Controversial posts made by Jaunt

@Thenomain

You cherry-picked one thing in a rather substance-full post to pick on while ignoring the rest. I've since explained my stance on it several times, and haven't seen any attempts to refute those stances from you.

Being a nice guy doesn't mean letting you try to pass off antagonism as something that's well-meaninged when it's actually an attempt by you to marginalize myself and Optional Realities here on MSB.

I'm not talking past you, you've just persisted in not engaging me in reasonable conversation. In short, you've baited me so that you can move this thread off-topic. It's a Catch 22 for me, because people here seem to think that if I don't dignify your bait-and-switch tactics with specific responses, it means that I'm not willing to discuss things. That's not the case, or else I wouldn't be here ... discussing things.

So, continue to bait me if you'd like. I'll respond to you as much as is warranted, and probably a little more so than what's warrented just to show that I'm willing to play the game that seems to be standard here. And when you make a good point (you've done so a couple of times), I'm happy to accept that point for what it is and make changes. Because I'm pretty reasonable.

And I'll still post meaningful content when I have something to share.

You might've noticed, though, that the rest of the conversation (besides my back-and-forth with you) has moved onto something actually meaningful. I'd much prefer that. As a moderator of this site, I would hope you would too.

@Thenomain said:

know your audience

@Jaunt said

I can't say that nobody here, a community full of MUSH developers, would be interested in that. Can you?

@Thenomain said:

Asking someone to prove the absence of something ... is a dick move

Then don't infer the absence of something as the crux of your argument. You're resorting to straw-manning now.

I explained what the article was about. I offered my opinion on several reasons why it might be interesting to this community. Only one of those points was about Evennia's potential for profitability -- you swiftly ignored the rest of my post in your marginalization of my attempts to provide better content to your site.

I get it, man. You're going to be on top of us here, no matter what we do. You've shown that since page one of this thread.

I'm going to do my best to provide interesting content to MSB users, once a month, regardless.

@Thenomain said:

@Jaunt said:

I just don't find it an unappealing or particularly effective method when the goal is actual, valuable discussion.
I would like to point out again that your first posts were about how you were going to use your own standards to determine if discussion was worthwhile, and worse you announced that you were purposefully antagonizing the rest.

I don't disagree with you.

@Thenomain said:

Incidentally, I consider being called different than all other communities out there a compliment.

It's not an insult; there's value in different perspectives. But it's not common sense (at least to me), either. It's not my personal preference, but I am still here, trying to work things out. It's definitely some baby-steps.

@HelloProject said:

Is @Jaunt going to be next?

Nah.

@il-volpe said:

Hint! If #2 was okay, everybody would do it! You are not special! Similarly, your complaints that you feel dog-piled on and bullied by the manner in which people told you that your ad/charter was/is inappropriate and misleading indicates that you think you're special, and should be immune to the vitriolic criticism that characterises the 'voice' of this board.

I'm not suggesting that we're special. I'm also not naive enough to assume that every piece of vitriol on this board is somehow constructive vitriol. It's difficult to argue against a history re-written by you just to support what you're saying.

Your analogies continue to be pretty off-the-mark and self-biased, but I've lowered my expectations of the quality of your arguments at this point.

@il-volpe said:

And you have to learn them organically, because they are manners, see. On this board there are not rules against acting like a dick. You are allowed to act like a dick. But you also get the consequences of acting like a dick. It's magical.

Regardless of my thoughts on the quality of the 'manners' here, I'd suggest that part of the issue is this site's complete lack of transparency on its expectations of users, and code of conduct. If you want to be more nit-picky of your users than 99% of the other forums in the world, it would benefit you to actually explain what your community expectations are in an accessible place on the site.

If it does exist, I haven't found it, and I have looked.

To respond to you more than that would be to engage you in a continued loop of talking points, and you've not shown a pip of ability to attempt to apply a different perspective than your own.

@il-volpe said:

And once again, you're missing the point -- you are not being bullied because you have a different 'philosophy' of text-based gaming. You're being asked to meet an expected standard of behavior customary to the locale, and responding by arguing, yet claiming to be bullied when people yell at you for it.

"Go the fuck away, nobody wants you here" is bullying. Period. A lot of the insulting @Jeshin that was happening before I showed up (that was the reason why I showed up) was bullying. Was it intended to be? Doesn't matter, that's what it was.

So let's try to make a more compelling case than that sort, moving forward.

@il-volpe said:

It's a collective 'you,' meaning all the OR representatives.

You're not talking to all of the OR representatives right now. The thrust of your conversation's been with me.

Please, tell me what the expected standard of behavior customary to the locale is for MSB. You've said this a couple of times, but without more specificity, it's not helpful to me.

And consider the idea that, perhaps, some folks here have muddied their arguments and statements by using aggressive, reactive language. (I have too, as my ironic 'mirroring' of other posters' tones didn't really land at all.) There's a reason why nobody uses that approach in actual debate in real life --- it's entirely ineffective.

@il-volpe said:

You did change the statement, but it sure wasn't easy convincing you lot.

You have this twisted sort of view of things. I was convinced immediately, and I said so... many, many times. I never resisted the suggestion ... at all. We just needed to come to a consensus before we pushed the changes. It didn't take us long to make changes after that.

@HelloProject said:

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

Yeah, except we're not MUDers. OR doesn't care about what engine you use. I keep saying that this isn't some MUSHer vs MUDer war for us.

I feel like people are just projecting entirely different words than what I've written onto me. It makes rational conversation difficult.

@Lithium said in Optional Realities & Project Redshift:

That's not /quite/ as funny as @Jaunt thinking I care about how he views my person at all.

I don't view your person any which way. Like I've said, several times, I don't know you any better than you know me. I didn't find your argument for us to leave your community to be very compelling ... but that's really all that I know about you. I wouldn't assume more.

@Lithium said in Optional Realities & Project Redshift:

Maybe in a little bit I'll get a hankering to continue but for now, peace.

See you in the funny papers.

@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.

@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/

@Autumn said:

The problem with being a dick because other people are being a dick to you is that you'll also end up turning off people who aren't being a dick to you. Which ... I mean, maybe this is just me, but if I were hoping to attract some of the lurkers and infrequent posters to the site I'm advertising, that's a thing I'd try to avoid

I think this is a pretty good point. Let me ask you what you would suggest, being more familiar with the members of this community than I am.

This was my personal perspective. When dealing with bullies, you can:

1. Run away.
2. Let them beat the shit out of you, and then go about your life.
3. Fight back.

My perception is that the conversation had turned towards bullying Jeshin before I started posting. However effective or ineffective my choice on how to deal with this thread has been, the catalyst for it was an inherent distaste for the sort of behavior that I read on this thread, and a desire to stick up for a co-worker who really didn't deserve the bullshit that he was getting.

@Lithium said:

The fact that after all this time you cannot see the very posts and tone that pissed so many of us off just points out the fairly obvious fact that you have some serious issues with reading comprehension, if everything else didn't already point out the fact that you have issues with reading comprehension.

Yeah ... I don't have a problem with comprehension, though. The only reason I came here was because of how shitty you guys were being on this thread. You can try to re-write history if you'd like, but it's not a particularly compelling argument.

@Lithium said:

You build straw men based on taking shit completely out of context

I'd love for you to quote my straw-man argument. I don't mind admitting when I'm wrong. I suspect that you thinking I took something "out of context" has more to do with you presenting your ideas vaguely, but it's hard to say without knowing what exactly you're talking about.

@Lithium said:

Maybe you've changed stuff, maybe you haven't, I'm of the opinion that put up or shut up comes to mind and I have yet to see anything change. Sure, you put things in for revision. Sure you did. It's @Jeshin's baby but you did it. I'm sure your writing is going to clear up everything! Praise Allah!

Again, this is more of the unproductive bullshit that brought me here in the first place. Do you have a reason not to believe me, other than the fact that I've pissed you off in a general way? No. You're just trolling. If your goal is to encourage us to be less active on "your site" (it's yours, right?) so that this thread isn't always popping up in your news feed, I promise you that trolling is not the way to go about it.

@Lithium said:

I'm also not wrong, because what you linked, WASN'T WHAT I WAS TALKING ABOUT.

Try using your words, then. Like, words that actually explain what it is you're talking about in a way that makes it possible to respond to you in a meaningful way.

@Lithium said:

In fact, my only beef with the whole immense topic was that @Jeshin still starts everything with 'Hey,' like he is some sort of spambot. It's annoying. It's like he's talking down to everyone because 'Hey' isn't used that way in common parlance. At least not where I am from. Maybe it's a cultural thing, I don't rightly know, I know it is the source of friction for me.

Yeah, I think it's a weird habit too. But I'm also not petty enough to hate on someone because they have a tendency to start their sentences with the word 'hey'. Seems like a waste of your energy to me.

@Lithium said:

My second beef was the fact that you ALREADY POSTED YOUR ADVERTISEMENT. We don't need constant spam from @crayon about articles of whatever quality you guys think is important. If we wanted to read them, WE WOULD ALREADY BE THERE BY THIS POINT.

That's what ALL of you OR people fail to understand. You are oversaturating, and it is pissing people off. The fact that you continue to do so, and then claim ignorance as to why people are pissed off is moronic at best.

Your only beef, except your second beef?

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."

We do this on many community sites. Some of them aren't even dedicated to text-based games at all. Nobody else has complained. In fact, this is the only site that we've experienced conflict on. Nobody's been shitty to us elsewhere.

Why do you think that is?

Sure, this thread's over-saturating this site right now. I'm not ignorant of that at all. You can't possibly act like that's all on us. You keep posting here, too.

@Lithium said:

You're not standing up for yourselves, you're digging your hole deeper. You will NEVER get what you are looking for out of us at this point. What you have gotten up to this point, is all you're going to get. It's not like MUSoapBox advertises all over. We're word of mouth.

You can keep on asserting that you speak for everyone on this site. It doesn't mean that I'm going to believe you.

We've had a handful of great, albeit brief, conversations on this thread with people who are approaching us in a thoughtful way. I've found value in that dialogue. You're completely discounting those folks and those conversations, because you personally want to push us away.

As I've said before, that's not going to happen. You can continue to try, but it'll actually have the opposite effect of what you're hoping to accomplish.

@Thenomain said:

Yes, I pretend to want to engage in meaningful dialogue, but I'm actually a manipulative troll who incites other trolls by way of my awesome internet status.

I guess we can both read between the lines.

Which one of us is right? Neither of us? Both of us?

@Groth

You like role playing games (I assume!)

I imagine that you understand the concept of playing a character.

Let's not assume that you actually know me in a truly significant way. Just like I don't assume that you want to.

@lithium and @il-volpe

At least @thenomain finally admitted that he was wrong in regards to his statistics after a few posts. You continue to make assertions without even taking a look around the OR website.

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

That's new, as of a few days ago, and was what I referenced in terms of changes we've made. Not that actual logic seems to mean much to you. You'd rather just speak on everyone's behalf and try to bully us off your site. Not gonna happen.

As far as the front page revision, I've already written it and sent it to the site's graphic designer. It'll be changed in the next few days, as soon as she sends the pertinent images back to me.

I took the revision effort upon myself, even though that's not really my job, because I agreed with points made by this community.

Unfortunately, it seems as though those criticisms weren't really about actually inspiring change, because as soon as we came to a sort of consensus on the criticisms with the site, you started resorting to shouting at us to leave your community.

Get over yourself.

So, in short, you were wrong, though I suspect that you don't actually care about being right.

@lithium said:

Like @Thenomain said this stopped being a worthy thread for /anything/ a long time ago, especially since you OR admins still refuse to meaningfully engage, instead spitting out piss, vitriol, and unsubstantiated 'No U's'.

In fact, I think it's fair to say, that you're just damaging your brand name now every time you put fingers to the keyboard @Jaunt .

P.S. Your fascination on permadeath... I'm willing to bet there's a TON more games running MUSH that feature permadeath than MUD's.

There's so much retardery in this little chunk of your reply that it's difficult to know how to respond to it. I'll try.

1. Yep. We're the hyper aggressive ones. It's in no way a response to the tone in which we're approached.

More likely is that you're incapable of, or unwilling to apply, objectivity and actually reading the curve of this discussion with a critical eye.

Why should I be polite to people who are slinging around insults and acting like internet bullies? Go fuck yourself. I'm going to treat you the way you treat me. It's not rocket science.

2. Standing up for ourselves and trying to engage with the handful of folks who are actually polite towards us isn't damaging our brand in any sort of way that we actually care about. If we gained new members by bending over and letting you shit on us, they wouldn't be joining OR for the reasons that I'd want them to.

3. I don't give a fuck about the MUD vs MUSH debate. You do. I get it. I think it's archaic, I think it's novice, I think the 20 year on-going argument is hurtful to the entire text-based online gaming community.

The engine doesn't matter. No other gaming genre defines itself by its engine. It defines itself by what type of game it is. The engine isn't what makes or breaks a game.

And beyond that, neither acronyms would ever be appealing to new players unfamiliar with us -- not at large. They are both terrible names.

That's why we don't care about the engine at OR. Our criteria is design-based. You want this to be some sort of MUSH vs MUD war ... but it's just not for us.

@il-volpe said:

@Alzie Yep. I was being sort of nice, or something. Actual thought when I looked was, "Oh, it's a content-mill, 'cause they've promised to post new articles every week, so they do not care if they have anything to say," (Another reason why people here are unlikely to want to submit articles; being the wageless writer-slave of a content mill is what we call a 'scam.')

And is being the wageless coder/writer-slave of a volunteer hobbyist MUD is a scam? Maybe it is. Maybe try to be consistent with your valuation of volunteer/hobbyism.

My other thought was, "For fuck's sake, if I see one more piece of bullshit treating GMing as a 'customer service' activity, I'll spit nails. Into somebody's eyeballs."

Some games think that storytelling is stronger when you have a dedicated GM, and those people make it a core feature of their game. I personally think it depends on what kind of story your game is trying to tell.

But, I've certainly not come here and said, "MUSH stories are too metagamey to be organic, because they allow players to create all of the story content with little super-vision or guidance from a dedicated staff GM." Saying something like that would only prove that I have a marginalized view of that different approach, and it'd be wrong.

Just like your view is marginalized and wrong. And just one post after you had the balls to tell me that I was the one looking down at you, too.

@WTFE said:

Remember when @Jaunt said that we "misunderstood intention" earlier, @Thenomain? Isn't it funny that it's our fault when we "misunderstand" but now it's your fault for miscommunicating? It's one of those irregular verb declensions: I communicate clearly, you can't read.

Nope. I admitted that I didn't think that Jeshin communicated himself very clearly at points in this thread. I just didn't think that that was a great reason to start shitting on him.

@WTFE said:

You're succeeding at turning off your very target market. You're failing at PR. You should move forward by learning small things like "telling a discussion board you're not interested in discussion is a Bad Idea.

Please, quote me where they said that they weren't interested in discussion.

I'm not so certain that you are the greatest spokesperson for "good PR", but then again, I'm not here for PR. If I were, I wouldn't be able to write so candidly.

@WTFE said:

I have thus far refused to go to your site—to even crack it open and look at it—specifically because of the behaviour of the people from your site over here. By being so dogmatic, rigid, and inflexible, and by sticking to a definition of game that specifically excludes the styles played by most people on this board, you are actually being off-putting.

Awesome. I was hoping you'd quote this from pages back.

Our community is a specific genre of MUD that is over 20 years old. If the style of MUSH played by "most" people on this board is not represented on OR, then those people don't really need to worry about OR. It's that simple.

OR exists for the games for which it is relevant. It not being relevant to your games does not equate to us shitting our your birthday cake.

However, as we've received numerous great users from this site at OR, I would venture to say that your perception is critically flawed.

@Thenomain said:

So your own over-simplified, leading question can get Socratic with itself.

As I think that I stated previously, I do have some small level of respect for your tasteful approach to ad hominem. I suspect that my level of distrust for you is probably similar to the one that you suggest that you have for me. It's because I recognize the tactics that you've used throughout this thread.

If you truly believed that the problem lay in miscommunication of ideas, then you wouldn't write offensive remarks on the thread in regards to Jeshin and Crayon and OR ... not unless your purpose was to offend, or inspire others to offend.

@Thenomain said:

Yes, your boss said this kind of conversation was okay.

I'm not here in any sort of official capacity. Jeshin probably thinks my approach to this issue is too heavy-handed, because he's a nice guy, but I really couldn't say. He doesn't censor me, and our opinions and tactics differ.

@Thenomain said:

To you, though? I've also made a very simple, straight-forward statement twice now. I don't understand why you're not understanding the words: You First.

Be engaging, and you will be engaged. Be honest, and you will be respected.

"I'm more stubborn, you go first."

"No, I'm more stubborn, you go first!"

Well, I'll bite, but only just so.

@Thenomain said:

You, yourself, are introducing ideas not mentioned earlier in this thread meaning that of three OR representatives, no two of them have given the same viewpoint of what OR is about.

You almost brought up a point labored many times earlier in the thread that I am happy to respond to, at least in part.

You're right. The mission statement's unclear. OR's still in the process of defining itself. There is a constant internal discussion amongst its staff about where we are succeeding, where we are failing, and how we should move forward.

It's only a few months old, after all.

@Sunny -- read the entirety of your post, and then the below section a second time.

@Sunny said:

Clearly you're incapable of being civil.

If that discussion is meaningful and friendly and useful, then my response will be too. If not, well, I'm not really a turn-the-other-cheek sort of guy.
But we're supposed to be? Asshole. You might not be "trolling", but you're certainly being an abusive prat.

Do you understand the irony of everything that you've posted? C'mon.

Please, show me where Crayon and Jeshin insulted "the way you do things". Use the little quote button. I've read the entire thread twice and don't see it. If you actually support your forum vomit with something substantial (like a direct reference to whatever the fuck it is that you're talking about), then you'll have grown beyond blatant trolling and ad hominem.

@Thenomain said:

"It's up to you, not me, to be reasonable."

https://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/burden-of-proof

If you have specific issues that you would like a specific response to in regards to OR, direct them to me and you will receive what you're looking for. If you don't care anymore, then don't care anymore.

@Sunny said:

Telling us how it is is not engaging, it's not dialogue, it's nothing but preaching to a bunch of atheists -- annoying as fuck. It's frustrating enough that it actually makes me angry with the now three of you. To say @Thenomain is just trolling...holy shit. If I could reach through the computer and slap you, I would.

Y'all can keep advertising here. We can keep rolling our eyes. Folks around here (@Thenomain and @surreality in particular, but it's not limited to them) have shown FAR more respect for OR than the representatives have shown the community they are coming in to advertise in. If you don't like us and think we're a bunch of asshole trolls, GO AWAY.

ETA: The thing that y'all seem to be missing is that this is a community that is of value to those of us that participate in it. It's not at all just a trolling/flame board, it's not about bitching, it's not about a lot of the things that the various forums have been about over the years. This is a good community with good people that contribute A LOT to one another, so the whole 'reaching out a hand to the savages' thing -- and yes, that's how a lot of this comes across you fucking pricks -- is beyond irritating.

Edited to add again: This is the MSB crowd's living room. To my knowledge, nobody's gone over there to troll / harass, AND YET you guys keep coming over here to do that to this community. You lose all credibility in that action.

I think there's some very ironic miscommunication going on here.

Did we say that we are "preaching to a bunch of atheists?" Did we say that we "are reaching out a hand to savages?" No. Folks here, like you, did. You put words into our mouths that are completely out of context with our purpose. We don't think that, nor have we said that. It's called trolling. You're trolling right now. Stop that. It makes you look bad.

Did Crayon or Jeshin act aggressively, or trollishly, here? No. You did. All they did was advertise and do their best to try to understand your points and respond to the best of their ability. As someone reading this thread for the first time, it's obvious to me that the breakdown in communication went both ways.

Try ... very hard ... to understand this. OR's not a "MUD" community. This isn't a MUD vs MUSH issue. Half of our community is made up of MUSHes. Jeshin and Crayon, their home game is a MUSH. Let that sink in for you.

I'm not attacking the value of this site to you folks. It's obviously valuable, because you have an active community here when many other communities are not active. There's some good discussion happening on this site. However, I don't think that "your best" has been afforded to this thread, universally. It's pretty clear that both parties have misconstrued each other's meanings or intentions, and that this site has been vastly more aggressive compared to OR's previous representation in this thread -- that is, until I joined the discussion, because I'm not going to be speaking through any sort of PR filter.

As I stated before, if you feel unclear about certain questions that have been asked or problems that have been posed, post them for me. I'll give you a very, very clear answer. Nobody from OR's here to troll. We're here to provide information.

If you want to roll your eyes at OR, go for it. If you want to engage in direct discussion, I'll be around. If that discussion is meaningful and friendly and useful, then my response will be too. If not, well, I'm not really a turn-the-other-cheek sort of guy.

@surreality

It'd be fairly unfeasible for me to reply to every question or point brought up over the past 21 pages of this thread individually, though I've read every post in the thread twice now. Since I've introduced myself and my perspective, but am just now joining the months-long conversation, I'm happy to start from scratch in addressing points made from here on out.

If you have any specific questions in regards to Optional Realities, you'll get clear answers from me, though. I can promise you that.