While We Wait: Writer's Block & Other Lame Excuses

[BSmith1068]

Moderator Action: Please be more constructive in the criticism and less personal in the discussion. Remember the "don't be a jerk" rule.

 

[Lord of Elves]

I have never claimed that I am not wholly and singularly responsible for the failure of LENES. If anything I think this only reinforces my point that the harshest and most derisive of criticism in the community is coming from people who are not themselves attempting to better the supposedly appalling state of affairs -- for whatever reason -- or are equally responsible (CrezNES) for the perceived failures of the community.

 

[erez87]

Or maybe, the better way to fix what is claimed broken, is to keep on playing, as we always have. Now enough with the naming of people as the ones to "be blamed". No single NES or person can do anything to our community. It lasted for over a decade, it will last more.

Now go people, start NESes, play, and have fun. Stop bickering dam it.

 

[Lord of Elves]

Then there are the frustrating bits of the community that take any criticism or even comment on the present state of affairs as an assault on their very way of life, and insist that we shouldn't be too reflective about our lives, because There Be Dragons. Why can't we all just be friends?

You're all just a bunch of big meany-heads, you know.

 

[erez87]

Be constructive, not destructive.

We don't all have to be friends, but we do need to be civil to each other, at least.

 

[Symphony D.]

I have never claimed that I am not wholly and singularly responsible for the failure of LENES. If anything I think this only reinforces my point that the harshest and most derisive of criticism in the community is coming from people who are not themselves attempting to better the supposedly appalling state of affairs -- for whatever reason -- or are equally responsible (CrezNES) for the perceived failures of the community.

So you started by smearing #nes, which is today occupied mostly by Iggy, North King, Thlayli, Luckymoose, and Azale, people who have all recently tried, or are actively in the process of, running games? Automatically, I might add, without even checking what the status of the place is or whom occupies it. Reflexive.

Then you sit there and criticize myself and Crezth, whom have extensive records of trying to do works for this community, as being "toxic?" I think North King already covered why I'm not "helping," but I'll repeat it for the sake of argument: I am aware I am unsuited to run games. I am not playing because none of the games running interest me. And I have been here long enough to know that nothing gets done if you aren't willing to do it yourself. None of those things is a crime and I am not beholden to your judgment as a result of them. Please point out to me where I have, at any time in the past six months, denigrated the efforts of people actually running games that I have not been involved with in some way.

In point of fact, my activities are overwhelming concentrated here, usually on things unrelated to NES. You can complain that I'm giving your cool kids' club (i.e., this thread) a bad vibe, but honestly you weren't much using it anyway and why should you have one? Nobody has yet answered that. Meanwhile, according to you, I and Crezth (and the #nes Cabal) are the source of all evil in this community.

Well, kid, I'll give it to you straight. There's a reason I don't lift a finger to help. And that's that the last time I sincerely cared, I had to walk away for two years because of how much I hated every last one of you for not caring. Don't worry about me, I got better. But the rest of you didn't. And you still by and large don't care. You can pin it on me, you can pin it on Crezth, you can pin it on #nes or whoever you like, but ultimately the fault still lies in yourselves, and do you know how I know that? Because your very first reaction is "Well YOU aren't doing enough!" not "Am I doing enough?"

 

[Lord of Elves]

My insistence on asking "What have you done today for NESing," stems from the continued insistence by the usual suspects that they are the only people capable of producing an appropriate contribution to the community and lampooning or discouraging efforts by other, evidently less-qualified candidates. Admittedly this poor behavior has started to disappear as you lot become -- I guess -- more and more desperate, but I will point out that very few of you lowered yourselves to participate in TheLizardKing's admittedly abortive 19th-century NES, or indeed, in Southern King's similar effort.

Sure, you're not obligated to participate in games that you don't find interesting, but don't complain that people are disinterested in taking on the pain and heart ache of moderation when they don't feel they're likely to get committed, interested players, or in some more dramatic cases feel that every man's hand is against them. You can demand a certain quality and character of effort for an NES, but if no one is capable of providing that quality and character except yourselves, then don't be surprised that no one starts an NES that is satisfying to you.

And I don't lay blame on #nes, which is despite its various failures a relatively open, "welcoming" environment, or as capable of being open and welcoming as any subsidiary of this community could be. I'm not interested in pointing fingers. Everyone here has some kind of responsibility (myself included) for the current state of affairs in "the community," that's how communities work.

 

[Symphony D.]

Admittedly this poor behavior has started to disappear as you lot become -- I guess -- more and more desperate, but I will point out that very few of you lowered yourselves to participate in TheLizardKing's admittedly abortive 19th-century NES, or indeed, in Southern King's similar effort.

I have more or less entirely stopped caring about both history and alternate history and if Disenfrancised or das or Jesus Christ himself started one right now I wouldn't have two molecules of oxytocin to rub together over it. Nice "us" and "them" language, by the way.

Sure, you're not obligated to participate in games that you don't find interesting, but don't complain that people are disinterested in taking on the pain and heart ache of moderation when they don't feel they're likely to get committed, interested players, or in some more dramatic cases feel that every man's hand is against them. You can demand a certain quality and character of effort for an NES, but if no one is capable of providing that quality and character except yourselves, then don't be surprised that no one starts an NES that is satisfying to you.

If I wanted to phrase my arguments as "Nobody makes the game that I want to play," I would have. I've seen the game I want to play. I know what's required to make it. I'm not desperate for anything because I know I'm not getting what I want. More's the pity for me. Who cares? Nobody. Even I stopped caring. But I'm not alone, and not everybody is as demanding as I am. You also don't seem to acknowledge that there's a flipside to this angle of attack, which is that by this logic we should all shut up and be grateful for the likes of DogNES or GokuNES but really I don't feel like debating the finer points of what are and are not reasonable expectations with you, considering...

And I don't lay blame on #nes, which is despite its various failures a relatively open, "welcoming" environment, or as capable of being open and welcoming as any subsidiary of this community could be. I'm not interested in pointing fingers. Everyone here has some kind of responsibility (myself included) for the current state of affairs in "the community," that's how communities work.

Really? Unpack this for me then:

There are people less exhausted and less disillusioned than me who can and will point out the supreme hypocrisy of the #nes-borne clique of Symphony D., Crezth and others complaining that the community is dying and that NESes are failing while actively mocking new NESes and new NESers behind the veil which is the chat server. If there is a toxic environment that frustrates or prohibits new projects you have no one to blame but yourselves.

Explain to me which part of this is not you pointing fingers and blaming #nes, because near as I can tell—and I'm just a dumb guy with a BA in Writing—the whole thing seems to be you pointing fingers and blaming #nes. Walk me through it.

 

[BSmith1068]

Moderator Action: Final Warning before the infractions begin. More constructive dialogue and less direct criticism and personal spats. Let's get away from "you" and "me" and get to "us" and "we".

 

[TheMeanestGuest]

I still care!

More to the point, I think longevity is a fairly major component of getting people invested in a NES, and in a lot of ways this is a simple matter of course. As long as something isn't garbage and you keep it around long enough I think people will come to appreciate it. Or at least this is the line of reasoning that I use to encourage myself with.

 

[das]

Out of curiosity: so what do you care about now? Science fiction?

Wasn't the entire purpose of this thread series to cut down on off topic posting in game threads? Yes, it was. It wasn't made for socialization. It was made simply to have a place to vent to keep it out of games. That's it. Realistically speaking, you've already gone very, very far beyond the original boundaries set for you. You were given an inch, and you took a mile. You've gone so far that now practically none of the games are played at all anyway.

You could say that the community has evolved. I think there is a genuine demand and a genuine use for two simultaneous WWW threads, one that is indeed for pure venting and another that is for a more restrained sort of conversation. There are arguments for it, which have been brought up before. I am not sure what the actual arguments against it are (who exactly loses anything from having two irrelevant discussion threads in the same sub-forum?), but I will agree it's not a pressing need in any way, and ultimately for the mods to decide.

I sincerely doubt that the reason there are few games running now is that people are talking in WWW. Or to put it another way: if you delete WWW, that will not motivate people to start a single new game. They'll just go and find some other place in which to talk. I will refrain from judgement as to whether it would be a good thing or a bad thing right now.

Actually, thinking of it, deleting WWW might be an interesting experiment. Or at least closing it for a month and reopening it later if it turns out there is serious need for it after all. But that's just thinking out loud.

EDIT: I guess I should make my position clearer. This sub-forum houses a community of people who have interests and history in common. An off-topic discussion thread facilitates their interactions. Two different off-topic discussion threads, one wholly freeform and another insisting on some level of civility and politeness, would each serve a distinct purpose and see use. Any replacements that Symphony listed further down in the post I partly quoted earlier would not be the same, for reasons that should be obvious, but that I am willing to explain if pressed (simply put, an OOC thread in the sub-forum has the best chance of attracting as many members of the community as possible and allowing all of them to take part in conversation, while a separate nice thread would reinforce this further by keeping Symphony from scaring people who might otherwise have something to contribute away). Do I feel entitled to any of this? Not at all (not least because I admit this community really isn't that much of a big deal for any/most of us right now, for good or ill), but I do think that it would be nice, and I do not think the arguments against it hold water, except for the one that it is not for us to decide, because it indeed isn't.

 

[Shadowbound]

I feel like we all need to give ourselves a hug and I'm not afraid to say so.

 

[Symphony D.]

Out of curiosity: so what do you care about now? Science fiction?

At or beyond midcentury done by someone I can't blow out of the water in under 5 minutes, yes.

They'll just go and find some other place in which to talk.

Why shouldn't they?

 

[das]

Why shouldn't they?

I have no truly satisfying answer to that, except why should they?

I suppose there is also this: some people who come here might want to talk to each other without being interrupted by the whole population of OT, or wherever else they would take their conversations; or without going through the bother of coming on IRC, which not all of them would do in any case - the loss of certain participants being a bad thing from this point of view. It's not something that anyone "owes" to them, if that's what you think I'm saying, but neither is this sub-forum and neither is this forum as a whole. Why give people anything at all?

 

[Symphony D.]

Isn't that the very embodiment of the dreaded "elitism" that is so reviled in these parts?

 

[das]

By Jove, you're right. The mods should just delete this sub-forum and move all the threads to OT, so as to properly humble the entitled bourgeoisie.

 

[Symphony D.]

Well, correct me where I'm wrong in my assumptions.

There is a desire for a free-ranging discussion topic that is (1) distinctly separate from OT, (2) explicitly meant to cater purely to whatever social connections users of the NES forum have developed among themselves, (3) not too serious or dark or anything of that nature because that's scary and tiring, and (4) yet also where people can say anything without really being challenged.

So: (1) exclude outsiders, (2) exclude insiders whom are not wanted, (3) exclude large categories of discussion, and (4) exclude dissension or critique of what discussion there is. There's a phrase in (American) English for precisely that kind of environment, but I have a feeling that labeling it as such would be deemed "unconstructive."

 

[das]

Essentially, yes. Since people did use the Nice thread, it is clear to me that it would see real use, would not be a redundant copy of this place, and might even spawn some community-based projects (at least, it did get people talking about a common interest in DnD).

I could also point out that technically, no one is excluded so long as they follow the rules, but I suppose that's not a very interesting observation.

 

[Amon Savag]

Back in my day, we all talked on AIM.

 

[Crezth]

There are people less exhausted and less disillusioned than me who can and will point out the supreme hypocrisy of the #nes-borne clique of Symphony D., Crezth and others complaining that the community is dying and that NESes are failing while actively mocking new NESes and new NESers behind the veil which is the chat server. If there is a toxic environment that frustrates or prohibits new projects you have no one to blame but yourselves.

I have not only not been on #nes seriously since January, this entire time I have been proverbially sitting in the corner, chain-smoking cigarettes, throwing crumpled-up drafts of bad NES ideas and mechanics designs at the bin, trying to think of a way to do CNES that works for me.

If I am single-handedly responsible for a toxic environment that frustrates new projects, despite barely participating in the community except to try to join and contribute to Masada's NES and seriously joining N3S (I did miss orders, though, I'll grant you that), then I for one am proud of my ability to multi-task and astounded that you people actually care what an idiot like me thinks.