ya, know, it just seems odd to me that every time someone spots
a feature that may be over-powerd or buggy, and has started to
become well used by a few players the following happens:
1. Someone takes an alternate view of the situation. (this I do
understand and it is good for any discussion).
2. Either the original poster or another who feels similarly posts
a reply, which usually considers the alternate view a direct,
personal attack (even if they were not the original poster!)
and this person usually accuses the other of lying, or gross
exageration. Frequently, direct examples of the first replier's
behaviors and (univerally) poor motives are included.
(This is bad because it fails to debate the point, and focuses
on the motives that the poster has no real knowledge of. The
other problem is that nothing in a rational discussion should
be a direct attack on the person you are debating. Save that
for court tv and the flame board).
3. Most of the time the person now accused of horrible, game
wreaking motives responds by cursing out, deriding, and
generally being obnoxious to the person who has accused him.
Occasionally, they include further relevant info on the
orriginal topic. Rarely, they are adult enough to ignore the
flames all together. when this happens, any further input
from them is _STILL_ viewed as a personal attack even if it is
merely that player's observations on game mechanics. Usually,
usually, if someone ignores the flames, then someone else
decides that they need defending and mounts an attack on the
flamed for them.
4. This cycle repeats until the participants have found
another topic on the board they would rather flame each other
about. (very little here can be called discussion).
This problem is the fault of two groups:
1. The players who do any of the following: curse, call names,
give examples of other peoples bad behavior, act like little
spoiled children when a toy is take away (or someone suggests
that it should), etc, etc...
2. The management for not viciously, quicklessly, and relentlessly
deleting or moving or paraphrasing (hardly matters which)
ALL such posts.
Note - don't worry if the person said something important, and
only flamed a little. just remove it! If flaming only gets your
points removed from the board, people who care will stop flaming
and people who don't care won't get any kicks since few will ever
be able to reply.
Also, if you have spotted possible abuse of something, mail a
memeber of the management. If you post it and it _is_ cheating
then they will be much harder to catch. If it is not cheating
then there is no reason to fault them for it! Leave their name
out! Nobody really cares who did what to whom, just what can be
done and how this effects the game.
Debates like the ones I describe are definately driving me away,
and I really used to like this mud. Now, I stay mostly to finnish
what I started. All but one mortal has self deleted now. *sniff*
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