Posts made by 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/

@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.

@Thenomain

Eh. You're right.

You weren't a very good example for me to use.

As far as being a dick ... well, I don't actively care. I'm not a dick, generally. I'm a rather nice guy.

I'll be a dick here, though, so long as people are going to approach me with vitriol and insults. It's a purposefully ironic choice. Maybe it's not an effective choice? In either case, I've sort of already committed to it.

That said, we were doing pretty well for a couple of days here, until people starting shouting at us to leave their corner of the internet -- as though they were entitled to such a thing.

In all honesty, I'd much prefer less aggressive discussion. I'm just not going to be the one to turn the other cheek.

@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.

OtherSpace is running again. They're actually in the process of porting the game over to the newer Evennia engine, which is what we're also designing Redshift with. I wouldn't classify Redshift as MUD or MUSH. I personally don't think that either acronyms are good at marketing our genre (they both sound sort of unappealing and gross), and sort of wish folks would stop relying on them so much.

Haven's original codebase doesn't really have a true classification. IMO, they're more MUSH, philosophically. As Orpheus has noted, BURP's more MUSH than MUD in terms of a lot of its design choices, too.

Our perspective is that separating game genres based on engines is silly. What gaming genres do that besides ours? It's super derpy that we're still classifying ourselves the way that we are, and probably plays no small part in the overall stagnation of the genre as a whole when compared to MMOs and other "off-chute" genres that have dominated the mainstream.

@Thenomain

I consider four of the games on OR to be MUSH-like games. I consider four of the games on OR to be RPIs. I consider four of the games on OR to be sort of their own unique thing. I consider all of the games on OR to be storytelling intensive RPGs that feature non-consent permanent death as a core feature.

Also, your final count doesn't add up, regardless of your personal interpretation of what genres games that you aren't familiar with fall into.

@Lithium said:

Go the fuck home.

Yeah ... nobody's forcing you to read this thread. Nobody's demanding that you read all of the content updates.

And none of us care how many times we're told (through insinuation), "You're too different than me, so get off of my internet space or I'm going to wildly insult you and throw a tantrum."

If we think there's value in advertising here, and we're doing so within the rules, we're going to continue to do so.

I think what's interesting is that all of the talk about our mission statement (the meat of the criticism of our site, with points that I tend to agree with) ... after we admit that the feedback is on the nose there and we're going to take it ... the conversation here reverts back to "you're different, you don't belong, go the fuck away, we don't want you here."

Which is exactly the sort of coarse, aggressive attitude that brought me here to begin with.

@il-volpe said:

Oh, so it is for us.

If we'd only just be more keen to participate in communities that don't serve our interests well.

There is a lot of blanket use of "us vs them" language on this thread that I continue to think is silly. Can you really speak for every user and game on this site? Can you tell me that there are no MUSHes on this site that feature, or might consider featuring, non-consent permanent death and automated combat? Can you say, with universal certainty, that nobody here would have an interest in both (inherently similar) sub-genres, or our site?

Or are you just beating your chest?

We're not some sort of threat, or invading force. We've answered folks' questions, responded to their concerns, and made changes to our site based on the actual useful feedback that we've received.

So, will we now see that the detractors on this thread won't be happy until they've scared us away from their community?

Well, that's not going to happen. Trying to make it so is just a waste of both of our time.

@il-volpe said:

The mysterious bit is, given that it is not for us, why the fuck is it still here? I can see not removing the thread, but keeping it alive with the links to their new articles is off.

Half of our community are MUSHes. There's overlap with our two sites' user bases, whether or not you are personally part of that overlap. Where you fall in that overlap is really up to you. Even though we don't give sub-forums to any game that requests it, we still welcome users and perspectives to partake in discussion on our site even if their perspective is outside of our core demographic. I don't know enough about Game of Bones to say.

It's really that simple.

@Alzie

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

Some people are confused about the more specific set of criteria. This language could definitely use some refining, and particularly the third criteria.

And, while I think many can extrapolate our intention from the three mission statement slides, others can't. The inclusiveness of the language in the second slide, as well as the use of the phrase "text-based role playing game" (a very broad term) in the mission statement, create the sense that our community is broadly inclusive. That's true and not true. We welcome discussion about any games, but our core content and user base is geared towards RPI-like games. Our statement about building bridges is geared towards the idea that RPI-like games don't need to be MUDs; there are also MOOs and MUSHes out there with the same design philosophies. That might mean very little to you, but it's a very inclusive/progressive idea in the RPI community.

In that way, I think it's the overall tone of the mission statement, and not the description itself that confuses some users here. Maybe not you, but multiple users have admitted that our mission statement appears deceptive in regards to our inclusiveness. It's not meant to be. It needs revision.

@il-volpe said:

Actually, I only attribute one suspicion, that you've purposely (if perhaps not entirely consciously) misled people into believing that it's a community dedicated to all MUs* when it's not because that might get you some more users and convert 'em to the games you like, to me being a suspicious bastard. Truth is I'm a tediously patient guy and largely think well of people.

This, too, isn't the case. And hopefully that'll be more clear post revision.

Though, I don't think conversion is as serious as all that. As someone who plays vastly different types of text-based games, I don't think that you have to either play one kind or another. Regardless, we're not trying to lure folks with foggy language.

The reason our language is foggy is because it was aimed too specifically at our core user base, who understands its connotations.

@il-volpe said:

I'm suspicious, because I am a suspicious bastard

I believe that about you.

@il-volpe said:

OR appears to have this thing going in where it's partners/privileged advertisers write these articles, and that's one reason they're privileged

Yeah, that's what led me to believe that you were suggesting our submission wasn't fair minded.

@il-volpe said:

Your reaction, interpreting that to mean that I think I'm not allowed to submit an article and find this interesting enough to cry "unfair!" is the very thing that makes me conclude that you believe I would want to submit an article.

Your conclusion is wrong. I don't care if you submit articles or not, personally. When we run out of guest content, we can always write content ourselves. But, if you want to (if it has personal value to you), you're absolutely welcome to. I do think that it's better to hear from a variety of perspectives.

@il-volpe said:

This says nothing about who is allowed to write articles, only comments on who does write them, and suggests that maybe writing one probably gets you shifted up the docket in terms of getting reviewed to see if you'll be allowed advertising space.

This is another very wrong assumption. Whether or not you write articles has nothing to do with whether or not you're added to our connections page and given a sub-forum. They have entirely different sets of criteria. Numerous articles have been submitted and published from people outside of our core community.

@il-volpe said:

I expect that you will find that until you change it, people will continue to criticize it.

Which is entirely fair. What's not fair is to say that we're completely unwilling to listen and/or change things based on reasonable, sound suggestions, which we've heard again and again from multiple users even though it's not the case at all.

I know that you understand the difference.

@il-volpe said:

By the way, if/when you get around to changing the OR site, a word of advice: Run about it and add alt text to any important images, including the infographicy things with your mission statement on. They need to be machine readable. MUs are among the few games accessible to blind people, and it's not difficult to make it so all the important shit on your game and site works with their screen-readers. Actually, if you want to do ten minutes of research and write about that, that'd be an article worth having out there.

That's a great suggestion. That's the sort of feedback that's very helpful to us.

Overall, I think that you've made some good points that would be super valid -- if they weren't based on wrong assumptions that you've made, which may or may not stem from you being overly suspicious (but not asking questions to gain a better understanding of policies).

The points you've made that are detached from those assumptions have been great.

I'm going to be 100% candid in regards to OR, here. I'm a candid guy. Just ask.

@Thenomain said:

I imagine one of your administrators would think I am a "problem" that would need to be "dealt with", and if I was just being overly cautious before I think now have proof what OR would do with viewpoints they think need "handled".

You imagine that, but it's not actually the case. This sort of conversation does exist on OR, and we're pretty light on censorship and shutting people down. It's really impossible to gather consensus in an online community, so disagreements about policy are inevitable.

Awesome. Can your cohorts please stop calling us stupid, then? Kthx.

You have to see the purposeful irony in this. I know that you do. I hope that you can also see that folks that have engaged me reasonably have been responded to reasonably. If people want to dish it out, they should be willing to take it, too.

I'd also say that the tone of this conversation has slowly been moving away from trolling towards more valuable dialogue -- on both sides. For what it's worth, I hope that continues. Rolling around with trolls here was fun for a day or two, but I'm largely past it now.

@surreality said:

Re: the 'customer service model' article, I... have to admit I'm in agreement with a lot of folks here.

While I don't agree with the principle 100% myself, I have zero compunction swearing in news files and vastly prefer plain and direct language especially in policy files, so I am not likely the best example. (There are concrete reasons for that, some which stem from the idea of 'too much polite and delicate wording often dances around the point and sets up a false expectation that you can treat staff like customer service personnel -- which means 'abuse at will to a lot of people -- and it's all right to do that'. Well, it's not.)

People reasonably disagree on that, however, and different things work for different folks.

There is, however, one bit of advice in there that is a recipe for unmitigated disaster. It's this bit:

Business: I am very sorry to hear that you were treated like that by Jim, and I absolutely understand why you would be frustrated. Here is how we’re going to handle the situation: I am going to comp your meal, give you a coupon for the next time you eat with us, and we’ll be discussing the issue with Jim to make sure this doesn’t happen again in the future. Does that work for you?

The example of the 'explanation' behavior is fine. What's being explained? Oh, such a bad idea.

I want everyone to imagine what would happen if a staff member let an XP/spend go a day or so too long, and when a player complained about this, they were given the advance for free and a discount on their next one -- or similar.

You would have a nightmare on your hands. The chill that just crawled down your spine was dead on.

Taking a customer service approach as an administrator does not mean giving complainers free things. It means listening to their complaints, considering their intentions and motivations, letting them know that you've heard them and understand what they are saying, and then telling them what will be done in response; sometimes, what will be done in response is going to be, "Nothing, and here's why." It doesn't mean having to compromise your policies or design decisions.

That said, the article and conversations referred to in regards to customer service on OR are most definitely not a prerequisite or official stance. There is no official stance. We'd be just as happy to publish an article or engage in a conversation promoting the "players are guests in my web-space" approach that @il-volpe indicated is their approach.

Articles and conversations on OR promote specific administrators' or players' ideas for the purpose of discussion, but aren't held as universal gospel. Some articles are more editorialized than others.

@il-volpe said:

So do it. The amount of time it takes to replace...

As @Thenomain suggested, there needs to be a consensus about our language re-branding before we implement an improved mission statement. It shouldn't be an arbitrary change, or a knee jerk reaction, or a change that satisfies one administrator's ideas and not others. Once we reach consensus, it'll be changed. Since OR's been doing well for itself for the few months that it's been around, I think it'll be okay to last a few more days until that consensus is reached.

@il-volpe said:

Writing articles for OR does none of these for me. The earlier response about how we could submit articles, but nobody'd asked, seemed to me to imply that you folks think we ought to be honoured to.

I think that you're being over-sensitive in continually assuming that we're out to look down on you. We're not.

You suggested that it wasn't fair-minded that only members of games that are part of our "connections" can submit articles. I told you that anyone can submit an article if they want to, including folks from this site. Nothing more. We created OR out of the same sense of volunteer passion that we create our games with. We let folks who are passionate about specific design ideas submit articles to us if they'd like to.

This idea that their submission is slave-work, but that your volunteerism towards your game isn't because you're passionate about your work is inconsistent ideology, and that's what I'm getting at. I hope that makes sense to you.

@WTFE

We've listened. We've discussed. We've responded. We've even implemented changes, and are planning to implement more changes, in response to some of the feedback we've received from this site. Your continual repeating of the words, "They've not shown any signs of trying to understand what's being said" doesn't make it more true.

@Derp said:

It's interesting that you would use that particular hornet, since when they invade a nest of bees the bees swarm around them and all bat their wings furiously until the temperature around the invader rises so high it basically cooks it to death.

Kind of like how some of us here did.

Your analogy uses 'us vs them' terminology that I think is pretty unfortunate. We're not invaders. We're advertisers. You've not cooked us to death. You've, collectively, just presented us with a number of arguments and thoughts, some intelligent and helpful, and some obnoxious and overly aggressive. We've responded in kind.

Don't take my lack of responses over the next couple of days as a sign that I'm unwilling to continue to engage in dialogue, whether it's amiable or trolling. I'm just busy. I'll get back to you.

@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.

@il-volpe said:

@Jaunt said:

And folks here are welcome to submit articles to us, too. They don't need to be an admin from one of OR's core games to do so. We've had several folks submit articles from outside of our own community. Nobody's asked about that, though. Instead, maybe they've just assumed it's a certain way, when it's not.

Why would they want to? The articles are weak by our standards and the site treats our beloved non-automated games as lesser, and in a manner that doesn't make it clear that you're really just a site about RPI MUDs or things that behave like them.

See, people here didn't come to your site. They keep not coming over to it in spite of you asking, it seems. This is very likely because we don't think your site is great, and we don't think your favoured text-RPG platform is superior. (In fact, quite the opposite in my case. Automation was fun for a while, but it just narrows RP in the end)

But, yeah. Obviously most folks on OR (and here) are not professional writers.

Oh, it's not the quality of the writing. Your contributors' mastery or non-mastery of the English language is a separate issue. The articles (or the ones I've read, anyway) just don't have anything to say that this community hasn't already covered, rehashed, picked apart in great detail.

I'd be pleased to advertise on your site, and would be happy to get some MUD players on my MUSH and if some of my MUSH players wanna go play MUDs that's great too, but contributing to OR would not be a feather in my cap, and reading it hasn't done anything for me. Which is fine, but please don't act surprised.

Crayon and I've both admitted that the mission statement doesn't use clear language. We'll be changing it. I'm not sure how many times we can say this.

See, some people here do come to our site. That's why we still advertise here. For the ones that aren't interested, that's their right. Very few people in the world would be interested in a blog/forum site about a sub-genre of MUDs.

But let's not re-hash the assumptions that we think non-automated games are lesser, just because they're not the focus of our community. It's just not true. It's just defensiveness.

I love some MUSHes. I love some H+S MUDs. I love some Graphical MMOs. I love some RPIs. I love some PK-Oriented MUDs. I recognize that they're all different types of games. I play all of the above genres. I've created games of all of the above genres.

OR's largely dedicated to one specific genre that's lacked a central hub for discussion for a very long time. That's the reason it was created. It's not personal. I don't see why that's so hard to understand.

@Alzie

What do you want? A cookie? Should we not discuss things because they've been discussed on other sites?

If that were the case, then most of the internet (including this site), would be a ghost town of silence.

OR hasn't discussed those things yet, because it's a new site.

@Three-Eyed-Crow said:

@Jaunt said:

Sometimes the best way to burn out a fire is to make it burn brighter and consume faster. Maybe. I don't know. I'd be a terrible park ranger.

You are not the one true hero of this thread, dude, and nobody started being sensible because of you. Even @Crayon is being civil now.

I was joking. Lamely, maybe, but never-the-less.

And I'm also being civil, so long as it goes both ways. My last two posts were pretty civil, yeah?

@il-volpe

And folks here are welcome to submit articles to us, too. They don't need to be an admin from one of OR's core games to do so. We've had several folks submit articles from outside of our own community. Nobody's asked about that, though. Instead, maybe they've just assumed it's a certain way, when it's not.

But, yeah. Obviously most folks on OR (and here) are not professional writers. The quality is going to vary. We also don't pay people who submit articles, charge our users, or put any advertisements on our page.

@ThugHeaven said:

@Jaunt

Well that's kind of why I was saying it might be good to step back. I've played some of those games you have on there and I'm looking forward to a couple that are coming out like lab mud, project redshift and Darksun. Sindome I couldn't wrap my head around, it seems a little too much like HellMoo the scifi game and The Burning Post, which I think does something very unique, but seems to be a little incomplete and still trying to find itself.

There are things I think are worth discussing here, certain ideas I think MUDs and mushes can borrow from each other that would only make both of them better.

The thing is, where the thread was yesterday, it kinda seemed like it was beyond repair. It seems a little more light hearted today, which is a good. sign.

Yeah, it's getting there. Sometimes the best way to burn out a fire is to make it burn brighter and consume faster. Maybe. I don't know. I'd be a terrible park ranger.

@Alzie said:

@jaunt 'Yo dawg, I totally came here to participate in civil discussion. Oh did I say civil discussion, dawg I meant i'm here to troll.'

As I've said several times, I'm happy to go either way.

@Sunny said:

@Jaunt said:

I liked a lot of what you had to say. I think it's important to note that there is constructive feedback and feedback that is not constructive. Blahblah blah blah blah blah.

You're still completely missing the point. Try reading for comprehension rather than reading to support preexisting biases. Nobody actually called you a racist, they used a racial analogy for what you're doing in the hopes that making it so completely clear that you would HAVE to understand the point. Oops.

If you don't want to be called stupid/an idiot, don't act it. People here aren't going to pull punches because your little feefees could get hurt. The nice thing about this place is that there's no need for me to treat you like a child; the assumption is that you're a grownup, and that when you act like an asshole, you understand that somebody calling you out on it isn't name calling to name call, they're just drawing attention to your behavior.

You're an idiot because you're not reading for comprehension, missing (purposefully or not) everyone else's point, and continuing to make a spectacle of yourself.

NONE of the things that have been flung your way are about your site catering to a specific niche.

AGAIN. None of your reception or the problem people have with you is that OR has a limited scope. None. Nothing. Zilch. Zero. So to blame your reception here on that is a complete cop out.

One more time.

Your reception here has nothing to do with OR being focused on a niche.

Idiot.

What a ridiculous sum of self-contradictions.

"We aren't calling you racist (obviously), we're using racism as a metaphor to show you how wrong you are in being more exclusive on your site than we want you to be. Also, we don't care how exclusive you are on your site, even though I just said that we did and that's why we used retarded analogies."

"Hey asshole, your offensive language towards me makes you look like an asshole, you fucking asshole."

The douchebaggery here began before I joined the thread. It began before Crayon joined the thread. You need only to read the first few pages of this ridiculously long thread to see the beginnings of shitposting aimed at Jeshin, who has been nothing but nice to folks posting here. Your acting like a bitch certainly predates anything I've posted.

The idea that someone on this thread could hurt my feelings is a little ticklish to me. Does it seem like my feelings are hurt? Or does it seem like every one of my responses is just a mirror of the tone used against me?

The idea that offering constructive feedback is the equivalent to "pulling punches" is even more ticklish to me.

I could continue to engage you in shit-flinging to amuse myself, since you continue to refuse a change in tactics (perhaps you're just doing it for your own amusement too), but your entertainment value to me is offering only diminishing returns at this point.

@ThugHeaven said:

Sometimes you just gotta take the L.

I feel like you've been one of the most thoughtful posters over the last several pages, and I generally agree with most of what you have to say. However, I'm not here looking for a win. I'm here ironically. Now, if someone actually cools their engines and tries to talk to me like a rational human being about OR, I'll be happy to do so. I've done so several times in this thread.

Other than that, WTFE has the right of it: I'm here to counter-troll trolls, until it's not worth it to me anymore. If folks here lack the self-awareness to critically read the patterns in my posting and the tone of other posters, or just don't care (because of silly 'us' vs 'them' internet bias), that's on them.

@TNP said:

@Jaunt said:

But, non-constructive feedback is calling us racists, elitists, bigots, idiots, and whatever else just because our site caters to a specific niche. It's inane. I've been happy to explain our position, and politely so, when I'm not approached with vitriol.

Funny how not a single person has done that. Any insults you've received - over the top or not - has not been because of your site but because of how you portray yourselves here. Your site has prompted debate. Your site's posters have prompted flame wars.

It's an important distinction and one you obviously fail to grasp.

How shocking.

If you were to go back and blindly read this thread from beginning to now, without bias, you will most certainly see that the aggression towards Jeshin and OR began before myself or Crayon joined in and "offended people". You will also see some of those insults tied directly to OR's inclusion policies. I've nothing against you, but you're incorrect on this point.

@Derp said:

@Jaunt said:

We've received both levels of criticism on this thread. The former will be responded to kindly and thoughtfully. The later will be responded to with the same level of ironic vitriol that it deserves.

No, it's not. The fact that you think this is precisely the reason I hope that the far more reasonable @Jeshin cuts you the hell off from posting here. You're making him, and his site, look absolutely terrible.

Do you not understand what the difference is, here? The difference is that you came here. If someone from this site were to go to yours and behave as you've behaved here, we would absolutely respond to them here just as we've responded to you. We didn't go to your site and demand that you change. YOU came HERE to advertise your site, then refused (all three of you) to participate in any sort of actual discussion (meaning give-and-take on ideas, not simple acknowledgement of their existence), which is precisely what this forum is for.

If you don't understand -that-, then you are even more deluded than I thought you were. I didn't have a horse in this race, at all, until you came along starting in with your bullshit. Get a clue -- this is our community, that is theirs, and if you want to advertise -here-, you need to engage the players here on what they want to see and discuss. And yes, DISCUSS. Compromise if necessary.

If you're unwilling to do that, then I have to agree with the others -- go the hell away and stop making Jeshin look bad, because right now you are here in an official capacity for your site, and you're acting like a miserable twat.

No, you wouldn't be, actually. We would actually attempt to moderate the discussion to create some sort of meaningful dialogue. We're also very accepting of other sites and communities on OR, even if they don't match up with our core demographic and content. You assume how we would react, but you assume incorrectly.

As far as discussion goes, I've answered every question and feedback posed to me about OR since I've come here. Those posed to me reasonably have received reasonable replies. Those posed with vitriol have received replies too, just in a mirroring tone.

It seems to be a bit of "can dish it out, but can't take it" syndrome to me.

I'm happy to discuss OR, though, without getting personal. What do you want to talk about?

ETA:

Conversation moved too quickly for me. I'm glad that Crayon was able to effectively clarify some things for a few folks.

Like we've said, "Yeah, the language on the site isn't as clear as it should be. We agree with you. We're going to change it. We're not trying to represent all MUDs/MUSHes, but rather a specific genre that's lacked a central hub. Even games (or Kickstarters, or Communities)outside of that genre are welcome to advertise on our forum --- just like here."

I get the idea that this site is a "pool of sharks and everyone gets bitten". I don't think it makes for the most productive conversations, but it can certainly be entertaining.