Posts made by Ghost

Okay, sure. I'm not asking everyone to get all Zen about it and perform a group meditation on it, but that the "no holds barred thunderdome complaint" thread has 20 times more posts than people talking about positive stuff is interesting.

Whether or not people complain isnt the point. Nothing is stopping people from using the board to build something. No, the most traveled threads on the forum are ones where you can make personal insults and complain. You could write this off as some kind of human condition theory, but the fact remains that a lot more activity here is used to fuck with each other than to be generally copacetic.

Forum moderators have let the forum be what it is. I'm assuming this 20-to1 statistic is entirely organic.

I think it's poignant.

@Auspice said in Poll: Do I enjoy this hobby more than I don't?:

Arx thread has a lot of good and bad.

MU Things I Love was started much later.

Data is skewed. Thesis rejected.

You're dead to me.

WAIT.

How much later was "Mu things i love" started compared to Mu Gripes and Peeves???

Aha. The hunt for philosophical relevancy in my attempt at making a point resumes!

@Wretched said in Poll: Do I enjoy this hobby more than I don't?:

@Ghost host So we're still doing better than WORA! Wooo.

I mean I assume.

God, I cant imagine or remember what WORA's numbers were, but totally probably way higher.

Okay so my delivery was cheesy, but I think the sheer number of posts dedicated to complaining and breaking people down compared to the number of posts related to loving the hobby or working together is telling.

I think it's important to ponder it.

BREAKING NEWS

Excuse me people, I'd like to pause to make an announcement.

The Hog Pit board's "MU GRIPES AND PEEVES and (current) ARX PEEVE" threads have a combined total of 14, 848 posts in them.

The MILDLY CONSTRUCTIVE board's "MU THINGS I LOVE" board has...

...727 posts.

So, basically (statistically) for every single post that someone posts about something they love about mushing, 20 posts are made about how much it (or the people on it) suck.

(I am getting a lot of mileage out of this gif)

END OF BREAKING NEWS

@Auspice said in RL things I love:

@Ghost said in RL things I love:

A friend yesterday told me that he learned how to speak with cats.

To which I said "That's bullshit. People can't speak with cats. You've got to be kitten."

kitten.

Whattup. High five.

Uhhhhh I think you posted the wrong gif link. I fixed it up above.

A friend yesterday told me that he learned how to speak with cats.

To which I said "That's bullshit. People can't speak with cats. You've got to be kitten."

kitten.

Whattup. High five.

Just in case anyone is yet to vote and is looking for input...

There's currently a spat going on in the Hog Pit about whether or not someone idling in a room waiting for RP is creepy, camping, or marking territory, and what should be done if they refuse to move when you ask them to.

"Shit be broke when u can't like be all 'excuse me' and shit without arguing with each other."
-Copernicus

@Roz Oh, well then if it's a staff ban, yeah. It would be wrong to go anonymous to creep back in.

It's not fun, but "sneaking into a place you want to enjoy without being bothered" is way different from "Sneaking into a place that has your face posted on the wall as a person who is not welcome".

Plenty of games and fish out there that I'm sure are open to app into and try out a fresh start.

Sidebar: Some people might think "WTF, going to ground, changing your email, and going with a new login persona and not declaring who you are is a thing that trolls, creepers, and stalkers do; this is wrong!"

But I think it's fair to say that if this is what someone has to do to get out of the obsessively OOC persona-war game, then I respect people doing it to get the fuck out.

After all, if they opt to get back in (I.e. tell people who they are, get involved in OOC drama/spats) then whatever benefit they had at anonymizing their fresh start would be ruined.

If you keep it IC, play fair, and are nice to people, there's no damage.

@Lemon-Fox said in Poll: Do I enjoy this hobby more than I don't?:

I lost access to that wonderful community because I was dumb and it's been made clear that they will never ever forgive me.

This is a horrible thing to feel.

I also think you're not alone, and that many mushers either feel that way or live in fear of feeling that way because they know just how tenuous reputations can be and just how much character assassination catches on. It's shockingly easy to spread a lie, and shockingly difficult to prove that you're a good person to people you've never even talked to in an OOC sense.

Have you considered getting out of the OOC game, going the anonymity route, and just roleplaying without the stigma of you being you?

@Ghost said in Poll: Do I enjoy this hobby more than I don't?:

Since a tear I went on in another thread is partially responsible for the creation of this one, I won't be long winded.

Well that worked out we'll, didn't it?

I never could say anything in 20 words or less...
-Concrete Blonde

Since a tear I went on in another thread is partially responsible for the creation of this one, I won't be long winded.

Someone once told me (about TT RPG, LARP) that "You have one amazing experience, and then beat your head against a wall trying to meet or exceed that defining experience". I think there's wisdom in that, and I think it applies here.

There's good and bad in everything, but I think that every musher can speak a time about the "best it ever was" and are willing to go through a little Hell in hopes of finding it again. I think people may sometimes feel like others are keeping it from being "great like it used to be", and that some aggro may come from that.

I think there are some bad social habits in play (bullying, guilt engineering, false accusations, cliqueish behavior, forcing RL issues onto others, etc, whisper networks, etc), but I also think there are some very great people who still try to create fun, low-drama playspaces. I think some people are much nicer than others. I think some people can't separate the OOC from the IC (and that this has become a cultural problem in the hobby), and I think there are some people who do really well at maintaining their neutrality and focus on IC over OOC.

I'd say the issues in this poll/thread account for maybe 50% of the reason I hung up my mushing hat. I didn't feel that I could role play without having to navigate (navigate, not necessarily be affected by, but the need to always be mindful of, as well as always approached with it) OOC drama, and that some of these behaviors across the games had become too threaded into the culture to warrant continuing my search to meet/exceed that best experience. I felt that the negativity/drama could not be avoided to the point where partaking in the games always meant trying to enjoy yourself in spite of. The juice started to not feel worth the squeeze, so to speak.

(The other 50% consists of a mix of other personal issues, time constraints, RL activities, a need to try new things, etc, if anyone was curious; not that it's important or necessary information. No issues with quality of roleplay. I know some baller writers.)

@Sunny THIS WAS SOME PEACEFUL SHIT. HIGH FIVE.

About to finish the new Halloween movie. Y'all have a good night.

@Sunny said in Our Tendency Towards Absolutes:

@Ghost said in Our Tendency Towards Absolutes:

I was just offering my perspective and my feeling about the absolutism topic and why I think it's a thing. I may be wrong, I may be onto something, but I'm 100% willing to help mend issues and not being shitty about it.

I think that if it were on games like you're referring to here, it would be a huge problem. I think that what you are talking about is bad, and wrong, and if it is happening somewhere or someone is doing it than everyone involved should stop. Don't get me wrong, what you're positing is TERRIBLE.

It just isn't happening? You're suggesting a solution without a problem.

We can agree to disagree, but personally...I disagree with you. I believe that there absolutely is a problem and that some people are constantly poised to write each other off, which is sad to me. I think pretty regularly we have Hog Pit stuff about how X person did this for Y reason, but then it turns out to be a misunderstanding. This isnt the behavior of a group of people with a lot of respect for each other.

You don't have to agree with me, and that's okay. It's just my take on it.

@Sunny said in Our Tendency Towards Absolutes:

This doesn't happen to the extent you appear to think it does.
ETA: I have not had to do a balancing thing like that for at least 10 years. Not once.

Fair enough. Not gonna fight ya on it. If that's your experience, then that's your experience.

I was just offering my perspective and my feeling about the absolutism topic and why I think it's a thing. I may be wrong, I may be onto something, but I'm 100% willing to help mend issues and not being shitty about it.

@Wretched cuz there's people I like talking to, and I'm not gone so far that I can't contribute to conversations. And OMG STAHP.

MOAR fingergunz for my people. You know who you are

@Tinuviel said in Our Tendency Towards Absolutes:

Anyone that holds shit said here (that isn't particularly heinous) against people out in the wild is in for a world of surprise. We all disagree, sometimes loudly, about all kinds of things. Doesn't mean we hate each other.

You're really late to the party, @Ghost.

Handwobble. Maybe.

But I don't sense a whole lot of love, either.

@Sunny said in Our Tendency Towards Absolutes:

What mutually assured destruction stuff?
No, seriously?

To be clear, I wasnt being accusatory to anyone, so with that in mind, I'll clarify.

I mean the whole "X player doesn't play with Y player for this reason, Y doesn't play with players A C T V and X". For whatever reason it is, there's a lot of players with undisclosed/disclosed ooc issues with each other that can result in:

"X player can play with A M and F so long as U and T are there, but O doesn't like M, so they don't want M coming to events, even if M and F are both friends with O..."

I think on a long enough timeline, everyone is gonna have some kind of issue with enough people that you're gonna feel like the environment is polluted.