[snipped to...Payments.. nope]
Even if it
was true that the staff had been "paid", it's no-one's business. It is not against the EA tos to pay someone for their time on a personal forum. Even non-profit, non business organisations can renumerate their staff.
Unfounded gossip just shytes me.
and call them cute names like doll or babes. i think its funny.
The only time I've had a regular call other people pet names on a game forum I moderated for years (in this case, it was "dear"), it turned out the person was a 25-27 year-old guy masquerading as a 18 year-old girl for the purposes of, er, "roleplaying" a husband/wife relationship with a 15-17 year-old boy (because it happened over the course of 2 years before we worked out what was going on), including the whole private IRL-type cybersex shebang (not at the forum, we have a private adults-only for that sort of roleplay). Needless to say, the boy was rather messed up by the whole thing (he was young & silly enough to "fall" for the bastard for real).
So, I'm always
really creeped out when someone I don't know online calls me anything pet-ish.
Oh, and here is my "Pant-tee pic"
The golf course at the town of Pant, Shropshire