The Alchemist on 26/2/2011 at 04:46
Holy shit and no one has even Apple-bashed yet!
I guess I'll go first.
Dont get cum all over your shiny touchscreen you Mac fag whore! Woot! It'll interfere with you Googling for pedobear links.
Page Twodouchery.
addink on 26/2/2011 at 11:20
How does
[indent]"I can't change who I am, I don't want to, and I'm not going to."[/indent]
not equal a big a middle finger to the request that you try to behave?
What you apparently refuse to get from all these posts is that were not asking you to change your opinion. All that is asked is that in your posts you try to explain your opinion, instead of aggressively stating it as fact and dismiss opposing opinion.
You claim
[indent]"If someone is wrong, I will correct them."[/indent]
Actually, a lot of the time, you don't. If you think someone is wrong, you tell them they're wrong. You don't explain why they are wrong. Does "Hahaha No. Get out" sound familiar?
Sometimes you do try to explain, but fail to convince them, only then to dismiss them as being stupid.
You claim
[indent]"It's pretty clear that most of the sensible people don't bother anymore"[/indent]
Do you ever wonder why? Stupid people and silly opinions have always been part of the discussions, however the way that those are dealt with by some has changed. There used to be only ZylonBane who dealt with logical fallacies by cutting them down using what seemed like only one syllable. Whether that was always constructive is open for discussion. But in recent years there are a number of posters, you leading the pack, that feel that their rightness needs no explanation, the other's wrongness leads to disbarment from the discussion.
That is not what a public forum is about. Discussion is open to anyone. Reason should be at its core, not Opinion. Tolerance of opposing opinions is key. Perhaps the sensible people miss that?
And, wow, you even went there:
[indent]"...all that's left are people who don't think much of me, so why stay?"[/indent]
Unless you've got shit in your eyes: this isn't about your person, not even about your opinions. It is about the way you convey your opinions when someone disagrees with you or when someone likes something you don't. You claim that that is your 'personality' and you can't help it, but you can. When you showed up here you weren't this aggressive, you didn't act like you were entitled to a forum void of opposing opinions, this changed somewhere along the way. And I am / we are asking you to change it back for the sake of the forum.
Pemptus on 26/2/2011 at 15:41
Just posting in this regrettably unsalvageable (is that a word?) thread to mention that I pretty much agree with addink on everything. I would've answered deathtoll myself, but I didn't see the point, really. I don't have the energy, time nor the skill to write long, coherent posts anymore, and he would've replied with another one of his snipe, sarcastic-aggressive comments, and that's an annoying prospect. Plus, I don't post much, only when I think I have something at least semi-relevant or potentially interesting to say (with a few exceptions, including this thread, sorry about that).
Deathtoll, you're usually good fun, but dude, tone it the fuck down. You're like a cliche high-school bully.
You can also become an admin, ban everyone except for a few "sensible" people, and exchange pictures of airplanes, snide replies, and being generally an aggressive prick who doesn't know when to stop to your heart's content.
Sulphur on 26/2/2011 at 18:20
What the fuck? I don't get why everybody's piledriving dethtoll for his tone when this thread was driven into the mud by Koki to begin with.
Apart from that, there are a lot of things going on here that I see no sense in. If you don't like dethtoll's tone and/or attitude, you can choose to ignore it. While he can act like this forum is his party and he makes up the rules, you know it's not and that he can't, and so does he. He can't 'disbar' you from a discussion, but he can dismiss you without so much as a well-reasoned response if he wants to. The discussion continues regardless unless your discussion was only with him. But it's his choice whether he wants to continue with it or not.
The tone and attitude he uses is also his choice, and at the end of the day you can try and talk him out if it if you want to, just like you would if you were face to face, and he'll either listen to you or he won't.
To pretend that he's one of the large reasons for killing discussion in GenGaming is ridiculous. You have something that'll provoke discussion, we'll discuss it. You have the odd troll or snark or rant, same as anywhere else - this is the internet - and the beauty of an internet forum is you can choose to ignore that stuff if you want to. You'll always have people you agree and disagree with, who you can stand and can't. That's the nature of any place, anywhere.
The real problem here lies in whether the majority of the forum posts are just trolls and snarks and rants with no real discussion. So look around and tell me if that's what you see.
Trance on 26/2/2011 at 19:15
I'm sure people would just ignore dethtoll if he didn't post so much. But his obnoxious attitude is present in so many threads in GenGaming, either A) flaming the shit out of someone he doesn't like or B) building up a disagreement to the point where it becomes an exchange of insults and not a discussion, that ignoring him is impossible. Like addink said, even when he's got nothing to contribute, he still posts. And when that happens he can't find anything more productive to post than an insult or a "get out" or a "that's hilarious coming from you".
What I don't get is how dethtoll has anyone left willing to defend him. Yes, his behavior is his choice. And his choice of behavior is that of a colossal cock who goes for personal attacks far more often than productive argumentation, which is unpleasant to deal with. Then when people point this out to him, his victim complex wells up and/or he threatens to leave instead of accepting any criticism. This pattern has been repeated for 2 years at least, and it's astounding that people are still saying we should lay off him.
It's obvious dethtoll likes TTLG enough that these confrontations have an effect (however temporary), so why does he flat-out refuse to improve his relationships with people here? Why are people still excusing his douchebaggery?
Sulphur on 26/2/2011 at 19:28
No one's excusing any 'douchebaggery'. You've been on the receiving end in the past, Trance, so I can see that there's that. But if you think there's actual malice in his posts or that these are 'personal attacks', you're all pretty poor judges of character.
He's as likely to call anyone a chudhuffing turdburglar if he feels it's warranted, and he tends to do it in fairly direct fashion, but if you're taking it at all seriously there's something wrong there. The irony is that he hasn't resorted to namecalling for the majority of GenGamers for a while (except the usual flare-ups with Eva and lost_soul and the like, who aren't angels either by any stretch of imagination), and now that it's quiet in here people choose to dredge this shit up instead of letting it go.
Move on, and use the ignore user function if you're not getting anywhere. It's that simple.
addink on 26/2/2011 at 19:36
"Koki started it"? Get real.
Koki made a remark about another thread about iPad games. That's all he did. He even explains that that's all he did.
I asked dethtoll to start behaving because in this thread dethtoll didn't contribute anything, all he did was bully. Unnecessary putting down of Shadowcat's excellent contributions to this forum, and dismissing Pemptus' accurate summary of things going awry (which dethtoll later admits to having failed to convey the joke he meant to make, still in the best of circumstances it would have been a bad joke).
The pile driving is mainly dethtoll's own doing. He misbehaved I called him on it, he basically continued on: stating without explanation or explaining without merit. Every time I answered him in a constructive manner, every time he answered dismissive and ignoring the fact that all that is asked is that he explains his opinions.
-
Stating that for a healthy discussion we just need to ignore assholes is naive at best. For a healthy discussion you need to feel free to contribute, not be concerned with the local drunk disrupting every conversation, loudly proclaiming that your contributions are worthless.
I'm all for occasional friendly banter but the aggression and dismissing of valid points or contributions has killed the friendly bit.
Not every thread will be or should be everybody's cup of tea. There's nothing wrong with that. What is wrong is that some who have no real interest in the topic purposely wreck the discussion just for the hell of it. "I don't get it, let's ruin it for everyone else, hahahaha". That's high-school behavior, that is. Sure for plenty of forums this the core mechanic, but this is TTLG. We can and should expect more of an effort.
june gloom on 26/2/2011 at 19:57
I really wish you'd give up, addink. You're not accomplishing anything by staying on my ass all the time because I don't care what you think. If this thread went in the shitter it's because you won't fucking let go, you gotta keep going and going until I say OMG UR SO RITE IM SUCH A HORRIBLE MONSTER /SELF-FLAGELLATE which is absolutely not going to happen, much less on account of you. Stop trying. (I know you won't, but at least pretend for a bit, yeah?)
I'm done with this fucking thread.
Sulphur on 26/2/2011 at 20:21
Quote Posted by addink
"Koki started it"? Get real.
Koki made a remark about another thread about iPad games. That's all he did. He even explains that that's all he did.
Oh. So Alchemist's and PigLick's posts were actually about dethtoll then, were they.
Quote:
I asked dethtoll to start behaving because in this thread dethtoll didn't contribute anything
Like Koki and ZB did? If you really wanted all the people in here to contribute, then maybe you should have included them in your critique of the insulting and unnecessary elements in this thread.
Quote:
Unnecessary putting down of Shadowcat's excellent contributions to this forum
If you read the thread, you'll find that was all Eva's. dethtoll might agree with Eva's summary judgment, and even the insulting way in which it was phrased, but credit where credit is due.
I don't necessarily agree that Shadowcat's preferred genre of games is 'snore-inducing' but they aren't what I'd typically play. I appreciate his views on them all the same. It takes a certain amount of maturity to accept that different people have different opinions, and a certain amount of sensitivity to make a light-hearted joke without being insulting, but that's a flaw a whole bunch of people here have (and fuck, I've done this too on occasion, I'm not perfect either).
Quote:
and dismissing Pemptus' accurate summary of things going awry (which dethtoll later admits to having failed to convey the joke he meant to make, still in the best of circumstances it would have been a bad joke).
You know, when people joke here, they tend to use a certain meme in case it looks like it's going to misinterpreted. They drop the caps and punctuation from the sentence, or make it tiny, as in the textual equivalent of a quiet sarcastic aside/leg-pull or whisper.
dethtoll's 'get out' used both, and fair enough that you might think it's ambiguous enough to take seriously, but this wasn't retroactively turned into a joke when deth heard the squealing tyres of the dogpile crew pulling to a halt, that much I can tell you. He might even have been half-serious, but interpreting it as something negative and destructive is blowing it completely out of proportion.
...look, this really isn't a constructive discussion either. I don't want to sit down here and discuss the nitty-gritties of why this or how that or whatever. I don't honestly believe one person can suffocate all good conversation and discussion here - wherever you're setting your sights on, you're going to have to pull them back a bit and take a look at the bigger picture.
addink on 26/2/2011 at 21:37
I agree with you that one person shouldn't be able to kill discussion. Yet, if the tendency is to lower standards on how to respectfully approach each other, I will speak up. As I did.
Indeed dethtoll is not alone in this behavior. Yet he is the most prolific poster in these forums and his aggressive stance is uncalled for. By shear number of posts he has a huge influence on the tendency.
His singling out is the direct result of the failed joke. Which btw has nothing to do with lack of punctuation or capitalisation: How is his remark supposed to be funny? I seriously would like to get an answer that doesn't worry me, because the only answer I come up with is bullying: Someone points out the destructive behavior and the bully answers by continuing the behavior... hahahaha - that was a good one - don't we all feel so much closer now - bored as we are
The standard high-school stance of a group of deviants when approached with the question of guilt or responsibility is to hide behind each others actions: A didn't do that, he just reacted to B. The thing is, A actually did do that, as did B. Both A and B are individually responsible.
In this case: Eva made a valid post that actually commented on the topic. He added a quip about Shadowcat's posts. Dethtoll zoomed in on on the quip without any contribution to the topic.
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Again I'd like to point out that all I've asked dethtoll to do is behave. I'm not asking him to stop posting. I'm not asking him to keep his opinions to himself. I'm asking him to be respectful, to be clear, to explain and elaborate his position, to try to engage in the actual discussion.
I know that is a lot to ask from your average internet dweller, but like I pointed out this is not your average forum.
Also, dethtoll isn't your average internet dweller. He is capable of being coherent, of making valid points. I've seen it many times. And I'd like to see more. However I, and I feel I'm not the only one, would like to see less of the empty aggression that he displays when he's not making valid points.
