@Sunny said:
Condescending, lying, generally icky behavior...
Can you provide some examples of this? As far as I'm aware if there's been any lying it was unintentional. If you think we've been condescending I feel like maybe you've missed the tone of some of the posts fired our way. I've actually been making a point of trying to keep the tone of discussion civil, but it eventually reached a point where in order to do that, the only responses to this thread I've been making have been updates. For almost a month now.
@WTFE said:
But @Sunny! Science fiction is just different from fantasy, not better!
Yes, debating the preferences of a group or community with regards to things like permanent death and automated systems is pointless. They're requirements for games that join the OR community. We've considered changes, but nobody's really given us a compelling reason to. If that niche doesn't include your game or your preferred game, that's not a qualitative judgment of that game, but an indication that said game doesn't fit the interests of the community that we're building. We're not here to get mired into some sort of MUD vs. MUSH debate, either. Multiple games in our community are MUSH, MOO, etc. and the distinction doesn't especially matter.
I haven't found any of the arguments and debates made to have been particularly compelling, and few if any of them seem to have a point besides antagonizing people in the Advertisements board. Some of what @Thenomain has offered has been interesting, and some of their criticisms have helped us to refine the way we approach promotion or the ideas that we've discussed through articles.
Most of what I've seen, though, have been personal attacks and strawmen. We're more than happy to read criticism and if people have ideas as far as our approach to promotion I think Jeshin and I would both be happy to read them. I'm not here, however, to debate MUDs vs. MUSHes or our requirements for inclusion as a community partner or some of these other things that have been coming up, though Jeshin is likely more than happy to refine our requirements as we go. Personally, I don't much care about the distinction between MUDs and MUSHes because as far as I see the distinction is generally pretty small and getting smaller by the day. Our community includes games regardless of their codebase or what they call themselves, based on the criteria we've been questioned on time and again. I'd be willing to wager that most roleplay-centric games, regardless of whether they're MUD or MUSH, qualify, so long as they include permanent death. Debating our desire to see permanent death and automated systems in our community partners is about as useful as trying to argue that JRPGs should be included on a site dedicated to fighting games.
@Thenomain said:
While I'm not opposed to standing against our group of Mushers, I don't disagree that trying to continue this conversation is a lost cause when, as you and others say, most points of contention are outright dismissed. It's like arguing with a wall.
I'm not standing against your 'group of MUSHers'. I'm asserting the validity of our criteria and preferences, while making no assertions at all about the validity of your own. If you have points of contention I'd love to hear them, but generally speaking I'm pretty sure arguing to change somebody's mind and expecting it to actually happen is a bad idea when we're talking about preferences, and that's what most of these points of contention have been. Admittedly, maybe I've missed some valid points. They're probably pretty easy to miss in the barrages of personal attacks.
@Thenomain said:
You are not entitled to your opinion.
How is OR as a community not entitled to define the criteria of games that the community includes? How are we as individuals not entitled to determine our own preferences with regards to what sort of games we enjoy playing, and what qualities those games possess? I'm certainly entitled to an opinion, and preferences, and it's going to take a lot better than a handful of people predicating their arguments on personal attacks or strawmen to convince me that I am not, in fact, entitled to my preferences.