Argentina III: Argentina is Missing!

[Sonereal]

 

[Thorvald of Lym]

I don't know, Thorvald. In the Civ3 PBEM Discord we have a no-politics rule and it works out just fine. Nobody calls that censorship or lack of neutrality.

Well sure, 'cuz yours is enforced. #politics was supposed to act as a containment channel but overtime it bled out into everything else.

 

[christos200]

Just ban political discussions on the chat and focus entirely on games (primarily) and banter/memes/jokes (secondarily). If some people from IOT want a place to discuss politics, they can always create a purely political channel of their own. That way you don't get toxic political discussions/arguments and people on chat focus on the actual IOTs and/or jokes/having fun. Limiting politics makes the whole experience a lot more fun; I've been active in other roleplay forums, and the lack of political channels on their discord chats makes them a lot more friendly to players and limits arguments/toxicity (and everyone tends to be a lot more civil).

After all IOT chat was supposed to be primarily about IOTs rather than politics. Just my two cents.

 

[Sonereal]

IOT Chat already has zero political discussions and focuses entirely on the one or two games active at any given part of the year so, when you think about it, reformism really is working.

 

[gay_Aleks]

Would that I were talking about the threads.

NES died from an irreparable rift between a chat clique devoted to rightthink, and people who just wanted to play games. According to a NES insider, IOT is treading the same path. Over the course of the Trump presidency, chat culture grew politically militant at the hands of a select few who were never properly censured, and once christos was banned it seemed any pretense of neutrality was completely abandoned. WIM was banned in the Chatango years for advocating political violence; in Discord that rhetoric, joking or otherwise, became commonplace. SouthernKing's departure was the pulse-check that never happened; as of this writing the tagline to #politics, which was once treated with RD-level oversight, reads "Liberal Democracy is a joke and the punchline is unending human suffering." Almost everyone I know who has quit IOT since 2018 cited feeling unwelcome/unsafe in chat as a primary motivator.

How many OG IOTers are even active in the chat, let alone the games? Most haven't even posted around here since last year, if not earlier. Most of the recent games were made by the NESers; most of the players are NESers (and even then a fraction of the base). The NEXodus refugees are the people keeping this forum going, and they're the ones that will inherit this board once the chat goes full #nes and retreats entirely into a roll20 echo chamber.

Because they've been here before. And then as now, they're just in it for the games.

I'm sorry, but what is the point of talking about NESers or IOTers at this current point of development? If "NES refugees" or exoduses are keeping "IOT" alive, then...okay, fine, whatever? This feels very odd to talk about how IOT is dying or how IOTers are disappearing, because at the end of the day, both "IOTers" or "NESers" are just players. There is no mystical essence of being a "NESer" or an "IOTer" that you can divine and declare. So, if someone wants to play, so be it! Why the scaremongering about the disappearance of IOTers? What is an IOTer, in the end? A miserable pile of drama? Or is colouring a map based on an alt-hist, not, actually a cohesive identity? And that people may have concerns and desires beyond that? Must those thoughts be mediated onto a respectable and inoffensive form that makes everyone happy? Is this even possible? No.

 

[christos200]

IOT Chat already has zero political discussions and focuses entirely on the one or two games active at any given part of the year so, when you think about it, reformism really is working.

Ain't on the chat, so don't know, but it sounds like a step in the right direction. Less toxicity, less arguments and more fun.

 

[Sonereal]

Oh yeah there definitely are a lot less arguments in IOT Chat these days. It is a very zen experience.

 

[gay_Aleks]

Mostly because there's a lot less IOTChat these days, in general. It's a graveyard. So long.

 

[christos200]

Oh yeah there definitely are a lot less arguments in IOT Chat these days. It is a very zen experience.

Don't know if this is supposed to be sarcastic or not (ain't good at reading sarcasm online), but if it's genuine, then great.

 

[christos200]

Mostly because there's a lot less IOTChat these days, in general. It's a graveyard. So long.

Unfortunately it does seem there is a lot less activity. An IOT in the olden days, even with a badly written ruleset/OP, would get in a single day five or six players. Now, I don't see any IOT managing to attract more than four or so players.

[It also seems my inquiry if anyone is interested in an RP-based IOT kinda got ignored, so I guess there isn't much interest in it?]

 

[Sonereal]

Really, it's mostly because everyone grew up. IOT was mostly a bunch of teenagers with more time than sense and perfectly content with spending four hours a day talking about a game where the only resource was something like "Leadership Points". Take the RP-based IOT idea. Not a bad idea. People love RP which is why the Clubhouse has like fifty TTRPG campaigns running at any given time.

 

[Birdjaguar]

We certainly don't want politics to invade all the secret corners of cfc.

 

[NinjaCow64]

It's important to note that blanking is considered vandalism by the site, and those reversals were a matter of basic procedure.

I thought that “this page has been blanked on request by [username]” would have lead to a discussion. I don’t understand why you think me contacting you would have helped - the edits were self explanatory.

NES died from an irreparable rift between a chat clique devoted to rightthink, and people who just wanted to play games.

I am not going into detail because I get the feeling BirdJag is subtly encouraging a shift away from politics but the comparison between Yevchat and #nes is absurd and borderline offensive.

According to a NES insider, IOT is treading the same path.

I can’t think of any NESers who have a bone to pick with IOT or subsections of the community.

Over the course of the Trump presidency, chat culture grew politically militant at the hands of a select few who were never properly censured, and once christos was banned it seemed any pretense of neutrality was completely abandoned.

christos was not banned from the main chat for political reasons. He has since apologised to all parties for the incident so I won’t dwell on it but I wanted to object to the framing that the banning of christos was a precursor to a political purge.

WIM was banned in the Chatango years for advocating political violence; in Discord that rhetoric, joking or otherwise, became commonplace. SouthernKing's departure was the pulse-check that never happened; as of this writing the tagline to #politics, which was once treated with RD-level oversight, reads "Liberal Democracy is a joke and the punchline is unending human suffering." Almost everyone I know who has quit IOT since 2018 cited feeling unwelcome/unsafe in chat as a primary motivator.

#politics or the chat was not well moderated (almost entirely my fault), the rules were always a proxy for “if you say things I disagree with get banned kiddo”. What’s changed is I’ve gotten less anal and my politics have fundamentally realigned. Anyway this is all a moot point as other people pointed out nobody posts there anymore.

How many OG IOTers are even active in the chat, let alone the games? Most haven't even posted around here since last year, if not earlier. Most of the recent games were made by the NESers; most of the players are NESers (and even then a fraction of the base). The NEXodus refugees are the people keeping this forum going, and they're the ones that will inherit this board once the chat goes full #nes and retreats entirely into a roll20 echo chamber.

People come and go as its always been.

Because they've been here before. And then as now, they're just in it for the games.

The games aren’t going anywhere as far as I’m aware.

 

[Sonereal]

I am the inside source. I have information that could lead to the arrest of Ninja R. Cow.

 

[NinjaCow64]

I am the inside source. I have information that could lead to the arrest of Ninja R. Cow.

*sobbing, while holding gun* Just think of the flowers Sone...just think of the flowers...

 

[Crezth]

We’re gonna get a little chat room, and we’re gonna have... we’re gonna have some politics, and tabletops, and down in the forum we’re gonna have a...

A wiki... for the articles.

A wiki for the articles.

And I get to edit the articles?

 

[Sonereal]

Folks, they're telling me, you know what they're telling me? They're using Roll20 [crowd boos]; Roll20 folks.

 

[Crezth]

And you know, this is the thing about Roll20, we all know about Roll20 and the thing is, we have to figure out just what the hell is going on and why are people spending because - because people come to me and they ask, Should I get Roll20 Plus or Roll20 Silver, and I tell them, you know, well, it’s not gold, but wouldn’t it be great if it was gold? And that’s not what they’re talking about anymore, but, you know, Roll20, frankly folks, it’s not good, we don’t like that, do we?

 

[NinjaCow64]

Folks, they're telling me, you know what they're telling me? They're using Roll20 [crowd boos]; Roll20 folks.

And you know, this is the thing about Roll20, we all know about Roll20 and the thing is, we have to figure out just what the hell is going on and why are people spending because - because people come to me and they ask, Should I get Roll20 Plus or Roll20 Silver, and I tell them, you know, well, it’s not gold, but wouldn’t it be great if it was gold? And that’s not what they’re talking about anymore, but, you know, Roll20, frankly folks, it’s not good, we don’t like that, do we?

Its called “we do a little rolling”.

 

[Sonereal]

I felt my brain unhinged like a snake unhinges its jaw trying to digest Crezth's post, and I should be used to this by now.