Optional Realities & Project Redshift

[Thenomain]

4. Ignore them.

There's not a lot that we're saying that isn't just blah blah blah words blah blah blah. Which words said are beating the shit out of anyone? Ephemera is what it is.

To be honest (that is, not trolling the troll), the point I was trying to make to you with regards to @crayon was that when he said "ah, no, you're wrong right here" and nothing else, did I continue to rant? Did I spazz out again? Did I troll? No, I backed down and admitted my mistake, apologizing in the meantime. Sometimes I let my nerd rage get the better of me and I try to make this right when I recognize it.

It honestly (c.f, above) baffles me that the two of you are offended by the non-making-fun-of-you things that we're saying. If you're not offended, then it sure reads that way to me and, looking at what others have said it's baffling them too.

I don't have an easy solution to the feeling of being dogpiled on, except don't let it affect you. It might take a moment or three, or a week or three, to stabilize, but the idea that once you start acting like a dick means you have to keep acting like a dick, for instance, is downright ... well, you don't have to be That Guy.

If you are, that's your choice. That's the thing about forums, everything you say is you. This is why I spend about two-thirds of my life worrying about what I say, because when my nerd-rage hits, I become That Guy.

[Lithium]

@Groth said:

@Jaunt said:

We post an update, what, once a week? Once every two weeks? It's pretty non-intrusive, too. It just says, "Hey, here's what is going on at OR if you're interested."

On this particular point, I'm actually with @Jaunt. It's very easy to avoid this thread if you don't want to be in it, until today I had actually never opened this thread before because I couldn't care less and it was only until I saw the thread that @Thenomain split off to discuss MUSH philosophy that I got interested in investigating the source.

Yes this thread will show up among your unread threads however you don't have to read all your unread threads, you really don't.

My point before I got into the 'heat' of this, is that if we were actually 'interested' in what they were posting...

We'd already be there. We'd check their site. We'd be /aware/ of what was posted.

It makes every single content post here absolutely unnecessary.

It makes the thread pop up again, and for those of us with OCD, we have to see what's being said. Because we're curious at the very least. There might be something interesting we want to talk about or discuss.

Then it's just more spam about articles we would know about, if we actually cared about the site.

[Jaunt]

@Thenomain said:

To be honest (that is, not trolling the troll), the point I was trying to make to you with regards to @crayon was that when he said "ah, no, you're wrong right here" and nothing else, did I continue to rant? Did I spazz out again? Did I troll? No, I backed down and admitted my mistake, apologizing in the meantime.

You did, and I actually appreciated it. @Lithium would rather just say, "well what you showed me to educate me on my being wrong doesn't count because I was actually talking about this other thing (that's really, sorta the same thing, just with pictures)." In this case, @Lithium should take a cue from you.

@Thenomain said:

It honestly (c.f, above) baffles me that the two of you are offended by the non-making-fun-of-you things that we're saying. If you're not offended, then it sure reads that way to me and, looking at what others have said it's baffling them too.

If you quote me an example, then I might be able to explain our perception, should that matter to you. I'm actively attempting to only be aggressive in response to aggressiveness.

I don't actually take offense to the personal attacks. I think it'd be pretty silly to. Most folks here don't know me any better than I know them.

@Thenomain said:

I don't have an easy solution to the feeling of being dogpiled on, except don't let it affect you. It might take a moment or three, or a week or three, to stabilize, but the idea that once you start acting like a dick means you have to keep acting like a dick, for instance, is downright ... well, you don't have to be That Guy.

You're right. I don't. Neither does anyone else here. While your advice is sound, it's selective and you could easily give it to the other folks who are acting like That Guy in this thread.

But, sure. Let's stop acting like berserker nerds and only engage in reasonable, positive, meaningful conversation from here on out. I'll start.

Do you folks fear like our Partner/sub-forum/criteria is clear and not misleading now, on the below page of our site?

http://optionalrealities.com/partnership-criteria/

[Lithium]

@Jaunt

Partnership criteria is not the same thing as your charter.

Seriously, it's just not.

I've never brought up your 'partnership criteria' at all, I don't care how inclusive, exclusive, or whateverclusive you and your site are. People pointed out your fails, and you (OR people) responded poorly, and it snowballed.

Then you came here and throw more gasoline on the fire, on purpose, and expect things to get /better/.

That's just beyond stupid. I almost don't have the words.

Your failing to see that different people have different issues with what you, and your 'friends' or 'co-workers' are doing. We're not all just one nebulous entity. We have different things that have torqued us off.

You have chosen to not address them time and time again, and in fact to insult them, so bluntly... you're worthless to actual discussion.

[Thenomain]

@Lithium,

I am interested.

I am not there because I am afraid of my nerd-rage. I don't want to subject innocent people to this. This is not something new/manipulative; I have said this to @Jeshin in the past.

Here, any perceived harm done to the Optional Realities crew is self-inflicted and I feel a little less culpable. Home team advantage, that is. Conversation might not be what they want it to be, but it is happening.

Part of what's triggering my desire to bang my head against the wall has been repeatedly addressed in conversation here and just needs to be addressed on the site itself. This is something you've said. This is something @Jaunt's said. This is something everyone knows. Promises are there, we just now need action.

---

That said:

@Jaunt,

This board system kind of sucks for going back and finding things, so I'm going to let it go except to say that your list for the only things you can do are 'run, get hurt, or fight'. I don't think I need to prove to you that you chose, and are still choosing, 'fight'.

While your advice is sound, it's selective and you could easily give it to the other folks who are acting like That Guy in this thread.

I have, if selectively. Lith is not the first Soapbox native I told was wrong. I also am human and have similar fight-or-flight instincts (nee nerd-rage), and the time before this time where I tried reaching out to you, you swung back assuming that I was still making fun of you. A human being might sometimes feel offended by that.

I'm not the post police, either. Just like everyone else, I have to pick my battles for the greatest impact. I can always pull a mod voice, but since conversation is happening, even if it's angry yelling about how nobody is listening to anybody else, then why need it? As someone just posting, replying to people who aren't listening because they're so busy making their own points doesn't seem like a bright idea.

This being everyone, by the way.

Maybe myself included.

Carry on, everyone.

[Autumn]

@Jaunt

To echo what @Thenomain said from a slightly different perspective: why are you here?

That might sound like I'm being sarcastic, but I'm actually not. Are you here to get people to come to your site and engage with you on topics of mutual interest? Or are you here to demonstrate that you can stand up to "internet bullying?" (Okay, the scare quotes are a little bit sarcastic.)

If you're here for the latter, then go crazy! Be just as much of a jerk to people as they are to you, if not more so. It's fun. I do it sometimes myself. But if you're here for the former, the best way to demonstrate that your site has something to offer on topics of mutual interest is to engage with such points in a sincere and respectful way, and ignore everything else. Some people will keep jeering at you (although I suspect not very many), but whose side of the debate is that actually going to harm? From my perspective as a mostly disinterested observer, not yours.

[Lithium]

@Thenomain said:

@Lithium,

I am interested.

I am not there because I am afraid of my nerd-rage. I don't want to subject innocent people to this. This is not something new/manipulative; I have said this to @Jeshin in the past.

Here, any perceived harm done to the Optional Realities crew is self-inflicted and I feel a little less culpable. Home team advantage, that is. Conversation might not be what they want it to be, but it is happening.

Part of what's triggering my desire to bang my head against the wall has been repeatedly addressed in conversation here and just needs to be addressed on the site itself. This is something you've said. This is something @Jaunt's said. This is something everyone knows. Promises are there, we just now need action.

---

Ok you are interested, but if you were actually interested in their articles, you'd lurk on their site, and read their articles. You wouldn't need them to be linked to here, because you're already reading them there.

See where I'm going with this?

EDIT: Thankfully typing fast enough to make @Thenomain not double post!

[Thenomain]

@Lithium said:

Partnership criteria is not the same thing as your charter.

So let me double-post for this, because it's important. I think, @Jaunt, that this is where your own misunderstanding is strongest. What we've been calling your charter (sometimes against @Jeshin's objections) is that bit on the front page that explains to every viewer what Optional Realities is about.

I have already given my input on this, and am waiting to see what happens. I've also said it was a good thing that the Partnership Criteria was spelled out and I think it's clear enough.

But I'll agree with Lithium here: It's not clear that gaining partners /is/ your charter. If it is, it's so buried that I'd not be surprised if few people (save those interested in becoming partners) know about it.

Incidentally, this is the thrust of @WTFE's racism analogies (I mean, besides to be offensive, but hey), and the core of my assertion that none of you three have a shared understanding of what Optional Realities is for.

I hope you're figuring that out.

---

MEANWHILE, AT THE HALL OF HEROES:

@Lithium said in Optional Realities & Project Redshift:

Ok you are interested, but if you were actually interested in their articles, you'd lurk on their site, and read their articles. You wouldn't need them to be linked to here, because you're already reading them there.

See where I'm going with this?

Nope. It saves me a trip to know that Optional Realities is having a bowling night and I can completely ignore them for another week. If I see something that interests me, I can read it. It's better than an RSS feed.

[Jaunt]

@Jaunt said:

But, sure. Let's stop acting like berserker nerds and only engage in reasonable, positive, meaningful conversation from here on out. I'll start.

Do you folks fear like our Partner/sub-forum/criteria is clear and not misleading now, on the below page of our site?

http://optionalrealities.com/partnership-criteria/

@Lithium said:

you're worthless to actual discussion.

Welp, that went well.

I think that my saying, "We've made both our partnership criteria and our 'charter' more clear based on feedback from this site" is a clear sign that we've responded to criticism. You can't see the new charter yet, because it's the weekend.

I think we've shown willingness to take feedback, when it's useful. Your saying, "I'm OCD and don't like that this thread keeps popping up on my screen" isn't useful. That's really an issue with this site, because it won't let you ignore threads that you don't want to see.

But, for the sake of trying to be level with you, here's the new "charter" for our homepage slides that you'll see with images once they're complete.

Goals of charter re-write: Make it clear what community OR is focused on supporting. Clarify the criteria that we use to determine our sub-genre. Avoid language that might be seen as subversive to other communities, or could be construed as manipulative.

Slide #1 text (major change): Optional Realities is a community and design blog for text-based multiplayer online role playing games (TMORPGs) with a specific focus on character and story-driven games that include permanent character death and automated combat as core features. TMORPGs include sub-genres such as RPIs, MUDs, MOOs and MUSHes.

Slide #2 text (minor change): Optional Realities is a place where the future developers and long-standing members of our community can come together to share ideas on design, writing, and what makes each of our games most meaningful to its players. Its contributors are leaders from games that have been around for twenty years, as well as new games currently in development.

Slide Text #3 (no change): Join us in creating a better, more intelligent, more supportive community for our favorite game genre.

[Lithium]

@Thenomain said:

@Lithium said:

Partnership criteria is not the same thing as your charter.

So let me double-post for this, because it's important. I think, @Jaunt, that this is where your own misunderstanding is strongest. What we've been calling your charter (sometimes against @Jeshin's objections) is that bit on the front page that explains to every viewer what Optional Realities is about.

I have already given my input on this, and am waiting to see what happens. I've also said it was a good thing that the Partnership Criteria was spelled out and I think it's clear enough.

But I'll agree with Lithium here: It's not clear that gaining partners /is/ your charter. If it is, it's so buried that I'd not be surprised if few people (save those interested in becoming partners) know about it.

Incidentally, this is the thrust of @WTFE's racism analogies (I mean, besides to be offensive, but hey), and the core of my assertion that none of you three have a shared understanding of what Optional Realities is for.

I hope you're figuring that out.

---

MEANWHILE, AT THE HALL OF HEROES:

@Lithium said in Optional Realities & Project Redshift:

Ok you are interested, but if you were actually interested in their articles, you'd lurk on their site, and read their articles. You wouldn't need them to be linked to here, because you're already reading them there.

See where I'm going with this?

Nope. It saves me a trip to know that Optional Realities is having a bowling night and I can completely ignore them for another week. If I see something that interests me, I can read it. It's better than an RSS feed.

LOL Ok. Then I'll just put in we REALLY need an ignore thread option. At least. If not an ignore thread and an ignore person.

@bows out.

[WTFE]

@Lithium said:

Then you came here and throw more gasoline on the fire, on purpose, and expect things to get /better/.

That's just beyond stupid. I almost don't have the words.

Please, allow me. I live to serve.

[il-volpe]

@Jaunt said:

You continue to make assertions without even taking a look around the OR website.

http://optionalrealities.com/partnership-criteria/

Since this is not the part of your website that I (or anyone, so far as I've noticed) is concerned with you changing, it is hardly surprising that when you say you've changed the site based on feedback from here, we don't notice it.

You'd rather just speak on everyone's behalf and try to bully us off your site. Not gonna happen.

I am not Lithium. I have not asked you to leave. I've asked you to conform to certain community standards. I have tried to explain what they are, and why your violations of them are obnoxious. You've refused, essentially stating that there's no rule enforcing those standards, and in spite of being told about them you don't see them as a requirement for being welcomed into this community. Instead, because you're not welcomed, you claim to be bullied.

Allegorical Play:

MSB People: "Ducks. This duck, that duck, I love ducks, that duck over there is diseased, how do you heal a sick duck, fuck that duck."

OR People (wandering in the open door): "Check out our new poultry community!"

MSB People: "Cool, can we have a duck show?"

OR People: "No, we only do chickens."

MSB: "Then call it a chicken community, or include ducks."

OR People: "NO! Yes! Maybe! Next week! Anyway, you shouldn't be bitching, anybody who likes ducks should be totally interested in what we have to say about chickens."

MSB: "Largely, we're not."

OR People: "You're lying! Lots of you are into chickens!"

MSB: "...?"

MSB: "So, ducks. Ducks, ducks, ducks."

OR People: "CHECK OUT OUR POULTRY CLUB."

OR People: "CHECK OUT OUR POULTRY CLUB."

OR People: "CHECK OUT OUR POULTRY CLUB."

MSB: "We heard you the first time. Would you mind not calling your chicken club a poultry club, as it's misleading. Also, would you mind yelling "CHECK OUT OUR CHICKEN CLUB" less often?"

OR People: "I do what I want! You're just bullies! I won't give in to the terrorists!"

[il-volpe]

@Lithium -- I think @Thenomain was being snarky about liking the updates? It is like an RSS feed. Except one sets what's on one's RSS, strangers don't wander up and stick their adverts on it unasked.

It doesn't bother me; I ignored this thread for four months without difficulty, but I can see why it would bug some folks.

[crayon]

@Thenomain said:

I would like to note that the only reason I did so was because I was shown. When @crayon simply said I was an idiot, I did not say a damn thing.

Hey man, I was trying to point it out as casually as possible the first time. I quoted it at you at least twice, so when you kept replying like, "NO MAN, YOU CAN'T COUNT. LEARN TO COUNT," I probably got a bit aggressive, because reading comprehension has been brought up a few dozen times in this thread and people persist in giving us zero faith and treating it like an us vs. them thing even when we're actually objectively correct, rare as that is. So if it felt like I was being a dick, sorry about that. I probably was.

@il-volpe
The reason we persist in the weekly updates is because not all of the content on OR is going to be interesting to everybody, but on occasion there will be something that is interesting to somebody who may not be a regular user. @Thenomain's gone out of his way to read at least a few articles and has even given feedback, and I appreciate that sort of discussion. Without updates I'm dubious that people who might be interested in some of the topics that get discussed would ever learn they're being discussed to go take a look. Weighing the harm of "Wah, something pops up in my unread feed" against the benefit of letting people who might be interested on a selective basis, and admittedly it's probably a tiny minority, know what sort of content we have in the event they're interested in reading it or discussing it, I'm going to favor the latter. If nobody at all here was ever interested in reading anything on our site it'd be a different story, and while a few of you have tried, I can't say I care for arguments based around universal disinterest.

[Jaunt]

@il-volpe said:

You've over-simplified your analogy, and I don't suspect my continuing to state what brought me to this site is going to change your perspective.

You say that I've missed your point. I say that you've missed mine. At the end of the day, it doesn't really matter. Based on my understanding, we're not going to please everyone on this site with how we run OR, unless:

• We clarify confusing mission statement and partnership language that might rub other communities the wrong way (and we've done this -- the one useful thing that's come from this discussion so far).

• We completely change the core of our community to suit MSB, which has been the only community that has suggested such a thing to us (including some gaming communities that are far more "beyond our borders" than MSB).

• We stop posting to MSB, 'cause (some of) you don't want people with a slightly different text-based gaming philosophy than yours here.

• We go fuck ourselves.

But I'm not interested in pleasing everyone here. I am interested in any discussion that's actually useful in common ground, or towards making OR a better version of OR (with actual applicable, useful suggestions and thoughts). I am interested in connecting with folks who aren't into weird internet xenophobia. If that doesn't please you, personally, then we'll both just have to live with that.

For what it's worth, I didn't mean to lump you in with @lithium to the level in which you thought that I did. Poor post framing on my part.

[il-volpe]

@crayon said:

The reason we persist in the weekly updates is

Yep.

The same reasoning would hold true of me posting the new RP logs and character pages from my game's wiki into my game's advert here every week.

I predict that if I did that, it would annoy a significant portion of the readership here. I predict that they would then proceed to say mean things to me.

Weighing the harm of "Wah, something pops up in my unread feed" against the benefit of letting people who might be interested on a selective basis

So what? I am not trying to argue with you about whether it's worth it for you to do things that people find obnoxious. The fact that they find them obnoxious and yet you three persist in doing them is the reason for the reaction you've gotten. That's not bullying, see, it's just what happens when somebody asks you not to do something that they find irritating and you decide to ignore said request. It'd be different if weekly bumps of ads were customary here.

[Alzie]

@il-volpe You know, you managed to simplify this thread into a poultry club skit and they still didn't get it. I think we're done here.

[il-volpe]

@Jaunt said:

• We stop posting to MSB, 'cause (some of) you don't want people with a slightly different text-based gaming philosophy than yours here.

Nobody cares about your text-based gaming philosophy. They found it annoying that OR's mission statement and advert was misleading. They find it annoying that you're posting updates about OR every week.

They wanted you to change that mission statement to match what your community is about (or change the community to match the statement, but nobody really expected that, no matter how much you felt like they did, honest). You did change the statement, but it sure wasn't easy convincing you lot.

• We go fuck ourselves.

This is because you take so much fucking convincing. You put up a lot of resistance to that 'one useful thing.'

[SparklesTheClown]

This thread seems like a reasonable outcome to MUDders and MUSHers talking and trying to be productive.

[Thenomain]

@crayon

You know, it's frustrating when someone repeatedly doesn't understand what you're saying, even more so when you believe that you have run out of ways to say it, and the frustration becomes more and more prevalent in the speech patterns until all someone else sees is violently unhelpful behavior even if that was never your goal.

I hope this explanation helps. Don't worry about sometimes ending up in this situation; it's how we deal with what happens next that makes us human.