The Gamer is the Celebrity NOT the Designer!

Ok, I've read this whole thread. Here's my recommendation.

No more Elitist shit: Sorry Matt you've been banned.

No more paid writers: Sorry Barnes you've been banned..

No more posts about Wankers on BGG or TOS: Sorry Skeletor you've been banned.

No more post about beards and bellies: Sorry Ken you have both, you've been banned.

No more stupid sex and fart jokes: Sorry Steve A. you'll have to spend more time on your porn sites.

No more stupid pod casts: Sorry Steve W.

That leaves us talking about Shoes and Dolls: Uba's master plan worked!

the*mad*gamer wrote:

But back to Barnes and Matt. Since they are both writing for other websites, they almost have to talk about silly gaming theories and "lofty" design because just talking about games will eventually get old and they will run out of material.

WTF? I was writing that sort of crap long, long before I started writing for BGN.

Steve, you're madder than a box of frogs. That's why you'll always be welcome here. But this is the first and last time I'm biting into one of these threads!

KingPut wrote:

Ok, I've read this whole thread. Here's my recommendation.

No more Elitist shit: Sorry Matt you've been banned.

No more paid writers: Sorry Barnes you've been banned..

No more posts about Wankers on BGG or TOS: Sorry Skeletor you've been banned.

No more post about beards and bellies: Sorry Ken you have both, you've been banned.

No more stupid sex and fart jokes: Sorry Steve A. you'll have to spend more time on your porn sites.

No more stupid pod casts: Sorry Steve W.

That leaves us talking about Shoes and Dolls: Uba's master plan worked!

Nah. I think an end to the passive-aggressive whining of the douchebags would be sufficient. Save the purges for a real crisis.

panzerattack wrote:

You all seem to pride yourselves on saying that anyone on this forum is free to say whatever they want. But as soon as someone says something that the established forum members don't agree with, that person is hounded ceaselessly.


JMcL63 signed up and stated a few home truths that I personally think are pretty much spot on. OK he might have done it in a confrontational way, but apparently that kind of attitude is encouraged here. Since then after almost every post he's made he's been insulted, accused of being a troll (when he clearly wasn't) and had people asking for him to be banned - even when he's not being particularly antagonistic.

OK, the moderation over here is way more relaxed that at BGG but I think this idea that you can post whatever you want should come with the caveat 'only if you're prepared to be hounded relentlessly if you post something we don't agree with'.

Dammit, I was determined not to sign up to this forum but hell, it's been a slow day in work.

I agree.
I'm stumped as to what I can do about it though.

JMcL63 wrote:

No, we're having a communications breakdown here. Let me try to patch it up. I'm not saying this site could be 'better'. It is after all already good enough to have attracted my attention and then to have made me feel like I should join in rather than just delurking in hopes of a free game. I'm saying this site might be able to have more members, and therefore a bigger income stream, if my experience proves to be typical. And what was my experience? I was hazed, set up to be the next new poster driven out for offending the F:AT hivemind (or so at least 1 mod thought). And that was after lurking for a year. :-/

Do you get my point? What is the point of dogpiling to drive posters away at the drop of a hat? It just doesn't make sense. From that point, I am still arguing that this over-the-top kulturkampf is counterproductive.

Baptism by Fire.

You survived, welcome to F:AT.

Mr Skeletor wrote:

panzerattack wrote:

...some stuff...

I agree.
I'm stumped as to what I can do about it though.

Well, with freedom of speech comes the freedom to criticize. What too many people forget is that that goes both ways: if you are critical of something, you can't complain about some criticizing you back. But this what you keep hearing often in political discourse. "I have the right to say what I want blah blah blah..." Yes, you do. And then others have the right to tell you you're being a dickhead, so don't cry about it when they do. Panzer, when you say:

I think this idea that you can post whatever you want should come with the caveat 'only if you're prepared to be hounded relentlessly if you post something we don't agree with'.

this doesn't reflect reality at all. Octavian is critical. No one cares. Diane Close is critical. No one cares. Chapel does the occasional drive-by. No one cares. Black Barney is a hardcore Eurogamer. No one cares! All the time we hear it's people with different ideas, different likes and dislikes, different perspectives, all unwelcome. Nonsense. You were critical, and although I'm addressing your points because I don't agree with them, no one here is going to criticize you back, because you're not being a wanker.

In recent memory, there have been two new members who have been attacked. The first was quozl. That was a spillover of a personal fight between him and Southernman, and 99% of it was between those two. It ran its course, it's over, and quozl is still around, contributing to the site. Again, no one (except Southernman, who I'm sure is still quietly plotting his revenge) cares.

The second is JMcL. And he came in being a total dickhead. (Sorry if you don't see it JMcL, but it's true. Too much of what you write has a stench of superiority about it, and that's why people think you're being a wanker.) It rubbed people the wrong way, and so he's taking flak for it. But he's not being hounded (like quozl was) except where he's still being a dickhead. Maybe that's his personality; so be it. But he's not going to be immune to criticism for it, and his entrance didn't help things. Maybe it is spilling a little too much into threads where it's unwarranted, but although I don't really give a damn, I do see why people are going after him in those threads. Anyway, this, too, will eventually run its course.

Space Ghost wrote:

Ken B. wrote:

Hey JMcL, I've rated only a handful of games a "10". Guess what? Three of them are Euros (Tigris and Euphrates, Ra, Lord of the Rings.)

One of those better be War of the Ring.

Indeed. Another is "Queen's Gambit."

panzerattack wrote:

You all seem to pride yourselves on saying that anyone on this forum is free to say whatever they want. But as soon as someone says something that the established forum members don't agree with, that person is hounded ceaselessly.


JMcL63 signed up and stated a few home truths that I personally think are pretty much spot on. OK he might have done it in a confrontational way, but apparently that kind of attitude is encouraged here. Since then after almost every post he's made he's been insulted, accused of being a troll (when he clearly wasn't) and had people asking for him to be banned - even when he's not being particularly antagonistic.

OK, the moderation over here is way more relaxed that at BGG but I think this idea that you can post whatever you want should come with the caveat 'only if you're prepared to be hounded relentlessly if you post something we don't agree with'.

Dammit, I was determined not to sign up to this forum but hell, it's been a slow day in work.

Jim, you may have missed it, but I took up for JMcL during all of that, and refuted the idea we should ban him.

JMcL63 wrote:

I'm just telling you the experience of one user; you can take it or leave it as you like.

And I appreciate that. I've already taken up for you and your right to say what you please. Criticisms about us, and our site, are always welcome.


But understand that we have 600+ other registered users, and just over 1,000 unique visitors per day, who may or may not agree with you. And if we drive them away because of some of the things you suggest--well, that would be a rather pyrrhic victory, wouldn't it?

Ken B. wrote:

Jim, you may have missed it, but I took up for JMcL during all of that, and refuted the idea we should ban him.

I took up for him too, and said we should not ban anyone.

BUT, if JM thinks I'm going to stop calling him out when he is making no sense or just saying stupid shit to agitate people, he is dead wrong. No one has "hounded him ceaselessly." A couple people got bent out of shape, but "hounded" is a bit over-dramatic. Personally, I figure JM is a good guy who comes across wrong on the internet. I've been accused of the same thing on occasion. Still, no one has "ceaselessly hounded" him.

Only one person really takes a lot of crap on this site, and that is Octavian, who I am sure is reading this thread with delight from his evil ban lair deep in the smelly grimy city of pittsburgh.

hancock.tom wrote:

Ken B. wrote:

Jim, you may have missed it, but I took up for JMcL during all of that, and refuted the idea we should ban him.

I took up for him too, and said we should not ban anyone.

Either someone needs to point to the post where someone was honestly calling for an ACTUAL banning, or let's put this notion to bed, shall we? I can only think of two: one was Southernman, the other was Schweig, and neither of them was seriously calling for a ban.

Bullwinkle wrote:

hancock.tom wrote:

Ken B. wrote:

Jim, you may have missed it, but I took up for JMcL during all of that, and refuted the idea we should ban him.

I took up for him too, and said we should not ban anyone.

Either someone needs to point to the post where someone was honestly calling for an ACTUAL banning, or let's put this notion to bed, shall we? I can only think of two: one was Southernman, the other was Schweig, and neither of them was seriously calling for a ban.

Fair enough. Then there's no misunderstanding.

JMcL63 wrote:

Ken B. wrote:

Chief, I'll tell you this bluntly--you're free to think whatever you like.

(which was painfully absent in the exchanges about Combat Commander BTW ;-b).

Ok sparky, please, link me to the thread you're talking about with this because if you're talking about the CC.P thread here, I'm now completely baffled as to what you're bitching about.

Edit: Nevermind. I found it...no Up Front isn't a friggin' CDWG per the genre definition and, as much as CC owes UF [and it owes a metric fuck-ton] I'm not entirely sure it is either....

Dogmatix wrote:

JMcL63 wrote:

Ken B. wrote:

Chief, I'll tell you this bluntly--you're free to think whatever you like.

(which was painfully absent in the exchanges about Combat Commander BTW ;-b).

Ok sparky, please, link me to the thread you're talking about with this because if you're talking about the CC.P thread here, I'm now completely baffled as to what you're bitching about.

Edit: Nevermind. I found it...no Up Front isn't a friggin' CDWG per the genre definition and, as much as CC owes UF [and it owes a metric fuck-ton] I'm not entirely sure it is either....

I might've been being unfair there. I didn't go back and reread the thread. But well, it was flat, isn't it? You can hardly expect me to be delighted when my favourite game is so foolishly ignored here.

Since when is calling someone an elitist an insult, and why is intellectualism not something desirable?

Sure, most of the discussion going on here are meant to have some fun and usually some generalized group or the other is ridiculed. No need to get insulted about that. I for example have Asthma but always have to laugh about Barnes' jokes on the expense of the Asthma/Asperger crowd. Self-irony has never damaged anyone.

But we usually have some very good, progressive discussions here and that should be the meaning of any exchange of ideas and opinions - to get an idea abroad.

Of course, there's no legitimate critique possible if that's not to your liking. But don't criticize the people who are interested in a little bit of intellectualism. If twenty years from now all turned into fat bearded dudes who decry any game unlike THOSE OF OURS and a new site with new ideas gets started (again), so be it. It's a natural evolution, I guess.

Death and Taxis wrote:

It's simple. Frank is Elvis, Uba is Nancy Sinatra, Barnes is Lennon, Schweig is Iggy Pop, and Steve is Mark Chapman.

Awesome!

the*mad*gamer wrote:

Well, as a matter of fact, Vinyl does sound better than CD's

You're kidding, right? Maybe Vinyl sounds better on your HiFi equipment than on your car radio.

JMcL63 wrote:

You, hancock.tom are an idiot revisionist if you think you can credibly deny the 'branding' and the 'Kulturkampf:
1. F:AT has a thread devoted to sending people over to BGG to troll for new members.

I call it the F:AT squad of common sense.

panzerattack wrote:

You all seem to pride yourselves on saying that anyone on this forum is free to say whatever they want. But as soon as someone says something that the established forum members don't agree with, that person is hounded ceaselessly.

Does this surprise you? I also disagree that he is "hounded ceaselessly". But apparently having an open discussion with someone is now termed this way.

I don't understand all those people who come here to criticize the Anti-Euro bias of the site. First off all the name of the site is pretty much not ambiguous at all. Secondly and most importantly we're making fun of eurogames and the sometimes awkward figures who play them. We don't want them to be purged from earth, there is no "kulturkampf" (clash of cultures). We just have our own distinct idea of how board gaming should be like and the people who criticize this mostly just come across as people trying to defend their way. Listen up, there's no need to! Just don't get insulted that easily.