by the end of this nothing comes out of it we will continue in our current scale of operations.
I'll carry this section on my own if I have to, but please lets not have it come to that.
I didn't mean no volunteers out of this draft, I meant no volunteers period, but yea. Rawr fighting!
I'd really like to not think about a situation like that...
@Jealous @Malinor I mean, John did a great job of explaining it, but let's take a real life scenario for instance. At some places, you have to do unpaid training for the job to measure your proficiency. Only after you've done this well do they provide a salary or wage, and give you shifts. It's much like was mentioned, the purpose of "compensation is possible" is to state that there is a chance to make something, but you won't be able to live off this either.
On October 18 2018 22:35 EsportsJohn wrote: Nothing presumptuous about hiring volunteers. The TL we know today wouldn't exist without volunteers. Hell, even half the work that's done on this website (liquipedia, info from Korea, tournament organization, etc) is done for free right now. And it's not like Victor or Steve are heading a big coverage section and just exploiting people...the people in charge of these writing sections are the volunteers doing this out of a labor of love.
I don't have a bottom line, but even at a minimum amount of money per article paying over 60 writers across all sections of the site, TL.net's budget is going to be significantly thinned, and that's not including the full-time graphics artists, programmer(s), and heads of each section. Or Liquipedia. Or the website they bought earlier this year (Master League). And that's just the community site; we're not even talking about salary for the players, org infrastructure (payroll, managers, coaches, the TL chef, etc), travel costs, overhead, or maintenance.
The sort of narrative that TL exploits volunteers is an old and incredibly uninformed opinion, and honestly, I'm getting tired of seeing it every time one of these gets posted.
As someone who poured tens of thousands of hours into BW back in the 2000s co-running WGTour on a volunteer basis before eSports blew up, this is such a bullshit response, particularly in light of the news that TL's parent company raised $26 million this year in funding. It's 2018, not 2008 - the industry has changed.
That's nice and all, but if you have no idea about the current financial state of the TL community site aside from a link, please don't make such random assumptions.
That's nice and all, but I didn't make any assumptions. That link was to provide context to the situation at hand. Not to mention, "Forbes recently valued the organization at $200 million--the third highest among esports teams" yet y'all can't afford to pay your own writers/artists on a community site that was essential in TL's development and rise as an organization. Garrl had it right and temp banning Gecko does nothing to support your argument.
I AM IMMORTAL
It was meant as depiction how silly this debate is Either contribute cause u like it Or do something better If u cant, stop crying
Imagine equating the entire teamliquid organization and their success/profits with the tl.net side which hardly does anything for the TL organization as a whole. lol.
On October 27 2018 05:06 Geo.Rion wrote: edit:wrong thread, sorry
Actually, you couldn't be more spot on with anything you said. This is a huge pile 'o shit You think you earn some money for the gibberish you spew on the internet? Really? Have a go and join what we call "des tätowierte hendl" in germany. Try it. Go on. I dare ya.
I'm literally the first one to shout come out ye black an tans and fight me like a man!.
So, here I am. Tell me what you did, you focking potato. Tell me how you're better than the news coverage. Dance, dance you shite. Dance the potato Mr. DKnight, dance it.
Yea, everyone should respect their own abilities and art, but let's leave it to the applicants to decide, shall we? I'm considering sending an application for a writer, worst case scenario - I don't get it. Mind you, I'm 30 and I have a serious full-time job.
Doing stuff like that, "exposing" the exploitative nature of TL so people won't apply, is simply not proper. The site makes openings for such positions, they set the rules, everyone is free to choose if they apply or not. Then they can personally negotiate the conditions, and are free to accept or reject. Simple as it is. What TL do with their own budget is their own prerogative. What we do about the openings is our prerogative.
EPT
